Author Archives: admin

Australian university to issue 11,000 iPads next year

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Some excerpts from the article:

“The University of Western Sydney said in a statement that it plans to distribute 11,000 iPads next year to every new student and member of the faculty “to support learning and teaching innovations across the curriculum and in informal learning environments.””

“The iPad initiative is part of a curriculum overhaul at UWS that will stress “flexible study options” and “a blended learning model,” The Australian reports. Traditional lectures will be augmented by a more interactive learning approach, Krause said.

“Mobile technologies will be a key part of this strategy,” she said. “We want to support our academic staff to make the most of iPads and custom-designed apps in class so that, even in the largest lecture theater, students have access to just-for-me, just-in-time interactive learning experiences.””

My thoughts:

While I am personally more inclined to use laptops over tablets because they do so much more, I think things like this can be very beneficial if implemented correctly – and that is the key. If they just buy professors and students a bunch of iPads, I would not expect much good to come out of them…at least not a large % anyway. Now if they train the professors and students how to use them, provide good resources, and support, then it could be an awesome initiative.

Awesome photoshop filter pack: Alien Skin’s Eye Candy

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For those of you who use photoshop professionally I would recommend the following filter pack. Eye Candy is probably one of (if not) the best out there. It really does some amazing things as shown in the video. The only downfall is that it costs $199. That’a a steep price tag in my opinion for an add-on, that’s why I only recommend it for people making money doing editing, otherwise it’s just not worth it for the casual photoshop guru.

Link to site

Why you need to backup your computer now!!!

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Yes it happened. The other day I was sitting on my laptop (Work iMac only 6 months old) browsing the internet and I got the spinning wheel of death. I thought nothing of it as this happens time to time on all computers. All of a sudden after about 30 seconds of the computer being frozen and me realizing I cannot force quit, I started to hear this click coming from the hard drive. I got a little nervous but figured I just needed to reboot. Upon reboot I heard the click again and the computer would not restart, instead it went to a blank screen. I tried several things and realized my computer wasnt recognizing my hard drive. The drive was done. I took the computer to my tech team at my university and after several attempts to extract the data such as putting the hard drive in another computer and then putting it into a device, I realized all was lost. Well not exactly. Fortunately I am fairly good at backing up my machine. Now while I did lose about 15% of my files (these were mostly large files that were not cloud friendly) most of my school files, important docs, etc. were all saved. How did I save them? I regularly work in the cloud via dropbox so all of my school files and working documents like research papers are all in dropbox so they were saved. Thus I did not freak out. Sure I lost a few things but they are all things that I can mostly replace. The moral of the story, back up and back up often. In all of my years of using a computer I have not had a hard drive fail and I am not one who drops their computer, spills stuff on it, etc. I take care of them. This was a faulty drive.

New rules for SEO

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Search engine optimizers (SEOs) are people who optimize websites to help them rank higher on SERPs and gain more organic traffic. In essence, an SEO is a highly specialized content strategist that helps a business discover opportunities to answer questions people have about their respective industries.

Very cool article on mashable about the ways SEO is changing. Here are some of the new things to do be SEO friendly. And I am not sure all of these are new, maybe just the one about sub domains which is interesting:

  1. Create content that people will have an incentive to share.
  2. Do keyword research, so you don’t waste effort writing about things people don’t care about.
  3. Put all your content on the same domain/subdomain. (e.g. don’t use blog.mysite.com, use mysite.com/blog)
  4. Stand for something, and write about it. People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
  5. Don’t separate your brand from your content. For instance, casino sites that make fascinating infographics about animal rights aren’t going to last long.

An SEO strategy (also referred to as “SEO approach”) is the process of planning and implementing steps designed to improve organic search engine rankings. In other words: an SEO strategy is the process that you follow when you want to get more organic traffic. I recommend typing a few different keywords into Google until you have a list of about 10 keywords. If you want to check out the search volume and competition levels for those terms, you can use a keyword tool like Semrush or Ubersuggest.

Instead, opt to create an SEO strategy that helps you address your individual business needs, like increasing customer acquisition, for greater marketing success. If you then want to diversify your marketing strategies, consider getting the help from Craftsmen Industries.

To learn more about SEO, check out Func Media for an Ultimate Guide to SEO and marketing. Ranking in search pages can be difficult. While it may seem enticing to create content that is centered around high-traffic keywords, that strategy may not help you meet your business goals.

How burn DVD Movies on the Mac with Mountain Lion

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Well those of you with Mountain Lion as the OS on your Mac have probably noticed something, iDVD is gone. Why? I can think of two reasons. 1) Apple wants people to use iTunes not buy  use or make DVDs 2) DVD technology is becoming outdated and Apple is ahead of the times but then why include a DVD player on the Mac?

So for those that still want to burn DVD videos, there is a free opensource software package called burn that will do this for you:

Link to Burn

Directions:

End of semester

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Final week of classes and I am grading like crazy. I will try to update blog but more than likely there will not be many posts this week:)

mailto: html code on a mobile device is actually a good thing

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Many times when accessing a website we click on the contact link and it opens up outlook or another email program that we do not use. This is annoying and I cannot stand it. I tell all of my students never to use this code. However one thing one of my students recently pointed out to me is that when viewed on a mobile device, this actually takes you to your default phone email, which is actually a good thing on the mobile device as you are almost forced by google or apple to have a default email. Thus while I hate this on the computer, I love it on the phone. I just thought it was a pretty cool difference and thought I would share.

The code to create this type of link is: <a href=”mailto:someone@example.com”>

Can you ditch your smartphone for wifi only?

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This is a great article by CNET.com. Here are some of the basic reasons why smartphone companies do not allow you to just purchase voice only plans:

*They do not make money on calls anymore. That is why they are now offering unlimited voice calls.
*They make money from data

Here is the part that I found really interesting:

“If you’re willing to ditch Verizon and any of the other major carriers, you could try a new service from Republic Wireless, which costs only $19.99 a month for unlimited talk, text, and data. The carrier buys and resells capacity from Sprint Nextel’s network. But it also uses Wi-Fi networks. And because it uses Wi-Fi to carry the bulk of its data traffic, the company can offer such a low-cost service.

The company launched a beta version of its service about a year ago. But it was quickly so overwhelmed with users interested in the service that it had to shut down. It relaunched its beta service earlier this year. And starting next month, the service will be available to anyone.

The only catch is that, at least for now, it only supports one device, the Motorola Defy XT. That device is available for preorder now and costs $249 (plus $10 activation fee). Other smartphones will likely follow. And there’s even a chance that eventually, customers will be able to bring their own smartphones to the service. But for now, it’s just the Motorola Defy XT.”