Anybody who follows me on Twitter knows that I’ve jailbroken my iDevices. I’m not some kind of crazy renegade or anti-establishment… there are just some basic features that I want to have that Apple doesn’t offer. I know why they don’t offer them. And I respect that. But at the same time, I want to be able to make those decisions for myself and have leaped at the opportunity to stretch the capabilities of the devices just a little bit farther.

That being said, I do understand that most educators feel that they can’t jailbreak. It’s illegal, right? Well… not really. It was never against the law. Apple tried to say it was against the terms of service, but who are they to say what you can do with something you BOUGHT? When I buy a pair of running shoes, Nike has no right to tell me I can’t play soccer in them. In my opinion, nor does Apple have the right to tell me what I can and can’t do with the device. Funny thing is… Federal regulators agree. Last week, the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office basically said that jailbreaking doesn’t violate any laws and is kosher in their book. Big news? You betcha!

Apple can, and does, maintain that they can’t warranty Jailbroken devices, but it’s sort of an empty threat. A simple restore will remove any and all traces of a jailbreak, putting it right back to a virgin state. Quite simply, jailbreaking allows developers access to the full file system available on the iPhone, not just the fenced in sandbox that Apple normally gives access to. This allows people to develop apps that many of us have always wanted on our phones, but couldn’t get through the App store. Some of them are simple, like Whiteboarding abilities (so you can mark up an app before taking a screenshot). Others are more complex, like skinning, multi-tasking, and screensharing with a computer.

Whatever your reasons are, there’s never been a better time to do it. Last night, the jailbreaking fairies released the easiest way to jailbreak your iDevice in quite a long time. All you need to do is visit Jailbreakme.com from your iDevice and move the slider over, and it’ll jailbreak your phone and install Cydia. For those who don’t know, Cydia is like the AppStore, but for apps that Apple won’t accept.

Just to be ultraclear, jailbreaking does not open you up to viruses. It does not break your phone. Neither Apple nor AT&T will know you did it. And if you don’t like it…. just restore. But there are several compelling things that Jailbreaking allows you to do, and I thought I’d share my Top 10 with you. And while only a few of them are compelling reasons to jailbreak, when you add them altogether you get a pretty convincing case.

10) SBSettings (All devices) - This isn’t actually an App, but basically like a shortcut bar/task manager. Slide across the status bar along the top of your screen and you’ll see a pop up menu that gives you quick access to a configurable set of toggles. This allows you to easily turn on and off things like Bluetooth, WiFi, and other handy info, like your IP address, remaining storage and so on. Nothing super fancy, but it saves quite a few clicks. More info here and here

9) Full Force (iPad) - If you have an iPad, you hate iPhone apps. Yes, it’s nice that you can run them, but when you embiggen them they look obnoxious. Fonts are doubled in size, screen is distorted. It just looks awful. Full Force attempts to tell the app to use all available real estate… but with a normal font size. It doesn’t work for every app, but for the ones it does it makes a MAJOR difference. it actually makes them usable without being annoying. The best example of this is Tweetie. There’s still no iPad version of the official Twitter app, but Full Force makes the iPhone version more than just tolerable, but passable! List of apps compatible with Full Force

8 ) GV Mobile (iPhone) – If you use Google Voice on the iPhone, you MAY have bought this back in the day. For a very brief period it was in the App store. And then Apple pulled it. No good reason, they just decided they didn’t like Google Voice. So Sean picked up his app and re-released it via Cydia. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best App based version of Google Voice out there. It still requires an internet connection, but does a really good job of letting you manage Google Voice, including making calls from your GVoice number.

7) Winterboard (All) - It’s hard to give a simple summary of all that Winterboard does. At it’s most basic level, it let’s you skin your device. Backgrounds and homescreens, like iOS4, but oh so much more too. Themes can come with icons for the basic iDevice apps as well as other apps that you may have installed. Battery charging screens, calculator skins, lock screens, unlock sliders, task bar designs… There are even themes that radically change the way you interact with your iphone entirely. You want to stretch it, there’s some really amazing themes you can install. And all that is possible through Winterboard. I won’t get into it anymore, but if you’ve EVER wanted to customize anything visual related to the iPhone, there’s likely a Winterboard solution. More on Winterboard, and a theme gallery.

6) Veency (All) - Ever want to display your iDevice on your computer screen? I did just the other day. I wanted to show a group in Boston my favorite apps and ways to use the iPad… but I was in Chicago. So I loaded up Veency on the iPad and connected it to a simple VNC server I installed on my desktop. Put in the IP address, clicked connect and Voila! My iPad was displayed on my computer. From there, I used Procaster to broadcast my desktop screen with the iPad on it to the people in Boston. Everything you do on the iPad will be displayed on your computer. As an added bonus, you can even control your iPad via your keyboard and mouse. Works surprisingly well, although it does have some lag if you do it in full color. Dropping it down to 256 colors improve refresh speed dramatically. More on Veency.

5) Backgrounder (All) - This is becoming less relevant, but still important. Basically this gives your iDevice the ability to multi-task. And not that simulated multitasking that iOS4 has, but TRUE multitasking. Set it up and you can allow an app to keep running even after you leave it and switch to another. I use this a ton when I’m grading. Open up an assignment, leave it in the background, open up a few web pages including the Moodle Page and bounce back and forth between them without losing my place anywhere. VERY handy. Now, you can get yourself into a bit of trouble with this one. Put too many apps in the background and you’ll drain your battery more quickly and make your device anemic. So just keep an eye on what you have open and close what you don’t need. I haven’t had a problems with it, as you can have it put a symbol on the App icon on the homescreen, letting you know backgrounding is enabled for it. How to use Backgrounder on the iPad

4) Activator (All) - This is more of a helper app than anything else. It provides you with a large list of potential actions, and let’s you assign apps to them. For example, you can set it so that when you triple click the power button, the camera app comes up. Or if you hold in the home screen for a few seconds, it opens up Mail. You could also set it so that if you rock the volume buttons up and down, it’ll open up the phone app. Nothing fancy, but saves taps. And that’s a good thing. More on activator

3) iWhiteboard (All) – I mentioned this one earlier. When you activate it (see #4), it let’s you draw on the screen. You can change colors, marker sizes and grab screenshots as well. And when you’re done, one more click and it’s gone. Couldn’t be simpler. But very useful. Mark up your screen, circle the settings you want to point out to people, or how to use an app… and then grab a quick screenshot. I don’t use it often, but it has come in handy on several occasions.  Such as having Jeff Utecht sign my PDF copy of his book, Reach!   Tips on using iWhiteboard

2) TV-Out (All) - As it stands right now, only certain Apps have permission from Apple to use the video out capabilities. On the iPhone/iTouch there’s a cable with component/composite out, and on the iPad there’s a VGA connector. However, only a few apps have permission to use it! What if you want to display your home screen on a monitor or projector? Well, TV-Out will let you do it, as well as every other app you have. Turn it on (via SBSettings if you want!) and everything you do will be sent out through the projector cable. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best solution out there without going the Document Camera route. Setting up TVOut2 on the iPad

1) MyWi (iPhone) - This is the number one reason to jailbreak on iPhone. It’s 9.99 for the iOS3 version and 19.99 for the iOS4 version… and worth every penny. It allows you to turn your phone into a WiFi hotspot. It takes your 3G connection, bridges it over to WiFi and creates a hotspot that you can use to connect from your laptop or iPad or any other device. You have full control over whether it’s an open hotspot or secure, as well as how many can connect. It also works via USB if you don’t want to broadcast things out. It works incredibly well and it has saved my hide on many an occasion. Even if you just have it as a backup… I’ve used it at conferences, hotels, airports, coffee shops, anywhere that I’ve needed a quick internet connection for my iPad or laptop. Fantastic app and most definitely the #1 reason to jailbreak an iPhone. MyWi and the iPhone 4

That’s it! The 10 best reasons to jailbreak an iDevice.

Except while writing this I thought of one more.

Bonus Reason: My3G (iPhone) - I used to use 3G unrestrictor but am trying out this one right now as a replacement. They both do the same thing though, which is free your phone from 3G restrictions. Ever try to download an App and have the device tell you “You can’t download this until you’re connected via WiFi”? Or want to play a game, but then realize it requires WiFi? Well, these apps just trick your phone into thinking that’s connected via WiFi! Couldn’t be simpler. Of course, what you do with it is your business, but do keep in mind… Trying to download Google Earth via 3G will take a while. Doing a live video broadcast over 3G may be a little choppy. But shouldn’t it be your right to decide that you want a choppy broadcast? The most exciting use of it though…. is 3G Facetime. Imagine being able to do a Facetime chat anyplace that you have 3G! Well, My3G supports that right now. I haven’t had a chance to try it out, but based on twitter reports, it seems to be working fine. Once again, just scale your expectations appropriately. MyWi + Facetime = WOW

And NOW that’s it. Hope that helped. I’m not saying that you should jailbreak your iDevice. But if any of those things seemed worthwhile to you, it’s good to know you have options!

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Last night, I said farewell to some old friends. Aiden is growing older and we’re getting ready to switch him into what was formally the office/library. As I stood there staring at my bookshelves, I realized that it was time to let most of them go to that great library in the sky (the book recycling box in the Target parking lot).

This was not an easy decision for me as Jess will attest to. Many of those books I’ve had for a couple decades. I re-read books often, and a few of those books had been read by me dozens of times (no exaggeration). But in the end, I kept thinking about how nice it is to read books on the iPad and iPhone, and how much I hate carrying around a hard bound book or heavy paperback nowadays. In fact, the only time I turn to print anymore… is during the first and last ten minutes of a flight. Other than that, I tend to grab the iPad and read there. Yes, I still miss the sensation of turning the pages, and I look forward to the day when they add logic for pages to yellow and get frazzled the more you read an eBook (someone will do it, trust me). But other than the sake of nostalgia, it just didn’t make sense to devote a significant portion of a room to books that oh so rarely left the shelf.

And so I let them go. I kept a few of them of course. Any book that was signed by the author got an instant reprieve (yes, Will, that includes my copy of Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts). As did the yearbooks, photo albums and some comic books I’m not quite ready to let go (Is Paul dead? Batman investigates!). And then there were just a few that I couldn’t bear to toss into the pile.

Hickman and Weiss’s first DragonLance book was one of the first large chapter books I ever read. I bought it WAY before I was ready to read it and it sat on a shelf for about 4 years before I finally made my way through it. But that kicked off a love of Sci-Fi and Fantasy that continues to this day.

I couldn’t let go the Westing Game either. I know it’s a kids book, but something about that mystery continues to thrill me. Such a fun book, and one I look forward to passing on to Aiden some day.

I’ve always been a big fan of conspiracy theories, so the Illuminatus trilogy got amnesty. And in a related note, my tattered copy of the Principia Discordia is safe fnord now.

Other much loved books had to be let go. One of my favorite books was my copy of Mario Puzo’s Godfather. A simple paperback, but a fairly early edition. Old enough that the cover, back when it HAD a cover, said “Soon to be a major motion picture!” on it. The spin had long since surrendered and been reinforced with electrical tape, but pages insisted on trying to take flight. Rest in pieces.

In the end, this isn’t me saying goodbye to reading… Far from it. But at this point, were I going to buy a book, I am now confident that I can buy it digitally and always have access to it digitally on any device I own. The kindle alone wasn’t enough to make me that confident. It was seeing the kindle being made available on the iPhone and iPad. When something comes along that replaces those, I’m guessing it will be available there too. Yes, it’s a leap of faith, but I think the time is right to make that leap. While I’m sure there will still be books that I buy in print, that will be the last resort.

Viva la revolution.

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I’ve been resisting buying every case, stand and accessory that has come out for the iPad, although the temptation has been great.  However, I thought I’d share a quick post about the things that I have picked up so far and my thoughts about them.  For the most part, they fall under two categories:  Displaying the iPad and displaying what’s ON the iPad.  Oh yeah, and one other miscellaneous accessory thrown in at the end.

Displaying the iPad

When you first unwrap your iPad, it’s so beautiful that you know you must protect it.  A single scratch is enough to bring tears to the eyes of devoted Fanboys/Fangirls everywhere….  Ok, ok, I exaggerate a bit.  But that said, you will definitely want to invest in some sort of protection.  I personally don’t go for screen protectors.  While it does attract fingertips BIG TIME, that glass feels so smooth I hate to put something that’s going to detract from the experience.  That’s my opinion, but I know many will argue vehemently that it needs some sort of screen protection.  That’s up to you.

However, you will definitely want some sort of case or sleeve.  At first, I really had no idea what I wanted.  But I knew I needed something.  I decided to go simple and picked up the Waterfield Designs Suede Jacket.  It’s $21 shipped, which is about as cheap as you can get.  Basic suede sleeve that feels great, has small loops making it easy to get the iPad in and out of it and can even be used to wipe the screen clean!  No padding, nothing fancy.  Protects the screen and back and not much more.  But it worked quite well as a temporary solution for a few months until I decided what case I wanted to actually invest in.

The other short term solution I invested in was a basic wire book stand from Fellows.  I think it was about 5 bucks shipped.  Once again, nothing fancy, but it let me prop up my iPad when not in use to serve as a digital picture frame.  Also came in handy when using it in the kitchen for recipes.  Not exactly elegant, but highly functional.

Both of those have been retired and replaced by the case that I’m currently using.  After months of deliberation (literally), I wound up settling on the I-Nique Tuff-Luv Multiview Case in Saddleback leather.  What I really like about this case is that it has a flip cover that snaps closed, a decent amount of padding and it leaves all ports and buttons wide open.  However, the best part about it is the stand feature.  Through a series of snaps and flaps, it can be propped open in 5 different positions and it actually locks in.  Unlike many cases which just prop up the iPad, this one is sturdy enough to withstand turbulence, bumps by a small child and minor earthquakes.  That was a must for me.  While you can stand it up in portrait position, it really isn’t meant to.  So far, I haven’t missed that.  However, if you DO need that, there’s a newer model of the same case that is called the Tuff-Luv Bi-Axes that has some sort of a split in the case that allows you to prop it up in portrait mode at an angle.  The case comes in a decent number of leather variations, including faux leather if you like.  Consequently, prices vary.  Personally, I knew that I was going to be carrying this around quite a bit.  I wanted it to feel good and I wanted it to look good.  So I sprung for the Saddleback leather, which unfortunately seems to be unavailable right now.  I can’t tell you how many people told me at ISTE that it was the nicest case they’ve seen yet.  Personally, I agree and recommend it wholeheartedly.

One last thing before I wrap this section up.  Decals   Before I put my iPad in it’s current case, I wanted some way to customize my iPad just a touch, to distinguish it from the others that were out there.  For that, I recommend browsing the decals available on Etsy.com.  There are some really amazing ones there and they’re pretty darn reasonable.  I liked the look of the Ace of Apples, so I picked that one up.  Here’s a few of my other favorites.  And don’t worry, they’re easy to remove when you get tired of them.

Displaying What’s on the iPad:

The two accessories that I’ve purchased for displaying what’s on the iPad screen are the official VGA Dock Connector from Apple and the Point 2 View document camera.

Regarding the VGA connector, it does exactly what you’d expect it to…. sorta.  It will project what’s on  your iPad screen through a projector.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t send just anything through the connector.  In fact, there’s only a few apps provided by Apple that work with it.  The Videos, Photos and YouTube apps will display media through the VGA connector, as well as the Keynote App (when in Slideshow mode).  Safari will only output video content through the VGA connector, which is a major disappointment.  However, where Apple dropped the ball, other developers are picking up the pieces.   If you do a search in iTunes for “VGA” you’ll find a decent number of them.  In particular, my favorite two so far are Expedition and GoodReader, both of which I wrote about previously.  Kathy Schrock has created a Google Doc where people can see other apps she has found that work with the VGA connector, and contribute to it if you see that something is missing.

If you actually have to host a session on the iPad itself, you’ll probably want to project more than the VGA connector will allow you to.  If that’s the case, you have two options: 1) Jailbreak it or 2) Get a document camera.  I’m going to cover jailbreaking in an upcoming post, so we’ll come back to that.  As for a document camera, I picked up the Point 2 View based on the recommendation of several sites including handheld guru Tony Vincent.  So far, it seems to do a pretty decent job.  While it supports high resolution, I’ve had problems getting it to output consistently on anything higher than 640×480.  I’m not sure if that’s the fault of the camera or my computer though.  That said, it’s really intended to be used to take still photos of objects, but does a very nice job with the iPad.  It comes with a clip as well as a weighted stand and can bend into a variety of positions.  You can lock the focus on the iPad itself, so when your hand gets in the way it won’t try to refocus in on it.  It’s really small and perfect to travel with.  And of course, it works with both Mac and PC.  Price isn’t bad at all either, setting you back just $70.  There’s no light or fancy features, but it picks the screen up pretty darn well without it.  While I haven’t had it long, so far it has met my expectations.  Just be careful about that resolution.  Set it too high and it will freeze up.  And since it is just a document camera,  you can always use it for other classroom purposes as well!  Oh, by the way… it says that it’s sold out on their website, but it’s still shipping through Amazon.

Misc.

Didn’t know what to categorize this, so it gets it’s own category.  Since I got the iPad, I thought it would be great for hand written note taking.  However, I just haven’t been such a fan of writing with my finger.  Just didn’t feel right.  I figured I’ll pick up a stylus somewhere and make use of that.  Trouble is, due to the nature of the iPad screen you can’t just use a regular stylus.  You need one that is conductive, that mimics the human finger in some way that I don’t understand.  Pogo sells one for $15 that will work for all iDevices including the iPad.  I stopped by a video game store and found one for about half that price.  And it does work… but poorly.  The trouble is, it needs to be semi-spongy like the human finger.  It’s also rubbery.  So when you try to write with it, you have to drag it along and there’s a ton of resistance.  The only thing I can compare it to is like trying to write in wet sand.  You can do it, it just isn’t pleasant.  If you’re just tapping through the menus and such, the stylus works great.  Perfect for people that have muscle control issues and would prefer to grip something than use their finger.  But for writing or drawing?  I’d pass on it.

Wrapping up

So that’s it so far!  I haven’t tried out the Camera kit yet so I can’t vouch for that.  If you’ve used that, or have your own thoughts on iPad accessories, share them below.  What case are you using on your iPad and how you liking it?

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This was a busy ISTE to say the least! While normally I make a point to hit at least a few sessions, this year it was all work. 3 presentations, 1 workshop, combined with booth time and a Wilkes grad course wrapping up made for a crazy hectic week. The one thing I refused to sacrifice though was face time with my network. It was an absolute pleasure seeing so many of you. Even 30 seconds face to face makes all those 140 character communications so much richer. As always, I wish I could have spent more time in the Blogger’s Cafe hanging out, but such is life. On the whole, it was a fantastic conference, and major Kudos to ISTE for organizing yet another incredibly well run event. Unlike many tech-conferences, bandwidth was never even a topic of conversation. The wireless was stellar, and the wired connections for presenters was the fastest I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t have been happier as an attendee and as a presenter.

Overall, the sessions went incredibly well. The big surprise to me was that the Policies presentation packed the room. Typically it’s a small, dedicated, hardcore group of people attending that one. This year, it filled the room up. Does this mean that we’re finally starting to turn the corner when it comes to making our policies fit the practice we know in our hearts is right? I’m starting to get cautiously optimistic!

For some reason, I seem to have Presenter Upload Deficiency Syndrome. Even when I have everything done in time, I always seem to screw up URL’s, preventing people from getting to my resources quickly. So here’s the links to the sessions I did at ISTE. Hope they help in a small part. I believe the Perpetual Learning Machine and Extreme Makeover presentations were recorded too. If I find them, I’ll link them up later.

Enjoy!

The Perpetual Learning Machine - ISTE/TIE Leadership Bootcamp
Policies Safety and Social Networking
Extreme Makeover – Education Edition (Note, this is a simplistic ‘deck’. Mostly live demo’s done during presentation)

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Saw this while hunting for a post on Darren Kuropatwa’s blog. You can see the complete article here, but I think the ‘ticker’ speaks for itself. And really drives home the need to teach information literacy. The amount of content being created and consumed on a daily basis is pretty unreal.

Don’t forget to click on the tabs, so you can see the stats they have available for Mobile and Games as well.

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I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of geotagging photos, but frustrated by some of the issues around the practice. Unless you use a smartphone as a camera, or have something like an EyeFi, it’s a chore to tag photos in this way, and a chore that not many take the time to do it seems. Those folks that have it automated thanks to tools like I just mentioned often fall prey to the opposite problem… overtagging. If you tag a picture of that spot on your jeans, is it really smart to add a geotag for it, forever locking it in to that location geographically within sites like Flickr? There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to find pictures for a location, let’s say Egypt, and having to wade through dozens of pictures of somebody’s toothbrush.

That being said, Geotagging isn’t going away, it’s only becoming more prominent. Need proof? Take a look at what Erik Fischer has manged to do. By using a few scripts, he took the millions of geotagged photos within Flickr and used the metadata to map out 50 major cities.

* Motion recorded by geotagging photographers.
* Taking all timestamps and location stamps at face value.
* Black is walking (less than 7mph)
* Red is bicycling or equivalent speed (less than 19mph)
* Blue is motor vehicles on normal roads (less than 43mph)
* Green is freeways or rapid transit.

Fascinating. Not only that so many photos are being geotagged, but that we are even able to track them based on the speed the person was moving when the photo was taken! Pretty impressive. Oh, and by the way, Chicago rates #11 on the list.

Quick informal survey: Do you geotag your photos? And if so, do you keep the setting on for ALL your photos? Or are you selective about which you tag?

Disclaimer: I’m participating in a local Chicago contest to raise awareness of first amendment issues. I’ve included the #1amend hashtag and URL to the original article in the title, so they will be included when people retweet this blog entry. Per the terms of the contest, the two people who get the most retweets using that hashtag will win a 16GB WiFi iPad. Since I already have an iPad, if I win the contest I pledge to give it away to an educator who reads this blog (details TBD). So if you enjoyed this article, help me out by clicking the Tweet button at the top!

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While doing some brainstorming today, I decided to do a search for articles about digital textbooks. One of the results was an article from David Warlick. In it, he mentioned how excited he was that his son had the choice of “bringing home a traditional, 400 page, five-pound, paperbound book, and a one-half ounce optical CD-ROM.” Of course, reality came crashing down when he realized the CD was little more than over-glorified PDFs.

He goes on to describe several characteristics he expects to see from digital texts. Some interesting ideas, it’s worth reading.

But what troubles me is that the article was written almost exactly 6 years ago. And in that time, there has been almost zero progress towards this end in most schools.

Depressing to say the least. That’s not to say there hasn’t been any progress at all. At Discovery, we have a Science service that has been approved for use as a textbook and is purchasable with textbook funds in the state of Oregon. Without a doubt, I think it’s on the right track. It has all the text one might want, but also videos, interactives, simulations, multimedia, bookmarking, read alouds, and assessment built into it. One could never accuse it of being an over-glorified pDF.

What’s concerning to me is how slow this adoption process is. While we’re working on getting it approved in several other states right now, for the most part a school can’t adopt a digital text even if they wanted to.

Think about that. It’s the year 2010 and most schools still can’t spend their textbook dollars on a digital solution. 21st Century skills? Meet 20th Century curriculum.

So what’s a teacher to do in this situation? The only thing they can… Pray they have an incredibly enlightened administration or fly under the radar. I think that’s what upsets me most. I see teachers that are doing incredibly innovative things to provide their students the best education possible, and more often than not they feel they have to hide their actions from the administration. In order to do what they feel is best for students and learning, they have to become fugitives within their own buildings.

In the end, for anybody who is patiently waiting for the digital revolution to come to them…. well don’t hold your breath. Unless you just happen to live in Oregon… or can convince your school/district to change the rules. Otherwise, if you want to do right for your students, you better be prepared to start a revolution of your own. Nobody else is going to do it for you.

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While sharing my browser during a DEN webinar last night, I was surprised to see the hot topic of conversation wasn’t the public beta of the new DEN website that I was sharing…. rather it was the various bookmarklets and links that I have saved in my Bookmarks toolbar.

I guess I don’t really think about it much, but that really is a bag of tricks that I depend on daily, and there’s some fantastic tools there that I’ve gathered together over the years. SO, I thought that I’d share a brief glimpse into my ‘dashboard’, the view that surrounds my view, all the toys gadgets and gizmos that customize my browsing experience.

First of all, my browser of choice is still Firefox. I’m on the verge of switching to Chrome, as I think it’s faster and more stable, but for now I like the suite of plugins and utilities that I have set up in Firefox better. Since I often have more than 25 tabs open at a time, real estate is always at a premium. That’s why I go with the Classic Compact Firefox theme. It’s about as small as you can get while still having actual icons for the primary buttons. Clean and minimal, that’s how I like my browser themes. The only plugin I have that adds actual buttons to the browser is Delicious. And to be honest, that can probably go as I don’t use any more functionality than I would out of a bookmarklet. However… My space for bookmarklets is pretty limited as you’ll see shortly.

In the status bar (that bar along the bottom that displays what URL you’re about to click on when you hover over a link), I have five tools. The first is the MeasureIt plugin, which resides in the lower left. This is a simple tool, but I use it almost daily. Click on it and your screen goes grayish. Then, you can draw a box anywhere on your screen and it will tell you how many pixels each side is. Incredibly handy for measuring web elements, pictures, embedded objects and so on. Honestly, it’s pretty darn close to indispensable. On the right hand side I have the Delicious notifiers, and a Google Wave notifier, but to be honest I rarely look at those. They could go away and I wouldn’t notice. I also have an indicator letting me know that Greasemonkey is running, another that I don’t really even ‘see’ anymore. But then we come to the far lower right, which is reserved for something I check nearly every day: Woot Watcher. It displays what the deal of the day is for Woot, and during a Woot Off it displays roughly how many of an item is left before it switches. I’m a big fan of Woot, and yes, I do glance down at that daily.

This brings us to the heart and soul of my web based toolbox: the bookmarklets. For those that don’t know, a bookmarklet is basically a bookmark, but instead of taking you to a favorite web page, it performs a function. I actually wrote a post on bookmarklets a few years ago, but the info looks to still be valid. I have quite a few of them in my browser bar and use most of them pretty regularly. In that they appear in my browser bar, here’s my current list:

Since you can store folders on a Browser bar, I do actually have a couple of those as well. In side I have a slew of websites that I want easy access to. You can even put folders inside folders, to create a nice hierarchy of sites that you want to be able to access quickly. Nothing fancy, but it does work pretty well.

So that’s my browser bag of tricks. Got any that I’m missing? Or something you think people ought to know about?

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With all the news about the disaster in Haiti, one of the more interesting things I’ve seen technologically recently came from there. I’ve seen 360 videos before, going all the way back to Quicktime VR and such. But this absolutely fascinates me.

This video was shot on January 18th, and while watching it, you are able to use your mouse to look in any direction, up or down as well. Pretty stunning to say the least. And what an incredible way to provide students a window into the area.

Can’t speak for you, but I’d love to see them run this through the Grand Canyon… or around Washington DC… or through an excavation site.

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In case you haven’t been keeping up with ISTE‘s dive into the crowdsourcing arena, the final voting is now open for the ultimate keynote presentation at this year’s conference. Your choices are:
* Chris Lehmann
* Alan November
* Jeff Piontek
* Peter H. Reynolds
* Gary Stager

I know most of the people on the list, and they’re all worthy choices. You should definitely stop by and cast a vote for your favorite.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what this has boiled down to. The process began with people proposing and voting on topics.

Then the topics were narrowed down to five, and people were able to suggest and vote for speakers on each of those topics.

Now the topics seem to have gone away completely, and we’re left with five names and we’re just supposed to pick one, on the topic of “Excellence in Education.” I guess the topic of “Good Things to Talk About” would have been too broad.

While I applaud ISTE in their efforts to engage the community and bring them into the process, I think it was handled poorly. Clearly, things have not been thought out quite enough.

It seems as thought phase 1 should have been skipped entirely. In round 2, there were 5 topics listed, and people nominated speakers for each topic. However, based on the sheer numbers in the voting, clearly not everybody realized that you could vote for people for each of the different topics. The speakers that were nominated in the first topic got the vast majority of the votes. Some very qualified people I think were victims of that confusion.

And the net result? When all is said and done, we have a popularity contest that’s being run on Polldaddy of all things. Really? No registration required to vote, just using a free polling widget that has already been well documented to be ‘hackable‘? I’m shocked that the largest EdTech conference in the country would step it up and not use a free, insecure polling widget to determine who will be their keynote presenter.

Moral of the story? Love the idea, hate the implementation. Hope they learn from this process.

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