apple juice

The Web We Lost – Anil Dash:

“This isn’t some standard polemic about ‘those stupid walled-garden networks are bad!’ I know that Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and LinkedIn and the rest are great sites, and they give their users a lot of value. They’re amazing achievements, from a pure software perspective. But they’re based on a few assumptions that aren’t necessarily correct.”

Really good post from Anil Dash. Important reading if you want to understand a bit more about the ongoing skirmishes between Facebook / twitter / instagram / tumblr / etc.

iTunes 11 is out! Not following my own advice against waiting a day to install new software, I went right ahead and installed it.

I like it. The interface is intuitive. There are a few places where I was expecting something to happen as I hovered my mouse over an object, and I realized it’s waiting for me to click on everything. (They’re not really menus, more like iOS-style sheets).

The Up Next feature is cool, though more limited (at least at first glance) than the iTunes DJ feature which seems to be gone.

Time will tell if I like the new Artist and Album cover layout, or if I find myself back in the traditional column view, but on the whole – a nice upgrade. I’m glad they waited to release the new version and tweak whatever wasn’t finished!

My “magic” trackpad has been weird for the past week or so…

Portables and Magic Trackpad: Jumpy or erratic trackpad operation

“If you have sweaty hands or if moisture collects on the pad, this may also confuse the trackpad. Wiping off the trackpad with a cloth or tissue usually fixes this issue.”

Yep.. that seems to be the problem! This is my favorite pointing device ever, so I was a little bummed that it seemed to be losing its mind. I guess I just have greasy fingers or something.

This is pretty amazing. Can you imagine what everyone was thinking the first time this thing booted up? According to Wired, this is the oldest working digital computer in existence.

We need to use the Internet itself as social media. Then you won’t have to worry about Facebook putting their finger on the scale.: “Last night I was watching football on one of the big networks. It was a boring game so my mind drifted. I noticed that when they show the name of someone speaking on camera they also show their Twitter handle. I wondered if their lawyers had reviewed this decision. Had they read Twitter’s user agreement? Had they advised their client on how one-sided it is? That made me wonder if Twitter does special deals with big media conglomerates? I wonder what they look like? I follow Twitter pretty closely and I have no idea.”

(Via Scripting News.)

This is what I was talking about a few posts ago where I mentioned that having a personal blog is the only way to own your own words on the internet. You can take your data somewhere else. You’re in control.

You’re not in control of the experience you get on twitter or Facebook, and Dave Winer is exactly right in highlighting this. It is a little weird the twitter handle has become the de facto method of connecting with someone you see on TV.

I don’t know if app.net is going to be any better, (probably not — it’s not “free”) or if we simply need some sort of distributed system abstracted from an individuals’ blog or twitter-like feed that one can view from the web.

I finally had a chance to see Jeff Utecht at the ISACS conference recently. I’ve been a long-time reader of his blog but I still love to hear people present in person.

Really? It’s My Job To Teach Technology?

“We are not teaching technology, we are teaching skills that every student needs to have and technology happens to be a part of that. Create can be met with paper and pencil, with glue and scissors, with a hammer and nail, or with movie maker and it should be the job of every teacher to expose students to different ways of creating content that fits within their discipline.”

(Via The Thinking Stick.)

Absolutely. This has been the biggest shift in how we talk about technology at our school in the past 7 years. It is not “just a tool” and but rather a way of creating, analyzing, evaluating, applying, understanding. A way of thinking. Jeff’s whole post is worth reading, because I think it neatly sums up expectations for using technology.

We’ve chosen to use the NCTE’s 21st century literacies as our goals for our students. Previously, we had a mess of functions to master in specific software. If we are able to educate students to create, communicate, and collaborate using any software or technology (broadly defined) that is at their disposal, I think we’ll be doing well by those goals.

I want one of these little printers so bad, but after buying a nest and a pebble, I’m done with strange internet-connected gadgets for 2012.

Though, seriously, watch the video for the little printer. If you don’t think it is adorable, you’re not human.