Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Fix the Beau Street Door
As a show of solidarity, I invite you to join the Facebook group “Fix the Beau Street Door” which chronicles the hardships and challenges we face every day in our meager efforts to teach and learn in the Tech Center at Washington & Jefferson College:
View signs (literally) of misdirection!
Read about the horrors of rejected admission!
See video evidence of gratuitous inconvenience!
Listen to students and faculty recount their traumatic experiences in their own words!
New Book
The book honoring one of my mentors at Ohio State - Tim Gregory - is coming out soon. Archaeology and History in Roman, Medieval, and Post-Medieval Greece is an excellent collection of essays, and well edited. I’ve written a chapter detailing some of our early work in developing education technology around the content, and focusing on some of the new approaches that the web has brought to the study of archaeology - particularly for undergraduate education. But I’m very excited to read some of the chapters I haven’t seen yet. I can’t wait to get my copy!
Monday, September 29, 2008
Political Resources
As a follow-up to my Source Material post, RHM sends us a link to ProCon.org which strikes me, upon a preliminary review, as a particularly convenient resource for building argumentation on important political discussions. I am particularly impressed with the organization of the site, which I think makes it easy to not only understand multiple sides of the argument, but also provides handily the source materials necessary for conducting some of your own analysis.
I’ve also recently been reminded of the Concord Coalition that keeps an eye on the national debt. Always a sobering topic, it seems particularly relevant as we consider the new presidential candidates…
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Source Material
As we all get more and more sick of the political invective being thrown around this time of year, I’m drawn more frequently to other sources than the media for information. This is the case every year; but I think that each year that passes sees the continual decline of the US media industry. Very few professionals in the field are worth paying attention to.
So, I turn to resources like FactCheck.org which I’ve found to be rather non-partisan and usually reliable. I find it to be particularly valuable in tracking information related to the spin delivered via political advertisement. I also tend to check Taxpayers for Common Sense - an organization that keeps track of governmental spending and all of its appalling misdirection.
Where do you get your information? Are there other venues we should be considering?
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
The Touch
I’m a big fan of the iPod Touch: specifically that it does so many of the things I want in a handheld device and it does them so well. There’s a good review of the device Boston Herald Article; and I’m pleased to say that The Other Dr. Fee has recently added one to her collection of electronic devices.
But this device garners such dramatic discourse concerning it use and implementation. Especially once people start weighing in on the Touch vs. the iPhone. [MacLife article tells the story.] Everyone seems to think they have the best ideas for selecting the right device. But simply put, we all have different needs. For instance, the iPhone would be a waste for me since I rarely make phone calls. Sure, one device that can do it all is marvelous to have - but not if it costs a lot of money. I can get by a lot cheaper with my Touch and a pre-paid phone.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Diet Coke Commercial
In my digital imagery course we are talking about the concept of gaze and how it relates to power structures between the viewer, producer, and subject in imagery. Specifically, gaze does not refer to the act of looking as much as how the viewer reflects upon the representation. One example of how this can be manipulated is when the subject ignores the viewer - the argument being that such robs the viewer of power. A classic example of this is the classic diet coke commercial from the early 1990’s:
It is subtlely ironic too, since the commercial is designed to represent women taking control of the process of objectifying a man. Or, I’m just taking the entire thing too seriously…
Anyway, after spending 45 minutes Sunday night locating the commercial, downloading it, and converting it to a format I could use and getting it into my presentation software, it was particularly frustrating that it wouldn’t work on the podium computer in my classroom (despite that it works on all of my other machines). I was very bitter.
But while I was struggling with grabbing an embedded flash file and downloading it into a file format I could use locally, I came across keepvid which is a marvelous tool for specifically completing that task in just one step. Sweet.
Monday, September 22, 2008
My Quest for WP
My Word Processor quest continues. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I really like Mellel and have enjoyed using it. It has its quirks, but its reliable and it doesn’t crash as often as MS Word. Because of my work at eh College, I’m largely beholden to the Word format, but for my own work it wouldn’t be an issue (as an aside - why can’t we get our forms in PDF?). My biggest criticism with MS Word though is that it tries to be all things to all people, and this creates an interface morass that I have to kludge through in order to get my work done. There much be a more efficient way.
So, what are my options as a Mac user if I want to increase my reliability and work with software that more closely matches my personal style along with addressing specifically what I want to do? Well, there’s always iWork from apple. The Pages application is actually rather nice and it seems reliable. Its ability to import and export Word documents is actually pretty good - as long as the formatting is not too complex. NeoOffice is another option, and the price is right: free. But, its based on OpenOffice and arguably slow. ThinkFree is affordable and intriguing; but it tries to maintain the Office interface, which defeats my purposes.
A potentially interesting solution is Scrivener, which does more than word processing, but does things I need. Unfortunately, I need these additional features rarely when working on my academic writing. So, it may be an effective tool for my creative work, but I still need focused word processing power for my academic writing.
What’s left. Well, there’s Mellel which I continue to try out - but it hasn’t handled Word files as well as I’d like. And, don’t forget Mariner Write. I’m a big fan of their Montage software for screenwriting (I use it in my digital film course), but not their word processor.
Finally, there’s also my long term back-up tool: NisusWriter Express. I’ve been using version 2.7 for a long time with great reliability. It’s my primary word processor with an interface that helps me get things done quickly. One caveat: I have not had good luck with their Pro application and would recommend avoiding it. For me, it crashed more than Word which is what sent me on this review of word processing software in the first place. As a result I’ve avoided version 3.1 which is likely the only version you could purchase today. So, I’d avoid the app unless you are going to run it through its paces during the free demo.
But the other item driving all this is my desire to use Bookends which I have grown to like more than EndNote. I’m still testing the tool, but I think I’m ready to start moving my real work over to this database tool. So, the question becomes: what program will I use to attain the interface simplicity that I’m looking for along with the integration with Bookends that I’ll undoubtedly want. It looks like Pages might be the answer; but I’ll likely just end up dealing with my frustration and continuing to employ Word.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Visual Politics
The Other Dr. Fee sends us a link to an interesting visual representation of the language used by both parties in their recent conventions. Take a look…
I think the similarities are depressing. I also think that it seems from this that the democrats are letting the republicans and the bush administration dictate the conversation too much as a result of their efforts to peg McCain as a continuation of Bush. I think that’s a mistake. The incredible failures of the Bush administration speak for themselves and everyone knows it. I think its the change concept that folks are responding to. The connection between McCain and Bush has to be made because of their party affiliation and those underlying similarities; but I question whether beating it to death helps to clarify the message regarding how things are going to be different.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Seinfeld Commercial Follow-up
As a follow-up to last week’s post about the MS Seinfeld ads, it looks like the ads are getting pulled already. I think it’s officially a debacle…