Commoncraft.com a really cool training website

As a trainer, I get excited when I see easy to understand explanations. I was referred to The Commoncraft Show today by a colleague who said it was a place to learn about Web 2.0 functionality. I wasn’t quite sure what that was to start with, so figured I’d go to find out.  What I found were many Video’s in Plain English. For example: 

Video: Wikis in Plain English

or

Video: RSS in Plain English

Video: Twitter in Plain English

They are simple, short and really kind of fun to watch.  What better learning tool?  Enjoy!

ILMIP – (I love my iPHone) My love affair has shattered

Ok, so perhaps my love affair with my iPhone hasn’t exactly shattered, but it has hit a serious bump in the road. I dropped it today.  I dropped it on hard ground.  I was at the Aquarium on a field trip and it fell out of my pocket as I was hurrying. I picked it up and almost cried. Had it not been for the 36 kids and their teachers and other parents I may have. It could have been worse, I could have been near the water, and it could have slid in.  At least it still works, and most of the cracks are towards the top, so I can still use it for a little longer, I think. So the screen shattering was my first shock.

The second shock came later when I called Apple support. I had a feeling the news was going to be bad when I called, but it was worse than I thought. The very nice support tech who answered my call within a few minutes informed me that this type of damage was not covered under warranty.  Then he gave me my 3 choices:

1. See if my homeowner’s insurance covered electronic items such as this.
2. See if AT&T would give me some sort of an upgrade (I think I used that when I bought the phone).
3. See if I could get it repaired by a third party in the neighborhood of $190.

Replacing the glass, is not just replacing the glass.  This is why I held off. It was no surprise to my DH that this happened. My old phone that worked just fine for so long, was beaten and battered because it went to the park, went to the pool, went to the beach, and I never worried too much about it because it was always the free phone. 

I did coddle my dear iPhone for quite some time (I’ve only had it since July), and I still was doing a good job of that, though I was getting a little lax. I allowed a few frivolous apps on it which invited my sweet boys to obsess over playing with it.

Why oh why does it have to cost so much to replace the glass? Apparently it’s not just glass.  It’s high technology and that is magic, and magic is expensive.

This post has been somewhat therapeutic. I had been a little obsessive with my dear phone. Perhaps this was my wake up call.

ILMIP (I love my iPhone) – Shazam v. Midomi at the Car Wash

I had 10 minutes on my hands today while I was waiting to get my car washed. One of my students told me about a cool new iPhone app called Midomi. It works like Shazamwhere it can listen to music on the radio then tell you the song, artist, etc. So I did a comparison. This car wash is located on a busy intersection, so in addition to the car wash noise, there is a lot of other background noise. The music was coming out of speakers mounted inside the top of an awning.

Three out of three songs Shazam identified correctly. I had to give it two tries on song 1 but it got it the second time. Unfortunately Midomi did not measure up. Three out of three songs were returned with none or incorrect information.  I will have to try it tomorrow in the car with the windows rolled up to see if it can do better.

The songs were:

Too Much Heaven by the BeeGees
Every Little Thing She Does is Magic by The Police
Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis

So, Midomi does allow you to sing or hum.  I just tried it and it picked up all three songs I hummed or sang. And, I’m not all that good at it. So kudos for Midomi. 

I’m keeping them both on my phone.
Total cost: $0.00!

I Love my iPhone

This Christmas several of my friends and colleagues have gotten iPhones. A few are people like me that had very simple phones, or in one case no cell phone at all (yes, really, no cell phone at all).  I want to share what I know about my iPhone because I really love it, and people can take or leave the info. 

Tonight I got an email from a friend requesting advice on my iPhone.  Did I like it? Did I do a lot of email, etc.  So, this will help formulate my response to her, and finally get me posting about it.

My Phone History

Prior to my iPhone I was using a $15 AT&T phone from Radio Shack.  It was my temporary phone until I got my iPhone. I was given good advice to wait until the 3G phone came out before purchasing.  My old Nokia phone was unusable.  I had dropped or thrown it too many times and could not read the screen. No, I didn’t throw it because I was mad, it would just randomly fly out of my hand, or fall out of my pocket.  So, I was nervous about having a fancy phone but couldn’t resist.  So, about a month after the new 3G phone came out, I went to the Apple store thinking there would be no wait, and well, there was a wait.  They were handing out place holder cards, but they were only for the 16gig phone.  I only wanted the 8gig.  I mean, I was upgrading from a $15 phone that was working quite well.

The Apple Store Experience

So, I called around, found another store, not too far away who had them in stock so I immediately went.  The store is really small, the line was out the door. I promptly asked the sales person managing the line if this was going to be a 2 hour ordeal.  She said, no. It looks like you will get helped within 10 or 15 minutes. She did not lie.  Within a few minutes the first salesperson did my quick background check to make sure I was eligible for the AT&T upgrade. That was nice, because if I wasn’t I wouldn’t have wanted to wait in that line!  Then, a few minutes later, I get the next guy with his hand-held cash register who brought me my phone and activated it. I asked him how difficult it would be to synch up my Outlook information: contacts, calendar and email. I am a PC user, not a MAC user and definitely had my concerns about Outlook.  He asked if I had iTunes. I said yes.  He said to just plug it in and it would work.  I was shocked.  No way would it be that easy.  I was out of that store in less than 20 minutes walking around the outdoor mall with my shiny new toy!

I would say my experience at the Apple store was stellar! I haven’t been that impressed in a long time. I have visted since, and am always helped with very knowledgeable people who are eager to assist.

Synching with Outlook

I went home, took a picture of a friend who happened to be in my kitchen when I returned like a child on Christmas morning.  When he calls me, his picture pops up.  I had learned this and a few other little tricks from another friend who gave me a demo the Christmas before.  It was that demo that made me lust after other’s iPhones until I got my own. I was so excited to actually have a phone with a camera, not to mention GPS, email, etc.   So, I opened up iTunes, plugged in my phone, and lo and behold, it updated iTunes to accomodate the iPhone. I can’t remember now if it asked me any questions, but if it did, they were very straightforward, and within minutes it was synching all 400 of my contacts, not to mention my appointments. 

I set up email shortly after. That was not difficult, once I found my password. With Outlook it automatically logs me into my email server, so I have to look up my password whenever I do anything like this. I was able to get my SMTP and POP addresses from Outlook.  It allowed me to do multiple email accounts, so I could have my business account and my gmail account.

The one disappointment is that it doesn’t automatically synch my tasks. I need my tasks. I will eventually pay for an add-in application to get my tasks, but I am not willing to do that yet.

I do not use the Mobile Me that synchs to Outlook automatically. I didn’t want to pay yet more money. My email gets downloaded to my iPhone, but if I add an appointment to Outlook, it does not automatically go to the iPhone.  So, I usually synch once a day through iTunes to make sure I don’t miss any appointments.

Email

I do like having email on my phone and use it quite a bit. I’m not great at the typing, and don’t know if I ever will be.  I guess that’s good — shorter messages. The feature that fixes mistakes and guesses what you are trying to type works well, and I’m getting better at working with that. From what I hear from others, Blackberry keypads seem to be a little more efficient.  Reading email is nice, except some don’t wrap text within the screen, so scrolling from left to right can be a hassle.  I’m not sure why that happens with some email. I’m guessing it’s the format in which they are created.

I did have one major problem a few months ago where my “other” items on my phone were bloated to the point that I lost over 50% of the space. I had to uninstall and reinstall everything. I was pointed in the right direction by a very helpful person tech person at the Apple Store, but it did take me awhile to figure out how to fix it.  I haven’t had the problem since.  I did LOVE being able to bring it in and get help within 10 minutes.

Yes, I love my iPhone!  More to come soon.