Category: Technology

AirDroid and Update On My Android Experiment

Despite my frustrations over a lack of a TweetBot style app for Android, my current experiment with Android via a Galaxy S3 has been going pretty well.

I’ve had an iPhone since 2007 and constantly turned my nose up at Android all the while hoping that the platform could mature into an iOS rival that would fulfill my wishes for a more “open” and dare-I-say geeky user experience with a portable computer (or phone). That same wish makes me keep a copy of Debian installed along side my 15″ Retina Macbook Pro in hopes that one day Linux will find the right balance for me.

Apps like SwiftKey (and their insanely amazing new Flow app) make me realize why I started loving computers in the first place. The ability to tinker and get my hands dirty in (sometimes useless but nevertheless enjoyable) settings toggles.

Android isn’t for everyone. iOS is a cleaner and more user friendly operating environment. Things are prettier in Apple’s garden of eden, for sure. However, I like to tinker. I like to break things and have to figure out where I went wrong. To put it in middle school teacher language, I like to have the ability to tinker without voiding a warranty.

AirDroid is yet another example of why I’m liking Android these days:

AirDroid: The free app every Android owner should install in 2013 — Mobile Technology News: “Once connected, the computer browser shows a desktop-like interface to the Android smartphone or tablet. There are numerous icons for different activities and data: Files opens up a file manager for the phone, for example. Music, Videos, Messages and Call Logs all show their respective Android data as well. Or, if your device is rooted, you can click the Screenshot icon to snap an image of the Android device remotely.”

Imagine doing something like that with an iPhone. True, most people wouldn’t want to, and there’s no real reason to given iTunes, iCloud etc. However, rather than my data traveling over wires to Maiden, NC where iCloud lives, I feel like I have the permission to DIY if I want to try.

I’m really impressed with Android in 2012. I’m hoping 2013 brings even more enjoyment.

As Cory Doctorow wrote in his 2011 piece “Android and iOS both fail, but Android fails better”:

I prefer Android because it’s relative openness means more people can and do inspect its workings to ensure it is doing what Google claims it is doing. I prefer Android because when Google decides to leave out a feature that users might want – such as tethering – the people making alternative OSes for the platform stick that feature in, and shame Google into adding it in subsequent versions.

My mobile phone can track where I go. It can record my voice and image, and the voices and images of those around me. It can leak email, voicemail, texts, and passwords. In the time since I’ve gotten a mobile phone, each passing year has meant that I rely on my phone for more things, and I don’t expect that will change.

Android and iOS will both fail their users in the years to come. Not a lot, but often enough, and dramatically enough, that it’s worth ensuring that those failures are as minimal as possible.

That’s exactly how I’m feeling lately. I still love and use my iPhone 5. It is a much better experience than my Galaxy S3 when I want a stock, smooth, out-of-the-box experience.

Trouble is (as I’ve figured out after 34 go-rounds the sun), I normally don’t want that type of an experience in the long run.

Chosing Your Services and Apps Wisely

Sounds like Chris and I went on a similar journey of finding better apps to do what we do:

Goodbye ubiquitous digital service | Chris Webb: “Over the past months I’ve been transitioning away from a number of the digital services and apps I use. Honestly I didn’t set out to do it, rather it has become a snowball effect that started with one service I hated using and has led to an almost meditative evaluation of my digital workspaces and the way I interact with the technologies that are intertwined with my existence.”

Like him, I’m now using apps like:

All of those are apps I’ve paid for (except ThinkUp which is open source) and all (except Pinboard) are hosted on my own server (mail is downloaded via POP). Of course, I have to rely on the internet provider I use etc but I know where my data resides and I feel better knowing who has access, how it’s being used etc.

I don’t think the “bring it all back home” movement is going to ever catch up to the “throw it all into Facebook’s garden” mindset, but it’s great to read about others making similar choices with their attention and data.

How to Make “Khan” Videos

Khan Academy | What software program / equipment is use…:

“Sal uses a PC with:

  • Camtasia Recorder ($200*)
  • SmoothDraw3(Free)
  • Wacom Bamboo Tablet ($80)

My students and I have been using Khan Academy videos to help us in our studies of pre-Algebra over the past fall. While there have been some kinks and bumps, the experience has been amazing from a teacher and learner point of view.

Mostly, the pause button is the most revolutionary thing to happen in education in a long while. The ability to have classroom discussions, collaborative problem solving and real in-class learning combined with independent and self-paced skills work have changed how I teach (and learn).

Over the holiday break, I’ve been making a few “Khan” style videos to go along with presentations (lectures) I’m giving on a few more complicated subjects (such as some Astronomy and celestial mechanics topics) for my 7th grade students at Carolina Day School this spring.

Someone asked about my setup, so here’s what I’m using:

I’ll post up a few when I’m done with a series but have been impressed with the Bamboo tablet and experience so far. Pretty painless and enjoyable!

Don’t Get Borked by Your Netflix Viewing

What fiscal cliff? Now we’ve got Netflix frictionless social sharing thanks to Congress!

Your Netflix rental data: coming to a Facebook timeline near you soon | Media | guardian.co.uk: “We are pleased that the Senate moved so quickly after the House,’ a Netflix spokesperson told Talking Points Memo on Wednesday. ‘We plan to introduce social features for our US members in 2013, after the president signs it.”

Interesting history of the 1988 law being amended to allow for sharing our Netflix viewings on Facebook, btw.

Robert Bork died this past week. Coincidence? Maybe. Full-circle and all that.

Yet another sign that we’re slouching towards [privacy] Gomorrah.

Learning And the Fragility of the Web

Kevin Marks has a great post connecting the notion of necessary complexity with the state of the web and our willingness to throw all of our content (pics, music, text etc) into the hands of silos and walled garden social media networks:

Epeus’ epigone: The Antifragility of the Web: “If you’ve read Nasim Taleb’s Antifragile, you know what comes next. By shielding people from the complexities of the web, by removing the fragility of links, we’re actually making things worse. We’re creating a fragility debt. Suddenly, something changes – money runs out, a pivot is declared, an aquihire happens, and the pent-up fragility is resolved in a Black Swan moment.”

The latest Instagram debacle over who owns user generated pictures points to a rising tide of web users who want more than just partial ownership of what they create simply for the sake of sharing. We’ve had another system in place for over a decade now with blogs and feeds.

Of course, it’s much easier to slap a filter on a photo and upload it to Instagram or Facebook and reap the benefits of the likes and comments received rather than uploading an image to a hosted blog and going through the necessary hoops of making sure your friends are subscribed etc.

However, this complexity begets savvy users and people who understand the fragility of the web and its main currency (the link) and why a web that is open and not centralized around one corporation is worth protecting

It’s one reason that, as a teacher, I’m big on portfolios (blogs) written and curated by each student and interlinking with other student blogs. In some small way, I hope this learning process helps young people who are setting the stage for the next iteration of the social web to appreciate what it means to have an individual name space and participate in the democracy of the commons rather than just the fiefdom of Facebook.

I’m picking up Taleb’s Antifragile tomorrow (I’m back to reading dead tree editions of books for philosophical reasons but that’s for another post).

Congress Drops Requirement to Obtain Warrant to Monitor Email

Disturbing that our notion of electronic presence is so different than our notion of physical presence (the government can’t go through your mailbox on your lawn, but going through your mailbox in a Google server is no problem) and that our law surrounding electronic communications are based on 1986 paradigms:

Congress, at Last Minute, Drops Requirement to Obtain Warrant to Monitor Email | Hacker News: Currently, the government can collect emails and other cloud data without a warrant as long as the content has been stored on a third-party server for 180 days or more. Federal agents need only demonstrate that they have “reasonable grounds to believe” the information would be useful in an investigation.

Personal Drones like Personal Computers

Personal Drone

The Drones Are Coming – Business Insider: “For example, if you’re a surfer who wants footage of yourself tearing up the waves, you would press a button on your ‘follow-me box’ and the droid would fly out to you, position itself above you, and start shooting. Once the battery gets low, the droid would detect that and land itself on the beach.”

I’m typically very optimistic about most developing technologies that have the potential to augment our lives and even improve humanity. Google Glass seems to freak out lots of people, but I think it’s a stunning and potentially revolutionary technology (especially for education and classrooms).

However, the concept of wearable computing differs greatly in my mind from the rapidly advancing tech and industries around drones. Whether for military and law enforcement uses or news and information gathering to what’s described in the above article with “personal drones,” there’s a lot to worry about from an ethical point of view.

True, every new or developing technology has its positive and negative ethical implications for greater society (or societies). However, drones are one of those technologies that I’m not sure has a positive surplus over the obvious negatives.

I have no doubts we’ll have the ability to have personal drones in the future, as much as we now have personal tracking devices we carry literally everywhere (aka smart phones). I’m sure they’ll offer many benefits not yet though of. Yet, where’s the line between helpful and dangerous?

What Google Reader Might Have Been

I miss reading my friends and people I learned from daily via RSS in (the old) Google Reader. Here’s an amazing walkthrough of what could have been…

Google’s Lost Social Network: “Pre-Twitter, it was the essential aggregation tool for news and information junkies. But Reader had also became a social network in its own right. Four years on, with Google+ ascendant, these same social functions were marked for elimination. And so, its users fretted, was their beloved Google Reader.”

Innocence lost, indeed.

But where do we go?

Fever?

Back to Field Notes

I’m insanely excited to be using Field Notes again.

I switch back and forth between Moleskines and Field Notes notebooks, but I’ve definitely missed the feel and experience of a good ad useful notebook lately since being away from Field Notes.

Sure, there are digital ways to capture todos and tasks and thoughts and notes, but ever since my time in the basement of an art gallery, I’ve realized the need for a good notebook.

Feels like an old friend is back.

School is the price of being young and helpless! Not going to school is the reward of being grown-up, and strong, and powerful. You associate school with weakness and childishness. You associate non-school with strength and adulthood. Every kid knows that he is going to be rewarded for reaching the age of sixteen, or whatever age he’s allowed to get out, he’s going to be rewarded by never having to go to school again, never having to open up another book, never having to learn another fact, never having to think another thought. We teach kids that to be grown up is to be able to be stupid for the rest of your life…We won’t be able to do that anymore. In the 21st century, we’re going to have to think of education not as a task to be completed, but as a process to be continued.

The Future of Humanity: a Lecture by Isaac Asimov