ProfCast

While podcasting is an important tool in education (K12 and Higher Ed), and the "rest of the world," basic audio podcasts aren't always enough. There are a number of tools that let you create enhanced podcasts (audio and still images). But there is one tool that will take something many of us use on a regular basis and quickly create enhanced podcasts without a lot of extra work or know-how. ProfCast will let you take your PowerPoint or KeyNote presentations and create an enhanced podcast by doing little more than giving your presentation to your computer.

ProfCast records your voice as you move through your presentation and syncs your voice to each slide. It does all the hard work, you just have to give your presentation sitting at your computer. There are a couple of things to note about ProfCast.

Enhanced podcasts use only still images. So all those fancy transitions and fly-ins and things will not appear. ProfCast will simply ignore them and use an image of your slide in its final state after eveything has flown in and appeared.While this may seem like a limitation, it is actually a blessing for two reasons. First, the still images are nice and small and help keep the file size of your podcasts down. Second, since ProfCast simply ignores the motion and transitions, you don't need to maintain a different presentation for recording versus a live setting. Make one presentation and use it for both live and podcasting situations.

On important instructional feature that is used in both PowerPoint and KeyNote is the built list. This is when one bullet point appears, then you can click the mouse button or arrow key and the next bullet point appears. From an instructional standpoint, this is a great tool. It allows you to keep your audience from "reading ahead." ProfCast can make this happen, but there are a couple of strings. I'll explain them below based on the platform you might use.

Windows Users:
If you are using Windows, you will be using PowerPoint and ProfCast will automatically make a built list appear as it does when you are presenting.

Mac Users:
If you are using KeyNote, ProfCast will make your built lists appear just like they do when presenting. However, if you are using PowerPoint on a Mac, ProfCast will not be able to do this automatically. There is some issue that cannot be resolved between PowerPoint (or Microsoft) and ProfCast for Mac. Fear not, there is a way to make this work, it just takes a little planning at the beginning.

If you are using PowerPoint on a Mac and want to use built lists in your ProfCast, here is the way to make it work. For the purposes of this posting, let's assume we have 3 bullet points we want to list on a slide. The trick is, we use three slides. Slide 1 has the first bullet point. Duplicate slide 1 to make slide 2. On Slide 2, add the second bullet point. Now duplicate slide 2 and create slide 3. Then add the third bullet point to slide 3. This way slide 1 has the first bullet, slide 2 has the first and second bullets, and slide 3 has all three bullets. When you give the presentation, your audience will not know the difference. ProfCast won't know the difference either, and it will appear that you have a 3 bullet point list that builds on one slide.

ProfCast is available for both Mac and Windows and costs as little as $15 with the educational discount. Even the retail price is as low as $30-$60 (currently ProfCast is running a special pricing offer for $30). Pair ProfCast with a high quality microphone like the Blue mics discussed in the previous posting, and you have a great tool for creating enhanced podcasts of lectures and presentations.

TextWrangler

If you are like many people when you read the following term, your eyes will glaze over and you'll  get very sleepy. The term is text editor. OK....wake up, there is something for everyone here. It is often assumed that text editors are only for the true geeks of the world and unless you write code or do server admintration, you have no need for these silly applications.

I'm here to tell you a different story about text editors, specifically TextWrangler by Bare Bones Software. In all honesty, yes text editors are great tools for geeks and they do come in really handy when we write code or administer servers. However, they can be a really handy tool at times.

What happens when you try to open a Word document and it's corrupted. Word won't open it and you don't have a backup. You can also open TextWrangler and then open your Word document. Rather than the gibberish that had appeared when you tried to open your word document, you'll likely see the text of your document. the formatting will be gone, but the text will be there, and you can copy and paste it into a new Word document and reformat the content. That alone makes having this free tool worthy of the small amount of space it takes up on your hard drive.

iPhoto Library Manager

If you're a Mac user, you likely take a lot of photos and rely heavily on iPhoto. iPhoto is a great tool for managing and editing your digital photos. However, as more and more of us are taking more and more photos, we are quickly discovering there are some issues over time. For example, I take around 5,000 photos a year. Yes, I like to take a lot of photos. I do my best to keep them all organized using iPhoto events, keywords and smart albums. However, my iPhoto library eventually began to take over my hard drive. I had a 38 GB iPhoto library and there was no end in sight. So I had a couple of options:

1. delete a bunch of photos
2. back up a bunch of photos to DVDs
3. take fewer photos
4. look for a way to split my iPhoto library into multiple libraries

Options 1 and 3 were not really options. Option 2 would work, but then my albums, keywords, and organization is lost. Option 4 looked like the best alternative. So to the Web I went. As it turns out, I'm not alone and there were a number of possible solutions. After some reading about and trying some applications, I started using iPhoto Library Manager from Fat Cat Software.

iPhoto Library Manager allowed me to split my current iPhoto library into multiple smaller libraries. Of course, this still didn't solve my hard drive space issue. I needed a plan. So after some thought, I came up with a plan of how I wanted to organize my photos. At the beginning of each year, I create a new library for that year and move the library from 2 years ago to external drives. I also maintain a library of my favorite photos. I now have 3 iPhoto libraries on my hard drive:

• the current year
• the previous year
• my favorite photos

All previous years are backed up on 2 different external drives. If I need them, I can get to them pretty easily. There was some logic to my plan. I figured, there is a really good chance I'm going to want to see a photo I took the previous year, but a two-year-old photo that was not a favorite photo would be a stretch. Since I take so many photos each year, this system has worked out really well. I'm sure if you took a second and looked at your needs, you could come up with a solution too.

So why not just use iPhoto and change the library in the preferences? Simple, iPhoto Library Manager does some other things that make it completely indispensable. It not only manages all the different libraries, it also lets me move/copy albums or photos between libraries, merge libraries, split libraries and more. The application just streamlines the who process in a nice simple interface that keeps all my metadata (iPhoto keywords, edits, etc.) in place as I move photos.

Fat Cat Software offers another application the does basically the same thing for iTunes. It's a really handy application for splitting up your iTunes library. If you have a lot of iTunes content, you might want to check out PowerTunes from Fat Cat Software as well.

Blue USB Mics

As podcasting continues to gain popularity, recording quality is becoming more and more important. Most laptops come with a built-in microphone, as do many desktops these days. However, the quality of built-in mics can vary greatly from one computer to the next. External mics often provide much higher quality recording levels. Many companies now produce USB mics. The benefit of USB mics is in most cases you can simply plug them into your USB port and your computer will recognize the mic without a special sound card or software.

Blue Microphones has a been making superb mics since 1995. Many professional recording artists and studios use Blue Mic exclusively.  Blue also has a great line of USB mics that have become the gold standard for podcasting.  Blue offers three different USB mics in their line up: Yeti, Snowball, and Snowflake.

Some basic mic terminology is needed to help understand the differences in micrphones. Cardioid mics pick up sounds coming from in front or from the sides of the mic. A cardioid mic doesn't pick up sound coming from the back of the mic. Omnidirectional mics on the other hand pick up sounds equally from all directions. Bidirectional mics pick up sounds from the front and back of the mic and ignore sounds coming from the sides.

The Blue Yeti  (shown on the right) provides the highest level of recording flexibility. The Yeti is THX certified and provides a level of clarity previously unheard of in USB mics. You can record  using  cardioid, omnidirectional, and bidirectional patterns.  What this means is the Yeti can record an individual, a group of people, or a traditional interview setting with an interviewer and an interviewee. This types of situations used to take multiple mics to get good sound quality. The Yeti will cost about $150. This is a great mic for leaving at your office or home and using in a set place where you won't need to transport it much.


The Blue Snowball (shown on the left) is the next in the line up. The Snowball is a cardioid or omnidirectional mic. It also offers a -10dB pad to help control loud environments or loud speaking individuals. The Snowball also is a bit more rugged than the Yeti making even more flexible and transportable.The Snowball will cost you around $99.


The Blue Snowflake (shown on the right) combines high quality recording with the ultimate in portability. The Snowflake is a cardioid mic with great quality. The case works as a stand or can hang on the screen of your laptop. The Snowflake is great for Skype, recording lectures, podcasting on the go, or even dictation. The $59 price tag and high quality recording makes the Snowflake a very popular mic.

ChronoSync - Simple, reliable back-ups

So when is the last time you've done a back-up of your computer? Most people think about doing back-ups just after their hard drive crashes...which is about 2 seconds too late. Apple has provided a great tool in the recent years with their OS, Time Machine. Time Machine is a great application. If you plug a high capacity drive into your Mac, it will ask you if you want to use Time Machine to create a back-up. However, Time Machine isn't for everyone. Specifically, if you don't want to back up your whole hard drive, maybe you just want to back up specific folders. An example of this would be if you wanted to take a group of files from work to home and back (and for some reason didn't use DropBox) you wouldn't want to use Time Machine.

Let's say we have  a folder on our work computer that we need to work on at home or at work. So we copy the folder onto a flashdrive and carry it with us. Even if you only work off the files on the flashdrive when you're at home, you now have 2 copies of these files: one on the flashdrive and one at work. It won't take long and you'll have them out of sync. Enter ChronoSync to solve the problem and keep you in sync.

ChronoSync allows you to select folders that you want to synchronize between two different drives. There are tons of features in this application. It will archive files that are deleted, synchronize files between drive or from one drive to another, start when a drive is mounted, or on a set schedule, and so on. Even with Time Machine, I still prefer ChornoSync. I have two large external hard drives, one at home and one at my office. Every week I connect my laptop to these drives and ChronoSync goes to work. It looks for files I've changed or deleted and makes sure that whatever I've done on my laptop is backed up to the external drives. It's fast and reliable. I have it set to back up only the information I work with, not all my applications and files. Just my "stuff" like my documents, photos, music, and so on. In the event that I need to recover something, I can connect to one of these drives and recover the file(s) I need.

The archiving feature has also been a real help at times. I've deleted files, only to realize a month later, I really shouldn't have deleted them. ChronoSync keeps an archive of files I've deleted for 6 months (this is a setting you can change). If 6 months have gone by, I likely don't remember the file or what was in it, so ChronoSync will delete it for me.

There are two other great features of ChronoSync. First, you don't have to sync to a large hard drive. You could set this up to sync files/folders to a jumpdrive if you wanted. The other great thing about ChronoSync is the company. They provide lifetime updates for free. So as they improve the application, you don't have to shell out more money to get the improvements. You just have to download and install the new version.

If you don't have a back-up strategy, get one and use it. Technology fails, that is part of what technology gives us. Technology also has a very keen sense about when would be the worst possible time to fail. So back your information up.

OtterBox iPad Defender Case...Finally!

I've previously posted about my OtterBox iPhone case. This case has saved my iPhone from bumbs, bruises, and possibly disaster many times. Because of the great protection this case has given my iPhone, I've been waiting, not so patiently, for the iPad version. It finally arrived this morning. The iPad Defender Case from OtterBox provides three layers of protection for my iPad: a polycarbonate case, silicone skin around the case, and an adhesive screen protector. In addition to the case, it has a polycarbonate cover that snaps over the screen to provide added protection. The cover also acts as a stand for my iPad if I'm watching a video or surfing the Web.

Luckily, I recently read a blog posting about putting on the latest version of adhesive screen protectors. Most of the modern protectors have 3 layers. You removed one side and that sticks to the screen. You work the air bubbles out and make sure the placement is good, then you remove the outer layer. I'm pretty happy with the way my screen protector ended up on my iPad. Then it was time to place my iPad into the case. I was shocked at how precise the case was. It was much tighter than my iPhone case. There is some felt-type fabric inside the case. I think this adds to the really good fit. Then I had to stretch the silicone sleeve over the case. The silicone fits well with some tabs that "snap" into the hard case to hold it in place.

While this case does add a bit to the weight and "heft" of my iPad, I really like this case. The silicone around this case reduces the slipperiness of the iPad and makes holding feel much more secure. Additionally, with the cover snapped over the screen allows me to feel very comfortable slipping my iPad into my backpack or even my waterproof bike pannier. The one real drawback to this case is the price. $90 is a lot to spend on a case, but the peace of mind I have makes taking my iPad with me to most places possible. So I guess the cost is worth the security.

iOS 4 on my iPhone 3G

In the case of the new operating system for iPhone (iOS 4), I was an early adopter. I upgraded within about 48 hours of the update being available. Since my phone is an iPhone 3G I didn't get to take advantage of all the new features like multitasking. However, there were a couple of things that I was excited about. Specifically, I loved the idea of folders and the unified mailbox or threads when viewing mail.
After spending a few weeks with iOS 4, I decided it was not for me. There have been widespread reports of performance reductions. I must admit, I found the performance of my iPhone coming to a slow crawl. Simple things like opening an application took far too long. Everything just slowed down. Finally, I got to a point of regretting upgrading to iOS 4.
Of course Apple does not want us to quickly and easily downgrade to iOS 3.1.3. However, after a little searching, I found a great resource on lifehacker.com. You can check it out at "How to downgrade your iPhone 3G[s] from iOS 4 to iOS 3.1.3." It took about 20 minutes to get my iPhone back to the nice responsive device I've grown to love.
I'm sure iOS 4 will improve dramatically after a couple of updates. By then, I may be ready to upgrade to a new phone as well. For now, I'll just stick with what works.

iPad...First impressions

I've had my iPad for a couple of weeks now and I have to admit that I pretty much love this device. Granted, there are some limitations. For example, the Apple VGA connector doesn't actually project the screen of my iPad only specific apps is a limitation in the classroom. I would love to be able to project my iPad screen to my class for demonstrations, but right now I can't.

However, I find myself using my iPad more than my MacBook Pro. It is the device that I grab to check my mail, surf the web, play a game, and so on. It turns on in the blink of an eye and is quick to render a web page or load an app.

The battery life is great. I can use it for a couple of days and then plug it in at night and it's ready to go in the morning. The size is perfect. I haven't gotten a case to mine yet, but I think I will actually like it even better with a little heft around it. Plus I'll likely feel a bit safer with then too. This this is fragile.

I love the display. It is bright and clear. I have no problems reading news reports and articles on it. I do find myself longing for some cursor keys for simple edits, but I'm sure I'll get more comfortable with time.

One other thing that will come with time is the ability to print directly from the iPad. Right now it really doesn't work. There are some third party apps that make the claim, but none of the reviews are supporting the claims. As Apple begins to see the really instructional and educational power of the iPad, I'm certain both the projection and printing issues will be resolved.

For now, all I can say is I see the iPad as a game changer in education. It is relatively low cost, has great battery life, and educators could develop content specific apps pretty easily. Additionally, with Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, it can be used in many traditional ways as a content development tool. I'm excited to see where this product might take K12 and Higher Education.