One of the biggest challenges I’ve had when using a stylus on my iPad is the problem of palm rejection. It seems that no software tweak known can keep my palm from screwing up what I’m writing on the iPad. But today I had a revelation – a microfiber cloth (that I carry with me anyway) make the best “wrist rest”. My writing speed immediately amped up, and I’m much happier with the results as well. Give it a try next time you’re writing on a screen – the added bonus is it also cleans the screen rather than smudges it while you move your wrist around!
So, you’ve got a fancy Apple Watch, but sometimes don’t want to show it off. Maybe you’re going to a part of town where your watch might make you a target for crime, or maybe you want to customize your watch without permanently changing it, or maybe you just like to throw people off. Well have no fear – I have the answer.
This is my Apple Watch, it’s pretty normal in all regards. I purchased it the night it was available for order, with the black sport band. Since then I’ve upgraded the band (well, honestly I’ve bought a few bands…) and wear it daily. I’m happy with it.
42mm Apple Watch with Link Bracelet
Anyone who knows about the Apple Watch knows that they aren’t exactly cheap. Unfortunately criminals know about this too, and without something like Activation Lock (Which is coming, but not here yet), wearing this particular watch could make you a pretty appealing target. But from a distance, it looks a lot less expensive dressed up like this…
Jony Ive’s nightmares look like this…
What have I done to my beautiful Apple Watch?!? Well, actually nothing that can’t be undone. First, I picked up a set of bumper cases off Amazon for about $14. They included 5 colors, and are easy to slip on and off as needed
Next I bought what I can only classify as the world’s cheapest “leather” band from eBay. I think I paid around $14 again, and it came with the adapter I’d need to attach it to the Apple Watch (A handy thing to have if you have other watch bands of higher quality you might want to use). So for $30 or so, I had my Apple Watch’s disguise.
Why would you take a $1,000 investment and make it look like some goofy oversized toy with a questionable leather band? Well as I noted, camouflage is one reason. Also the bumper cases by themselves can add some protection if you’re going to be doing something that might cause damage to the watch case. Moving boxes around tight doorways comes to mind. They’re also nice for accessorizing – Delta State’s colors are Green and Black, so I’ll put the green bumper on for “Go Green” Fridays (With a nicer black band). In the end, maybe you just want to mess with people (or avoid having people ask to play with your watch). Whatever the reason, you too can hide your Apple Watch in plain sight!
Gather round for this history lesson, youngsters, as I tell you about this bad boy – the Royal DM2070 Organizer
(That’s right, it had a flip cover)
As best as I can remember, I bought this thing sometime in 1999 for around $30. This was a time long before smartphones, when the best PDAs around were still quite expensive. I was a broke high school kid who had data to store, and this bad boy fit the bill.
What did I have to store? Funny you should ask. In 1999 Karey & I started dating, and we ran into a weird problem that also seems prehistoric today: the prohibitivly high cost of voice contact. While we could chat through our dialup internet connections, no good voice solution existed – especially at the speeds we both had. So I spent a lot of money on pre-paid phone cards to avoid the anger of my dad (upon reviewing the phone bill). I also found places online to get pre-paid cards via email, and at the end of the day had a list of PIN codes that would give me 10-30 minutes of talk time.
As you can probably guess, teenagers talk a lot more than 30 minutes at a time, so I had a lot of codes to keep track of – which ones I’d used, which ones I hadn’t. I printed them out briefly, but began to weary of all the paper I had lying around. So I bought this thing and used it’s “memo” feature to put in the lists of codes (which was easy given the numeric keypad). I did this for a few months until I found a flat-rate long distance service in 2000 that let me pay only $80 a month for unlimited long distance. Ah the expense of romance before Skype and Broadband!
I found the Royal organizer yesterday while cleaning, and decided to see if it still powered on. And yes, after 16 years, it not only powered on, but it had the correct date! Time was off a bit, but the date was spot on. Goes to show – just because you’re old, doesn’t mean you’re out of the game!
… Remembering to update the page. Was asked today to take on additional web management duties at DSU (We’re making a push to have up-to-date contact information for everyone). Not a big deal – the contact system is very functional and takes very little time to update. It’s a push to de-centralize updating it, which makes a lot of sense, as long as people are on board. It is hard to find an organization with a “vibrant” web page that has decentralized administration of that page. Yet it’s even harder to find a large organization that can devote people solely to web updating. The classic conundrum: updating web pages tends to be a NIMBY issue (not in my back yard!) Everyone agrees it needs to be done, no one likes to do it. Hopefully as the bar gets lower and lower in terms of ‘hassle’ (i.e. modern CMS’s do a great job of making it easy to publish / update things), we’ll get rid of the 3 year old webpages that should have been updated last month.
Colleagues of mine have looked at the interesting relationship between anticipating a favorable event (Savoring) and lumbering up to an unforable event while forlorn (Dread). And I can attest to experiencing both of those emotions. Thankfully today it’s the former, not the latter.
The earliest rumors of the Apple Watch date back to 2012, and as a smartwatch geek (My first smartwatch was the Timex Datalink 70 (then a 150) back in 1996), I’ve been waiting ever since for the newest and greatest wrist accessory. Not much happened from about 2000 to 2008, with only the Microsoft Spot Watch being the only real contender for much of that time (Before Microsoft axed it). But as of late, we’ve been lucky with the Pebble (which I have the Kickstarter edition of, as well as the Pebble Steel that’s currently on my wrist), the Android Wear watches, and now the Apple Watch.
Hopefully tomorrow afternoon I’ll place the Pebble in my watchbox and try on my Apple Watch. Until then, I’m in Smartwatch Savor mode.
Recently I’ve found myself writing comments on other people’s posts and then deciding at the last moment not to post them. Obviously it’s a good idea to always read over what you intend to say before you say it, and it’s usually at that point that I realize that what I’m about to say isn’t as much helpful as it is selfish. How can one be selfish when virtually commenting? It’s really easy – it starts with the “Oh yeah, I do that too!” feeling. For example, friend A posts that they’re thinking of trying a new restaurant, and you feel a sense of comraderie since you’ve also eaten at that restaurant (or eat at new restaurants too). You rush to post something like “Yeah, I love that place – I stumbled upon it a few years ago and really liked it”. Then it hits you – that’s an absolutely useless comment. All it does is tell the person that you agree with them, and that you did what they propose first. A better response? “Yeah, I love that place. The chicken marsala was good, and the salads were unique – not just a standard salad you could get anywhere”. Now you’ve given some actual information – a mini review – and held off the urge to say “I did this first!”. Your friend finds your comment useful, as do others, and it doesn’t sound like the internet equiviliant of the old message board mantra “Me Too”. My goal is to try to add more substance to my comments and less selfish boasting. I’m sure I’ll fail multiple times in the process, because talking about oneself is so easy to do, we do it without thinking, but at least I’ll be making the effort!
Saw this just now via MacRumors – a wonderful note that our friends at Oracle have decided to bundle the Ask.com toolbar (an invaluable tool if there ever was one) with the Mac version of Java (as they’ve done with the Windows version for some time)…
For years, Oracle has been bundling an Ask.com search toolbar with Java for Windows, relying on what some call deceptive methods to get users to install the add-on to their browsers. Now, the company has extended its adware strategy to Java for Mac, according to ZDNet.
Thanks Oracle, now this is another thing I get to think about next time I have to install Java on something. The question is – are you really hurting for cash so badly that you need to bundle things like this in? And for that matter, are large companies really getting that much money from this stuff.
Wait… of course they are… otherwise they wouldn’t do it. Oh what a stupid sad maladjusted state of affairs. Friendly PSA folks: Watch your install wizards closely!
Why should professors care that VLC is back? Because it’s awesome for playing back video files on an iOS device – making it invaluable if you teach by projecting your device using a cable or by AirPlay to an Apple TV or AirPlay server. The best part? Simply connect your device to your computer, go into iTunes and choose the device, and then navigate to VLC in the apps list. You can then add/remove video files directly, making it a breeze to load up several clips for one lecture, then remove them and load up several more for another lecture. I prefer this over the built-in tools (i.e. Videos, Music, Podcasts app) since I’ve found all of those to have sync issues at times. Plus it’s nice to isloate your teaching content from your personal content.
for about $14. They included 5 colors, and are easy to slip on and off as needed
