Blurts

Spiegel Online offers an interesting interview with Chris Anderson. Anderson is Editor of Wired Magazine and also author of the recently released Free (actually free from Scribd). An interesting side bar on the first page indicates the interesting contradiction of a magazine arguing that media (note Anderson does not like to use traditional terms) is moving toward free. The side bar indicagtes that Wired magazine ad has fallen by 40%.

They use free content to attract large audiences and then convert some of them to paid content. The idea is: Don’t charge for the most popular stuff. And never charge for exclusives because if you wall off the exclusives and other people report on your exclusive, they’ll get the traffic and you won’t. Instead charge for the niche stuff that some people will pay for.

Maybe the commercial CMS market will open up again. Blackboard patent invalidated.

This link recommendation (from Minneapolis Star Tribue) from my daughter Kim. She has considerable experience working with autistic and Asperger’s children and adults so I pass on her recommendations.

Debate over future of “free” content continues. Here Barry Diller argues there will have to be a cost for content.

I have complained on numerous occasions about our inability to purchase an iphone in North Dakota. I suppose to be fair, this is more an AT&T problem than an Apple problem

I now have a solution. We purchased a mifi as an alternative to the USB evdo device we have been using when we travel. The mifi is about the size of a credit card and maybe 1/3 inch thick. Think of it as EVDO connected to a wireless router. This evening three of us are using the device simultaneously. It works great with my iPhone Touch. I can put the mifi in my pocket and take a walk while listening to Pandora on my touch.

The down side is the cost. We pay $60 per month for 5 gigs. This just seems a little high. Maybe $60 for unlimited access or $40 for 5 gigs. Perhaps it will come down, but I have heard the the popularity of the iPhone is degrading the quality of connections in California so the issue may be that the network cannot keep up. I don’t know if 5 gigs will be a problem, but I plan to check after this weekend. I don’t do much video from my laptop and have little idea of how much content a few hours of general use involves. Wish I understood the actual cost of cell phone access. Some seem to think future devices that are upgrades of smartphones will have great educational value. Not at $60 per month for 5 gigs.

Here is a post from LifeHacker on the topic of digital highlighting. Funny, when I read this article I interpreted the title to mean highlighting (as in permanently changing the color of the background). I do this more and more using online documents instead of paper. I usually end up throwing the paper away and with documents I store pretty much everything. A little extra work up front and a better resource for the long haul.

Anyway, there are tricks one can apply to make digital highlighting easier. Things like text select techniques i knew, but had never thought to apply to highlighting (as in change the color of the background).