Blurts

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).

I applaud those who offer resources they create via creative commons and have little respect for those who somehow feel they have a right to use unshared resources created by others.

The ignorance or self-indulgence, it is hard to tell which, of some in regard to products that take both time and skill to create is beyond what I can understand. The Creative Commons option was very appealing to me. It seemed so reasonable to those who felt the need or justification to rely on the work of others to seek work that was willingly offered up. The search engines allowing such resources to be located seemed like such useful tools. Now, what I hoped would be a reasonable solution I could promote also ends up being suspect. It appears that some are taking copyrighted material, tagging these resources as available via creative commons, and circulating these resources to users who assume they are doing the right thing via the search tools (see post from The Register).

I cannot agree with those who claim bits want to be free, this is the new world order, or whatever. Just take a position that this is wrong. Encouraging theft cannot be regarded as an economic benefit no matter how easy the target.

I learned this evening that Barnes and Noble now offers eBook reader software (cross platform and iPod/iPhone) and a strong commitment to a complete collection of ebooks. The reader allows highlighting and note-taking (I did not find these embellishments in my previous experience with the Kindle reader for the Touch). Books are $10 and some free books are available for experimentation (or reading). I assume textbooks are coming – I can see reading/highlighting on a netbook/lapbook and reading for pleasure on a Touch. (images appear below)