Archives for posts with tag: Technology
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eat up martha

Oct 31, 2008 //

So this is really cool. I am actually speaking this blog using my new copy of the Dragon software’s SpeakingNaturally. My hope is that I’ll be able to use the software to maximize my drives between Rochester and Ithaca. If everything works out I’ll use the software to write papers on the road, or atleast, the occasional blog entry.

The speech recognition is actually pretty good, and it’s supposed to get better the more they use the program. Unfortunately, the automatic punctuation needs a little work.

Today is just the day of voice recognition I also tried a new free service called Jott that allows you to call into a phone number and speak a message that will be translated to your blog or twitter feed. This morning I posted a tweet using the jot service, and it came out okay. I also tried to post an entry to the blog, but that didn’t work out – not sure why.

This is like Star Trek – “content” to just say computer, but it’s not quite that good yet (example, in that last sentance it somehow “I am tempted” turned into “content”). Still, it’s a pretty good start.

ps. points to whoever can identify what the seemingly nonsequiter subject has to do with this blog — and no googling!

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Categories personal, praxis

live blogging the second presidential debate

Oct 7, 2008 //
My Debate Command Station

My Debate Command Station

Some might be asking “What’s up with this post….” My PhD work is in the area of Journalism and live blogging debates is something that amateurs and pros alike have been doing this US Presidential Cycle. So, livin’ the anthropologist’s life, I thought I’d give it a try.

It’s not as easy as it looks. In fact, Twittering is much easier that trying to write anything substantive. This, believe it or not, was better than my first, unpublished attempt during the VP debate. Balancing watching, thinking, typing, and keeping watching is a lot harder than it seems. So without further adieu, my rather weak ramblings on the proceedings:

  • 10.34 pm — Gotta love what happens when the candidates block the teleprompter. And we go to hand shaking…
  • 10.24 pm — So much for yes or no. McCain’s “maybe” was the perfect response on that one. And we heard the audience on that one.
  • 10.17 pm — For an interesting view on the debate, check out Intrade’s tracking page for the debate.
  • 10.13 pm — Whelp, it’s official Brokaw should just get up and leave at this point.
  • 10.11 pm — Twitter looks to be down from the traffic
  • 10.03 pm — I want a doctrine! The Bernius Doctrine…
  • 10.00 pm — Ok, Brokaw is absolutely toothless.
  • 9.54 pm — I wonder if the audience is miked? McCain, whose cracked more jokes so far… But if there isn’t the sound of chuckles from the audience, it just sounds like the jokes are dying on the floor.
  • 9.49 pm — Brokaw really needs to start cutting these guys off…
  • 9.37 pm — Ballston Spa NY — Central NY Represents!
  • 9.29 pm — Interesting production note — is it me or are both candidates wearing lapel mics? If so then why the hand helds? Are they even on? Or is it just for the look?
  • 9.27 pm — The Hack the Vote live twittering is lagging way too far behind the debate. It’s interesting, especially since there’s a healthy amount of tweets from both sides of the aisle. But I think I’ve seen enough… let’s try some live blogging…
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Categories photo, praxis

one week down…

Sep 5, 2008 //

Since this is Friday, it means I’ve made it through the first week of PhD studies and my shifted role at RIT. So far things are going well. I really appreciate the “breathing room” that the semester system is giving me to study. At this point at RIT or Chicago I’d be thinking “oh crap, we’re already 10% of the way through the class!” 1/15 doesn’t seem anywhere as bad (also because I know there are days off in there).

I’m in the process of preparing to meet with this week’s colloquium presenter — Adam Reed of St. Andrews University. He’s published two good articles on blogging and, reading them, I realized that I haven’t posted since school began.

Um… so… that’s about it. Things are going well. I’m starting to get the rhythm of this down. Which is good.

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Categories martial arts, praxis

rita mae, cats, and photo tech

Jun 15, 2008 //

A dog and her Matt.

Things continue to settle at the house. Lewis is now comfortable laying down in the same room as RM. And, in a major breakthrough, Lilah actually walked within 5 feet of Rita Mae. She still won’t set down anywhere near her, but we’re hoping in time for a cool detente between the two

So admittedly, we’re being those new pooch parents and taking lots of pictures. You can see the growing amount at my flickr account. What’s great for me is that this has been giving me an excuse to start really exploring some new technologies for capturing, managing, and storing pictures. Here are a couple “must haves”:

  • Shozu
    It’s a mobile phone application that allows easy upload of pictures and video to social media sites like Flickr. What’s really cool about it is how it handles meta data. Not only can you add titles, tags, and captions on the phone, but if you have GPS enabled (like on my phone) it will grab the geo-coordinates and wrap them into the metadata as well. Which means that Flickr (and other services) can immediately place them on a map. That’s particularly useful for later encoding geo-coordinates onto other picture take in the same location using cameras without a GPS feature.
  • Adobe Lightroom
    Where have you been all my life? This is hands down the best Photo Management Software out there. Between its organization capacities, the non destructive retouching, and the metadata coolness, I can do about 90% of what I normally need to do with Photoshop in Lightroom. And its faster and more organized. It also has, thanks to web folks out there, solid Flickr integration. Unfortunately, I had to loose a lot of pictures to Apple Platform quirks before I learned my lesson and made the switch.

That’s about it for now. I need to get outside and start a little gardening and then work on the HP grant for the OPL.

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Categories personal, photo, praxis

little updates

Apr 19, 2008 //

It’s difficult for me to believe that we just finished week 6 at RIT. This has been the most intense quarter yet. In part that’s because it’s my last. Teaching one class for only the second time has contributed as well. But most of that time has been taken up trying to come up with ways to bring sustainable change to the School of Print.

Coming up with ideas has not been hard. It’s the doing and nurturing parts that take all the time.

One effort we’ve undertaken is to start a blog for the School. SPMEtcetera soft-launched earlier in the quarter. Our hope is to create a destination where the industry, alumni, and prospective and current students can discover all the neat things that are going on at SPM. The great part, from a sustainability perspective, is that all the writing is being done by student employees. We’ll make an official announcement about the blog later this week.

The other big project is the Open Publishing Lab. There will be a lot more about that soon. The good news is that over two years of planning will (hopefully) be coming to fruition in less than 14 days. We just need our teams to make it to May 3 and the innovation festival and then we’ll have a lot to talk about and show.

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Categories personal, praxis
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