Sunday, November 13, 2005

Zipboingwow Peanut Butter Wiki

Zipboingwow Wiki

Check out the wiki I set up at http://zipboingwow.pbwiki.com/. This is my first attempt at setting up a wiki. It was extremely easy and the editing while not exactly WYSIWYG was fairly simple and straightforward. I've been using it keep notes of resources I've explored on the weekends.

Supersite on Suprglu.com

This weekend I created a new website on suprglu.com. It's an aggregate site which pulls together all my various RSS fed web presences so you can see everything in one place. I like the way it organizes everything by date. in fact, this would be a good way to pull all student blogs together into one master blog for a class. I spent quite a lot of time customizing the style sheet for this new site. It uses standard CSS. This is the first time I've really dug in to hand coding a style sheet and I learned a lot about creating custom graphics and about setting fonts and link decorations.

New Slideshow

Flower Slideshow

Here's a sample of a scrolling slideshow I just made at slide.com. I uploaded the full res versions of each image so you can zoom in quite a bit. You can add tags to the slideshow and each image in it so people can search by keywords.

Monday, October 17, 2005

ThinkFree

... ...
Powered by
ThinkFree Office Online
Check out ThinkFree. It's a free Office Suite offering Word, Excel, and Powerpoint over the web using a Java applet.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

RssFwd : RSS to Email

Here's a way to forward any RSS feed to your email account. Any time a new entry is posted on a blog, for instance, you'll be sent an email message with the full entry including pictures and links. Cool.

RSSFWD.com

Thursday, September 08, 2005

WINKsite: Mobile Community

WINKsite: Mobile Community
This is a free service which lets you create a mobile community. Anyone with a web enabled phone or PDA can read your announcments, blog, field notes, and use your links and syndicated feeds and can participate in a forum. This may proved to be a great way to offer a mobile online course. See my example at http://winksite.com/jimblodget/zipboingwow.

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Geotagging Photos on Flickr



I discovered a way to place photos on a Google Map. This same service also lets you map sounds and videos. But wait, that's not all! You also get RSS feeds so your friends can track all your new geaotagged media.

Once you're there you can also search for other geotagged items in the area.

One Good Link Leads to Another

The Technology Source Archives This link was emailed to me by my good friend Lucy MacDonald. It's an archive of articles published from 1997 to 2003 written to "assist educators as they face the challenge of integrating information technology tools into teaching and into managing educational organizations". It's an excellent resource. I searched the archive for "RSS" and found an article by Mary Harrisch called "RSS:The Next Killer App For Education". As I read her article (from August 2003) I followed a link to her university's technology support web page and from there to a site, DV Spot, which provides reviews of camcorders. As it happens, Lucy is looking to buy a camcorder. So, I emailed her back the link to the reviews and the universe comes full circle.

Monday, September 05, 2005

How to Subscribe to a Podcast



Here's another movie on Clipshack.com. This one is a brief tutorial showing you how to subscribe to a podcast in iTunes. I used SnapZ to make the screen capture movie. I like the way it can follow the cursor.

Monday, August 29, 2005

Video from Clipshack.com




Here's a sample video clip I uploaded to Clipshack.com. This is a free service that lets you upload movie files and converts them to Flash.

Freevlog: Tutorial

Freevlog: Tutorial
A step-by-step guide for setting up a videoblog and it's free.
Also, this entry was created using the BlogThis extension in Firefox. All you have to do is control click on a web page and choose BlogThis, type in your thoughts, click the publish button and bingo you have a blog entry.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Oregon Spring

Here's a sample video blog entry. I'm trying the free storage services of archive.org and ourmedia.org. You can store media files of up to 10 Mb each and publish them on your own blog.

Click here to view movie.

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Zipboingwow Show #10

A Walk on the Beach

Oregon Coast
This week we take a walk on the Oregon coast. On June 14th, 2005 I recorded the sound of the waves as I walked on the beach about 5 miles south of Yachats, Oregon. Part of the time I sat on some rocks near a small cove. You can hear the waves coming in and crashing at my feet. Later I walked over to a small twin waterfall and then back over to the water's edge. This 21 minute segment is unedited.

Show Notes

Download the file: zbw10_7-16-05.mp3 (10 Mb, 64 Kbps, 22Khz).

Monday, July 04, 2005

Photos in Blogger


I just discovered that blogger.com now allows you to post pictures to their server for free. You can use up to 300 Mb of space for your photos. The images are downsized to a predetermined dimension to save space. I took this photo of my barn with my little Polaroid digital camera (3 Mpx).

Sunday, April 17, 2005

Shoe Sketch

Shoe Sketch

This is my first serious attempt at drawing a sketch on my Zodiac handheld computer. I'm using the Mobi-Systems Paint program which supports up to 16-bit color. This drawing is 1000 x 750 pixels. One problem I encountered is that at that size I can only see and work on less than a quarter of the whole image at a time. I have to scroll over to complete objects or lines. That's why the lines on the floor are not in perspective. Also, the range of colors is limited. I created a small color palette in the lower righthand corner so I could use the eyedropper tool to pick a color. I used the pencil tool to sketch the outlines and the spray can tool to fill in the colors. Sometimes I used the pencil to create solid areas of color. The lines on the floor and wall were done with the spray can. I started with a digital photo and increased the brightness and contrast until it looked like tracing paper. I then drew on top of the washed out image and erased out left over tones. I eliminated a second pair of shoes which were to the left.

Saturday, April 02, 2005

bird.jpg

bird.jpg

Today I bought a small Polaroid 3070 digital camera for $75 at Walgreens. I wasn't expecting much, but it has turned out to be just what I needed. I was looking for a small camera with a SD card. I wanted to take a picture, pop the SD card out and slip it into my Zodiac PDA and use the picture as a starting point for a sketch. The camera doesn't have a macro setting so I used a magnifying glass to take a closeup picture of a bird on a piece of mail that arrived today. I used Mobi-paint to turn the photo into a sketch.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Grape Hyacinths


Grape Hyacinths
Originally uploaded by jimblodget.

Today was the first day of Spring Break without a lot of wind and rain. I ventured out into the backyard to take some pictures of blossems and flowers.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Escher on a PDA

Escher on a PDA

This one reminds me a bit of the work of M.C. Escher. It has some of the same hyperbolic spaces that he liked to experiment with. Again I used the polygon tool in Mobi-Paint on my Zodiac PDA.

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Spring Break

Spring Break

Today is the first day of Spring Break and I'm experimenting with the Paint program on my Zodiac handheld. It has a polygon feature. Here the number of sides is set to 30 and the conncetion steps is 14. I created six or seven shapes varying the colors of red, blue, and white.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Sketch from Photo


Sketch from Photo
Originally uploaded by jimblodget.

In this experiment I imported a digital photo into the paint program on my Zodiac PDA. I increased the brightness and contast so I could just see the outlines of the shapes of the picture. Then I painted in color and lines with the airbrush and pencil tools. I then increased the contrast slightly to give it more punch. This is one way I could sketch on location and not worry about the accuracy of my drawing. I can just capture the shape and colors.

Saturday, March 05, 2005

Sketching on Location

Sketching on Location

I'm sitting in my livingroom using my Zodiac PDA to see if I can make a quick sketch and post it on my blog. I first made a drawing using a Paint program and then "Sent" it to my email program and now I'm typing a message and sending it to my iUpload blog as an email attachment. This may turn out to be a good way to keep a mobile sketchbook.

Saturday, January 15, 2005

Zipboingwow Show #9

Ragtime Piano


This week we travel back in time more than 30 years to hear me play some ragtime piano. I made these recordings on May 25, 1973. I was single then and for a short time I played piano in a bar in Dallas, Oregon. One day while practising I used an audiocassette recorder so I could listen to my performance. These are unedited recordings including bad timing, wrong notes and all.
Show Notes

Download the file: zbw9_1-15-05.mp3 (6.8 Mb, 64 Kbps, 22Khz).

Sunday, January 09, 2005

Zipboingwow Show #8

South Falls Walk


This week we walk the canyon trail behind South Falls at Silver Falls State Park near Silverton, Oregon. The falls are full and the water roars over the top and crashes to the canyon floor 177 feet below. This is my favorite binaural recording. Listen for the subtle details such as how the water falls in sheets and the individual drops as they hit my head. I approach closer and closer until I am directly behind the falls. I turn and face the full power or the water, and then I turn and walk back the way I came. Use headphones to get the full experience.

Show Notes

Download the file: zbw8_1-9-05.mp3 (2.3 Mb, 64 Kbps, 22Khz).

Saturday, January 01, 2005

Zipboingwow Show #7

Ankeny Overflight


This week's recording was made at the Ankeny Wildlife Refuge just south of Salem, Oregon on November 23, 2002. I made it in one continuous 20 minute stretch. As I stood there one flock of water birds after another flew over me. I turned and focused on them with the stereo cone mic as I would a video camera. Between groups you can hear blackbirds and songbirds and near the end a hawk flew in and landed in a nearby tree. This is a great recording to listen to on headphones just before going to bed. It's very relaxing.

Show Notes

Download the file: zbw7_1-1-05.mp3 (8.5 Mb, 64 Kbps, 22Khz).