CogDogBlog

I got something in the mail yesterday that moved me so much, it has taken another day to get to blog about it (is that slow enough for the slow blogging crowd). I have to weave a back story before I get to the punch line about getting something back (not tangible, but emotional) for giving to an organization. We should not be giving to get, but there are things we can get than will feed back into the giving cycle.

If that is not confusing enough, my seven blog readers, then you must be skimming. Slow down and read.

In August I wrote about a different way to make a WordPress plugin (to the four remaining readers, do not gloss over, this is not a post about technology).

Joe Solomon had asked 10 educational bloggers to try out the Possibly Related Classroom Projects plugin. The plugin analyzes the text of a post, and appends links to 3 potentially relevant projects listed among the 14,000 plus ones at DonorsChoose.

DonorsChoose is a place where teachers from disadvantaged schools can post project ideas that need funding (small scale, classroom projects) for materials, with the idea that people willing to donate money can select a project that they would like to support.

I was skeptical, since a lot of what I write here seems to not have much relevance to school projects. But as I wrote in August, a post I wrote about my experience with “moo cards” linked me to three projects, that by title seemed far off, but as I read the project detail, was excited, especially one project for a school in Phoenix (Think Local) was asking for money to stimulate kids interest in reading by buying some classic story books, and one of the books listed was Click, Clack, Moo (and more great books on the project list like Where the Wild Things Are) and that ironically was a book I had just purchased for myself (and enjoyed, even at my supposed advanced age, see my level of literature is about 2nd grade).

This was too much serendipity– my blog post on moo cards to a project in Arizona for kids reading Click, Clack, Moo that I had just bought — I had to donate to the Literacy Pills project.

So back to yesterday. I get a somewhat thick packet in the mail from Donors Choose that is described in the letter as a “thank you package” from the teacher her students.

It includes a detailed one page Project Cost Report that shows exactly where the money went (to buy 17 books!), a chronological Fulfillment Report, that also shows the logistical support DonorsChoose provides- they review the proposal, verify material costs, and even orders them for the teacher.

But there is more.

The teacher who ran the project included an appreciative note:

… Your donation helped me pass on my love of reading to my students, who are at an age where they will learn to either love or hate reading. Thanks to your gift, many of my students love reading and contantly beg to take the books home every night!

When my students finish their work early, they often pick out a book to read. It should be noted that the books you donated are usually the first chosen. It’s a delight to see them so excited about reading some classic books that I myself read when I was young. Your donation fueled that excitement, and for that, I sincerely thank you. It thrills me to se that my students do not approach reading as a chore but as a delightful activity. Thank you for making this possible!

Wow, that is really something.

Yet there is more- part of the project funding including giving the teacher a (probably disposable) camera and DonorsChoose processes the photos which I get copies of in my thank-you package:

But wait, there is more, much more…

The envelope also includes hand written thank you notes from the students, and there, melt goes my heart reading them. I scanned a few into a PDF to share:

Student Letters (2.1Mb PDF)

Even if these were done as “Now let’s sit down and write letters before recess” they are still so precious and full of that honesty kids have when they are still wide-eyed and full of excitement and enthusiasm (before we school it out of them).

I am very touched.

Wow, do you think I am a bit motivated to give again to DonorsChoose?

You bet,

I gave, and I got, and am ready to give.

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The New Office Backbone by cogdogblog
posted 6 Jan ‘09, 11.11pm MST PST on flickr

Last night I re-wired my home network with a new Apple Airport Extreme — an 802.11n speed network hub, it is then hard wired to my older Airport (left) which serves the premises 802.11b/g speeds for the iPhone and guests (if you all devices running 802.11b/g to use the new Airport, it slows the speed down, so the new one is for n speed devices only- my laptop).

The new Airport alone is a lot faster than my previous setup which had my cable modem running through the NetGear switch, which I think means all of the DHCP action was going back to my ISP. With the new Airpoer Extreme being downstream from the cable modem, the DHCP is now being done locally, and everything is being the built in firewall.

I got some ideas for the dual airport setup from an article on AppleInsider that gave me the idea of having a “fast lane” network and a slower one for the older devices and iPhone, plus how to configure the new Airport Extreme for making best use of the 5 GHz band.

Here is a schematic of the new setup (done in gliffy, click image below for full size or see on gliffy):

There was an issue when I first tried to find the new Hard Drive in Time Machine- it did not appear! I found the answer from an post at Morph8 a Terminal command line to make the drive visible (this is all one line)

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences 
TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

But it took about 12 hours for Time Machine to do its first backup of 102 Gb — part of this was user error as for the first three hours I was connected to the network on my older airport, and then I was probably making things slower by being online all day.

The other unexpected result was that on the wireless connected hard drive, the Time Machine files are stored in a disk image format– I am hoping that is not a problem as the thing grows. Might have to research this one.

But now Time Machine is doing its hourly incremental backups, so I am much better covered then before when I only updated when I remembered to plug in the external drive (which got full anyhow).

And printing across wireless is just fantastic. The only downside is that the HP Scanner software cannot locate the HP device via wireless.

The new LaCie 2 TB “Big Dog” drive is visible as a shared device, as is, in theory, my PC.

And.. now my PC is visible as a shared drive, and as soon as I figure out the bizarre vista file sharing, moving files should be easy.

It’s a whole new network!

UPDATE: (Jan 7, 2008) After all this I have taken the Big Dog drive off of the wireless network. It was worth the experiment. If all I was doing was Time Machine back up, it would work fine– it is the first write that is time consuming because it is copying everything, but beyond that, the backups are smaller and barely noticeable. However my problem is I am using the same drive as an archive of old project and media files (things taken off my main work machine) and even basic copy time was too slow over the wireless.

So I have taken the 2 Gb drive off the Extreme and have it connected, when I am working near it, by Firewire 800, and copying from other drives is lightning fast.

With my 400 Gb drive on the fritz, I just purchased a 750Gb LaCie from Amazon; the prices are just amazing if you go back in time at all. This drive is mainly for my personal media, and the long delayed project of putting on disc all the photos that are sitting in a plastic box in my closet on about 200 CDs and DVDs.

What do they have in common? In the past I have sported one but would not be caught dead wearing one now.

There is value, however, in sharing a list of the blogs you read or subscribe to, it’s just sidebar clutter is not really the best place. On some long frequency wavelength, I remember to update (maybe once a year).

It is still a sad missing and some-cheap-intern-could-code-it-in-a-few-days feature that Google Reader lacks a way to syndicate a list of the feeds we have in there. You can syndicate/share what you have “shared” in terms of items form different feeds, but nothing to share the sources.

Ah, but there is a 2 step end around. I use GReader’s export feature to save my feeds as an OPML. Then I go to my never-user-for-anything-else account on Bloglines. I then delete everything I have in my feed list there, and import the OPML file I exported from Google Reader.

I then use the Bloglines Blogroll Wizard to create a cut and paste javascript code– I use this to display my feed eating list as a WordPress Page I call my Blog Pile and also provide a local link to my OPML file.

Update: D’Arcy Norman (comment below) has a much better approach- use a Grazr widget, so once again, I trashed my approach and am Copying D’Arcy%trade;

So the big hair is not coming back, and likewise, the Blogroll has a shaved new appearance.

Pssss - If anyone is noticing, I am playing with the Zemanta WordPress Plugin to add the related links below… more to be barked at in a future post, but I am trying it out and tossing it around the yard.

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I have to admire and respect the radical gusto with which Stephen Downes postulates What Not To Build — it matters not even if I agree or disagree (which I do), is that he puts out there no holds barred, as he has done for longer than some of you kids have known what a browser is. And I always learn things–

My sort of environmental scan is a bit different from what you’ll get from consultants and venture capitalists. Don’t ask me what companies are developing what products, how industry stocks are performing, or where all the ’smart money’ is going. I don’t know and I don’t care.

What I can tell you, though, is what technologies are working, what technologies are flopping, and what technologies are fads. It’s practical, down-to-earth advice. For example, if you are a technology developer, you already know that you should not try to build a new operating system, a new word processor, an online store or an auction site, for example. These have been built and have established a mainstream presence. You would need thousands of engineers and billions of dollars to compete with them.

But when it comes down to it, it is an opinion, based on a lot of things Stephen looks at, but we all carry the perspective of our own goggles. So of course there is going to be a lot of vehement agreeing/disagreeing with his convention that “the iPhone is a fad”. And… mostly it is “people who have/want versus iPhones” versus “people who don’t/hate Apple”.

Even if it is a “fad”– and in technology, for that matter, what is not a fad? What really lasts? What is the staying power required to be “not fad?”… Videodiscs? fad. Floppy disks? fad. 256 color web safe color palettes? fad. Stephen’s position seems to be it is a fad if all you think of it as a phone. That’s just part of the name, dude.

So if the iPhone is a fad, it is without doubt, IMHO, a game changer. If it were not, why are all the competitors rushing to make clones? Without the iPhone, would we see other phones with multi-touch screens or would it be a proliferation of more years of button machines, sliding keyboards, and horrific interfaces?

I’ve been tracking the stats on the NMC web sites this past year with the nifty Clicky service (click image for larger view). Without wavering, for as many months as I cannot remember, the top search terms coming inbound to the main NMC web site have been combinations of “iphone” “iPod Touch”.

And consistently over a stretch of 6 months, one of the top 3 or 5 pages accessed has been a May 12 blog post by Keene Haywood Keene Haywood on iPhone vs iTouch and why I would always choose an iPhone. The blog part of the NMC site is hardly used, Keene and maybe 5 others out of 3000 accounts actually publish on this site, but this relatively obscure post (no offense keene) has been a top accessed page for 6 plus months.

That seems interesting.

But this is even weirder. (click image for larger view)

Another site, NMC Virtual Worlds, has nothing to do with iPhones- it is about our projects in the virtual worlds space — and here too, we get a steady stream of search terms leading here on “Second Life iPhone” mainly from one post from August 6 Second Life Communication via iPhone– which again has consistently been in the top 5 or so accessed URLs.

But in some interpretations, this is the sign that this is a fad… or really?

In the end, or not the end, I am not standing on either sign of the “fad” sense as I don;t even fully understand what makes or breaks a fad. If it is a fad, it will fade? Or it means other phone makers should not copy it? or they will?

Informally, and when I travel, I watch the people using iPhones. They don’t look like all geeks, or Apple heads, just ordinary folks.

And I find my access to information is changing with the iPhone. You do get accustomed to being able to have access to email, the web, RSS feeds, twitter where-ever you are (that gets a signal). This, yes, is not unique to the iPhone, but BI (before iPhone) I don’t recall so many people getting the web in a web browser on a phone; it was always a stripped down WAPpy web.

Looking at the innovative developments with the accelerometer, the camera/microphone as an input device, the integration of portable apps with web content… seems more ripe for expansion than fade to fad-dom.

I await the response

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By sheer web search accident, I stumbled on to Andy M’s Yahoo Pipe for putting your twitter followers locations on a map:

The numbers ar enot a count per country, but a number on the list of 100, and you can pop from one pin to the next in a cheap world tour.

Note that it maps 100 of your followers, so no hopes Scoble et al for popping 25000 pins on a map. And I am not sure if these are the 100 most recent or just the random way twitter lists your followers.

And although it says you can embed this in your blog, doing so with JavaScript requires plain text insertion of your username and password, a definite no no unless you like eating phish. You can make it a iGoogle widget.

This is less of an interest in using this Pipe and more of a reminder (note to self, not a freaking resolution) to learn more about Yahoo Pipes (so I can more partly understand what the hell Tony Hirst cooks up in his kitchen),

cc licensed flickr photo by danielgenhart.com

There is joy in Mudville this morning (=my inbox and some people claim it is not worth it to check email first thing, phooey), as in response to my battle with Icelandair a trace of humanity has been detected- they are offering to refund my money for unused tickets due to their delays (which they say still do not exist, but I shall no longer quibble…, well not too much).

To quote:

Dear Mr. Levine.

I refer to our previous communication and apolgise for the delay in getting back to you.

I am really sorry that you missed your connecting flight from Boston and I reiterate my sincerely apologise for any inconvenience and additional expenses caused.

Having checked our records, flight FI631 blocked in at 6:13 on November 29 and we do not have any records of bags being delayed that evening. Please note that when travelling on through tickets the tickets can not be issued unless the connection time is legal. The minimum connection time between flights is decided from the airport authorities and after the delivery of your luggage the connection time you had left still was legal. Mr. Levine I am sure that you are able to appreciate that we would not be in a position to refund your expenses caused as neither our flight nor your luggage was delayed.

Since your tickets were issued on Icelandair paperwork we are willing to authorize a refund on unused coupons and ask you to please send the original unused coupons to the address below and for my attention. The amount will be around USD 400- This is done on exgratia basis and without prejudice.

Once again, I would like to extend my very sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused and annoyance caused on this occasion. I do very much hope that you will not be deterred from travelling with us again.

Yours sincerely,

Harpa Johannsdottir

So we would not be in a position to refund your expenses means they are not willing to refund the $900 I had pay out of pocket for a USAirways flight to get home, but they are going to give me $400 for the tickets I bought from them that I did not use.

They are returning what they had previously pocketed.

I am happy with a partial victory… I cannot say if the blog helped or persistent emails, but it is worth it to keep barking at the door until someone pays attention.

A little experiment- not looking to see who can name the pattern (that is easy).

4 Days of Spam by cogdogblog
posted 2 Jan ‘09, 9.14pm MST PST on flickr

Made by www.wordle.net from 4 days worth of spam caught in my GMail filters.

This might be more pleasing than the cruft that I scraped from my spam nets.

more funny animals

Oh, it’s that time of the year. Left and right people are blogging, tweeting, facebooking, friendfeeding, their lofty goals for 2009 and all their resolutions to Get in Shape, Lose Weight, Get Organized, Do Something Charitable, Clean My Inbox etc..

Will sees value on blogging less. Beth offers great detail to address 3 broad goals. George reflects on going for more depth. Barbara eloquently looks for her way and meaning.

All these folks getting serious, aiming to be a true Slow Blogger.

Well, not here at CogDogBlog- we are dedicated to lots of shallowness, silliness, and fast as possible blogging.

I don’t begrudge people making goals, plans, etc as things to aim for. But we should do it all the time. This post holiday loftiness, fueled by extra helpings of turkey and fruitcake, appears to this dog as sucker bet, a set up to end up depressed when one lands short.

flickr cc licensed photo by Old Sarge

There is some incentive for making your goals public as then there is an extra incentive to reach it, as who wants to be seen in public as failing? But that makes the reason for achieving it–to me– cheaper. You should want to achieve goals because they are important to you, not to keep your public (ego) reputation in tact.

I have a different strategy that has worked (once)- I call it the secret resolution. Make a goal or two, scribble it on a piece of paper, and stuff it in the back of your sock drawer. The goal is only between you and it. No shame in failing and only pride in succeeding. Make a pact with yourself.

Mine happened in January 2005. I whispered to myself in the back of my mind, “I’d like to say I accomplished running a half-marathon before the end of the year” which was silly as I do hate running, and have never gone more than 3 miles in my life. I ended up doing a half-marathon in January 2006, then another in March, the following year, and a year ago managed to run my first (and likely last) full one. I did this for my own sake, my health, state of mind.

Again, there is everything right about making goals, achieving them, but doing so just because it is the first of the year seems like a set up for disappointment.

So I resolve not to make any resolutions, besides hoisting a banner for the movement of Fast Silly Shallow Blogging.

Change in Orientation- Change in Function by cogdogblog
posted 2 Jan ‘09, 9.51am MST PST on flickr

By sheer accident, I found when using the Calcuator app on my iPhone, it becomes a scientific calculator (more functions, more precision) when you rotate the phone.

This is elegantly beautiful.

Some days I feel arithmetic and other days I just want to cosh π x!