Why I Really Like My Smartphone

When smartphones first came out a while back, I assured myself that I didn't need one. It was just a bunch of bells and whistles and most of the stuff people do on them (from my experience: games) was pretty much useless. Arriving in London two years ago, I bought the cheapest new phone I could get (approximately £25). It allowed me to call people and to text. Since I didn't do much of either, I was happy. Then as time went on, everyone started getting iPhones and similar phones and I started seeing a few things here and there that might be useful. So when I knew I was leaving England and that I'd need a new phone for New Zealand, I bit the bullet and bought the cheapest smart phone I could find, a Samsung Galaxy Y, for a shade less than £100. I must say, in my just over one month of using it, I am more than pleased.

Not even going into the different apps that I've started using (those will all be future posts), for roughly four times what I paid for my first UK phone, I've gotten way more than four times the return. Here is just a small snippet of what a smartphone offers:

1) Google Maps. By far the biggest reason I decided to get a smart phone. When living in a big (and new) city, it can be very easy to get lost. Not sure where you are or how to get to the nearest underground station? Turn on your map and not only will it give you a street layout, but it will also pinpoint your location as well as give you walking directions to wherever you choose. Already it has helped me immensely in both London and Auckland.

2) Web Browser. Need to look something up while on the go? Having a web browser on your phone makes that a lot easier. In the last few years, I've often wondered how we got things done before the Internet. In a few years I imagine the same thing will be said about the Internet on phones.

3) Email. Though I could access my email by web browser, my phone does one better and syncs my gmail account to my phone. So I get a little ding every time I get an email. Quite useful, really.

4) Camera. Yes, most people have digital cameras anyway, but this can save on pocket or bag space if you're in a pinch. Also, it is helpful if you see something that you want to remember but just don't have the time to make a memo (note: my phone also lets me make memos). Very useful, and I find the quality of the pictures to be alright.

5) mp3 Player. Also a space saver. Really, all you need in the way of devices is a smart phone. Works pretty much like any other mp3 player you have. My phone has a slot for a memory card of up to 32gb. My iPod only holds 4gb. Hmmmm. Also, my phone has an FM radio, though I know not all phones have this feature.

6) SatNav/GPS. Ever needed driving directions on the go? Smartphones can do that too. Similar to google maps, this has a slightly different interface and can show/tell you in real time which way to turn and when.



7) Apps. Yes, there are literally millions of these available. I'll go into a few that I use frequently in more detail at some point, but the point to be made here is that there are pretty much apps for everything.

8) Etc. There are a ton of little things that a smart phone can do as well, including: a voice recorder, a picture gallery, facebook and twitter updates, calculator, weather updates, news feeds, etc. Oh yeah, and you can call and text with it too.

If anyone out there is debating whether or not to get a smart phone, my ethusiastic response would be yes! But if you have a perfectly good phone, don't go out and upgrade for the sake of doing so. My old phone was not very good and it was really only useable in the UK (I bought a SIM-free phone), so it made sense for me. I'm glad I chose what I did though.

The Facebook Phenomenon

So unless you've been hiding under a rock lately, you've likely heard of Facebook, the internet social networking site. Originally started at Harvard for it's students, the creator of Facebook - Mark Zuckerburg - eventually opened Facebook to everyone. The site has been going through a rather lengthy and rapid evolution. To read more about what Facebook was and where it came from, check out Wikipedia.

Facebook has become huge, almost overnight (I first heard about it in December 2006) and is frequently making news headlines here, here and here. Seemingly almost everyone I know is on Facebook and those who aren't are only holding out for personal reasons (these are the same people that didn't get MSN Messenger or ICQ when they were "all the rage" - but Facebook is so much more).

I want to talk about what Facebook is right now and why it can be a useful - if used properly - tool. For starters, my big appeal for Facebook is to keep in touch with friends I don't normally see. I was actually enticed to join it to stay in touch with my fellow classmates while we started our final practicums in January. We even created a group for our graduating year and as of today we have more than two thirds of the grads in the group. As teachers, having a social network like this could be extremely useful.

A second useful thing about Facebook is it's ability to have public or private message boards for groups, and for sharing pictures, planning events.

Some used Facebook for "internet stalking" and for posting pictures of themselves drinking to excess. Let me address both of these one at a time. Stalking isn't that cool, but if you don't want the general public to see pictures of you, then don't make them public. The posting of drunken - or otherwise unflattering - pictures to Facebook is not quite the smartest move. There have been many stories of companies checking out prospective employees on Facebook. I know I have checked potential roommates on there and that some parents of students I have in class are on Facebook. But before this turns you off of Facebook, you can easily change your privacy settings so that your pictures are only viewable to people you confirm as your friends (and the privacy settings can go beyond that - but that will be a future post!).

Lately I have noticed many adults joining Facebook (including one of my mentor teachers - and yes I did add her as a friend) and many people are finding those long lost friends from Highschool (and those people you just didn't want to see again - you gotta deal with the good and bad unfortunately).

Every day things seem to be changing on Facebook. As one of the articles I linked to above mentions, there have been many applications added to Facebook in recent weeks. Some of these are small, but interesting and have helped out several other businesses in the process.

What seems to be happening is that Facebook is playing a big role in making those distances between people much smaller. We can now share our lives with people far away with very little effort. Can this be a bad thing? I suggest those non-Facebook users out there at least give it a look over.

Many issues come up with internet applications like this one and I feel like I ought to explore them in depth in future posts. Please comment on any questions you have about Facebook to help me direct what I'll talk about in the coming weeks.

Finding Nutritional Data

Ok, so I will admit I am being lazy today, but I have a good excuse: my life is extremely busy right now. Anyway, I think this post will start several other posts about reading nutrition labels and what to look for, but this is much simpler.

If you want to know the nutritional information of a food, I suggest you check out NutritionData.com. This site has a large database of the nutritional data for lots of foods. I'l be honest and say I haven't really checked it that thoroughly, but it is definitely worth a shot to look at. I checked out raw Bananas and they seemed to have a lot of information there. They also had nutritional information for some fast food restaurants (if you're concerned about that kind of stuff, I'm a little confused why you would want to eat there... but to each their own I guess).

The site has some other features as well that look interesting, including a BMI (Body Mass Index) calculator and recipes. Check it out and see if it will help you. It's not one I use often, but I can see how it can be useful.

Linking Tutors and Students

This site came to me from Lifehacker a few days ago and I thought I should share it with you on Tuesday (because, despite what the last few days would suggest, I am trying to stick to my original schedule).

Tutorlinker is a free site (so far) that helps tutors and students link up with each other. Tutors simply sign up and fill out their details (a process which can be quick – and if you have errors like I did, a little slower, but the staff was extremely quick in fixing my problems) and you're set. If you're looking for a tutor, all you have to do is type in your address (or your city) and the site will show you all the tutors that are close to you. You can click on them to find details about how far they will travel, what they can tutor and how much they cost. Doing a quick search as of this writing and I am the only one in Victoria so far (though I hope many of my friends in Education will sign up and pass the word on) but other cities have several tutors registered. Potentially this could be a very helpful tool for students, parents and tutors make the process much easier. This avoids the costly tutoring agencies (which I'm told can charge twice as much as they pay their tutors) and it allows for parents to shop around.

I would try this if I were you. I am going to be passing the site on to the parents in my class and all the teachers I know so hopefully this will be something that parents start using and can be effective.

If you're neither student, parent or tutor, then I guess this doesn't really apply to you (well, maybe if you want to advertise on their site – I hear they are looking for advertisers!)

The Best Directions in the World

Since I have been not so great about posting the last few days, I have decided to bombard you with more than usual today (so far I have four planned, so check back often today). The first of the day is a nice trick that I recently recieved via email (from my wonderful Aunt who often sends me hilarious emails). Do the following:

1. Go to www.google.com

2. Click on “Maps”

3. Click on “Get Directions”

4. Type “New York” in the first box (the “from” box)

5. Type “London” in the second box (the “to” box)

6. Click on “Get Directions”

7. Scroll down to step #23/24

When I first saw this I was pretty sure what was going to happen, but I was still unprepared. I actually laughed out loud. I think that is a programmers idea of a joke and I for one found it funny. I hope that brightened up your day!

Pimping Your Firefox Part II: Multiple Tabs for Your Homepage

One of the neat things about Firefox (if you haven't downloaded it yet, see the link on the sidebar) is that it has tabs. Tabs allow you to have more than one window open in the same browser. This is helpful so you don't have to open too many browser windows which can become confusing. One nifty feature that Firefox allows is to have different tabs to open up when you open a new browser window. For example, when I open Firefox, I get three pages instead of one. How do you do this? Let me show you.

The first step is to make a folder in your bookmarks sidebar. To do this, open the bookmarks sidebar (there should be an icon on the top - it may be called favourites). Once there, left click to create a new folder. You can name this folder anything you want, but it might be best to name it "Startup."

Once you have that, go find multiple pages you want to open when you open Firefox. When you are at the page, right click the little picture in the address bar that shows up before the address (for this site it looks like an orange square with a "B" inside of it. Hold the mouse button down as you drag that picture into the folder you just made ("Startup"). Repeat this as many times as you want, but I would not add too many as it could get overwhelming when you open Firefox.

The next thing you need to do is to go to the menu on top. Go to Tools then to Options. A window should open. Go to the "General Tab." It should show what your current homepage is. Below it will be a button that says: "Use Bookmark" Click on that and select the folder you just made ("Startup"). Close Firefox and the next time you open it you will get all the pages you selected. There are other ways to do this as well, and if you figure them out, feel free to share.

If you want to change the pages that open for you, change the pages in the folder first and then complete the last step again. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them.

Hope this was helpful and that you are starting to see the advantages of using Firefox! More tips to come next week.

Pimping Your Firefox Part I: Finding Cool New Sites

To my dismay, I've noticed most of my viewers do not use firefox as their web browser. I debated giving a long rant about why Firefox is better, but I thought showing you would be the best way (the teacher in me is thinking about how we all learn better by doing). If you don't yet have firefox, you can use this nifty link to get you started. Firefox is completely free (it's Open Source Software) and it is actually safer to use than Internet Explorer – sorry Mac users, I'm sure Safari and Opera are great, but I still think Firefox is better.

One of the things that makes Firefox so great is that there are hundreds of little “extensions” you can add to “pimp it up.” Today I am going to talk about two of themselves

The first is StumbleUpon. Once you download this extension and you make an account with StumbleUpon and the internet opens up for you. It works in several ways. One way is that you can rate sites (thumbs up or thumbs down). StumbleUpon keeps track of all the votes for and votes against to help recommend sites to others. It also keeps track of the sites you like and the sites you don't like. Another feature is that you can “tag” sites with different words. For example, this post could get the tag “Firefox” or “Computers.” You can similarly attach tags to yourself of things you like. This is where it gets neat. When you hit the “Stumble!” button, StumbleUpon takes you to a site that fits your preferences. It doesn't always get a site you'll like, but if you hit it often enough, you can find something that interests you.

The second extension came to me from my involvement in BzzAgent. This is a site that tells me about certain products or programs in exchange for me talking about them. The extension in question is free (as are all Firefox extensions) and it's called Me.dium. It works similarly but the interface is different. It opens up a sidebar and shows you sites floating around that are similar. It also has little people to show you which other Me.dium users are at those sites. You can make “friends” with Me.dium and is especially good when trying to share websites with your “friends.” In essence, Me.dium is for people who want to surf the web with someone else. You could use this for things such as shopping, planning a trip, or doing research. It sounds complicated, but once you see it, it makes much more sense. One thing I should also note is that it won't show other people sites that are password protected, and you can turn it off whenever you don't want people to see what site you're on (for whatever reason).

So this is just the first part of many where I'll tell you about great Firefox extensions in my bid to switch a few of you over. I hope you try out Firefox and you'll see why everyone is raving about it!

One of the Best Sites on the Internet

A few months ago, a friend and colleague of mine told me to check out a site called Lifehacker. I took his advice and I was blown away by what I found. Essentially, Lifehacker is a blog full of tips to help you with everything from making your computer work more for you to improving your socials skills. Every day, the authors of the blog add many posts. One feature that I have used profusely is their Dowload of the Day posts. Every day (and often more than once a day), the site profiles a small program that usually happens to be quite useful. For example, yesterday (March 28^th), one of their profiles was of a program that will allow computers that have wi-fi to link up to each other without any internet connections.

The site caters to both relative beginners to computer experts. They have many readers who comment on the posts and offer up more advice (if you're willing to read the comment threads). This is one of the sites that I check multiple times daily, and I would suggest that others check it. I have no doubt you'll find something helpful if you check it every once and a while.