Category: Web 2.0

Anyone Received the New Swivl Yet?

bgibson135

An April 17, 2014 video from Ohio State University.

This is one of the first examples of the new Swivl.  Although you do not see the device itself, you do see the new tracking unit.

My original posting and addendums below:

I’ve been waiting for mine. I ordered it in early January 2014, and at that time it was supposed to be a 6 weeks wait. On Feb. 18th, I received an email that they would ship in early March. It is now March 12th and I just sent the company an email asking if there was some problem.

I haven’t seen any postings (by non company persons) showing off their new Swivl yet.

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ADDENDUM:  I received a reply from the Swivl rep that said they would be shipping the new Swivl out in another couple of weeks.  That would make shipment the end of March.  That would be 3 months from when my credit card was charged.  *As much as I wanted to “play” with the new device, I sent an email cancellation notice and asked if there was anything else I needed to do to cancel my order.

ADDENDUM-ADDENDUM:  I did receive my order amount refund (by check, my choice) within a week!  Still don’t see anyone’s video examples from using the new Swivl.

It was sort of odd.  I was interested in this little piece of hardware, that had been offered at an extremely reasonable price during the first iteration.  The refinements and redesign of the proposed second iteration looked great.  But, the second iteration had a sizeable jump in price, and the company appeared to have put their energies in what I consider a tangent, Cloud Video.  The trick for Swivl was as a device that caused your camera to follow you, and remotely record very good audio.  I wasn’t interested in having a special place to store and deliver the created videos.  I can put those on YouTube.

Test with my new folding keyboard.

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I am at Hwy 55 in Apex.

Sent from my Galaxy S®III

The Hwy. 55 is no longer at this location in Apex. I’ve noted that at least one other Hwy. 55 has closed in Kenansville, North Carolina.

I think it was a couple of months ago, I was passing through Kenansville one night, on my way back to Fayetteville from Hubert, and stopped in to get an order of Onion Rings and a Diet Dr. Pepper. Everything was the same, except for two things I did notice. They had a new menu, on a single two-sided laminated sheet of paper, and their outdoor sign was either not lit, or missing.

Everything was the same! So, I really didn’t pay attention to the phrase on the menu that said, “Friends You Know.” It was only later that I realized that “Friends You Know” wasn’t an advertising slogan for Hwy. 55, but the new name of this restaurant, “FYK.” The woman manager, perhaps owner, brought this to my attention that they had bought out Hwy. 55 at this location but were still serving most of the former items, and they still had onion rings and Diet Dr. Pepper, and all the 50’s glitz was still on the walls, the black & white checkered floor tiles and a full sized Elvis up near the front door.

The onion rings and the Diet Dr. Pepper were both just like they had been before, deliciously pleasing, with a lot of ketchup. And at least once since then I’ve tried to stop by again to have some more onion rings. One time they were closed for a holiday, and another time they were also closed, maybe closed on Mondays? So, I still want to enjoy another order of onion rings.

[NOTE]: On a later visit, I talked with a young (19) man who was a cook. He told me that the woman wasn’t the owner, or maybe even a manager. [end NOTE]

Class Notes for Today

bgibson135

If I have a Bluetooth keyboard at my disposal, I can take out my smartphone, pair & connect to the keyboard… start an email and start typing notes in 30 seconds or less.

I am typing using my AWK right now. This is almost a full-sized keyboard and I can type pretty quickly with it. The phone also has a camera so I can take a picture of handwritten notes, or notes on a board (white/black) if necessary. When I send the email, a posting is created with my notes and any images that I attach to the message. Those notes are then available on any device that is connected to the Internet. This is not difficult to do, but it does require intent to practice the way that you want to perform the task.

Sent from my Galaxy S®III

My New Chromebook

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I ordered my new Chromebook a couple of weeks ago at Amazon.com.  It was on back order and arrived yesterday, but I couldn’t get it from my rental office until this morning.  It’s nice!  It is silver, and lightweight, and Chrome starts quickly.  **It’s only a browser so with a good connection, it should load most things quickly.  ***Boy, when I think of how long it takes my office PC to boot in the morning, I will be through several emails via the Chromebook before I get to Outlook on the PC.

We have a good WIFI connection here (ITTS @FSU) and YouTube videos had no problem playing easily (today).  Some Flash has played without a problem, and others did not display at all…

Sorry, I had an idea and went to play and now I don’t remember where I was going in the previous paragraph.  Will write more later and will use the Chromebook to do it.

Sent from my HTC on the Now Network from Sprint!

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Using the Gmail Offline App to Post

bgibson135

Okay, I turned off my WIFI connection on the laptop and then composed this short posting using the Gmail Offline Chrome OS app. I’ll click on Send and then see how soon it posts after I re-establish my WIFI connection.

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Addendum:  It took seconds from when I re-established my WIFI connection on the laptop for this post to appear, so the “Gmail Offline” app works fine for someone who wants to create postings while being offline, and then have them uploaded soon after they are connected to the Internet again.

Logitech Z515 Wireless Speaker

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I bought a small Logitech Z515 Wireless (Bluetooth) speaker a few months ago. I’ve got it in the office today, and have it hooked up to my PC.

One thought would be to take it with you and have a class outside. If you can figure out how to use your mobile device (iPad / Android phone, etc.) as a microphone, then you could put your wireless speaker at the “back of the class” and that would make it possible for your many students spread out under trees, etc. to hear what you are saying… not just those up front. I guess you could use this indoors for the same reason. Place the portable speaker at the back of the class to help students there hear as well as those at the front of the class.

ADDENDUM:  How disappointing!  I tried various apps, both for iPad and my Android phone and none of them worked, or worked along with pushing the audio via Bluetooth to the wireless speaker.

It would be nice to be able to use your iPad to view notes while giving a lecture and using it’s microphone to push audio out to (one or more) a wireless speaker (via Bluetooth).

Posting Using My Revue & WIFI Keyboard App from My EVO

bgibson135

Okay, I have found that my Logitech Revue System is good for something that I have been waiting for for a long while… in Internet time.  I am using the Chrome browser on my Revue System to connect back to my EVO phone, and am creating this blog posting.

I have been waiting for a Bluetooth driver and keyboard that would allow me to connect to the EVO so that I could take notes.  I tried out the WIFI Keyboard app several months ago and it worked, but I saw no advantage to having to have a PC or laptop run a browser, just so I could connect back to my phone and type on the small screen there.  But, for $99 for the Revue and already having the 32″ HDTV, and the app being free, viola!  This works great.

Not a Geek, Not a Geek, …

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Although I have worked as a Computer Consultant with Fayetteville State University for a little over 15 years, I do not think of myself as a computer geek. I do “play” with a lot of software and hardware that should make me realize that I am a “geek”, but it just hasn’t sunken in yet.

For instance, I was looking through a “Top 40” (or 45) of free apps for the iPad/iPhone on Friday afternoon. It was a countdown and when I reached #2, I had already installed about 6 or 7 new apps to my iPad. I say, “My iPad,” but it’s not actually mine. It is an iPad that was given to me, on loan, in order that I might test it out especially regarding the Blackboard Mobile Building Block. Chet Dilday has an iPad Project and this was one of the units from that work. It is a WIFI capable, but not 3G, system which means that when you get out of WIFI range, you’re not linked to the Internet, so the GPS and real-time mapping functions don’t work then.

I found that Blackboard was willing to provide either an WIFI iPad or an Android phone to me during the Mobile Building Block test period. Since I knew I was going to get an iPad from Dr. Dilday’s project, I asked for an Android device (whatever that might be). I wasn’t expecting much from the Android device, and the iPad was still in its early release, marketing frenzy hype. But, quickly I found that the HTC Hero (Android 2.1) was an exciting little piece of technology.

Let me interject that I’ve never owned a cellphone. I’ve used two cellphones extensively, but both were provided to me via work. The Hero came to me at a time, just at the end of 5 months of self-imposed emersion in the new Web 2.0 technologies. This emersion process, at least at the beginning was painful. It’s not easy for a 56 year old man to learn about, begin to incorporate & embrace some of the new ways of doing things. And, I am not a social animal, or not a naturally social animal and I enjoy my privacy.

So, getting the Android and iPad devices and beginning to get a real hands-on feel for Web 2.0, especially as it might be used in higher education, became “fun.” Frankly, though I don’t use the cellphone as a phone. It’s all the other neat, “hook me to the Internet” applications that I enjoy: email, news, simple Blackboard admin functions, recording live video while I’m out, posting to my blogs, either text or audio while “on the road,” etc.

If you had asked me if I wanted a GPS device, I would had said, “No.” But, if you ask me now if I have enjoyed using the Sprint Navigation (GPS & Map) functions on my phone, “Darned straight I have!” I even broke down and bought a phone mounting unit for my truck, and a USB power unit that plugs into the cigarette lighter so that I can recharge the phone while I’m out driving.

So, the #2 free iPad/iPhone app was “AirVideo.” You use the program to serve videos from your PC or Mac to your iPad or iPhone. It was simple and quick to install, a free app on the iPad and then a free “Air Video Server” app to run on my PC (or Mac, etc.) The free version limited the number of video files I could list in a folder, but “out of the gate” I was able to stream, without a hiccup, both MP4 and FLV files. You can actually download your YouTube videos in either of those formats.

Why might I want to stream video from my PC to an iPad? Well, video length might be one reason. YouTube videos are limited to 10 minutes, so you could stream an hour video from home.

On Saturday, I drove up to Smithfield, NC. I ate a little, shopped a very little, and stopped by the Johnston County Library in downtown Smithfield to see if I could hook up to their WIFI (if they had it, which they did). Okay, I see that I am “geeky,” because I walked in with my iPad and the Apple Wireless Keyboard and asked if they had a local history section, and if they had WIFI. I was directed upstairs, and told, “Yes, we have free WIFI.”

I saw nothing interesting, to me, in the local history section and so I went to a nearby table and sat down, noting that the chairs were simple, but stylish. I started the iPad and hooked to the Library’s WIFI, and then started the AirVideo app. It found my Air Video Server instance, which was running on my laptop in Fayetteville, and listed the two folders that I had made available. There was my SIFAT video (of my time at S.I.F.A.T. in Wedowee/Lineville, AL back in 1983/4) and it started playing with just a little hesitation.

I pull out my phone and start the USTREAM broadcast app, and here I am recording live video of me using the AirVideo app on my iPad, and the video that is playing is something that I recorded many years ago on a VHS Camcorder (converted to digital video a year or so ago). And, part of the video even shows the PC technology that was “state of the art” at that time, an IBM PC with a 10MB Winchester hard drive with a monochrome green monitor.

So, the Library chair was interesting to me and I looked for a manufacturer’s tag on the back. I attempted to turn the chair over, to look on the bottom, but because there were a few other Library patrons nearby, I chose a more discrete method of looking for the tag. I switched to the camera app on the phone and attempted to take a picture of the bottom of the chair. There was a 2 second delay from when you pressed the trackball button to take a picture, which was perfect for giving me time to get the phone positioned beneath the chair. The first photo was fuzzy, but there was a visible tag. The second photo was fuzzy also, but readable enough to get the first 5 or so character of the manufacturer’s name. I went to the Google Search app and started to enter the manufacturer’s name and the search suggestions popped up a name with “chair” appended to it. That was it, I had the chair manufacturer and I googled for their website.

I looked through their online catalog and did not find the exact chair and began to think that this might have been an old style that maybe the Library got at a discount. I then thought to see where a showroom might be located. To my surprise, the only showroom in the whole United States was in… Smithfield, NC. Must be the distribution point for America. I entered the address in the Google Navigation window and found that the showroom was only a few miles from where I currently was.

[Got sidetracked… with work.]