Lazy blogging in slow mode

Three years since my last post! I am a dormant blogger. A lazy non-blogger. Or, life has just been too private and tough, so to speak unbloggable lately? Anyway, my last message was posted from my cell phone, and then, I decided to keep my many different virtual data apart. I felt it was overwhealming to have my mail addresses connect with my cell phone register, invasive to my private life. For quite a while I managed to keep many things apart. Just until last week! I had to find an easy way to share a photo from my Android phone camera, to my home computer, and for some unknown reason, this was no longer possible to pair with the outdated Android system (imposssible to upgrade the antique model, three years of age!), and the brand newly installed Maverick system om my mac, which causes me many beginner obstacles.
As you can imagne, I am a cautios and reflective citizen of the virtual world. So far, so good. I then made a careless decision to post the photo on Facebook, and all of a sudden, Facebook snatched my phone number, which was NOT part of my smart plan. My computer mail contacts are now visible or comparable somehow to FB? I hate this unvoluntary transparency.
Also, I would not want presence on GPS interfere with any mapping of online control. But my iPad need to be visible online, to keep the Find my iPhone app active. As my first iPad was hidden, it could not be tracked when it was actually stolen last spring!

Now, this blog post is a revival of my dormant Google account! I'll see if this makes any difference...
Sincerely yours, Sus

Clumsy fingertips

Oh what a beautiful morning - waking up and reaching out for the desirable gadget Android. Need to make some changes in pref settings. Oh oh language? The standard setup is of course the local patois, Danish (the language not the pastry, silly!) but what if we set it for Japanese? Said Curious Sus. And so she did: help help new challenge! Now everything is written in a language I cannot possibly dechipher! Click back step by step in the menu does not help and I don't recall the follow in the setting list or anything! Restart did not make the bad language go away. HELP
Well as you can see I did work my way around the trouble to look inside every meny until I finally made it look good again and had a topic for an instant blog post! What can we learn from this silly episode? Think twice before you tap on anything that matters ;-)

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Open eyes in an open world

Everything seem more open than ever before. We are able to connect and share across distances of time and cultures. The current revolutionary movements are making use of social media in new ways that were unthinkable science fiction when I was young. At the same time I must admit a certain reluctance against this total merge of privacy and open. One thing is that I can decide to share a blog post or a photo which will then have its own social life - another thing that concerns us deep into the sociey of surveillance is for example the geo-locator using Google mapping and GPS Positioning to follow every move. It has to be. An informed choice - but none of us would be able to fully understand the future consequences. As my friend the veteran telegraph cable engineer born 1919, remarrked when we discussed the smartphone era: it is a good thing for our acceptance of new technologies that innovatoins happen little by little.

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Blogger Droid post from my android position

The smartphone Blogger Droid app allows me to compose a new post to this blog and if I add a Picasa album this will also facilitate illustrated posting. The whole procedure - from discovering the Blogger app to refreshing this good old blog - took me less than 15 minutes.
I decided to have a special Google account for the Smartie, so that all of my older actions are not necessarily included in this new chapter of my open social online life!

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Android adventures

Some days ago, I decided that I needed a smartphone. I was getting stressed because of an automated email answering system that is now distributing the free lance jobs, sent out to many takers, and the first repondent will get the deal. This kept me check mail on the computer each and every moment. This was a very good reason for getting a ubiquitous pocket device. I knew I wanted the Xperia x10 mni pro with a real keyboard, an Android smartphone from Sony Ericsson. What I had totally forgotten is that SE does not match mac osX. And, in some cases this is going to be tough as some updates may demand the PC companion with a USB connection, which I'll seek to manage at someone's PC.
However, I found several tweaks that make life easier also for us stubborn Mac users.


My next post will probably, hopefully happen from my remote handheld Blogger app :-)

focus + procrastination + serendipity

I found a very thought provoking blog post tonight, by Inge de Waard (who has an alter ego named Ignatia)

http://ignatiawebs.blogspot.com/2010/08/open-academic-education-people-with.html

She writes: Luckily for me the combination of procrastination and serendipity resulted in a wonderful, unexpected answer to a question that has been on my mind lately. Currently I am dabbling with the idea of a PhD. Although my mind keeps telling me to go for it, it also tells me to keep in mind to make a difference and not to accept 'a regular one'.

This is just how I feel like, too. I came to this blog post in my typical way, just googling a set of terms that came to my mind with no special intention! Amazing how well these thoughts (by Ignatia) actually describes the ongoing learning process that I've been struggling with - for years it seem.

I'm on my way, somehow, to something similar that might as well be sort of an Open PhD. Would you like to know my search term combination? focus + procrastination + serenditpty :-) Yes, that's how my independent brain and imagination works. Too.

Tomorrow, I hope to follow up on this and investigate how Leigh Blackall (mentioned in the blog post above) handles this idea of an Open Education PhD...

Postsecret by proxy

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2154691/postsecret_collage

Support orphanage in Cambodia and make my birthday wish come true

Imagine a poor country with about 1.600.000 children who have no parents! In the Roteang village, Cambodia, an orphanage helps children to a good, healthy life with care, love and trust building. You can help me support their cause! I'm trying to raise $1,200 for Sharing Foundation: Helping to Care for Cambodia's Children. The cause's mission: Help meet the physical, emotional, educational and medical needs of orphaned and seriously disadvantaged children in Cambodia.I know about these children and the people who help them survive and get a better life, from Beth Kanter whose example I'm following now. She is a non-profit blogger, Facebook expert and expert - please have a look! http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/my-53rd-birthday-wish-care-for-children-in-cambodia.html

And, please consider how you can help too. The Sharing Foundation orphanage in Cambodia always need funding! My 60 year birthday wish is donations for this cause from my friends http://apps.facebook.com/causes/birthdays/358410?m=58674969&bws=s

My first patchwork blanket

Corners in the making
Originally uploaded by netopNyrop

I'm hibernating in my sewing workshop atelier, getting things done the creative way.

Pencils, pens, rubbers, glue and schotch tape

Pencils, pens, rubbers, glue and schotch tape
Originally uploaded by netopNyrop

Making order and clearung up clutter can be very satisfying. This is what I'm currently taking care of. Half of this collection actually came from my father's house, and I have tested all of them, bravely throwing away things that were out of order. I just did not want to carry around with too much useless items. But I admit being sentimental - those wooden pencils that were so carefully sharpened by hand with a sharp swiss pocket knife, by my father himself, are sacred; for the others I enjoy a new toy I always wanted; the semi automatic pencil sharpener...

Electronic Village Online 2010 - 6 weeks of mutual webheads training

Back in 2002, I did my first session with the Electronic Village Online EVO - an open online workshop run by volunteers and webheads and attended by some 2000 teachers worldwide over a period of 6 weeks prior to the annual TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages ) convention. In 2003, I was part of the leadership team for the legendary session known as Becoming a Webhead, with Dafne Gonzalez and Teresa d'Eca who are still running this amazing all-in-one tour de force, with many helpers doing a sort of trainee service, with a broad list of prominent guests sharing their online teaching expereinces, tips and tricks.
And there are many others that I can fully recommend. For myself speaking, I gave up being an active part of all this, mainly because January is a busy exam month for me. Still, I will keep an aye on what's going on, and jump in spontaneously whenever I feel I have some spare time.

All of these 6-week online workshops are run by volunteers, completely free of charge and a fine for participants to get hands-on experience in a particular area as well as making valuable connections with educators from around the world. It also serves as a very much needed hands-on mutual training for those who feel ready to take the role as instructor, workshop leader, facilitator or whatever you would like to call it
More details about the Electronic Village Online 2010 could be found here:
evosessions.pbworks.com

2010 - another new year (and happy about it)

First five days of the year, getting things done one by one. I'm not going to share details about what these needs are, just marking with some satisfaction each time these chores are cleared away from the clutter, and some valuable time invested in my life bank. We do live one day at a time, and still - who knows, what tomorrow will bring?

Decided to go back to blogging, because I realized that I do have one or more readers out there, after all, and also because the blogging as self biographical practice helps me to get an overview of this messy online world view. The Blogspot tool still keep me happy because of its ease of use , however I sometimes would love to have more power over the look and feel; this might be one of my next steps ahead. Or else, catching up with older blogs that are by now abandoned. I used to have a "veteran" homepage with my first blog attepmts back in 2001 (!), all of a sudden the page was taken down by the host last October, with a 20 days warning; my internet provider just does not offer hosting of our homepages any more, with no further explanation. I managed to capture most of the content the day before it was ultimately gone and away, a memo to self about the semi permanence of cyberhosted stuff. It did need some revision anyway, reminded me a bit about old school free style carnets, or the good old family portraits that I've started to scan, for a more up to date storage format.

Writing small blog posts like this one actually does make me feel quite satisfied and happy to share thoughts and ideas.
Please add your comments if you have any; for some reason I need to allow only comments from Blogspot members, or else I will get bot spam to clear out, which can be like messy, ugly and depressing. Which I don't want to waste energy on; on the contrary I need some organized overlook, beauty and happiness around my workplace :-)

Silence

I have to admit that for the time being, my attention is elsewhere. This does not neceessarily mean that this blog will never be continued - only that there is a break in between thoughts, snapshots and projects.

Reblogging analysis of hashtag tweet promo for #moonfruit

#moonfruit trending on Twitter? It’s the rebirth of a startup says Techcrunch blogger Mike Butcher. http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/07/04/why-is-moonfruit-trending-on-twitter-its-the-rebirth-of-a-startup/

Moonfriut is a 10 year old company hosting homepages, some for free with basic features, and low cost payments for more services. This week, they let you enter a draw to win not less than 10 powerMac books. Just follow their twitter stream, and send your own creative tweets, all containing the hashtag #moonfruit - the name made me curious, too!

Teach to the test versus the unique personality

Test for grading is a matter of standardization. Knowing where in the range list to place each individual. But for which purpose, and the benefit of whom? YThis video essay described the literacy as it developes in one person, from the very young child who insists on climbing the steep hitll, to the pain staking process of passing the rituals of examination.

(draft stub - need to find out more about who made this)

Celebrating women in computing: Karin Hoegh, Podcast expert, Denmark

Ada Lovelace Day is March 24, and all around the world, bloggers are celebrating Lovelace's great pioneer work (writing the code for the Analytical Engine, for her teacher and friend, the mathematician scientist Charles Babbage). Ada was born in 1815, at a time in history where women and girls were not supposed to bother their little brains with heavy topics such as math and science. More about her can be found in this article http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/lovelace.html

Well, today I am taking up the challenge to blog about "a woman in technology whose work I admire".
http://findingada.com/
My choice is an entrepreneur of today who has an impact in my own country, Denmark. Featuring Karin Hoegh, an experienced radio journalist who started her pioneer work on podcasting by herself at www.podjournalen.dk, and also mediating popular access to podcasting technologies some years back. She is now the initiator of the Danish Podcast award, Podcasterprisen, and conducting numerous courses for educators and others who wish to learn how to get into podcasting. What I really like about her work is the way that she supports and encourages the usage of the "minority language" Danish, in terms of online and information in Europe. www.podblog.dk/ Karin also uses and promotes the current web 2.0 social technologies in many ways. This is how her fans may follow her conference engagements and travels all over the world, promoting her ideas and insight in the field.
We met for the first time at the Reboot conference in Copenhagen and had a lively exchange, then met again several times mostly talking computer, pedagogy and podcasting stuff, but also having fun and making friends. Just wanted to include Karin Hoegh's exemplary case in the torrent of mighty ladies in technology whose work indeed makes a difference!

Mozilla or Safari for mac os X - which choice?

As I'm back on a mac computer, I need to decide which browser I prefer. On Windoze XP, my preferred choice is definitely Mozilla. And, after a little week with Safari, I decided to check out whether there is any difference from using Mozilla. I've had some very slow results sometimes with Safari (which is the pre installed browser for mac OS.)

Well - I'm not going to make real benchmarking but I suppose that in case there is any signifcant difference, I would soon find out. Any comments on this?

Time zone differences, and all that jazz

The fun challenge about meeting from many eventual time zones is the fact that daylight saving is implemented differently in different US states, where some have adapted this procedure and others have not), and in Europe (where summer time is only actual in our calendar from the last Sunday of March - each and every year. For the Southern Hemisphere (Australia etc) this makes even more confusion as they are now moving into winterly hours.

Unfortunately, as I just tried to play with the Meeting planner at http://www.timeanddate.com I see that this does not appear to be accurately calculated either... http://tinyurl.com/cgj44j

Monkey taunts tigers

See how intelligent an old monkey can move around in the trees above two tiger cubs, and deliberately tease them while they don't really get the trick; monkey is too fast for them to comprehend what's going on.

Happy New year Webheads Sunday Cooking lesson

Yesterday, I went to the weekly, traditional Webheads meetup in Tapped In. I haven't been there for months, mostly because I need to limit my commitments and also because family matters are taking over on Sundays. I'm glad I came. First of all, it is wonderful to chat with the regulars, some of those people that I've known for ages, or at least since 2001 - Vance in Abu Dhabi, Michael in Adelaide, Claire in California and Sue in Ottawa - and Daf (who now lives in Spain again) who is currently my course mate at the excellent MUVEnation course for educators in Second Life. Nina (with her Jewish roots) was sharing a very detailed and instructive recipe on how to prepare latkes, a ritual potato pancake. And,last but not least we were welcoming a fabulous newcomer, Michael Hart, Illinois and founder of the pioneer e-book Gutenberg project which I will seek to promote in the Danish language field. Among many conversation topics, one that was quite interesting turned around the taboos like nakedness versus fire arms. And, what does adult education mean, when the term adult material seem to hit the puritan paradoxical fear of skin?

Just after this amazing session, I stumbled over this lovely video from the unforgettable Muppet show, with the Swedish chef preparing his special version of donuts. Completely nuts - or just a very elegant way of inventing the hole in the middle of a roll? See for yourself!