The world is getting mapped - for your mobile - and a great Vancouver company called cellmap is helping to lead the charge.
http://www.cellmap.ca/
They map out areas with details of pretty much everything from restaurants, nightclubs, and hotspots to the best views, special event times and bus schedules.
They've mapped out Vancouver's Stanley Park, Granville Island, and even Whistler Village. They basically turn your cell phone into a custom interactive map.
Once somebody downloads a particular CellMap to their phone - it can be used without a signal, and they can use it without worrying about data charges.
They recently won a PopVox Award for best Mobile Application.
Tagga is another neat Vancouver company. Tagga lets anyone create a text message campaign for, basically, anything. You could be on a website and want to send recipe information - using Tagga - you can send it from you website to you mobile with one click. If you're selling a house - you could set it up with a tag and a number - and when people tag the word "house" to 42233 - they'd get all the relevant information. There are lots of things you can use it for. check out tagga.com
Mobile muse is one of the sponsors of Open Mobile at this year's New Forms Festival. The mobile technology leaders come together with artists to show their latest and greatest creations. If you want tosee what's coming down the mobile pipe - this is the place to be - it's Sunday, September 21 at Emily Carr on Granville Island. Check out the new forms festival website - as always - they've got some amazing shows all month. http://2008.newformsfestival.com
If you're interesting in meeting up with other New Media folk - there's a Vancouver group called Third Tuesday of the Month that has great guest speakers and really keeps up with what's happening in social media, the blog world and in the digital landscape.
Creating your own ringtone for the iPhone
- For those who thought they had to purchase their ringtune using iTunes Store, here's another solution
1) Choose a song that you want to use for your ringtone
2) Now using audio editing software such as Quicktime or Audacity, edit the sound clip down to 40 seconds or less (preferably less than 40 sec). Anything more than 40 seconds will be undetected as a ringtone on your iPhone.
3) Once you've got the section of song edited down to 40 sec or less, save it as a mp3 or m4v (ipod) file. For Quicktime users, choose File>Export and pick the Movie to iPod export option.
4) Locate the saved file and rename the extension of the file from .m4v or .mp3 to .m4r and save
5) Now drag and drop the newly renamed file into iTunes to import it into your music library. The file should show up under the ringtone tab in iTunes. If it doesn't, go back and check that the music is less than 40 seconds and that you've renamed the extention to .m4r
6) Connect your iPhone to your iTunes, then drag and drop the ringtone file from your iTunes into the iPhone. At this point all you need to do is go to Settings>Sounds>Ringtone on your iPhone to set the ringtone you just created and do a little dance everytime someone calls you.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Back to School - Learning Online
It's all about back to school today,
E-readers - Kindle, Sony Reader, and more. Students - in the very near future you won't have to lug around heavy textbooks - everything will be in one convenient portable location.
E-readers have also become extremely popular for avid newspaper readers too. Your E-reader can hold every newspaper you could ever want to read, which is a good thing - because traditional newspapers are hurting. In fact, The New York Times reported that 2008 has been the worst Year ever for newspapers ad revenue raising "serious questions about the survival of some papers and the solvency of their parent companies." At least with the E-readers - they may be able to save some of their readership base. People want to be mobile - and, e-newspaper don't use up any trees.
Speaking of books and Back-to-School, I want to share a few websites for the inquisitive mind.
Project Gutenberg - Free eBook collection
http://www.gutenberg.org
- Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks. Currently the collection is over 25,000 free listed eBooks.
- The founder of Project Gutenberg (Michael Hart) also invented the first eBook back in 1971. Project Gutenberg was created to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks.
- when users go to the website, they can search for eBooks using author name, book title, or subject. Likewise, users can browse the whole eBook collection or take suggestions by looking through the Top 100 Downloaded eBooks list.
- all eBooks come in html and text format, allowing any computer on any operating system the ability to view them.
- the project is simple, straightforward and free! So check it out - they have everything from classical Shakespeare to surgery manuals to books on sex.
MIT's OpenCourseWare - Free online courses
http://ocw.mit.edu
- OpenCourseWare is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. The site is open and available to the whole world and is a permanent, on-going MIT initiative.
- All materials offered through this publication is free and reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT. Sadly, studying through OpenCourseWare will not get you a diploma from MIT.
- one of the greatest aspects to OpenCourseWare - besides getting course materials for free - is its audio/video library. Many class lectures found on the site have accompanying videotaped talks or class sessions.
- course assignments and exams are also available, but who really wants to do that?!
- overall, MIT's OpenCourseWare is one of the most extensive online educational portals the Internet has to offer
Encyclopedia of Life - Free online encyclopedia
http://www.eol.org
- Now I might have already talked about this website in the past, but Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is an ambitious project worth mentioning again. Comprised of scientists, field experts, and volunteers working from museums and research institutions around the world, the goal of EOL is to organize and make available - via the Internet - virtually all known information about life on Earth.
- Here's how EOL works: At its heart lies a series of websites—one for each of the approximately 1.8 million known species—that provides the entry points to a vast array of knowledge. Each entry-point is a species page designed for the general public. Once you're in a species page - let's say peregrine falcon - you'll have a list of facts about the creature including animal family, geographic distribution, evolutionary history, so on so forth. At the bottom of the page you'll also notice several links aimed for expert users.
- Remember, EOL is a huge, ambitious project so the website is still a large work in progress. Every day, more and more data is entered into EOL's database in the quest to share all information about life on Earth.
Lastly I want to talk about TED - which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design.
http://www.ted.com
- This is a fantastic series of video lectures from the World's greatest minds. You'll get a front row seat to watch and listen to some of the most fascinating people on the planet. The speakers come from all walks of life such as Al Gore - talking about the environment, to TV producer JJ Abrams - of the show Lost, to Stephen Hawkins - the world's smartest man alive. This website is definitely worth checking out.
Thanks to the Internet - You don't need to be in school to continue learning.
E-readers - Kindle, Sony Reader, and more. Students - in the very near future you won't have to lug around heavy textbooks - everything will be in one convenient portable location.
E-readers have also become extremely popular for avid newspaper readers too. Your E-reader can hold every newspaper you could ever want to read, which is a good thing - because traditional newspapers are hurting. In fact, The New York Times reported that 2008 has been the worst Year ever for newspapers ad revenue raising "serious questions about the survival of some papers and the solvency of their parent companies." At least with the E-readers - they may be able to save some of their readership base. People want to be mobile - and, e-newspaper don't use up any trees.
Speaking of books and Back-to-School, I want to share a few websites for the inquisitive mind.
Project Gutenberg - Free eBook collection
http://www.gutenberg.org
- Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks. Currently the collection is over 25,000 free listed eBooks.
- The founder of Project Gutenberg (Michael Hart) also invented the first eBook back in 1971. Project Gutenberg was created to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks.
- when users go to the website, they can search for eBooks using author name, book title, or subject. Likewise, users can browse the whole eBook collection or take suggestions by looking through the Top 100 Downloaded eBooks list.
- all eBooks come in html and text format, allowing any computer on any operating system the ability to view them.
- the project is simple, straightforward and free! So check it out - they have everything from classical Shakespeare to surgery manuals to books on sex.
MIT's OpenCourseWare - Free online courses
http://ocw.mit.edu
- OpenCourseWare is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. The site is open and available to the whole world and is a permanent, on-going MIT initiative.
- All materials offered through this publication is free and reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT. Sadly, studying through OpenCourseWare will not get you a diploma from MIT.
- one of the greatest aspects to OpenCourseWare - besides getting course materials for free - is its audio/video library. Many class lectures found on the site have accompanying videotaped talks or class sessions.
- course assignments and exams are also available, but who really wants to do that?!
- overall, MIT's OpenCourseWare is one of the most extensive online educational portals the Internet has to offer
Encyclopedia of Life - Free online encyclopedia
http://www.eol.org
- Now I might have already talked about this website in the past, but Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is an ambitious project worth mentioning again. Comprised of scientists, field experts, and volunteers working from museums and research institutions around the world, the goal of EOL is to organize and make available - via the Internet - virtually all known information about life on Earth.
- Here's how EOL works: At its heart lies a series of websites—one for each of the approximately 1.8 million known species—that provides the entry points to a vast array of knowledge. Each entry-point is a species page designed for the general public. Once you're in a species page - let's say peregrine falcon - you'll have a list of facts about the creature including animal family, geographic distribution, evolutionary history, so on so forth. At the bottom of the page you'll also notice several links aimed for expert users.
- Remember, EOL is a huge, ambitious project so the website is still a large work in progress. Every day, more and more data is entered into EOL's database in the quest to share all information about life on Earth.
Lastly I want to talk about TED - which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design.
http://www.ted.com
- This is a fantastic series of video lectures from the World's greatest minds. You'll get a front row seat to watch and listen to some of the most fascinating people on the planet. The speakers come from all walks of life such as Al Gore - talking about the environment, to TV producer JJ Abrams - of the show Lost, to Stephen Hawkins - the world's smartest man alive. This website is definitely worth checking out.
Thanks to the Internet - You don't need to be in school to continue learning.
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