There are PEOPLE in my handheld!

Grab your palmOne handheld.

Launch the Giraffe game.

Hold your stylus in the lower right corner, then press the page up button.

See what I mean?

Going Crazy Remembering Passwords?

I have an awful memory and WAY too many passwords. While I've used a lot of secure programs to store things, I finally found one good enough, and secure enough, to recommend to my friends.

It's a Palm OS handheld program called SplashID. More info about SplashID

It's got a desktop component that makes entering the passwords easy. You can make categories (student records, personal, network logins, etc.)

Nice.

Make an eBook yet?

eBooks are a great way to introduce handheld technology into your school. You can take virtually any document (Word, text or whatever) and convert it to an eBook - complete with images and links.

Schools have created eBooks for their student handbook, school board policy manual, and distributed eBooks of all the literature books they use in Language classes. Students create eBooks summarizing research for projects, too.

To READ and eBook on your Palm OS (palmOne) handheld, you need eReader (free at ereader.com).

To MAKE an eBook, the easiest way is to purchase a commercial program called eBook Studio (also from ereader. com). School licenses are available and well worth the bucks.

A Better Sync for your Handheld

I'm a big fan of using my palmOne handheld. It's become indespensible as I do training and conferences, and remembering birthdays.

I'm primarily a Mac user (my legacy from my 10 years working at Apple) and really aren't a big fan of palmOne's HotSync manager. It hasn't been tuned in years and doesn't have lots of features I'd like.

Then I found a cool application called "The Missing Sync". Not only have the folks at Mark Space created a beautifully executed Mac OS X application, this one really works well.

So what does this thing do that the palmOne product doesn't? There are a bunch of featurs that make this great for the classroom (and your own productivity).

Here's a beginning list:
* Sync via WiFi
* Mount handheld memory cards on the Mac desktop
* Drag-and-drop installation of compressed files (.sit, .zip, .gz, etc.) with automatic file handling
* iTunes and iPhoto integration
* Share the Mac's Internet connection, via USB or Bluetooth, for email and web access on the handheld

It's rock solid and well supported. Check it out.

Podcasting?

A new word for your vocabulary, and a new concept for your classroom blog!

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

The term podcasting plays upon the terms broadcasting and webcasting and is derived from the name of the iPod portable music player, the playback device of choice of many early podcast listeners. While not directly associated with Apple's iPod device or iTunes jukebox software, the company did contribute both the desire and the technology for this capability. Podcasting is similar to time-shifted video software and devices like TiVo, which let you watch what you want when you want by recording and storing video, except that podcasting is used for audio and is currently free of charge. Note, however, that this technology can be used to pull any kind of file, including software updates, pictures, and videos.

Podcasting is different from broadcasting and webcasting in that it "casts" audio not by a mechanism of centrally pushing audio out to listeners, but by the mechanism of the (distributed) listeners pulling (downloading) the audio files automatically. Podcasters publish (or "podcast") audio files, even in the likeness of radio shows, but it is the individual listener who initiates the "cast" through their subscription and automatic download of the audio program.