Technology – Page 9 – Dr. Thompsen

Getting Mac software for less

There are a growing number of web sites offering discounts on Mac software. I’ve written before about MacZot, a site that offers a different discount every day. Sometimes I’ve found some good buys at MacZot, including a great deal on the Keynote enhancement products from Jumsoft. I like how they keep a record of your purchases on the site, just in case you lose your registration keys.

In order to purchase software from MacZot, you do need to fill out a short form to become a member. It doesn’t cost anything to join as a regular member, but for a modest price you can get a “Zotgeist” membership which entitles you to even bigger discounts on selected products, and a free “Zot” on your birthday.

There have also been a number of sites cropping up recently that offer free software as promotional teasers, typically to drive traffic to their sites. Last month, the macappaday site gave some great apps away for free. Whether this will continue remains to be seen, but there is a tease page on their site now that suggests that they will.

At the time of this writing, there were also a few copies of Postino remaining to be given away to those who sign up at MacScoop. Postino is an excellent program for reading RSS news feeds, with support for audio and video podcasts.

One of the most ingenius sites to give away teaser software was MacHeist, which gave away “loot” for successfully completing web-based puzzles. Along with the freebies were discounts for a bundle of ten applications. Although the bundle sale is now over, supposedly there will be one more “heist” in the very near future. Given the length of time people have been waiting for this final piece of the MacHeist puzzle, I suspect it might be a very rewarding mission.

MacHeist inspired a number of “mini-heist” sites, including most notably theAmazon. They gave away copies of PhotoPresenter to those who successfully completed the first mission, and a second mission will supposedly start in the next few days.

iPhone on Saturday Night Live

Here’s a clip from Saturday Night Live where they parody Steve Job’s announcement of the iPhone on their “Weekend Update” sketch. It’s already a big hit on YouTube.
Actually, the battery life is supposed to be around 5 hours for playback of video, web browsing and talk time, and 16 hours if used for music listening. At least that’s the official specifications from Apple. Of course, since the product won’t officially be released for a few months, we’ll have to wait and see how the iPhone’s battery holds up in “real world” application.

MacJournal

Mariner Software has just released an upgrade to MacJournal, which is the software I’ve been using lately to maintain this blog. I find it much more powerful than iWeb for blogging, and offers a number of useful features for writing any kind of journal. It seems like a worthwhile upgrade, and is free to registered owners of the 4.0 version of the product.

One of the reasons why I like this program is the full screen writing mode. This mode helps you focus on writing by turning your screen black and displaying the text you are writing in a large green font centered in the middle of the screen. It reminds me a lot of the kind of computer journal featured on the television program “Doogie Howser, M.D.”

Adding RSS feeds to Blackboard

Our Blackboard administrator keeps telling me that the ability to add RSS feeds directly to my Blackboard sites is coming, but so far it is not yet available on our campus installation. I’ve found a way around this limitation by using FeedBurner. I can set up a free RSS feed page at FeedBurner, and link it directly to an external link menu item in Blackboard. Then when students click on the link, the feed page displays in the main window. It’s not quite the same as having the RSS feed directly in Blackboard, but it does provide a workaround until better RSS support is added to our Blackboard installation.

Publishing podcasts

Today I published on DrThompsen.com a podcast of my lecture in COM 212, an introductory course in mass communication that I teach at West Chester University. This is the fourth semester I’ve recorded my lectures as podcasts, but until now I’ve kept the files in a directory on the course’s home page on blackboard.wcupa.edu. By publishing my podcasts on my own website, I’m able to more easily create the RSS feed needed to allow one to subscribe to the podcast series. This was something I was unable to do on Blackboard (although I understand they are working on including more podcasting features in the next version of the software).

Here’s the feed URL of this semester’s series of podcasts:

https://drthompsen.com/podcasts/COM212-S07/COM212-Spring07_20070116_232152-0500.rss

That’s a rather long URL, but it was the one generated by the software I’m using, a great program called Profcast. I used this program last year, and it just keeps getting better. I spoke with the developer briefly last week at MacWorld, and made a few suggestions for the next version. There still seems to be an issue with “back dating” podcast episodes, and there are some annoying transparent dialog boxes that I’d like to be able to turn off. But in general, this software is the best solution I’ve seen for easily creating and managing a podcast of lectures.

Now if we can just get the WCU iTunes Music Store off the ground this semester…

MacWorld Recap

MacWorld 2007 was an interesting one. There really wasn’t much new for the Mac, but there was plenty of big announcements for Apple. The biggest one being the iPhone.

The iPhone looks like it will be a big hit for Apple, and 2007’s “must have” device for the digerati. Yes, it’s a bit pricey, but for what it does, it’s not all that expensive. It’s almost a computer replacement, and it costs much less than a laptop. At least the hardware part. I’m very curious what kind of phone plan will be required to use the iPhone. I hope that Cingular won’t be like Verizon and require an expensive data subscription in order to use an iPhone on their network. That’s the main reason I chose the Chocolate over the Motorola Q for my most recent cell phone.

One of the most exciting announcements at MacWorld, for me at least, wasn’t made by Steve Jobs, but rather by a small group of academics. At a special reception on Wednesday, a new Apple-sponsored scholarly journal was announced, called “Academic Intersections.” This new peer-reviewed online journal will provide a venue for research that pushes the boundaries of technology, pedagogy and scholarship. The first issue should be out by this summer, and I hope to contribute something worthwhile to the journal.