How did I find out so quickly? Facebook Login Alerts. Basically, Facebook sends you an email, a text or both when you access your Facebook account from a new location. I almost turned this off because it gets kind of annoying when I jump around from computer to computer in the lab and I get a text each time, but boy am I glad I didn’t.

After I clicked that link and ‘requested my @facebook.com email’, I instantly got a text and an email telling me that a new mobile device just logged into my Facebook account from BOSTON, MA! Further, there was a link that said, “If this wasn’t you, please follow the link below to protect your Facebook account information.” I’ve left out the link because it seems to only work for one person, but basically it sets up a roadblock to your account until you can change your Facebook password and any associated email account passwords before the unauthorized party can get there.

Here’s how you can set up Login Alerts on your account:

1. Log in to your account.
2. Click on Account in the top right corner, then Account Settings
3. Look for Account Security, then click the link to the right (it will be titled either ‘change’ or ‘manage’)
4. Under ‘When a new computer or mobile device logs into this account’, click one or both checkboxes to receive either an email or a text message when you log in from a new device. I chose both.
5. Click Save.

You can view all devices that are associated with your account in this section, too. If you see a suspicious listing, like the one I saw this morning, you can simply click ‘Remove’ to disassociate this device with your account.

So here are my take-aways from the Woz’s talk tonight:

1. He wanted to be a teacher if he wasn’t an engineer, and even taught for 8 years…somewhere…he didn’t say where.
2. He didn’t want to quit HP to start Apple because he was too loyal to quit, but finally quit when a family member told him he would end up a manager and not an engineer.
3. He created the first universal remote for his personal convenience…he had too many remotes before most people even had one.
4. He’s a big fan of open-source because he likes to tinker with his gadgets. (Yet Apple is one of the most closed-source companies there is.)
5. Apple owes much of their simplistic design to his dislike of complicated interfaces.
6. He thinks books should be digital, although he still thinks they will sell books in airports.
7. He thinks schools should just let kids come and hang out and learn and the teachers should come by and talk with them every couple of days (what?).
8. His current favorite gadget is his iPhone, but his laptop is most useful. (What? No iPad?)
9. And last but not least, if he doesn’t understand the question he’s being asked, he’ll tell you that, then talk about some random piece of Apple history or why he wants an android (a robot, not a phone), or a computer that can recognize his face and read his thoughts, or something like that.

God love you, Steve. I respect your genius and your quirks.

Video

In a nutshell: MOV files do not work. They appear to work on a Mac, but take that file to a PC…FAIL. And a PC is what this presentation will ultimately be viewed on, so it has to function properly. My solution has been to export the movie as an AVI file and insert it into the PPT on a PC, not a Mac.

Audio

If there is audio in a PPT and you export it to QuickTime, chances are the audio is gone on the export. Not so…again…with Keynote. You have the option to include both embedded sound files and movie audio. And it works.

Slideshows

Today was my eureka moment on this problem. I have 2 slides with multiple slideshows on each, but each time I exported the file in Powerpoint, I only got the initial state of the slide, not the transitions and the additional images. I searched around on the web for tips and found some software, which used Java, and worked, but I didn’t think this was a solution I actually needed to pay for. One of the search pages mentioned Keynote, which I don’t use normally, and I thought, “Hmm. Wonder if I could import this PPT into Keynote and see if Keynote could export it properly?” It did. And perfectly. I was able to get a successful result with exporting both to QuickTime and to Flash. The Flash file was smaller, but the quality was less, too, so, since server space wasn’t an issue, I decided to use the QuickTime format.

Transitions

See Slideshows above.

Conclusion

I think it’s time for me to give Keynote another look. Just like any Apple product, it tricks you with its superficial simplicity, thinking that it couldn’t possibly do the kinds of things you need it to do. And again, just like my discovery of the power of iMovie, I’m proven wrong. Score yet another point in your quest for world domination, Apple. And even though I’m a converted PC user, this just reinforces my decision to go Mac and never go back.

I haven’t used my Wii in a little while, so when I popped in the disc, I had to wait through 2 consecutive software updates to use the disc.

Now that’s done, and I see the Netflix icon in the top left of the home screen.

Clicking on the icon, I can choose to Start or to go back to the Wii menu.

I have to activate my Wii so I can stream from Netflix. I do this by taking a code from the screen

and going to http://www.netflix.com/Wii and entering the code.

I do this, and now I’m told: “Your Netflix ready device is being activated. This may take up to 3 minutes. Once activation is complete you may add movies and TV episodes to your instant Queue and watch on your TV via your Netflix ready device. If you encounter any problems with activation, request a new activation code from your Netflix ready device, come back here, and try again”

In the time it took to write that paragraph, I’m ready. Much quicker than 3 minutes.

My TV screen now shows my Instant Queue in a Cover Flow-like interface. Kind of reminds me of boxee.

I can browse my instant queue by genre or I can flip through the DVD images on the horizontal scroll bar.

Clicking on an image takes me to details about the movie, again, looks a lot like boxee. From here I can play the movie or remove it from my queue. I can also rate the movie from here or go back to the prior screen.

Clicking Play goes online to retrieve the movie. I have cable internet and it took about 8 seconds to grab. The picture quality is amazing and it plays seamlessly. Can’t even tell it’s not on a disc in the DVD player or on TV. Awesome. I’m going to really enjoy this.

Update:

Accidental discovery: If you click the ‘trigger’ button on the Wii-mote, you can pause the show, then either resume, play from the beginning or remove from the queue.

Driving home from lunch today with 3 of my co-workers, I ended up behind a Saturn Outlook. I remarked that cars shouldn’t be named after Microsoft products. Someone said they though it would be cool. This led to remarks like:

• Pontiac Word. If you drive it too long, it crashes.
• The Pontiac Word has a Convert to Bus feature.
• Chevy Powerpoint. We decided it would be sporty, like a Mustang.
• We all agreed we’d buy a car called the Dreamweaver.
• And isn’t there already a car called Excel and Entourage?

Maybe we were on to something…

A list of some conferences that I’m considering. Mostly for my own use, but feel free to post suggestions for others in the comments.

March/April

• O’Reilly Where 2.0 Conference: Location Enabled [March 30 - April 1, 2010 - San Jose, CA]
• O’Reilly MySQL Conference [April 12-15, 2010 - Santa Clara, CA]
• Voices that Matter Conferences [iPhone Developers Conference, April 24-25, 2010, Seattle, WA]

May

• O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo [May 3-6, 2010 - San Francisco, CA]
• Future of Web Design [May 17-19, 2010 - London]
• An Event Apart [NE: Boston, May 24-25, 2010; DC, Sept. 16-17, 2010]
• Big Design Conference [May 28 - 29, 2010 - Dallas, TX]

June

• 2 Apps Per Day [June 4, 2010 - Minneapolis, MN]
• O’Reilly RailsConf [June 7-10, 2010 - Baltimore, MD]
• Web App Masters Tour [June 7-8, 2010 - Philadelphia, PA]
• 2 Apps Per Day [June 25, 2010 - ASU SkySong, Scottsdale, AZ]
• Digital Media Conference [June 25, 2010 - Washington, DC]
• Voices that Matter Conferences [Web Design Conference, June 28-29, 2010, San Francisco, CA]
• Social Developer Summit [June 29, 2010, San Francisco, CA]

July

• Campus Technology [July 19-22, 2010 in Boston, MA]
• edu WEB(July 26-28, 2010 – Chicago, IL)

August

• iPhone iPad Summit [August 25, 2010, online]
• POSTPONED: APPCON -Mobile App Developer Conference [Aug. 24-26, 2010, Las Vegas, NV]

September

• Cascade Server Users Conference [Sept. 13-14, 2010, Atlanta, GA]
• An Event Apart [NE: Boston, May 24-25, 2010; DC, Sept. 16-17, 2010]
• FITC Mobile 2010 [Sept. 16-18, 2010, Toronto, ONT, Canada]
• Web Directions USA [Sept. 21-25, 2010 - Atlanta, GA]
• Think Mobile [Sept. 23, 2010 - UCSF, San Francisco]
• Web 2.0 Expo [Sept. 27-30, 2010 - New York, NY]

October

• Podcamp Pittsburgh [TBD 2010]
• HighEdWeb [Oct. 10-13, 2010 - Cincinnati, OH]
• Educause [Oct. 12 -15, 2010 - Anaheim, CA]
  
• BlogWorld [Oct. 14-16, 2010 - Las Vegas, NV]
• Web Design World [Oct. 18-20, 2010 - Las Vegas, NV]

November

• An Event Apart [Nov. 1-2, 2010 - San Diego, CA]
• edUi [Nov. 8-9, 2010 - Charlottesville, VA]
• Future of Web Design [Nov. 15-17 2010 - NYC, NY]

December

• The Rich Web Experience [Nov. 30 - Dec. 3, 2010, Ft. Lauderdale, FL]

Other

• Complete list of PHP User Groups, Meetups and Conferences

Music gets me through times like this, so let’s hear a couple of songs about daughters and growing up.

“Daughter” – Loudon Wainwright III (from Knocked Up…oh God I hope not!) [lyrics]

“Daughters” – John Mayer

Download audio file (MCReunion.mp3)
Mother and Child Reunion – Paul Simon

And before I start to cry, one of my favorite songs, but with a Step Brothers spin.
“Sweet Child of Mine” – Derek and family

Have a look at its maiden voyage.

Manderino Library

Sammi out in the yard

Macro of red azalea

River rocks

Overall, I have to say that I am incredibly pleased with the pictures from this camera. It’s a bit heavier than I would have thought, but it adds to the substantial feeling of the camera, and doesn’t bother me since I’ll be using the neck strap anyway. Actually, I was glad I got to physically look at both the SX10 and the G10 before I made my final decision (Best Buy had both). Both cameras were smaller than I had envisioned, with the G10 being surprisingly smaller than I thought. It was only a bit bigger than my Canon SD630, but definitely more sturdy-it looks like you could run it over with a car and not damage it!

I was worried about the noise that’s been widely reported, but I have to say, for my purposes (printing 4×6s, online use) the pictures are crisp and clear. What? No buyer’s remorse? Check back in a week.

Piers then figured out how many shots I’d need to be 99% certain of getting a good one. He found that photographing thirty people in bad light would need about thirty shots. Once there’s around fifty people, even in good light, you can kiss your hopes of an unspoilt photo goodbye.

Piers also came up with a rule of thumb for calculating the number of photos to take for groups of less than 20: divide the number of people by three if there’s good light and two if the light’s bad.”

Presented in no particular order:

1. MGMT
2. Santogold
3. Mates of State
4. Kanye
5. The Verve
6. Oasis
7. The Raconteurs
8. Coldplay
9. Conor Oberst
10. The New Odds – Cheerleader
11. Okkervil River
12. Kings of Leon
13. Mother Mother – Oh My Heart
14. Beck – Modern Guilt
15. Socratic – Spread the Rumors
16. Guns N’ Roses – Chinese Democracy
17. Kaiser Chiefs
18. The Weepies
19. The Black Keys
20. Lightspeed Champion
21. Black Keys
22. Black Mountain
23. The Kooks
24. Nine Inch Nails internet release of Ghosts
25. Lodger – Honeymoon is Over
26. JJ Grey & Mofro – Orange Blossoms
27. Cloud Cult – Feel Good Ghosts
28. TV on the Radio – Dear Science
29. Heath Ledger dies
30. God Is An Astronaut – God Is An Astronaut
31. Hey Rosetta! – Into Your Lungs
32. The Raveonettes – Lust Lust Lust
33. Quiet Village – Silent Movie
34. Vampire Weekend –
35. Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer
36. Britney Spears – from train wreck to comeback
37. Jim Boggia – Misadventures in Stereo
38. Tokyo Police Club – A Lesson in Crime
39. Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs
40. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive
41. Beyonce – Sasha Fierce
42. Lil Wayne – Tha Carter III
43. Barack Obama elected President
44. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
45. The Subways – All or Nothing
46. JT on SNL (Single Ladies video spoof)
47. Vampire Fever! Twilight, True Blood
48. Tina Fey as Sarah Palin (SNL)