This new theme is a lot cleaner visually (no more splash page) and coding wise.  Many of the new functions of WordPress 3.0 are utilized, including feature images, custom menus, and custom post types.  I will be using the custom post types for quotes and phots in the future, hopefully bringing better organization to the site.  There is also a more dynamic sidebar.  All together, it achieves a more custom feel to each page without doing multiple page templates.  Simple is better.

I’ve given some thought about releasing the theme as a generic WordPress 3.0 theme.  I’ll have to test it, make sure I didn’t leave any custom links in the template files.  But if you are interested I can send you what I have for the theme, just shoot me a message.

This app is graphically appealing and pretty rich in information. This would be a great “follow along with the teacher” application. I remember being in middle school and high school when we dissected things in class. We didn’t have the resources for everyone to have something to dissect. It ended up being the teacher doing it at the front of the class, and everyone just watching.

This would be a great place for the Frog Dissection App. The teacher can still only do the real dissection at the front of the class, but now all the students can follow on their iPad. They can graphically see and get information on everything the teacher is doing. Much more informative and interactive way of doing this traditional class lesson (and a lot less messy than giving a frog to every student/group).

Like with all the Apps I review, the app alone isn’t enough to justify iPads in the classroom, but each one adds a little more value, convenience, and reason for having them in your classroom.

Frog Dissection is available in the App Store for $4.99

College and University programs that promote using Kindles or like e-reading devices are being suspended by the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education.

Recent complaints by the National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind have sparked court settlements between the DOJ and the universities currently involved in programs promoting the use of e-readers in the classroom, specifically the Kindle DX.  The Kindle DX has been viewed as discrimatory against blind students and violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.  These programs are currently being suspended at 4 schools; Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Pace University in New York City, Reed College in Portland, Oregon and Arizona State University.

The DOJ and DOE released a joint letter warning colleges and universities planning on promoting e-reading devices in their classrooms.

Dear College or University President:

We write to express concern on the part of the Department of Justice and the Department of Education that colleges and universities are using electronic book readers that are not accessible to students who are blind or have low vision and to seek your help in ensuring that this emerging technology is used in classroom settings in a manner that is permissible under federal law. A serious problem with some of these devices is that they lack an accessible text-to-speech function. Requiring use of an emerging technology in a classroom environment when the technology is inaccessible to an entire population of individuals with disabilities – individuals with visual disabilities – is discrimination prohibited by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504) unless those individuals are provided accommodations or modifications that permit them to receive all the educational benefits provided by the technology in an equally effective and equally integrated manner.

read the full letter here

This isn’t to say all is lost for e-reading devices in the classroom.  Many e-readers already have text-to-speech functionality built into the actual e-books.  The problem arises in the menu and navigation of these devices, where no text-to-speech function is available.  If Amazon can fix the navigation issues of their Kindle devices, they may be able to re-start many of the college and university programs currently running.  Since this is a software problem, a simple software update to current e-readers is all that is needed, instead of having to produce a completely new device.

It is worth noting that the Apple iPad already has these usability functions built in.  However, with the much higher price tag, it is not as readily available or easy to adopt as many e-readers.  It also has many more functions which can create new problems for these programs.

I was impressed at how fast it got delivered considering the Apple website says 3 weeks and AT&T says 10 days, the phone came in 3 days.  Activation was easy, put in a couple number from the box online, plugged it into my computer and it restored with all the settings from my 3GS. Only annoying part was re-entering all my passwords (email, WordPress, mobile me, dropbox, etc).  All just a minor annoyance I was expecting. I wouldn’t want all my passwords to be so easily stored or transferred anyways.

Enough with the boring stuff, on to the actual review.

Software – It doesn’t feel much like an upgrade.  It’s a new phone, yes, but most the “cool new stuff” is in the software.  If you were already running iOS4 on your 3GS, you won’t notice a big difference in your day to day use.

But don’t let this knock iOS4.  If you aren’t already running iOS4, you will notice a huge difference.  The software changes everything about the phone.

Hardware – The phone is thinner and flatter (no rounded back, more squared corners).  It actually feels weird to use as a phone.  You can forget about holding the phone on your shoulder while on a call.  The phone just slides off your shirt sleeve thanks to the all glass back.  I almost dropped my phone twice attempting this seemingly impossible feat.  You should get used to using the included headphones or actually holding your phone for making calls.

Holding it in landscape mode and typing is much easier. It’s a bit taller (wider in landscape), making it easier to hold and type faster.  I never was able to type very fast in landscape on my 3GS.  It feels more like an Internet tablet than a phone.

The phone feels solid but fragile at the same time, a result of all the glass used.  I’ll use it for a week without a case and see how it goes, but I really doubt I’ll be leaving the phone naked for long.

Camera – It’s better.  Much better.  I walked around taking pictures for a day.  All the photos came out clear.  The speed is much better.  Photos that normally would be blurry on my 3GS are much clearer.  I was even able to capture some action shots or friends playing soccer.

The digital zoom is pretty useless.  It will blur your photos and make them grainy looking with lots of noise.  This is pretty much true with any digital zoom, but worth noting.

Video recording is much better.  I took a few sample videos and they all were acceptable.  Even when I played them on my computer monitor they were good quality.

I purchased the iMovie app.  I’m pretty torn about if it’s good or not.  It has good features and is easy to use, but it’s $4.99 and I don’t see a huge benefit to editing clips on the iPhone.  The screen is just too small.  It certainly takes some patience.  I made one movie and I don’t intended on using that app again unless I’m stranded and bored.

Miscellaneous – The iPhone 4 runs much warmer than previous models.  It’s not uncomfortable but noticeable none-the-less.

I may write a more in-depth review, but this was a quick rundown after a couple days of use.

The Home, About, and Project pages are static HTML.  The Blog and Contact pages are WordPress (eventually the entire site needs to be moved to WordPress).  The background for each page is a different picture I took.  They load somewhat slow at the moment.  I’m working on speeding that up.

I  also started playing around with @font-face and the Google Font Directory.  I’m using the Josefin Sans Std Light font by Santiago Orozco for all the header fonts on the site.  It was surprisingly easy to set up and use.  One line of code anywhere in the header about the </head>

<link href=’http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Josefin+Sans+Std+Light’ rel=’stylesheet’ type=’text/css’>

Then call the font in your CSS document:

h2 {font-family: ‘Josefin Sans Std Light’, arial, serif; font-size:2.8em; font-weight:700;}

The future of text on the web will be interesting as a result.

The hardest part of the site redesign was the about page.  Learned first hand how hard it is to write/design an about page.  The one up there now won’t be the final design, but I didn’t want that one page to stop me from updating the entire site.

One more picture after the jump
This is a poster I was doing for the Fordham World Cup that happens every year on campus.  It was left half finished, but I’m still a fan.  You can see a few more old projects I posted on my flickr photoshop set.

I finally got my Ubuntu desktop set up the way I want.  Its running on a MacBook unibody (I rarely ever boot into OSX now).  In the past I used linux for everything but have fallen out of touch lately.  Using it as my main computer for a few months should get be back into the swing of things.

So far I have very few complaint about the newest Ubuntu.  It’s fast.  It boots up and shuts down as fast, if not faster, than OSX.  It is sluggish when coming out of hibernation though (a minor problem since I rarely completely shut more computer down).

The software update and installation is getting better with every version of Ubuntu.  When I used Linux in the past, I remember having to go into the terminal to install most things, that is almost completely gone.  Anything in the Ubuntu Software Center is a simple one-click install.  The software updates work similar to Windows and OSX; it alerts you when updates are available and will download and install with a single click.

I have confidence that the average computer user would not see any difference in using Ubuntu compared to using OSX or Windows.  It’s a very polished operating system.

The one downside I have had, is my back-lit keyboard doesn’t seem to work at all with Ubuntu.  I haven’t found the driver yet to fix this.  Other than that, every other driver has worked right out of the box.

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS with netbook remix

Area 0.42 SVG Icon Set

Fordham Keating Hall background