Expect both classes to be hands on and focused on “real world” solutions to “real world” problems. My philosophy is to help you learn that technology is not hard to scary. WordPress is a very powerful, flexible, and easy to learn and use publishing system. My goal is that you will be able to walk out of either class with a functioning website.

I will use WordPress.com as the basis of the first night and self-installed WordPress the second night. It will help you get more out of the second night if you have a domain and hosting already set up. I have set up a special promo code at my host (Dreamhost) that gives you one free domain registration, $25 off hosting if you pay monthly or $50 if you pay for one or two years in advance. All you have to do is go to Dreamhost and use the promo code: BCITWPCLASS (Disclosure: I earn a referral bonus for each sign up). If you already have hosting, but just need another domain (you can’t have too many domains!) I recommend Namecheap (affiliate link). I use Namecheap for all my domains and have found them to be reliable and helpful.

I don’t know if Using WordPress (my latest book) will be in stores in time for the class, however if my case of books comes in time, I will bring them and offer them for sale (at a discount).

I hope to see you there!

I would especially like to chat with the folks at Bravo, Zagats, TLC, VH1/MTV, and other companies who even have badges on Foursquare, but I’m not limiting the focus to them. Since this book is for beginners, I’m also interested in smaller businesses and how they have used Foursquare. Had a checkin deal? Foursquare party? Just drop me a line at tris [at] trishussey [dot] com. We can chat over IM, email, phone, Skype, whatever works for you!

I know there are great stories out there, and I want to include them in the first book published on Foursquare.

Honestly, I can’t do it. I tried for a while, following back everyone who followed me (spammers excepted of course), but I found that I just couldn’t sift out the noise. Sure, this was just before TweetDeck came into the world, but still, as it is I “follow” some 5800 people. So I have to pick and choose who I follow. I follow all work colleagues. I tend to follow people I meet in person at conferences and such. If I don’t know you, I follow people back (or just in general) when the information they are sending out holds some value to me. Really it’s as simple as that. I track information in four columns in TweetDeck. These columns are made up of Twitter lists. I use Twitter lists because I can go switch to any Twitter client that supports lists (I think they all do now) and have my primary info sources right there. The thing is that there is a real and finite limit to this strategy. The limit is 500.

Any given list on Twitter can follow up to 500 people. That’s it. I hit that limit with my News list this week. My private lists, Friends, Colleagues, and Colleagues 2 can, in total, follow only 329 more people. Oh sure I know that is a lot. However, what this means is that at some point, when all the lists hit their max point, I’m going to have to cull the lists. I always want to find and follow new people, new sources, get new ideas. It’s that flow that helps me cover news and events well. And while I don’t see following anyone a waste, I do have to make sure that I can manage my time and attention well.

There is no magic. There is no “I always follow people from Vancouver” or “I never follow someone who does this or that” (spam excepted), it’s purely…when I read what you’ve said, am I interested.

That’s it. That’s how I follow people. I just read what people write. Same way I follow RSS feeds, if it’s interesting, I’ll read it. And most often, I don’t unfollow or unsubscribe so once you’ve got my attention, you keep it. By the way, the “trick” of following and unfollowing me (or anyone else) just isn’t going to work to get me to follow you. In fact, eventually I will block you.

The blog is just in the early days right now, but it isn’t going to stay that way for long. I’m really excited to be a part of The Next Web network of sites and I’m looking forward to getting to know my fellow editors in short order, but in the meantime …

I need your tips and news from all the tech that’s going on in Canada. Oh sure I’m going to dust off all my old contacts and touch base with them (I think that might become a series in fact… Touching base), but a lot has happened in the two years since I’ve been actively covering and following the Canadian tech scene (something about writing three books in the last two years does that to a guy) and I need to catch up!

If you have a tip, story idea, are interested in writing for The Next Web Canada, or would like to advertise on The Next Web Canada, you can drop me a line at thenextwebcdn[at]trishussey[dot]com (my @thenextweb.com address will be working shortly, but this is a failsafe).

In the meantime, I have some more posts to write!

So on my way a swung over to the Apple Store to grab a connector kit (btw if I had gotten then by about 9:30 I would have been able to get an iPhone 4 as well, alas I was doing actual work by then) then to a Starbucks to test out the kit with my two Nikons (and snagging the Barista badge on Foursquare as well!).

My first fear was that I would have to switch to shooting in RAW + JPG to be able to load the images on my iPad. Nope, no problem with either the D80 or D300. Then I wondered about doing anything with them…but I remembered I had Photoshop Elements for iPad. No, it isn’t the best thing, but you know it worked pretty darn well for a quick look and edit. Not the quality that I would use for clients as “final copy” but certainly good enough for a blog post!

I think, like many mobile pros, that I’m finding that the iPad fits the bill as something between a laptop/desktop computer and a smartphone. Netbooks? Well, yeah you know they were a great idea, but the form factor of the small keyboard and under-powered for the OSes that it had to use, really crippled them. Writing this post on my iPad, in Simplenote, using the Apple Wireless Keyboard, I have something ready to post when I get home (after putting some links and things in).

As well as emailing off an edited photo to a friend, checking some email, and sending some tweets. Yeah, I’d say that the iPad has truly opened the world up for small, light tablets.

Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley may not have called Facebook Places “boring,” but the word couldn’t have been far from his mind as he considered the items on his company’s roadmap and compared them to Facebook’s meager initial offering. Over the past few days, Crowley has been more vocal than normal about the future of foursquare — perhaps as a way to reassure users that the company isn’t going anywhere despite the launch of Facebook Places.
link: The foursquare crystal ball: 10 things “coming soon”

That’s the key here. That’s what’s going to separate the location-based winners from whiners, making sure that you can make your service the preference “interface” for Places. So maybe Time picked Gowalla over Foursquare, and yes I’m biased towards Foursquare, but I think Foursquare should be considered the leading contender in the race to be the place for Places.

In the interview Henry Rollins points out to Hank the irony of him slagging on blogger in particular since Hank’s own blog had become rather popular. Hank responded in true tortured artist fashion, and hence my self-loathing.

Now, I’m not going to write here about the ills of technology and society, what got me thinking (and perhaps made my muse perk back up), is that there are some common threads among all the recent posts about the “return of blogging”. First is the importance of permanence. Twitter is as ephemeral as a teen age girl’s fashion sense. Something is here one minute, and then when you look for it again, there isn’t even an acknowledgement that it even ever existed. Others have hammered that point home well enough, that I don’t need to continue on. The next thing that I find interesting is that we are craving a little more analysis, more meat in the posts we read. Of course 140 characters isn’t enough to say anything terribly in-depth about any given topic, but neither have the blog posts that I’ve been reading of late either.

Sure I know the more content you can pen, the more traffic you can get. However, I think we’ve all be a little guilty of just not working through the details and nuance of what something means.

No, of course not all news items are worthy of such depth, but things like Facebook Places are going to shape how society works for a long time to come. Marshall is starting to dig into the meat of what Places is going to mean for all of us. And, honestly, sometimes you need a day or two after the news breaks to be able to see the bigger picture.

As far as Twitter goes, I’m not going to make a foolish or link-baiting statement like “I’m getting off Twitter” or “I’m going on a Twitter fast for a week”, I think that’s just a tad extreme. What I am going to get back to, because for the week or two I did it I enjoyed it a lot, is working on a post a day here. That might be a lot, because I’m also going to have my hands full in short order.

But that’s a post for another day.

In the meantime, maybe we should take a cue from other folks and work on jotting down more of our thoughts in ways that will be more lasting and permanent than the 140 seconds or so it seems like a tweet lasts these days.

Or at least that’s how it feels sometimes…

Until later…

Let’s take note taking apps for a moment. There is no doubt that Evernote is an awesome app. Almost any OS, platform, or device, they’ve got you covered. I’d be hard pressed to give you any significant downsides (personally I don’t like the UI or how it’s “Notebook” based…those are small details really) to using Evernote to take class notes to research notes, but…

You could use Yojimbo if you’re on a Mac. Or there is Simplenote on iOS devices which then syncs into a myriad of apps on your desktop as well as the web. Or like me, use Scrivener for all your writing which also has a great way to gather notes and research.

Yeah, I’m even looking at these choices and thinking … hey, why do I gather notes in Yojimbo instead of Scrivener when I’m working on a project… And this is my real back to school tip:

Find a good app, learn it, use it, and stick with it.

Oh sure if someone says a particular app is really, really awesome take a gander at it, but unless the new app solves a problem you’re having, just file it for checking out later. I didn’t switch to Pages and iWork until Word corrupted a critical file for the third time. No, iWork isn’t perfect, but it’s been doing a better job for me than Word did. I didn’t start using Scrivener until I was struggling with keeping my first book organized (moving around sections and such) and tried Ulysses (after reading about Ulysses on TUAW and then Scrivener later).

So, to offer a good set of tools for a student (sorry this is a rather Mac centric list, but I’ll note Windows options I know about) that are simple and straight foward and work:

• Dropbox. Use it for backup or sharing or access to files out and about. It’s great and if you have a little extra cash, go for the upgrade. If not, get a group of friends to all refer together and get referral credit)
• Evernote. Yeah I like Yojimbo more, but it’s also commercial, and this is also about doing stuff on a budget.
• Simplenote (combo with Notational Velocity or other desktop app). Catherine Winters keeps things organized as well as jot notes on the go with this awesome tool. At the moment, you can’t download the app from the App Store, but they promise a new version soon.
• Office suite: Yep Open Office is free and getting better all the time. Yep Google Docs is fantastic—Catherine and I are collaborating on a project using it—and has nearly every tool you’d need. Apples’ iWork suite certainly is visually appealing and mostly compatible with MS Office, but … We all know MS Office rules the roost. It’s almost a requirement to get through life if not school. My advice: see if you can live without it, but don’t weep crocodile tears if you can’t.
• Scrivener: Yeah I’m biased. I’ve written two entire books in it, plus almost all the posts I’ve written for Future Shop, plus a number of other longer articles and documents, so yeah I’m cool with the bias. Yes, it’s Mac only. Yes, the current version seems a tad out of date (it’s not, I use it everyday), but my inside sources say that the beta program is going very well and the long-awaited version 2 is due out this fall. And to show you how cool the folks behind Scrivener are, they have a list of not only Windows versions you might like, but links to their competitors too. Yeah, damn straight.

Contest:
Now, for a contest. You know I don’t do them very often, but I think students need to have great tools to use. The folks at Literature and Latte have given me two codes for Scrivener…which of course are for the current version but … they will be honored for a free upgrade to version 2.0 (it’s going to be a pay update)! So … the contest (Yep you have to work for this one).

Leave a comment, or link to a post, of at least 250 words why you need Scrivener to write better papers (instead of Word or Pages). If you’re not sure why, download the demo version first! Yes, this is aimed at students. I’ll keep this contest open for a week (until August 28th). Who will pick? Well, I’ll let you in on that later.

Good luck and pass it along!

In case you don’t win: Buy Scrivener (Regular Licence) or Buy Scrivener (Education Licence)

Regardless, I’m sure you’ve read the myriad of posts about Place and how to turn in off (It’s interesting, we can turn Places off in Canada…we just can’t use it yet). Below are some posts about Facebook Places that I found:

• Gently, Now: Facebook Introduces the Masses to Location-Based Sharing
• Details, Details. Facebook Responds to Our Questions About Places
• Foursquare Holds Off On Facebook Places Integration
• How To Disable Facebook Places
• Facebook Places Makes Location a Commodity
• Facebook Launches Places With Support of Foursquare and Gowalla
• Facebook (38) | Who, What, When, and Now…Where
• Facebook Places: What You Need To Know – PCWorld
• How to Disable Facebook Places
• How to keep your friends from checking you in on Facebook | Android Central
• How To Turn Off Facebook Places | Mac|Life
• Facebook Places: A Field Guide
• Facebook Places will make it harder to lie to your friends. – By Farhad Manjoo – Slate Magazine

All the posts explain the basics, and have the right about of journalistic distance, but there are questions that everyone is asking: will you use it and will it crush everything else.

For me, the thing I have already turned off on Places is friends being able to tag me in Places. While I might have Foursquare connect with Places (maybe), share Jolie O’Dell’s issue with Places—Why I’m Not Using Facebook Places—Facebook (and Twitter and LinkedIn) is a social network where I’m rather social. If I “unfriended” everyone on Facebook who I didn’t know in person or was a real and actual friend with, I’d have a pretty thin list of Facebook friends. Facebook has been a place where I pull together folks I “know” … acquaintances, people I’ve met at conferences, etc. I don’t think I’m alone in this fact and this is something I think everyone will have to deal with as Places rolls out throughout the U.S. and then the rest of the world.

Now, the crushing everything else question. I’ve posed this question to my contact at Foursquare. I don’t expect I’ll hear back anytime soon, but I think what is going to happen is what is still going on with Twitter. Adaptation. Yes, Twitter has had a head start, but I think what other services know is that they have to play ball with Facebook. They’ll go beyond their current posting to Facebook status and integrate with Places. Foursquare, well the points and badges have a certain appeal that geeks like. I’m sure they know that points aren’t going to be enough though. I think Foursquare will have to have an easy way to suddenly make Facebook Places users Foursquare users. Then Foursquare has to jump right into the fray with something that draws people to use them over Facebook for their location game-places fix.

And as strange as it might sound, I think Facebook needs Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, Yelp and the rest. Facebook with just “here is where I am” probably isn’t enough. So Facebook needs other folks for that reason … if nothing else that’s why Facebook isn’t planning on crushing everyone else. Maybe Facebook needs to stay generic, vanilla, bland. Something the mainstream can understand and latch onto, then Facebook let’s other people develop the cool stuff to capture the portions of the Facebook user base who might get into it.

In any case, Places I’m going to keep you at arm’s length for the moment (when I can use it that is) while Foursquare, only two and a half chapters left and the entire book draft is done.

I looked through the Foursquare privacy matrix and I think it’s as clear as it can be for the issues that we’re working on. I’m okay with my settings for the time being and I’m glad that Foursquare took this step. Of course, this is just a shot across the bow of Facebook. Foursquare is reminding all of us about Facebook’s privacy problems just before they might unleash something that could hit Foursquare broadside. I agree with Mashable that this is a smart move—Foursquare Focuses on Privacy on Eve of Expected Facebook Location Launch—what I hope is that it’s enough.

My gut tells me it will be. I stand by that friends on Foursquare are different than friends on other social networks and I doubt I’ll want to have to spend time re-gigging all my Facebook friends to match my privacy comfort levels. I suspect I won’t be alone in this. What the smart play would be is for Foursquare to keep on the “we respect your privacy” track and wait until Facebook makes a gaff with location services.

The question of whether Foursquare can whether the storm is answered by Twitter keeping steady on its own growth path even with Facebook trying to corner the near-real time news stream. Sometimes we don’t need everything we do online consolidated under one service. I think, in fact, Facebook could popularize checking into places, and might help Foursquare and other location-based games in the long term.

At least that’s what my guts tells me.

Yes, I’m a well-known Facebook curmudgeon. I try to avoid using Facebook as much as possible (though I do acknowledge Facebook’s usefulness, even if begrudgingly), but I know I’m in the minority. Foursquare, is on the other hand, just gaining momentum and far from something that has taken the mainstream by storm. While I’ve been writing Teach Yourself Foursquare, I’ve been working on answering the “yeah, so what” question throughout the book. Sometimes it’s easy to answer this question for an online service, but for location-based services, it’s so new that I think the challenge all that much harder. Regardless, if you could “checkin” on Facebook, would you? What do you think the value would be to do this through Facebook vs another service? Looking at Facebook’s issues with privacy, and the very real privacy/security concerns about announcing your location, I would wonder if people might eschew a Facebook checkin as compared to Foursquare where you have a different set of people as friends (see also my previous post on this).

All this said, Facebook has a huge advantage in the number of users and potential to draw businesses in for “checkin bonuses”. If nothing else people will “try out” a new location offering from Facebook (I know I will). What will matter in the race of location-based services/games is not what extras the service brings to the table, but how safe people feel using it. And frankly, that’s a long row to hoe for Facebook.

Originally posted on Future Shop Community Forums

Let’s get to the tips first. Download Square offers their list of Google Chrome extensions for the student—10+ extensions for better back-to-school browsing with Google Chrome—all of which are good, but I’d also throw into their list Feedly for getting your news through Google Reader in a more digestible fashion and Xmarks for keeping bookmarks in sync not only across browsers, but computers and operating systems as well. Read Write Web covers some teacher’s picks for back to school—Teachers Pick Their Top 5 Back-To-School Tech Tools—and the iPad is there as well as Twitter and Google Docs, all excellent choices, I would also through in Netvibes for building a personal dashboard (especially if you combine it with your to do list and such) and something like Pomodormo Technique for helping you focus on one thing at a time (like right now, I’m writing this post, no Twitter, no email, no RSS).

Not to be left out I have some of my own tips for students:

• Flash drives. I don’t think you can ever have too many. Sure a 1GB flash drive isn’t a lot, but in terms of holding documents, it’s plenty. And if you keep several in your bag (I tend to have at least 4 on me at all times), you can afford to lend one (or two) out.
• Dropbox. Up to 6GB free storage? 50GB for $100 a year? Yeah this is a no-brainer for both sharing and backups. I’ve recently put a lot of critical work in Dropbox and using that as my working copy. Why? First, it’s still backed up with Timemachine and Crashplan. Second, Dropbox keeps 30 days of revisions. Third, if I need something, if I can get online, I have it.
• Portable laptop stand. I have a nifty one that has four legs unfolded, but folds into something that would fit in a paper-towel roll tube (but half the length). It’s made of aluminum, so it’s both light and strong. There are also the ones like Lapdesk that can be used as a stand or on your lap. I keep mine up on by the couch because it’s great for working there, but for regular lugging around, it’s a tad bulky.
• Portable power strip. I’ve carried cheap 3 outlet ones and nicer folding ones from Monster cables, but my favourite is the Belkin three outlet with two USB ports. Yep, extra outlets (great way to make friends let me tell you) and you can charge your phone/iPod/iPad/iPhone/camera with it. I’ve had one in my bag for probably five years now. I never leave home without it, and sure enough when I come up to a full plug and help out a couple people, I always meet someone new.
• A good pocket knife. In 1990 (ish) my Geology advisor bet me that if I carried my Swiss Army knife in my pocket for a week, that I’d never be without it again. Well, he was right. Unless I’m flying and not checking a bag, I always have a pocket knife. Mostly it’s not for the knife part, it’s the scissors, screw drivers, and other tools that I use the most. I even gave my Groom’s people Leatherman Juice S2s as gifts (and one for myself). Those babies have good pilers and all the rest. Laugh if you will, but I make the same bet with you.

How about you? What are some of your best back to school computer tips?

Oh and before you say “a pocket knife isn’t a computer tip…” Look at how many computer things need a screwdriver to open…like the Apple Wireless Keyboard.

On the Macs vs PCs question, OS X Daily—Macs in the classroom – OS X Daily—quotes Tod Maffin with his recent Mac vs PC experience at BCIT. Well, BCIT might not be the best example because of how Macs are strongly encouraged (read required) for some programs, but I think that Tod is probably right. I think Macs are making a comeback on campus.

Originally posted on Future Shop Community Forums.

“The iGeneration will expect instant responses from parents, teachers and everyone else… they will never be off the grid.” Children of Cyberspace. Old fogies in their 20s? The New York Times Digital Learners
SHIFT HAPPENS
What ideas should be spread on the future of business and technology education? This question frames our working theme for TEDxUBC.
link: Theme · TEDxUBC

Yep, my friend and pet topic, technology and education. When I tweeted the link to nominate speakers—Nominate a Speaker · TEDxUBC—Tod Maffin replied … what would I talk about. This was my reply back to him (on Facebook):

No pressure to come up with a winner on the spot…

I see all of us being hit with more and more tech tools, but not the context of how to use them best … best as an individual or team. Use the CMS because … this app because… and often the because doesn’t match what people really need to get things done, how they learn, or really need.

So, no I don’t have a fully-formed TED talk in my head (yet), but speaking at a TED conference is one of my dreams and goals in life. And, frankly, I think I would rock it.

In the past couple years I have (further) cemented my belief that teaching and writing is “what I should be doing”. I have enjoyed speaking for years and have no fear of it. My passion for technology, education, and teaching is pretty well known. So, the next question is:

Will you help me with this life goal?

Yes, I’ll be sending my own “I think I would be a great TEDxUBC speaker” email to go with my application to one of the 100 people to attend the event. I heard the TEDxVAN event last year was a great event … and I don’t want to miss it this year.

Not only do I not want to miss it, I want to be a part of it.