Technology Times and Trials

Connecting Analog Wireless Headphones to new HD TVs post a challenge

2012-01-13T16:56:00.000-08:00

Today, I bought my hearing-impaired husband a pair of wireless TV ears. When I unpacked the headset, I found that it included only RCA cables. I checked the audio out options on my Samsung 7000 series 55" 3D HD TV, and, although it has a wealth of video connections, I discovered it has only a non-RCA audio out jack for sound bars and home theater systems and a single digital audio out jack.

I got out the TV ears manual and read that I could connect the headset transmitter to digital audio if I purchased a digital to analog audio converter. So, I called the local Radio Shack then Best Buy and neither had one in stock. Then I called the TV ears customer support line to order one directly from them and the customer service representative told me that the headsets would only translate audio signals broadcast in PCM not Dolby digital. She recommended that I call Samsung and find out whether my TV transmits audio in Dolby or PCM. She said if it turns out that my TV transmits in Dolby then perhaps there was a setting I could adjust to switch it to PCM.

So I opened an online chat session with Samsung support and after some research, he informed me that unfortunately, Samsungs output only Dolby digital and that there was no way to change the setting to PCM.

Although there is a work around to connect the headphones by splitting RCA cables between a satellite receiver and a DVD player, there is a two device limit without manually switching cables between multiple input devices. Wireless headsets to assist the hearing impaired really need to be connected to the TV, not the various input devices which may include game consoles, Roku players, DVD players, etc. I sent an e-mail to Samsung suggesting that they take that into consideration when designing their television sets since they continue to offer RCA connections for video in options so I don't know why they can't offer RCA audio out connections for the large number of analog audio products out there.

Note: If you can switch your digital audio from Dolby to PCM on your TV, purchase a digital to analog audio converter from someone like Amazon where it will cost you only about $26. The company that makes TV Ears wanted about $70 for a converter - almost the price of the headphones themselves!

Google Navigator and Physical keyboard prompts switch to Android

2011-11-30T11:14:00.001-08:00

Today I read an article by Stacy Johnson entitled "10 Tips for Buying an Android – From an Apple Hater." Source: Money Talks (http://s.tt/14oUY) Although I have never been what you would call an Apple Hater, this year I, too, switched from an iPhone 3GS to a Droid 3.

Two of the most important reasons? - Google's voice prompted Navigator system available and updated free for Android phones and a slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard.

Google's Navigator sounds like expensive Garmin voice-prompted systems I have heard before but is based on Google Maps which is updated regularly at no charge. My brother has a dedicated Garmin GPS and, although he's been quite pleased with its accuracy and convenience, he is not pleased now that it's prompting him to pay for an annual map update at a cost almost equal to the original cost of the hardware.

One caution to potential immigrants who want to switch to an Android-based phone. I am using Verizon as my cell service provider and they load a "Verizon Navigator" on your phone in addition to the Google Navigator. Of course, the Verizon Navigator costs you a monthly service fee if you activate it. I removed the icon for it from my home screen (apparently you can't simply delete it!) Another confusing aspect to the built-in Navigation system is that you must go into settings and turn on ALL THREE navigation locator options (at least on the Droid 3) - even the one that says use stand alone GPS and the one that says use Verizon location services. This does NOT cost you anything and if you don't turn them all on the GPS services for the Google Navigator will give you an error message pointing out that you have to turn on GPS for it to function. A service rep at the local Verizon store showed me how to do this since I went into the store complaining about the GPS error knowing I had turned on the Google GPS location services. I actually think this is ridiculous. The location services should all be turned on by default and if you are paranoid about your privacy, you should learn how to turn them off. I'm sure the vast majority of Android phone users want to use the built-in GPS!

As for onscreen vs. physical keyboards, I have found that I just make too many typing mistakes with an onscreen keyboard. I don't know if it's my aging vision or my pudgy fingers or that the touchscreen detection sensitivity on smartphones is not precise enough, but it's been very frustrating on the iPhone. In contrast, although the keys are small on the slide-out keyboard of the Droid 3, I have no problem pressing the right keys and the "click" provides the auditory feedback I need to let me know the key was pressed hard enough. As Stacy points out, it does add a little heft to your phone but not enough for me to be concerned with it.

I also like the microSD card expansion slot on my Android-driven phone. With iPhones, you actually have to buy a different phone to gain more capacity if you discover that you wish to capture that spur of the moment video clip. Now that smartphone cameras have the ability to capture 1080p HD video, you're almost forced to buy the much more expensive iPhone with larger capacity internal storage if you think there's even a remote possibility that you might want to use the video capability of your camera. And, if you find yourself using that camera more and more, you must get in the habit of downloading those videos and purging the iPhone's internal storage if you want to keep recording more images. With a smartphone equipped with an expansion slot, you can actually treat the phone like a digital camera and simply remove a full chip and insert an empty one. Furthermore, if you have another Android device, like a tablet that uses microSD chips, you can swap chips with it if you have files stored on the tablet that you wish to share or edit on your smartphone.

As a photographer, I also like the Droid's 8 Megapixel camera. It has both flash and zoom and I have even taken indoor shots without flash and the resulting images are sharp with very little noise. I was also able to buy a lens kit ($49) for it from Photojojo.com that includes a 2X teleconverter, a macro closeup lens and a fisheye special effects lens for times when I don't have my full sized digital camera with me and need just a few more features than the default phone lens capabilities. The kit lenses are attached via a small thin magnetic ring that is affixed like a sticker around your phone's camera lens so the kit works with just about any model of smartphone.

From an application viewpoint, the Android operating system has built-in Speech to Text conversion so I can dictate book reviews and blog posts and speak destinations into the Navigator when I'm on the road and can't use the keyboard.

I didn't even have to give up one of my favorite casual games, iFishing. Despite its name, this game by Rocking Pocket Games has been seamlessly ported to the Android. I've discovered most of the applications I liked on the iPhone have been ported to the Android so I don't feel giving up the App Store in exchange for the Android Market was a sacrifice either.

The only thing I would caution a potential immigrant about is that you should first set up a Google Wallet or Checkout account so Google has a way to charge you for applications you select that cost money in the Android Market. I knew there needed to be a way to connect a credit card with your Google account so the Android Market could function like the Apple App Store but I didn't know how this was accomplished. I searched the web and found a reference to the Google Checkout account (checkout.google.com/) then navigated to it and set up an account. I thought it was strange that Google Checkout was not listed as an available service in my regular Google account profile options.

QR Codes a great way to integrate Wikipedia with physical museum exhibits

2011-10-17T17:07:00.000-07:00

Last night I read an article in my local newspaper about the use of QR Codes to access and share a variety of information. QR Codes are those little square images you see filled with odd shaped rectangles that can be used to launch applications and steer viewers to specific information sources or even input data into a database like your contact information.

They look like this:

The code above when scanned with a QR Code Reader application like RedLaser available for free for Android and iPhones will launch a web browser or (on my Droid 3) a Wikipaedia session and automatically navigate to the Wikipedia article about Attila the Hun.

I generated the code with RedLaser's free QR Code generator: http://redlaser.com/qrcode/. All I had to do was select the type of information I wished to encode (in this case a web URL) and enter the URL and click generate. Then I could email the resulting .png image to myself where I could save it and/or print it out.

I am on the board of directors for the Historical Figures Foundation in Ventura, California, a non-profit organization that promotes the exhibit of museum quality historical miniatures created by artist/historian George Stuart. At the present time, we have an exhibit of sculptures depicting "Really Awful" people at the Ventura County Museum. Attila the Hun is one of these figures. We are planning to afix these QR Codes to each figure's display case then provide visitors with a handout that explains how to download a free QR Code reader and scan each code to retrieve additional information about each historical personality in the exhibit during their visit.

QR Code applications can be used to automatically search local vendors for the best price for particular products, greatly enhance a museum experience, facilitate purchasing a product at the best price and exchange rich contact information that includes not only your name, address, phone and email but URLs for your home page, your blog(s), your Flickr photostream, your Twitter and Facebook accounts and even notes about your career specialities, personal favorites, etc. - much more than what you could fit on the typical printed business card!

This video shows how some people are using QR Codes to entice people to seek them out as if they were on a treasure hunt. It also explains how you can generate a QR Code with Google.

I can't wait to explore this technology further!

Chambers Foundation sponsors dynamite media arts conference

2011-10-11T10:54:00.000-07:00

The Chambers Foundation sponsored a fascinating media arts conference at Lane Community College in Eugene last week that brought together animators, screenwriters, producers, musicians and lighting specialists

Each day began with registration, breakfast items and socialization from 8:30 - 9:30 then proceeded with talks and panel discussions that lasted all day through almost 5 o'clock.

Mark Shapiro, marketing and brand

manager for Laika Studios discusses

the challenges "Coraline" presented

for the Portland animation studio.

On day 1, I attended the opening welcome from 9:30-10:30 then chose "Behind the Scenes: Making Coraline" by Mark Shapiro of Laika Studios in Portland, Oregon. Although I'm not into the physical tedium of stop-motion animation, it was interesting to see how it is done now (compared to methods used by such early pioneers as Ray Harryhausen) that includes the use of 3D printers to produce removable masks for puppets to facilitate a wide range of facial expression. He said the main character, Coraline, had over 225,000 facial masks to portray all of her expressions in the film.

Other sessions available were "Formula for Success: The Independent Film World" by producer Jeffrey Cooper of Cut Entertainment Group and a lighting workshop by Leonard Henderson, Director of Photography for Chambers Communications (the conference sponsor). The lighting workshop lasted all day each day.

Mark Shapiro demonstrates the use of

the 3D-printed expression masks

Laika Studios produced for the Oscar

nominated film "Coraline"

At 11:30 I attended "Essentials: Storyboard and Story" by Jason Lethcoe, a 2-D animator (has worked for Disney, Dreamworks, etc) and children's storybook author. Jason's pragmatic viewpoint and personal experiences were really interesting. He submitted his first storyboard to Disney when he was in high school. Disney Studios actually called him back to tell him not to bother to ever send them another portfolio again as it was terrible! I know that had to be hard to take for a naive 17-year-old. But he persevered and kept honing his skills until he finally got a foot in the door. He cautioned everyone, though, that the days of a secure job with a big studio are over. Most artists now work project-to-project and it's important to diversify and cultivate your own "tribe" through blogging and social networking referring to "Simon's Cat" as a prime example.

The other presentation was "End of the World As We Know It: Digital Music Distribution" by Dr. Paul Friedlander, a musician and professor at California State University at Chico.

I had lunch with a retired media arts friend from the U of O, a media arts faculty member from LCC and a couple of people from MOPAN. After lunch I attended "The Big Picture: Film Producing" presented by Jeffrey Cooper who has worked in development, production, sales and distribution for such production companies as Universal Studios, and Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment and produced four feature films. He also teaches film studies at a university in California. Mark Shapiro, from Laika Studios in Portland (It's owned by Phil Knight of Nike) also held a question and answer session.

Then at 2:30 I attended "Idea to Script: The Writing Process" by Sara and Gregory Bernstein, a husband and wife screenwriting team. They handed out a very helpful checklist for the writing process that included such nuts and bolts as asking yourself "What is the underlying lesson of the film as revealed by the protagonist's journey?" and "Is the plot's conflict ill-defined, underplayed or too static?". I think I will use some of their listed problems as references in future book reviews.

The other presentation was "Artist Experience: Working for the Studios", another talk by former Disney animator Jason Lethcoe.

At 3:30 I attended the panel discussion "Career Paths: Getting Your Work Out!" chaired by screenwriters Sarah and Gregory Bernstein, producer Jeffrey Cooper and Mark Shapiro of Laika Studios. One of the most interesting things that Jeffrey Cooper mentioned was the tasks of a script reader, the beginning position in the film development process. He said that many production companies are looking for script readers and they pay about $100 per script. Apparently there is a checklist of things a script reader uses to evaluate submitted scripts and good script readers that recommend work that becomes successful films can advance to assistant story editors, and on up the ladder. I thought of my sister who loves film and actually used to write film reviews for a newspaper in the SF Bay Area in exchange for movie tickets. She is looking for something she can do from home to supplement her other freelance graphic design and writing jobs. So I called her that evening and gave her the information about the Hollywood Creative Directory, that contains contact information for different production companies, the website Entertainmentcareers.net and showbizjobs.com which Cooper recommended when I spoke with him after the presentation concluded. I also noted that the Bernsteins recommended the books "The Writer's Journey" by Christopher Vogler and "Story" by Robert McKee for those interested in writing screenplays.

On day 2, I opened the day with "Inside the Studio: How Movies Get Made" by Mark Shapiro. This time Mark discussed the importance of using film festivals to bring attention to a film, especially independent films not backed by the marketing supplied by major studios. The other presentations were "It's only Rock and Roll: Rock's Creative Explosions by Paul Friedlander, "Meet the Writers" with Sara and Gregory Berstein and the ongoing all day lighting workshop by Leonard Henderson.

At 10:30 I attended "Meet the Artist" with animator/author Jason Lethcoe. Jason continued to share his personal experiences in working collaboratively with other artists and the development of professional relationships to advance your career. Former LCC Media Arts students discussed "Paths to Success".

At 11:30 I attended "Pitching Your Story with Studio Executives" presented by Sara and Greg Bernstein. Towards the end of a very good nuts and bolts discussion, a couple of people from the audience practiced pitching a story and we all joined in with Sara and Greg with our own observations and opinions. I would love to have a more extended "real world" session like that. Elsewhere, a student alumni panel discussed 'School to Industry: What to do now to success later".

After lunch I attended another talk by animator/author Jason Lethcoe, "Industry Directions: The Emerging Independent Scene". Dr. Friedlander discussed "Going Global: A Case Study in the International Music Industry - Belize Music Project."

Then I attended "Meet the producer" with Jeffrey Cooper. Jeffrey gave us real world examples of how producers craft trailers to appeal to a certain demographic or to deliver the widest possible audience to a new film. Most illuminating was the example he gave for the movie "Se7en". Even though it starred such A-list actors as Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, he pointed out that the trailer was designed to draw in horror enthusiasts and did not mention the famous stars. He said that horror films draw from a much younger demographic and it was decided that since Pitt and Freeman did not normally appear in horror films, drawing attention to the stars may bring in older moviegoers who might not be as supportive of the film as younger horror fans would be. I pointed out that, although this ploy worked well for "Se7en" it backfired for "The Village", an M. Night Shyamalan film about what appears to be a 17th century village surrounded by a forest populated with ferocious creatures. "The Village" was heavily promoted as a horror film but was really about societal violence and the futility of attempts to escape it. Therefore, the film, heavily attended by horror fans, was widely dissed because of its lack or horror. I personally found the film much more interesting as it was presented but I must admit I am not usually a horror enthusiast.

Other conference options were "The Writer's Life" by Sara and Greg Bernstein and another "Paths to Success" panel discussion.

At 3:30 I attended another "Getting Your Work Out" session with Jason Lethcoe, Paul Friedlander, Jeffrey Cooper and Leonard Henderson. I was pleased to note that most of the presenters have embraced the internet as an emerging platform to showcase their work and develop professional relationships.

In addition to meeting these fascinating presenters I also met some local people very interested in learning how to blog and use social networking tools effectively. A psychiatrist for the VA was especially interested when I mentioned I had prepared the Wikipedia article for the Vietnam Combat Artists program. Maybe next year I could participate in the conference as a specialist in social media.

Portland Center for the Performing Arts. Image via WikipediaI also met an aspiring author who has written a novel about ancient Illyria. I told her I would be interested in reviewing it but my current stack is quite overwhelming so it could take me a while.

All in all, I thought it was a very productive two days and well worth my time. Apparently I missed the Creative Conference that is held each year up at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. My friend attended it last weekend. I told him that I wish they would have advertised it in the Register Guard like they used to. He said the special effects artist who worked on "Titanic" was the keynote speaker this year. I saw him back in 1998 right after "Titanic" was released and his presentation was really interesting. I'll have to keep an eye out for an announcement about the conference next fall.

Ditto, Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia
Even though for many years I worked with (and often preferred) Windows-based computers, it was Steve Jobs' Apple IIe that first inspired me to focus my career on IT. So, I found his death left a kind of void that I doubt will ever be filled - at least in my lifetime. I received this email from the president of the Ayn Rand Institute and I thought he voiced what many of us current and former IT people are feeling today.

WASHINGTON--Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged lionizes the great wealth creators--the men and women whose thought, creativity, and drive has lifted mankind from the cave to the glistening skyscrapers of New York City. As the president of the Ayn Rand Institute, I regularly speak about Atlas and there is one living person who, more than anyone else, I reference as embodying those traits: Steve Jobs. The news that Jobs is no longer with us leaves me truly heartbroken.

What Jobs has always represented to me is someone who devoted his life to creating great values--who pursued his own vision, his own dreams, his own happiness. The results of his life's work are truly astounding: the Apple II, the Macintosh, Pixar, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, the iPad, and much, much more. He set out to change the world. He succeeded, and by all accounts took deep joy in his career and his achievements. He deserved it.

Image via Wikipedia

Ever since I heard the news that Steve Jobs died, a certain passage from Atlas Shrugged keeps running through my head, although only readers of the novel will understand the full impact of the scene.

Toward the end of the novel, when heroine Dagny Taggart is reunited with several men she had thought she would never see again, she says that the meeting is like a childhood dream "when you think that some day, in heaven, you will see those great departed men whom you had not seen on earth, and you choose, from all the past centuries, the great men you would like to meet."

One of the men replies: "And if you met those great men in heaven . . . There's something you'd want to hear from them. [Y]ou'd want them to look at you and to say, 'Well done.'. . . All right, then. Well done, Dagny!"If there were a heaven, filled with the great men of history, I have no doubt that they would say, "Well done, Steve Jobs." - Yaron Brook, President, Ayn Rand Institute

Google Chromebook - History repeats itself!

2011-05-17T16:26:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Google Chrome Logo

I never cease to be amazed at how technology often circles back on itself. When distributed computing first b
egan, clients used a terminal with no hard drive. All applications ran on the central mainframe and IT departments were the only ones that had to install applications, worry about hackers and viruses were not even invented yet. Now we have the "new" Chromebook which is essentially a terminal with no hard drive to access applications, documents, etc from "the cloud". The more things change the more things stay the same (or revert back to the same!)

The problem with such devices is that you need to have total faith in your service provider - in this case Google. It puts us back in the situation of having a commercial enterprise that, if used by huge numbers of people, becomes too big to fail. Google would also be in the position to offer the service for free to get it rolling then when the amount of critical data reaches a certain point they could change their policies and begin charging more and more - much like the cell phone companies do now and their users would essentially be held hostage to whatever revenue scheme Google (or another cloud service company) would impose.

Another issue is that these new "dumb" laptops could not be used for anything but a door stop if you live or travel into a geographic area that has no internet connection - I mean NO connection - Wifi or cell. Yes, there are actually large areas, at least out here in the West, that have huge dead zones! Although I live less than five miles from the center of a city right on Interstate 5, I cannot get a reliable cell signal in my living room - really frustrating since I'd like to give up my land line. The construction of cell towers has pretty much followed the main interstate freeways and in states with extended rural areas like my native Oregon there are huge expanses within the state where your cell gets no bars at all.

Also, I doubt if Google's rivals would want to provide a service that can be accessed by someone else's hardware device so we get back to the iPad vs. Google Android marketplace issues again.

Is increase in gaming popularity among females and older players attributable to minigames on mobile devices?

2011-03-30T10:43:00.000-07:00

I found the following infographic very interesting. Apparently I am no longer in the minority as an older female who enjoys gaming although I simply don't have the average 18 hours per week to spend gaming. I think the motion aspect of the Wii accounts for not only the popularity of the Wii but the significant growth in attracting older players like me who are bored with traditional exercise strategies but easily lose ourselves in a game that uses body motion to accomplish game objectives. This attraction is also reflected in the list of most popular games of all time topped by Wii Sports.

I do wish they would have included smartphones in the mobile analysis though. I have probably spent more time playing games on my iPhone than on my Wii just because I am often stuck waiting in doctors' offices or similar environments and find the games on my iPhone to be just the ticket to make the time pass. Although iFishing is one of my favorites, being raised here in the Northwest where I grew up fishing the streams along the Oregon coast and Pacific ocean as a child, I also like history-themed games and have been playing Slitherine's "The Tudors." I also bought the Sims' World Adventures although I must be honest and say I get really irritated with having to keep track of the Sims needs to go to the bathroom. I think that level of detail is more tedious than entertaining. I also like hidden object games in historical environments too. I love the visuals and the short mini-game nature of the challenge especially since I am using these games to fill a relatively small time slot.

It would be interesting to have a breakdown of the average 18 hours spent gaming to see if the types of games people are playing are more of the short term mini-game variety played intermittently through the week or whether more intricate complex games are being played in longer dedicated sessions. I think this information coupled with a parallel analysis of age groups would be helpful to game designers wishing to address the maximum target audience. I'm also curious about whether the introduction of minigames through app stores increasingly available through a plethora of devices is ratcheting up the gaming statistics in both females and the older age groups now.

Source: Online Education

IE 9 RC still not ready for prime time but Google Chrome is a blast!

2011-02-22T12:06:00.000-08:00

Well, I installed the new Internet Explorer 9 release client and, although I loved the "pinning to the taskbar" capability, the ability to designate an entire list of pages to open as default pages and the clean interface that lets you see so much more of each web page you are browsing, I ran into some significant problems using it on my new 64-bit Windows 7 workstation.

Image via WikipediaFirst, I tried to install Zemanta, a blogging assistant extension, for use with my Blogger accounts under this new browser and, even though Zemanta said it was installed, when I opened one of my Blogs to begin editing, the Z
emanta extension interface would not open. I tried reinstalling, made sure I had "allowed" Zemanta to make changes on my computer, etc. but no joy.

Then I was up on Amazon looking at the new educational game "Roman Town". I added it to my cart, went through logging in to my account and setting the shipping address but when it came to loading the screen where I would select my payment options, I got nothing but a white screen with a location bar at the top. I retried the purchase several times but finally had to give up and use a different browser to complete the transaction.

Next I was reading my Google news alerts and went to "share" an article I had read on one of the web pages I pulled up to read and when IE 9 tried to open the Twitter interface I again got a plain white screen with just a URL and my Twitter icon. Obviously, it recognized that I was already logged in to Twitter but could not draw up my status page. Again, multiple attempts to successfully tweet from the web page failed. I ended up shortening the URL myself with bit.ly and posting it manually to Twitter.

Then I went to read an article on Stacy Johnson's Money Talks News (http://www.moneytalksnews.com) that included a video and saw that the video had a question mark on it. When I clicked the video I got an error message that the video contained a third party component that I would need to install but it didn't tell me which one. I had never had a problem with any of Stacy's videos before. So, I sent an email to Stacy's tech support people and they suggested I contact the tech support for Blip.TV which is the video host they use. So I emailed Blip.TV and they suggested I install the latest version of Quicktime and try again. I checked my Quicktime version and compared it with the latest one available and I saw that I already had the latest version. I told Blip. TV that videos on YouTube seemed to play properly. They were baffled.

So today I reluctantly gave up using IE and set my browser default to the new version of Google Chrome that I had recently installed. Like IE 9, I was able to define a list of pages to open by default. I found that I could still drag a page to my taskbar and "pin" it - apparently a default action allowed by Windows 7, and the interface was as clean as IE 9.

Then I went to Blogger and installed Zemanta and it came up without a hitch. I went back to Money Talks News and the video I could not view under IE 9 played perfectly in Google Chrome. Then, I held my breath and logged into my online bank. I had used an earlier version of Google Chrome at one point but it turned out to be incompatible with my secure banking logins at two different banks. This time, however, it worked wonderfully.

Then, I remembered a friend of mine had sent me a news article about Google Chrome's new web store so I went up there and found extensions for my Evernote account, bit.ly, Google Translate, Webpage screenshot, Web of Trust search advisor (WOT - a handy tool to avoid websites known for malware, scams, etc), an Internet Movie Database access tool to quickly access the movie database by clicking on a movie title mentioned on a webpage or in a blogpost, my good old "blog this" helper, a Share tool for those websites that don't have it already built in (like many foreign news websites), and even Chrome for a Cause that records my search clicks and donates to a charity of my choice (from a small but adequate list). Since I do a lot of research I like the idea that my productivity also serves another worthy purpose. All of these very useful extensions were found on just the first twenty pages of the Extensions listed on the Chrome Web Store site and there are a total of over 10,000 available. So, I have been able to regain all the features I liked in IE 9 without all of the technical problems and added some great functionality from the Chrome Web Store too!

Now if I could just get Samsung to add more useful apps to my TV's app store!!

Virtual Professors using Conversational Agent Software the Answer for the 3rd Dimension in Online Learning

2011-02-06T07:58:00.000-08:00

"Developing that best-in-the-world online course — in which students would learn as much, or more, than in an ordinary classroom or a hybrid online class — requires significant investment. The Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University, which has developed about 15 sophisticated online courses, mostly in the sciences, spent $500,000 to $1 million to write software for each. But neither Carnegie Mellon nor other institutions, which are invited to use its online courses, dares to use them without having a human instructor, too..."

"...But even when lectures are accompanied with syllabuses, handouts, sample problem sets and other aids that Academic Earth has for some of its courses, is the experience really complete? The Massachusetts Institute of Technology also shares the raw materials of courses in its OpenCourseWare program. For the benefit of autodidacts who aren’t M.I.T. students, it strives to publish materials online for every M.I.T. course. But students cannot interact and do not receive vital feedback about their own progress that an instructor or software provides."- Online Courses, Still Lacking That Third Dimension, Randall Stross, The New York Times

Way back in 1995, I became intrigued with developing conversational agents using software that was the descendant of "Eliza", software written at MIT by Joseph Weizenbaum between 1964 to 1966 to simulate a a Rogerian psychotherapist. I wrote a script and adapted images of a bust of Julius Caesar to create an online "virtual" Julius Caesar that a web visitor could converse with and ask whatever they wanted to know about Caesar's life and times.

Image via Wikipedia

Bust of Gaius Julius Caesar in the National
Archaeological Museum of Naples.

I received e-mail from history teachers across the United States who actually started using my "virtual" Caesar in their classes and found it to be a dynamic learning tool that kept kids intrigued.

Then I tried to convince professors I worked with to consider letting me develop a "virtual" professor for each one to provide online office hours 24/7 for each of their courses. After all, professors, especially those that have taught the same class for years, obviously had a wealth of answers to course FAQs. To make the agent more interesting, I explained to the professor that we needed to try to impart each professor's unique personality into the agent so conversing online with the agent would feel like talking with the real professor for the project to be a success. For example, one professor enjoyed sea kayaking. I told him that I would like him to talk about sea kayaking with me. I also liked to include answers to questions about favorite books, movies, food, etc.

But, although I got a couple of professors intrigued, they were always too busy to spend the quality time that is needed to produce a truly convincing agent. Maybe if institutions would consider paying instructors royalties for the use of their knowledge in the development of "virtual professors", more progress could be made in the production of such online learning environments.

Magazine publishers need to think beyond just issue sales or subscriptions to capture the digital market

2011-01-18T08:50:00.000-08:00

I didn't realize that magazine publishers could not sell subscriptions directly on the iPad but were limited to single issue downloads and a ridiculous pricing structure to match until I read this article in the New York Times. I did see that magazines selling subscriptions on android tablets like the Color Nook I received for Christmas from my daughter are trying to charge as much for a digital subscription there as they do for a printed and mailed edition which is also outrageous.

It never ceases to amaze me that after all this time, major content providers still don't try to innovate when they redesign their business models for the digital marketplace. I also don't understand why they still haven't learned the lucrative lesson of offering content via micropayments either.

I severely reduced the number of magazine subscriptions I maintained long before the internet began supplying the lion's share of my reading content because I found bundled content to contain too many articles that offered little interest to me. I don't mean to pick on National Geographic because it is a quality magazine but in the last ten years or so it got to the point that I was reading only one article per issue if that much even though I had subscribed to National Geographic for years. Their content focus was changed by a new editorial staff away from archaeological exploration to regional travel/culture pieces that I really didn't care that much about.and it finally reached the point that I discontinued my subscription because I saw no reason to pay over $20 per year for five or six articles.

Having an editor/gatekeeper determine what I would receive is as galling as having to purchase television programming by channel or by satellite tier or having to purchase music by album or CD. I realize the subscription model offers the most reliable revenue stream for publishers. But how about marketing written content on the Netflix model? A subscription across a collection of magazines that would entitle me to download and view content up to a certain number of articles or Mb of data per year. Many publishing companies produce an entire stable of magazines including constellations of magazines around similar topics. But publishers should also consider collaborative groupings with other publishing companies as well. This could provide more attractive packages to niche readers like me.

Of course ala carte article purchase could also be offered for a reasonable sum of say 50 cents for an article up to 3,500 words or so. I realize ala carte article purchase has not proven successful in the past, mostly because ala carte pricing has been so ridiculously high like $2.50 per article - the price of an entire printed edition in some cases. Publishers should take note of the lessons learned about micropayments from the "app" market. If you make the payment amount seem small and insignificant enough, even browsers with a casual interest are often lulled into making a purchase.

Consider the recent article about the 14-year-old boy who taught himself to develop an iPhone app that has become the most popular app at the moment, being downloaded over 4 million times. As one of the news anchors pointed out, if the boy had charged as little as 99 cents for the app instead of offering it for free, he could have been a millionaire. I firmly believe micropayments and ala carte choice options are the key to a bright online publishing future!

Electronic Companies Dump Feature-Starved Products on Unsuspecting Black Friday Shoppers

2010-12-11T08:08:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I should be so angry over the fact that the Samsung LCD TV I purchased on Black Friday lacks the ability to run apps from the new Samsung Apps Store. After all, I purchased it as a secondary TV to use in my office to allow me to work out with my Wii and watch movies that my husband doesn't want to watch in the living room. It does that just fine and I should have been satisfied. But, as a technology-oriented person, I became excited when I read in the manual that the model I had purchased was wireless enabled and I saw on the Samsung website that they had an Apps store for their wireless products. I thought it was a great bonus I had not expected.

I also noticed in the manual that a specific LAN adapter was mentioned. I had an extra USB adapter from my DSL provider so I tried it but was met with a message telling me I had attached an unsupported device. I also read on the web about other Samsung customers that had problems even with the adapter my manual specified. So I called Samsung tech support to confirm that the model of TV I had purchased would in fact work with the specified LAN adapter.

While I was talking to the support representative I mentioned to them that the reason I was so keen on hooking up the wireless was that I thought it would be better to stream my Netflix movies directly to a 1080p TV than to use my Wii to stream the movies. I was afraid the lower resolution of the Wii would degrade the picture quality. The tech support person agreed with me that it probably would and installing a LAN adapter on my new TV would be the best choice. They also confirmed that the LAN adapter specified in the manual would be the one I would need.

On the Samsung website I also saw the link to a .pdf file that listed the apps available for various models of TVs. I downloaded the .pdf and was gratified to see Netflix on the list for TVs like mine.

I purchased the LAN adapter from Amazon (it was on sale for $62 instead of the regular $79 price) and it arrived yesterday. I plugged it in and the TV auto-recognized it right away. I input my WEP security key and was ready to install the apps. I went up on the Samsung website and set up an account then clicked on the FAQ to read how to begin and it said if I clicked on my Main Menu button I would see an internet@TV menu option. When I did so I didn't see that menu option. I checked under other menu options but saw nothing about setting up my internet access. So I called Samsung tech support back and was told by a different customer representative that the model of TV I had couldn't access the app store and run apps. I told her I had just discussed running Netflix on the TV a few days before with a different rep who I had called to verify the LAN adapter I would need and they didn't say anything about the fact that the model I had purchased would not do that. Then I demanded to know what good was the wireless aspect of the device if I couldn't access the internet with it. She told me I could use it to set up a PC share so I could retrieve images and movies from my computer and display on the TV. I suppose that is better than nothing but I told her if that had been explained to me I would not have spent $62 for that feature since it wasn't that important to me. I was fuming by then and told her quite bluntly that companies alluding to features in product literature included with products that aren't equipped to use the features just royally pisses people off.

When I hung up in frustration, and ranted about it to my husband, he just looked at me calmly and asked why I cared about all that fancy stuff anyway? I retorted "Because the literature said it could!"

But Samsung isn't the only company guilty of subtly misleading customers. On Black Friday, I also bought an LG Blu-Ray player. The box it was packaged in had all of these logos for Netflix and YouTube and other websites plastered all over it to shout out that it was web capable. When I got it home and unpacked it though, I discovered it only had an ethernet jack that required a cable between the player and my router. There was no USB connection to enable you to attach a wireless adapter. My router is three rooms away from my office so the ethernet jack is useless as I'm not going to drill holes in my floor and crawl around under the house to run physical cable. Again, the player does what I bought it for well - plays Blu-ray and regular DVDs just fine and I got it for a whopping $68, admittedly a good deal. But I couldn't help but be irritated that it has the capability to access the internet but LG was too cheap to integrate wireless or even provide a simple USB connection so the much touted internet capabilities could be conveniently used.

I read an article that said many companies that normally do not even produce plasma TVs also cleaned out their warehouses for Black Friday to seduce bargain hungry customers with outdated technology. That is certainly not the way to win customer loyalty if my experience is typical.

I am grateful that the TV I purchased was not the main source of entertainment in our household and I'll definitely be much more skeptical and ask a lot more questions before plunking down a couple of thousand for a 3-D 55+ inch when our Mitsubishi projection TV finally gives up the ghost. After my experience I also don't think I'll bother to participate in the Black Friday madness again if I were ever looking for another major appliance since it is apparent to me electronics manufacturers just use Black Friday to get rid of feature-starved products that haven't been selling anyway.

Geekiness a plus when buying a new TV

2010-12-06T15:13:00.000-08:00

Since I retired my husband and I have tussled over control of the big screen TV in the living room. He likes to watch automotive shows like "Chop, Cut, Rebuild" or "manly" reality shows like "Swamp People" or "Ax Men" while I would rather watch programs about ancient history on Discovery, Nat Geo or History Channel International. In the winter time, he has very little to do outside so spends a lot of time watching TV. With my publishing and photography activities, I spend much more time on the computer. But there are times when I do want to watch a particular program and find it frustrating when he won't surrender the remote.

Last Christmas I also got a Wii game system but, again, my husband didn't want to give up watching TV so I could play a game of Wii tennis, go scuba diving in Endless Ocean, go on safari with Wild Earth, go fishing with Bass Pros or work out with Wii fit. The only solution was to purchase another television. But my husband balked, complaining that I would spend even more time back in my office than I already did if I had my own TV back there.

Still, I kept researching specifications so I would be prepared if the opportunity to purchase one arose and learned that all 40" TVs are not created equal. My son had told me that I should look for an LCD instead of a plasma because LCDs are more energy efficient and do not suffer pixel "burn out" as quickly as a plasma set. I'm one of those frugal types who keeps TVs, like my car, for literally decades. In fact, we are still watching an old picture tube-style television in the dining room that we bought way back in the 80s. (It's so heavy that now I am older I have to have help to move it if I need to clean behind the entertainment center.) So pixel burn out would be an important consideration for people like me who plan to keep their new HD TV for a long period of time.

Articles I have read also mentioned that plasma sets were more susceptible to burn-in as well, particularly if you watch a channel that has its logo in the lower corner of the set for hours without changing it.

My son also recommended getting a set with at least a 120 Hz refresh rate. Some articles say the average person cannot tell the difference between a 60 Hz and LCDs with faster refresh rates but my son felt he could tell the difference. Although this would not be a big issue if a set is being purchased primarily for use with a Wii game system capable of only 480p resolution, it may make a difference if you watch Blu-Ray movies on it or eventually use a higher resolution game console like the PS3 or X-box.and enjoy fast-paced "shooters".

So I tried to keep all of these things in mind as I perused the sale ads. I knew, though, the biggest challenge would be to catch my husband at a vulnerable moment just to buy one at all. As Christmas approached I read about HD TVs being the big bargain this season and hoped I would find a way to finally get one.

In the meantime, the old computer my husband used to search for military vehicle parts on Ebay gave up the ghost. I offered to let him use my netbook that I use when I travel but he insisted he needed something with a screen bigger than my Asus' 10 inches. So, I suggested it was time to buy him a new laptop - another tech product expected to be a bargain this year.

When I got the stack of sale papers for Black Friday I looked them all over and pointed out that if we could get to Walmart early enough, we could pick up an E-machine laptop with 15+" monitor, 2 Gb of Ram and a 250 GB hard drive for less than $200 - a really good buy and more than adequate for his basic web browsing needs. However, I also noticed that the local Office Depot had a similarly equipped Lenovo - generally considered a better brand - for only a little more. I looked wistfully at the great buys on LCD TVs but didn't mention them. Joe decided we would get up early and try to get one of the laptops. Since I had never been part of any Black Friday crush and remember the terrible news reports of people being trampled to death at a Walmart back east, I tenuously agreed but cautioned him that we should view it as a holiday adventure and not be too disappointed if we come home empty handed because I had no intention of getting physical with anyone to grab a bargain.

Walmart said their sale would start at 5 a.m. so we got up at 4 a.m. and drove the ten minutes to Walmart. I thought it was strange there was no line and the doors were open. We went inside and discovered that Walmart, that is normally open 24/7, had allowed anyone in the store after midnight to pick up the doorbuster specials and put them in their cart. They just couldn't check out until 5 a.m. So there were all these shoppers with full carts just loitering around. Naturally, all the cheap laptops were gone. So we reverted to plan B and got back into the car and drove over to Office Depot which wasn't scheduled to open until 6 a.m. There was a line but it wasn't too long. About fifteen minutes before the scheduled opening time, the manager came out and went down the line asking which computer, camera, etc. each person was hoping to buy. He handed out coupons for each item in stock and still had some of the Lenovo laptop coupons left when he got to me so we were able to get my husband a decent laptop. I was not only relieved to know that we were guaranteed a laptop but glad I wouldn't have to be shoved around by other anxious shoppers once the door opened. In fact, I was very impressed that Office Depot was so organized and thoughtful. Then we drove over to Fred Meyer, a local discount department store, so I could get a couple of sale games.

While I was there, I was chatting with the store clerk about the good buys on HD TVs and she said if I was interested in a great HD TV, I should have been there earlier to get the 40" Samsung that was on sale for less than $500. I purchased my game and started to walk out of the store but as I passed the sign still sitting there for the 40" Samsung LCD HDTVs (sitting on a stack of 32" TVs) I glanced over and saw there were two 40" TV cartons slid back along the bottom of the stack. So I walked back in and asked the clerk if either of those were the ones she was talking about. She said "Wow, I didn't think there were any left". So, just hoping my husband would relent, I walked out to the car and told him about the sets. He was still feeling lucky about his new laptop so he just said it was my money if I wanted to buy one. I could hardly believe my ears So I raced back inside and wrestled one into my cart.

I thought the sale sign indicated the set I was buying had a 120 Hz refresh rate so I figured I was all set.

I got the TV home and hooked it up and was pleasantly surprised to find that it had 4 HDMI outlets, 2 USB ports, DVI audio and video connections for a PC, a couple of different composite video connections, optical audio and an ethernet jack. It's instruction manual said it could also be used with a USB Wifi adapter that, for me, would be much more convenient since my router is three rooms away from my office. By using WiFi, I could stream Netflix directly to the set and get full 1080p HD resolution instead of reduced resolution by streaming Netflix through my Wii connected via composite video. I tried using one of my spare Qwest DSL USB adapters but the TV wouldn't recognize it. Samsung tech support confirmed that I had to purchase a proprietary USB Lan adapter (that I got on sale for $62 from Amazon) - a bit annoying but not a deal breaker.

With additional research, I also learned that the model I had purchased was not 120 Hz after all despite what the sign said . I called Fred Meyer but their customer service rep said the model I had was the correct model and that they had never even stocked any 120 Hz models. Maybe I was wrong about the sign. It could have been wishful thinking on my part and the sign is long gone. I must admit I got so excited when my husband agreed to let me buy one I may have forgotten to check.

But, I also learned that this particular model had an excellent contrast ratio (90,000:1) compared to less expensive sets. I had never considered contrast ratio and learned that the higher the contrast ratio the better range of difference between white and black.

This specification is especially important if you locate your TV in a brightly lit room or a room with a lot of windows. As it turns out, my TV is on the wall opposite two French doors flanked by two windows - glass from almost floor to ceiling. But I noticed that there is hardly any glare, the picture is finely detailed and the colors appear rich. Many times, watching our old projection TV in the living room, my husband and I have been frustrated when movies would have night scenes because all we could see was a black screen. We could only listen to the audio.

Later in the day on Black Friday, I managed to snag an internet ready Blu-Ray player for only $68. So, I purchased my first Blu-Ray movie, "Prince of Persia", and when I tried out the new player on the new TV I marveled at how well I could see details, even in night scenes. Contrast ratio, then must be an important consideration for settings like mine.

Reading over articles like this one on my How-to-Geek website, I also learned that pixel response time is considered important as well. The model I purchased has a 6 millisecond pixel response time. The 6 ms response time is not ultra fast but I must admit I didn't notice any motion blur with either my Blu-Ray movies or my Wii games so perhaps this spec, like the refresh spec, is not as important as some officianados may claim. Even if I eventually add another game system, I personally am not interested in fast-paced shooting games so it probably is not that important to me anyway.

Overall, for the money I spent, I managed to get a set that I think will serve my needs well for a reasonable price. If someone were to ask me which features I think are most important, I would rank them in the following order:

LCD (instead of plasma)
1080p (instead of 780p)
Overall screen dimensions (get as much screen real estate as possible for your budget if your space allows)
Number and variety of component connections - at least 2 USB and 3 or more HDMI (especially if you plan to use multiple game systems or other high-definition components)
Wifi ready so you can view web-based content like Netflix instant streaming, YouTube videos, and other sites with streaming multimedia since streaming media is the delivery mode of the future (that's also why you need the second USB port until manufacturers start integrating Wifi)
High Contrast Ratio for use in brightly lit environments
At least 120 Hz refresh rate (a nod to my son's observations although the 60 Hz I ended up with has no problem with motion blur that my older eyes can detect)
pixel response time ( as close to 1 ms as you can get without paying too much of a premium)
LED for energy savings if you can afford the price difference

As noted above, I realize an LED LCD would have been more energy efficient but I would have had to up the ante in price quite a bit to get it and since the set I purchased was for infrequent use in my office compared to daylong use in the living room, it was a good compromise.

As I think back on all the information I tried to assimilate before taking the plunge of buying an HD TV I can't help but wonder, though, how regular people without the "geek" background that I have sort through all the confusing hype to actually select a TV. Maybe, ultimately, that is what has been holding back adoption of HD for so long.

Turn a simple search into a nonprofit donation

2010-12-01T16:53:00.000-08:00

I received an email today from GoodSearch.com reminding me that by using the Yahoo-powered service when I conduct my online research I could generate badly needed donations for charities of my choice. Apparently the service was featured by a major news network but I must have missed the piece - a hazard sometimes of being a television by satellite customer! Anyway, I checked it out and it seems to be highly recommended. I'm not used to using Yahoo as my default search engine but I suppose it doesn't hurt to give it a try. I installed the GoodSearch toolbar, available from their website, into my browser to make it easier to incorporate this new way of giving into my daily work tasks.

Many non-profits are really hurting this year. I read that even the uber-rich have cut back their giving by as much as 38% - a real tragedy considering so many agencies that help low income households are literally swamped with so many people unemployed right now.

"GoodSearch.com is a Yahoo powered search engine which donates about a penny per search to the user’s favorite charity or school! You use it exactly as you would any other search engine, but it turns the simple act of doing an Internet search into an act of doing good. And the pennies add up quickly. Just 500 people searching four times a day will earn approximately $7,300 a year! And, it doesn’t cost the users a thing!

In addition, the sister site GoodShop.com has partnered with more than 1,600 retailers including Target, Apple, Macy’s, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Gap, PETCO and others to donate a percentage of each purchase back to the charity or school of the shopper’s choice (as well as provide thousands of coupons and free shipping offers).

More than 95,000 nonprofits and schools are on-board and seeing the results! (We can give you a list of some in your area.)

GoodSearch and GoodShop have quickly spread via word-of-mouth, the blogger community, and a number of celebrities and their foundations including Jessica Biel, Montel Williams, Jeff Bridges, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw among others.
Supporters of the ASPCA have raised over $37,000 to help animals in need

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has earned more than $13,000 to find cures and save children

The National Inclusion Project, which helps children with disabilities, has used the money it earned to send more than 150 children to summer camp

A single purchase at Gaiam.com resulted in a $284 donation to the Motion Mania Dance Theater in Maryland

Internet users have found GoodSearch and GoodShop to be a compelling idea. Beth Elson, a lawyer in Chicago, uses GoodSearch and GoodShop to support the Best Friends Animal Society which runs the nation's largest sanctuary for abused and abandoned animals. “This seems too good to be true but it’s not! I feel fantastic knowing that every time I search the Internet – which I do all the time – I’m helping a cause I care so much about. It’s a no-brainer to use this site!”

The GoodSearch and GoodShop team is revolutionizing online philanthropy so that no one is denied the opportunity to support the causes most important to them. “The response to this idea has been truly overwhelming,” said Ken Ramberg, Co-Founder of GoodSearch and former President of JOBTRAK, the largest online career site for college students (which was acquired by Monster.com). “More than 100 new nonprofits and schools nationwide register daily allowing GoodSearch and GoodShop to truly make a difference in communities across the country. These sites make it possible for everyone, regardless of how much time or money they have, to give back.”

S-T-R-E-T-C-H-I-N-G iPhone Battery Life

2010-11-19T17:28:00.000-08:00

Image via WikipediaI've never been one to chat much on my iPhone. In fact, there are months when I don't use any of my available talk minutes even though I have used the data features. So, unless there is a crisis of some kind in the works, when I travel a long distance I often turn my iPhone off completely to conserve its battery since I may not be able to recharge it until late at night or, in the case of overseas flights, until sometime the next day. As a member of the baby boomer generation, I was not raised with cell phones so don't feel "disconnected" when I am not "available". But for those of you who can't quite bring yourselves to sever your umbilical to your connected friends, family members and colleagues, this article offers other less drastic ways to help stretch the battery life of your iPhone, iPod or iPad. I'm sure these techniques would also work with non-apple Smartphones as well.

Of those listed, I found the following most helpful to me:

Make Sure the Screen Locks Quickly
Even if you’ve adjusted the screen brightness, there’s still no substitute for having it turn off quickly when you’re not using it. Head into General -> Auto-Lock to set the screen lock to happen as quickly as your device will let you. This makes a big difference if you are always picking up your phone and putting it back into your pocket without turning the display off.

I have mine set for 1 minute.

Use Airplane Mode When You Don’t Need Internet (iPad/iPhone)
If you’re busy spending the next 8 hours playing Angry Birds, there might not be a good reason to have internet access, so you can consider using Airplane Mode, which turns off both Wi-Fi and the regular wireless radio. Of course, this will prevent phone calls if you’re on an iPhone—but if you’re busy with Angry Birds you probably don’t want the interruption anyway.

My grandson recently loaded Angry Birds on my phone but I much prefer iFishing, Spear Fishing 3D, Sims 3 World Adventure or Sudoku and I hate to be interrupted if I have a fish on!!

Use Wi-Fi Instead of 3G if Possible
According to Apple, the iPad will get 10 hours of battery life under regular use with Wi-Fi enabled, but will only get 9 hours using 3G—the iPhone gets 6 for 3G and 10 for Wi-Fi. Of course, if you’re heavily using the Wi-Fi, you’ll still be draining the battery—the point is under similar workloads, Wi-Fi is better than 3G for battery life.

I actually can't get a cell signal when I'm at home anyway so I always have my Wifi network configured to ON.

Reduce or Eliminate Mail & Calendar Checking
If you’ve got a bunch of email, calendar, or contact accounts configured, and they are all being checked and downloading email on a regular basis, you’ll be draining the battery an awful lot faster than you need to.
Head into Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Fetch New Data and change the setting to the least frequent check possible. If you don’t use it often, you can just turn Push off entirely and then manually check when you need to.

Now that I'm retired, I don't have to worry about someone other than me updating my calendar and I seldom use my iPhone to check mail. Since I no longer have to worry about malfunctioning servers or frantic grant researchers who can't perform some technology function and are facing a grant submission deadline, I can usually wait until I'm in front of my regular computer to respond to email. So I turned off the constant checking and will just manually enable it if I need to take a peek.

Disable Bluetooth If You Don’t Need It
If you don’t use a Bluetooth headset or keyboard, you should keep the Bluetooth radio disabled to save some extra battery life. Head into Settings -> General -> Bluetooth to flip it on or off.

Since I never treat talking on the phone as a priority I have never seen a reason to buy a headset so this one was a no brainer for me.

Probably the most important advice was at the end of the article.

Charge and Discharge Your Battery Regularly
Your iDevice needs to be fully discharged and recharged at least once a month to operate at maximum efficiency and keep the battery from dying. You’ll also want to make sure that you don’t store the device with a dead battery, as that can also cause the battery to lose charge capability—when your battery dies, make sure to recharge it quickly.

This one is hard for me since I seldom run my phone's battery down. This also probably applies to laptops and serves as a good reminder for me since my netbook has only been recharged a couple of times since I returned from Rome in March of 2009. I'll obviously have to be more dilligent!

Excluding digital camera transfer folders from antivirus scan list boosts performance

2010-11-18T11:22:00.000-08:00

Recently, I removed McAfee and Spybot and installed Microsoft Security Essentials and my computer performance seems to have improved. But I am always looking for other ways to improve its speed and I found this article on excluding "known good" folders from your antivirus scan list to speed up computer performance helpful. I took this article's advice and excluded the folder where I transfer images from my digital camera since I know they are virus-free and take up gigabytes of disk space.

It also recommended excluding folders containing music files as long as you are obtaining your music files from a reliable source like Amazon, iTunes, or Audible.com. I have an Audible subscription and download large audio book files from them every month so I guess I should exclude those as well.

The article points out that you should always exclude by file folder rather than by file type or file name. As long as you keep files from particular sources (like your digital camera) in their own folder that is kept separate from folders with downloaded files from the internet, it works quite well.

HDMI 4.1 fills the bill even for 3-D devices coming this holiday season

2010-10-22T14:58:00.000-07:00

Until I read this article I thought HDMI was the only choice for new HD electronic components but I guess there is something called Display Port. Since I retired I guess I'm getting a little slow on tracking electronic trends!

Image via Wikipedia

DisplayPort is another new video connector that’s being included on newer equipment, especially laptops. It was designed as the successor to DVI and VGA on computers, but hasn’t seen as much adoption as either DVI or HDMI. However, it is being included on all newer Macs and many Dell, HP, and Lenovo computers. It is actually very similar to HDMI, so it streams both HD video and audio on the same cable, and can output up to 1920×1080 resolution and 8 channels of audio on a single cable.

On the good side, DisplayPort does support HDCP, so you can use it to playback protected HD content from Blu-rays and more. You can also connect it to an HDMI or DVI port with a convertor, since the digital signal is compatible. The problem is, few monitors and TVs include DisplayPort ports, so you’ll almost have to have a convertor if you want to connect your laptop to a larger screen. -What’s the Difference Between HDMI and DVI? Which is Better?

I was relieved to see that "Geeks" agrees with my favorite bargain hunter, Stacy Johnson, who says a cheap $10 HDMI cable is all you need too. Monster cables costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars are a ridiculous waste of money. That company needs to reinvent itself now that digital video is becoming so widespread.

The one question this article didn't answer for me, though, was whether the current crop of HDMI cables will handle true 3D that will be available on HD televisions this holiday season. But, I found this statement about the new HDMI 4.1 standard.

The latest version of the HDMI standard establishes critical infrastructure for implementing 3D video in the home, defining input/output protocols that will allow 3D displays and source devices to communicate through an HDMI link. It’s a major milestone on the path to bringing true 3D gaming and 3D home theater to the mass market, supporting resolutions up to 1080p in 3D.
3D technology is evolving rapidly, with several competing approaches under development, so the HDMI 1.4 specification establishes protocols for a number of popular 3D display methods, including:

Frame, line, or field alternative methods

Side by side methods (full and half)

2D plus depth methods

- HDMI.org

Compromised credit cards a pain when used for autopays

2010-10-02T17:30:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I received ANOTHER call from the security department of a credit card that I use for all of my online autopayments telling me that a new card they just sent me a month ago has already been compromised. I'm afraid I lost my temper and really gave the poor security representative a piece of my mind.

As a retired director of information systems for a college at a major university for over 20 years, I am well aware of hazards involved with e-commerce and have always taken all of the prescribed precautions. I have used online credit transactions since the time they were first introduced on the internet and I have gone years without problems. Now in less than two months one of my credit cards has been compromised twice.

Naturally, this makes me immediately suspicious that the bank's own database has been compromised, especially since the new card had not been used for anything but autopayments to my electric company, my satellite TV provider, my long distance company, etc. but they insist that it hasn't. I asked them how they knew to call me to check on a suspicious transaction then and they told me that the perpetrator of the fraudulent purchase did not use the correct security code or my correct address. These types of thieves use a number generator to generate random 16-digit numbers that are then used online to see if they will be accepted for online purchases. If a small transaction goes through, it lets them know the number is a valid credit card number. Then they attempt even larger purchases.

So I asked them why, then, did their system allow the transaction to go through? I've written computer programs and I know their system could be programmed to automatically deny these types of fraudulent purchase attempts.

I also explained to them that I was using their credit card for my online autopayments so having to reset all of my account information for all of my service providers was very time consuming. They just kept repeating to me that they were sorry for the inconvenience but wasn't I gratified that they were so observant.

Then they asked me how I wanted to receive my new card. They "offered' to send a replacement card to me for ONLY $30 by express delivery. I snapped back that I wasn't going to pay $30 for what I deemed was their mistake! I told them if they would put the new card in US mail I would have it in a couple of days anyway. Oh no, they said. It would take time to prepare the new card so I wouldn't get it for 10 days to 2 weeks. I just snorted back that I had a whole drawer full of empty credit cards and I'd just pick another one, then, to use in the meantime!! I don't think the credit card rep expected that response.

This last ploy to get $30 out of me made me suspicious that the bank itself was pulling a scam trying to get yet another fee to replace all the fees they used to make before the government cracked down on them a couple of months ago. After all, both compromises occurred right at the end of the month when autopayments are being processed. Both compromises involved two very small transactions from an online vendor I couldn't even find online.

Anyway, now I had the problem of what to do about my autopayments again.

So, I decided to use a card for my autopays from a different bank. I have a Bank of America card and I noticed that they offer a free service called "Safe Shop". To use it you set up an online banking account then you go under your credit card account and click on a link for More Details. There you will see a link to set up a Safe Shop card.

Safe Shop is like a virtual credit card with its own number, its own security code and its own credit limit that you set that is connected to your real credit card. If you want to set up a recurring payment for something like Netflix you create a virtual Safe Shop VISA and specify a maximum amount allowable per month for the transaction and how many months of transactions you wish to authorize up to a maximum of 12 months.

For example, I generated a Safe Shop VISA for Netflix and set a $10 payment limit for 12 months. Then I logged into Netflix went to my account settings and entered the new "virtual" Safe Shop VISA information as my new source for autopayments. Each Safe Shop VISA can only be used at one location.

To set up my next autopay for my puppies' pet insurance account I generated another Safe Shop VISA, set a credit limit sufficient to cover the premiums for 12 months then called VPI (my pet insurance company) and gave them my new Safe Shop VISA information for their account.

Only Bank of America has the association key to link these virtual VISAs to my real credit card. My real credit card number is never given to any online vendor and each vendor has a different virtual VISA number that cannot be reused so it eliminates the possibility that an employee of any of the online vendors could use my credit card number anywhere else.

I just have to set myself a reminder next September to go back and reissue new virtual VISAs for my next 12 months of autopayments since the maximum number of months of credit you can set per virtual card is 12. It's worth an hour once each year to be able to take care of bill paying in a more secure fashion. By the way, you can also generate a virtual VISA for just a single online purchase too for those occasional online bargains!

The service is entirely free.

I realize this process is not as convenient as the One-click shopping that many larger vendors are attempting to get you to use but it's worth the piece of mind.

Museums take baby steps with iPhone Apps

2010-10-02T16:31:00.000-07:00

Edward Rothstein, art critic for the New York Times, gave his take on the museum iPhone apps that are popping up all over New York. I think he is right on target when he points to GPS as the key to make the retrieval of information about objects in a particular collection much more seamless for the visitor.

Imagine standing in front of an object with an app that, sensing your location, is already displaying precisely the right information. It might offer historical background or direct you through links to other works that have some connection to the object. It might provide links to critical commentary. It might become, for each object, an exhibition in itself, ripe with alternate narratives and elaborate associations. And, best of all, you could save it for later, glance up from the screen and look carefully at what faces you, all scrims removed, all distractions discarded.- Edward Rothstein, From Picassos to Sarcophagi, Guided by iPhone Apps

I must admit, though, that I was surprised he pointed out that the app information may not even be equal to the information on the item's printed ID card. Why aren't museum inventory databases connected to such information retrieval systems so a visitor can view at least all of the information on the ID card if nothing else?

I was also surprised that he complained that many objects' search tags are so obtuse.

Monet’s “Church at Vernon,” (from the Brooklyn Museum of Art) we learn, is tagged “blue,” “dreamy,” “hazy,” Rothstein observes, puzzled.

At first I thought he meant that only those tags were entered. However, by looking at the link Rothstein provided to the Brooklyn Museum's actual object record for this painting, we see there are 28 tags for this work of art and the museum invites visitors to add more tags. Tags like "dreamy" actually serve to record a visitor's emotional response to the painting and although such a tag is subjective I agree with the museum's inclusion of it since art is suppose to evoke an emotional response from the viewer. I had never thought about tagging art with emotional terms before but I like it!

For those of us who are trying to assist educators and students by providing photographs that we have taken of museum art objects and artifacts, how about an application that we can use to sync the Geocoordinates recorded as XIF data in the images from our cameras with the museum's inventory records so we can be certain we are labeling images correctly. Now I have to remember to photograph the image's ID card and, if the information is provided in a list of object descriptions, align the information in such a way that I can distinguish it from entries above and below it. Similar objects are often displayed together so its not always obvious which description goes with which object unless you take an image that includes the item's number. I take a lot of detail closeups that do not include the item number so I may not have a number for reference when I am working on my images in post production.

In fact, a perfect application based on the Flickr API using the Flickr Uploader interface would match the image coordinates with the inventory records then use the Title, artist, date, location made, and medium for the Title field, populate the tag field with the museum's tags formatted as needed for Flickr then populate the description field with a "Photographed by (photographer name) at (linked Museum name)", like I do now manually.

I like the way the Brooklyn Museum displays related works by tag groups in their records. Ideally, I think it would be even more helpful if the related object images were linked to a gallery map indicating each related object's location so a visitor that was interested in comparison could easily find them.

In fact, a visitor tracking system based on GPS could alert visitors to small exhibits in adjoining alcoves that might have been missed if the visitor begins to leave a main gallery space without a travel path into the adjoining alcove. I usually try to be quite thorough when I am photographing museum collections but on my second visit to the Getty Villa, I noticed a display of ancient coins and jewelry in a small alcove off of one of their main galleries that I just hadn't seen on my first visit. I'm very fortunate that I travel to the LA area on business at least once a year so I've been able to visit the Getty three times. However, when I'm overseas, I may be in a museum only once - perhaps in my entire lifetime - so I don't want to miss little treasures tucked away in obscure areas of the museum.

Museums could also analyze these travel path records to determine if objects could be displayed differently to avoid visitor oversight.

Star Trek vs. Star Wars Fake Movie Trailer Points The Way to Online Remix Service

2010-10-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

This morning I received a link to a fake movie trailer where the Starship Enterprise and her crew (circa Star Trek: The Next Generation) race to save planet earth from Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader and their evil minions.

The YouTube producer 2SunsNoWomen did an excellent job of integrating scenes from:

Star Trek (2009)
Star Trek First Contact
Star Trek Generations
Star Trek Nemesis
Star Wars A New Hope
Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars Return of the Jedi
Star Wars Revenge of the Sith

Yes, I was an original Trekker and seeing scenes from Star Trek is like savoring a mouthful of my favorite dessert. Star Trek must still be the favorite dessert for a lot of other people as I see the video has almost 40,000 views in less than a week!

My dream would be to easily have the ability to create a similar mashup of movie clips and share online with an online movie subscription and an enhanced remote control. I have read that some Blue Ray DVDs include a mashup feature but I'm told its pretty primitive compared to a clip like this one . I can only speculate as, alas, my husband says I can't get HD until our big screen bites the dust (which could be quite a while since we just replaced the convergence component last year). I must admit even I want to wait until the dust settles around 3D integration but my resolve weakens everytime I walk into Best Buy or the entertainment department of Sears.

Of course there is also the problem of accessing clips from films produced by different studios. I noticed after working in higher ed for over 20 years that a lot of people used to talk about the synergy that could be achieved with interdisciplinary courses but very few professors actually tried developing them. Perhaps when we finally get enough critical mass of streaming customers to motivate the studios to move all movies to online delivery maybe they'll introduce a movie remix service that will let us add multiple movies to a project space much like Microsoft MovieMaker does, mark start and stop points on a movie to isolate desired scenes, edit, then save to Youtube and share via email, Twitter and Facebook.

I'd love to take a crack at a remix of Oliver Stone's "Alexander". The introduction of the theatrical release was so slow and drawn out that even I was tapping my foot impatiently on the theater floor waiting for something to happen! I purchased the director's cut when it was released on DVD and it was an improvement but still too low key for a tale about such a dynamic conqueror. I think I would have started with the scenes of young Alexander (Connor Paolo) and King Philip II (Val Kilmer) in the dank cave below their palace in Pella looking at paintings of legendary heroes on the cave walls.

I would intersperse live battle scenes at points where the camera shows a closeup of drawings of the eagle pecking out Prometheus' liver, the helmeted warrior with an arrow protruding from his eye and Herakles thrusting up the body of one of his children, then cut away to Alexander looking over the aftermath of the battle of Gaugamela followed by the camera pulling back and up to encompass the whole battlefield. Then I would proceed from that point on.

Sorry Sir Anthony Hopkins, you're a heck of an actor but listening to an old character ramble on for twenty minutes is not the way to open an historical epic IMHO.

Filemaker Workshop: Linking Tables with Many to Many Relationships

2010-09-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

This post is another in a series of posts that represent classroom exercises that I used to conduct as a Filemaker Pro instructor. These exercises are designed for new Filemaker Pro users or those unfamiliar with structuring a database with related tables. This lesson can be used with the sample file Students.fp7 . It can be downloaded by right clicking on the link and selecting "Save Link As" or "Save Target As" depending on which browser you are using. My instructions and screenshots are based on the Windows Version (8.5) of Filemaker Pro. Mac users can generally follow the same instructions with only a few minor menu differences.

In this exercise the student will:

Create a new table
Create new fields
Create new relationships
Create new layouts
Create a portal
Create a value list that uses two fields, one for input and one for display
Format Field with a dropdown list

Let's begin!

Overview:

When you related the "Schools" and "Students" tables in exercise #1, you established a one-to-many relationship between those two tables.

In more complex databases, a many-to-many relationship may exist. For example, each student can potentially enroll in many seminars and each seminar can potentially have many students enrolled in it.

Whenever you have a many-to-many relationship between two tables, you cannot link those tables together directly. You will need to create an intermediate table between the two to act as a "bridge". This "bridge" table needs to include only the information necessary to record a single event. For example, if a student registers for a seminar, we only need to record the ID of the student and the ID of the seminar that the student has requested. We may also wish to record additional information about the student's participation in the Seminar like Show or No Show, Grade or Assessment Notes. But we do not need to include any more information about the student themselves other than their ID. If we wish to view their enrollment records directly, we can simply add related fields from the Student table to view their full name, their address, their phone, etc.

Likewise, we do not need to include any more information about the seminar they attended other than the Seminar ID. If we wish to view the instructor name, the course title, or any other details about the course, we simply add related fields from the Seminar table to our layout based on the Registrations table.

Creating an Intermediate "Bridge" Table:

1. Open the Students.fp7 sample file. Choose File ->New->Database and click on the Tables tab.

2. Type "Registrations" in the "Table Name" field and click "Create".

3. Now select the Fields tab and enter Student# in the Field Name box, select Number for the field type and click Create.

Repeat this process and create another number field named Seminar Number.

4. We will now need to define the relationships between the Student and Registrations tables and the Seminars and Registrations tables. ( I have already created the table Seminars and populated it with sample data for you.)

5. Choose the Relationships tab.

6. Click on the "Student #" field in the Registrations table and drag the field over on top of the Student Number field in the Students table. Note: Related field names do not have to be identical.

Now double click on the relationship line between the tables.

Check "Allow creation of records in this table via this relationship" and "Delete related records in this table via this relationship" under the Registrations table in the dialog box and click OK.

This will enable us to create a layout based on the Student table and embed a portal based on the Registrations table that we can use to enroll students in a new seminar or view the seminars they have already taken.

7. Now select the field "Seminar Number" in the Registrations table and drag it over on top of Seminar Number in the Seminars table.

Now double click on the relationship line between the tables and check "Allow creation of records in this table via this relationship" and "Delete related records in this table via this relationship" under the Registrations table in the dialog box and click OK.

This will enable us to create a layout based on the Seminars table and embed a portal based on the Registrations table that we can use to enroll multiple students in a new seminar.

Note: Pay close attention to which table is directly above the checkboxes you are selecting. We want to be able to create new records in the Registrations table from a layout based on the Seminar table - not the other way around!

Now click OK to close the Define Database dialog box.

Let's create a basic layout to view records in the new Registrations table. Select View->Layout Mode then Layout->New Layout. Select the table Registrations and name the layout Registrations and select the Standard Form as the layout type and click Next.

Now click the Move All button then click Next. Select an appealing template then click Finish. Select View->Browse and you'll see we don't yet have any records.

Now we'll create a layout to use to enroll students in seminars using an instructor's viewpoint of the Seminars table.

8. Select View->Layout Mode then Layout->New Layout. In the New Layout dialog box select the Seminars table to "Show Records From", name the layout Seminar Enrollment then select the Standard Form layout type and click Next.

On the next screen click the Move All Button to select and move the Seminar #, Seminar Title and Instructor fields in the layout field list and click Next. Select an appealing design template then click Finish.

9. Now click on the portal icon in the design palette on the left hand side of your layout screen.

Your cursor will change into a crosshair. Hold your mouse button down and draw a rectangle about 4" wide. In the Portal Setup dialog box select the table Registrations. Check the "Allow Deletion of Portal Records" checkbox and the "Show Vertical Scroll Bar" checkbox and set the number of rows to display to 5 then click OK.

In the "Add Fields to Portal" dialog box, double click the field Student# from the Registrations table

then select the table Students from the drop down list

and double click Last Name and First Name. Then click OK.

Now we'll set up a value list to be used to format the Student# field in our portal so whoever is enrolling the student can choose from a list of names and doesn't need to know the student's ID number.

First, though, let's create a calculated field that combines the student's Last Name with their First Name.

10. Select File->Define->Database and choose the fields tab. Select the Student table then name the field LastNameFirstName and select Calculation from the Field Type dropdown list. Then click the Create button.

In the "Specify Calculation" dialog box, double click the field "Last Name" then click the ampersand operator - & - and in the calculation text area enter ", " - quotation comma space quotation - then click the ampersand operator - & - again. Now double click the field "First Name". Select "Text" as the type of calculation result then click OK then OK again to close the Define Database dialog box.

Note: The ampersand operator is used to create a concatenation - the adding together of strings of text. The result of the concatenation above, if the student's name was John Smith, would be Smith, John. We had to insert the ", " so the two names would not run together like SmithJohn. When building a concatenation, you must enclose nonfield text within quotes so Filemaker knows you are referring to text and not a field name.

11. Now let's define our new value list. Select File->Define->Value Lists and click the New button. Name the Value List Students and click the "Use Values From Field" radio button.

Select the table Students from the dropdown list and single click on the field Student Number. Now click the "Also display values from second field" checkbox and click the field LastNameFirstName. Now click the value "Show values only from second field" and click OK

Note: The "Show values only from second field" lets us display only the Student's Last Name and First Name without displaying the Student Number although when this value list is used to format a field, it will actually input the Student Number into the field when the student's name is selected.

Then click OK and OK to close all dialog boxes.

The reason we selected the Student Number as our first field is that we are going to use this value list to populate the field Student Number in the Registrations portal on our new enrollment layout. However, by displaying the Student's LastNameFirstName field beside it in the drop down list, our enrollment personnel don't need to look up a student's ID number, just ask their name.

Now we're ready to format the Student# field in the first row of our portal.

12. Now click on the Student # field in the portal on our layout. Select Format->Field Control->Setup. Select Drop Down List as the display type, select Students as the value list you wish to use click the include arrow to show and hide list box and check the Create label checkbox. Then click OK.

Note: You will notice that there is a choice called "Pop Up Menu". This format option looks very similar to a drop down list but only the option Drop Down List provides the ability to "type ahead" to find your choice. This is very valuable when you are dealing with a very long list. If you click on a field formatted as a drop down list you can begin typing your choice - in our case the student's last name - and the list will jump down the list based on what letters you are typing.

Click the text label and drag it above the Student# field. To label any other fields in the portal just double click the field and check the Create label checkbox and click OK. Then drag them above their respective fields. Now select View->Browse Mode. Click in the first field of the first portal row and you will see a list of students. Click on a name and you will see their Last Name and their First Name show up in the portal without any further data entry.

13. Now select the layout we designed call "Registrations". You will see a record in the Registrations table - the "bridge" table - with the Seminar # and the Student# entered. By creating a layout based on Seminars table and placing a portal based on the relationship to Registrations on the layout, Filemaker automatically knows to enter the appropriate seminar number in the Registrations table when we enroll a student.

If we wish to prepare reports to display all students who have enrolled in particular Seminars, we would base the report on the Registrations table ("bridge" table). But that's another lesson!

Filemaker Workshop: Defining A Relationship and Converting a Multiple File database to a Single File database

2010-09-23T14:44:00.000-07:00

This post is one in a series of posts that represent classroom exercises that I used to conduct as a Filemaker Pro instructor. These exercises are designed for new Filemaker Pro users or those unfamiliar with structuring a database with related tables. This lesson can be used with the sample file Students.fp7 and Schools.fp7.. It can be downloaded by right clicking on the link and selecting "Save Link As" or "Save Target As" depending on which browser you are using. My instructions and screenshots are based on the Windows Version (8.5) of Filemaker Pro. Mac users can generally follow the same instructions with only a few minor menu differences.

In this lesson the student will:

Create a new table
Create new fields
Create a relationship
Import records
Create a value list
Recreate a layout

So let's begin!

Open the sample files Students.fp7 and Schools.fp7.

Overview:

If we look at the Students file you will notice there is one record per student. Each student has an identification number that is unique to that student stored in the Student Number field. We also have other fields to record the student's address, city, state, zip, phone, music instrument and music style. All of these fields contain information unique to that specific student. Each student record also has a field for School Number that indicates the school they attend. If this file did not have a related file to provide all the information we need about the school the student attends, each student record would have to have a field for School address, School administrator, etc. However, all of that information is stored in the file Schools.fp7 which has one record for each school including a field named School# to identify that specific school.

By relating these two files on the fields "School Number" and "School#", called the "match" field or the "key" field, we can add fields from the Schools file to any layouts in the Student file. Then as we create a new student record, we simply input the number for the school the student attends and all related information about the school will display on the Student's layout without inputting any duplicate data.

In versions of Filemaker Pro before 7.0, each database table was created as an individual file like our two sample files. But, Filemaker 7 and newer provides the opportunity to create separate tables to store different collections of data within a single file.

Placing multiple tables within a single file allows all the tables to share common resources such as value lists and scripts. There's also no need to duplicate security settings in each of the many files of a large solution. A FileMaker Pro 7 or newer file lets you set those privileges once, and they apply across an entire large, complex solution with numerous tables.

For example, using the old method, if we related the separate files Student and Schools on the key field School # then wanted to create a menu layout in the Schools file to produce a report listing all students attending a particular school, we would first have to design a report and write a script in the Student file to subsummarize all student records for each school. Then we would have to write a script in the Schools file that called that external script in the Students file.

However, if we use a new version of Filemaker (7 or newer), we could create a single file (Students.fp7) then within the file Students we would create a second table (Schools). If we write a script to produce a subsummarized list of students per school that single script could be called from a menu layout that could be accessed from anywhere within the file.

So how do we convert a collection of Filemaker Pro files from an earlier version of Filemaker Pro to the new single file format? Let's step through the process with our sample files.

Note: If your Filemaker Pro files are still in an earlier format, you will need to begin by opening each file with the new version of Filemaker Pro and saving each file in the new format. I have already done that for you with the sample files.

Creating a Relationship in Filemaker Pro and importing data from a converted Filemaker Pro 6 (or earlier) file.

This procedure changed between Filemaker Pro 7 and later versions of Filemaker Pro. I will explain each method separately. Filemaker Pro 7 required users to manually create a new internal table (New users of later versions should review this procedure just to become familiar with how to create a new table):

1. Open the file Student.fp7. Select File ->Define ->Database and select the Tables tab. Enter Schools for the table name and click Create.

Now select the Fields Tab. If not already selected, select the Schools table. Create a number field named School # and text fields named School Name, Dept Coordinator, Dept Phone, City and State. School# will be our "matching" or key field. This field MUST be unique.

Note: If I was creating the School table for the first time and not planning to import existing data, I would set the field to AutoEnter a computer generated serial number. However, we have existing records with School Numbers already attached so we will not set that option.

2. To populate our new internal table with the data in the old Schools.fp7 file, we must import it. With Filemaker Pro 7 you will first need to create a layout based on the table schools that contains all fields from the table Schools.

From the application menu, select View->Layout Mode then select Layout->New Layout/Reports. In the New Layout/Reports dialog box select the table Schools from the drop down list next to "Show Records From:". Name the Layout "Schools". Select the Standard layout form then click Next.

Then click the "Move All" button in the next dialog box and click Next. Choose any theme you prefer and click Finish.

Now select File->Import Records->File and select the file Schools.fp7 and click Open. Make sure field names are arranged opposite each other (you may click and drag fields in the right hand column up or down if they are not - notice the two sided vertical arrow) and be sure they have a black arrow next to each field on the left pointing to its corresponding field on the right. If there is just a dash, click it once with a mouse to change it to an arrow. Then click Import.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Whenever you perform an import in Filemaker Pro, always select a layout based on the table you wish to import the data into. This will automatically set the import target table. If you are performing an import to update existing records, be sure to select Records->Show All Records first. Imports only update records in the Current Found Set.

If you are using Filemaker Pro 8 or newer, the creation of the Schools table is done automatically during the Import process. Select File->Import Records->File and select the file Schools.fp7 and click Open. In the upper right hand corner of the Import dialogue box click the drop down list and select New Table ("Schools"). then click Import. A new table called "Schools" and a layout with all fields in the table Schools will be created and populated with the data that was in the file Schools.fp7.

Regardless of which version of Filemaker Pro you are using, you now need to establish your relationships between the tables in your solution.

3. Select File->Define ->Database from the application menu. Click on the Relationships tab. Click on the Schools table field School #. Holding the mouse button down, drag the field on top of the School Number field in the Students table and click OK.

Note: Fields do not need to be named exactly the same to be used as a "match" field.

Now click on the little box containing two lines in the center of the relationship connecting line. You will see that the fields are now specified as equal to each other in the Edit Relationship dialogue box. Notice the Add button. Beginning with Filemaker Pro 7 or newer you have the ability to specify more than one match field.

For example, at the University we identify a course by a unique CRN number. However, CRN numbers are reused in subsequent terms. Therefore, if you have a table of course information that includes information from multiple terms you cannot use a CRN as a unique record identifier. In older versions of Filemaker Pro we had to create a field that autofilled with a calculation that combined the CRN and Term fields. Now we can establish a relationship using the field CRN and a second relationship using the field Term.

You will also notice that the relationship operator is a dropdown list. The default is "=". However, with Filemaker Pro 7 or newer you can also choose other operators. Why would we wish to? Well, at the University we designate terms by year and term i.e. 201001 (Fall Term 2010). If we have a Student table with one record per student and a Registrations table with one record for each course the student has enrolled in ( a one-to-many relationship) we can create a layout with a portal that views all courses the student has taken. But a student record may include years worth of enrollment information.

What if we only want to view courses taken in the last three years but retain the ability to view the entire student's history if we should need to? If we first create a field in the Student table called Target Term then create a dual relationship between the Student table and the Registrations table on the fields "Target Term" and "Term" with the operator set to ">" (greater than), we could use the "Target Term" field to "filter" the records we wish to view in the Registrations table by setting a value in the "Target Term" field in the student table.

We'll explore this technique further in another class.

You also have the option to "Allow creation of records in this table via this relationship", "Delete related records in this table when a record is deleted in the other table" and "Sort records". If we wish to create a layout based on the Schools table with a portal that views the Students enrolled in that school that we can use to enroll new students, we need to check the "Allow creation of records in this table via this relationship" option directly under the Student table. If a School is removed from the tracking system and you wish all student records connected to that school removed from the database, you would check the "Delete related records in this table when a record is deleted in the other table" option. This option should be considered carefully, though, based on how you wish to manage the records in your database. If you want to retain all Student information regardless of which school they attend and the Student record is of primary importance while the School information is only secondary, you would not check the "Delete related records in this table when a record is deleted in the other table" option. In other words, it is very important to understand the "viewpoint" of your records system.

The import process does not include resources like value lists or scripts. We must recreate any value lists we may need that originally existed in Schools.fp7.

4. Using our Students.fp7 file select File->Define Value Lists. Click on New and enter School Names for the value list name and click the radio button for Use Values From Field. Select Schools from the Tables drop down list and click on the field School# then click "Also display values from second field" checkbox and click on the School Name field. Then check the "Show values only from second field" checkbox and click OK.

We will use this value list to format the Student Number field to create a drop down list for our records personnel to choose from to assign a school to a new student. So our records personnel don't have to memorize a list of numbers we have configured our dropdown list to display the second field only - the School Name. When the choice of school is made, the School Number will be entered into the field even though a name was selected from the drop down list. Recording the school number is really the only information we need in the student table to relate a student to a school. This also eliminates the problem of schools with the same name. Each school is assigned its own unique school number even if it has a name identical to another school. We can add a related field from Schools on a Student layout to display the School name.

Note: If we had a value list in the Students.fp7 file that was based on the old external file Schools, we need to edit that value list so that it now refers to the table Schools instead.

Because the file Students.fp7 now contains the tables Students and Schools, the value list can be used on any layout referring to the Student Number field from either table.

Recreating layouts

All tables and value lists should be imported/recreated before attempting to recreate layouts so fields formatted to use value lists will retain their format and all fields will map properly to their corresponding fields in the new tables.

In the new file, create a new layout based on the table that is appropriate for the layout you are attempting to recreate. Select View->Layout Mode then Layout->New Layout. Select the appropriate table from the list of tables, name the layout EXACTLY as it was named in your old file and choose Blank Layout and click Finish.

Open the old file and select the layout you wish to recreate. Select View->Layout Mode then Edit->Select All. Then copy (Control-C) and paste (Control V) all objects into the new blank layout in the new file. If your fields are named exactly as they were in the old file, the fields will map themselves to the new fields in the new table. If not, the field will appear blank without the field name showing in Layout Mode. If you see a blank field, double click the field and select the table and field to display. All fields formatted for drop down lists or check boxes will remap to the appropriate value list if they were created first as well.

Note: If you have background objects that are "Locked" on your old layout, you will need to click on the locked object first (in Layout Mode) and select Arrange->Unlock before you perform the Edit->Select All step.

Scripts can be imported using Scriptmaker. However, all tables, value lists, and layouts should be recreated (in that order) before you attempt to import scripts so script steps referring to specific layouts, etc. will not "break". All imported scripts need to be examined after import for Missing File, Missing Field or Missing Layout references and remapped as needed.

Pricey Elder Care Monitoring Systems Overlook Logic

2010-07-29T11:13:00.000-07:00

As an aging baby boomer myself with medical issues that invariably accompany the aging process, I have found myself frequently annoyed at my own loss of short-term memory and its impact on trying to manage my own health care and the even more challenging task of overseeing the care of my husband, a disabled Vietnam veteran. So I was instantly drawn to the article, "Technologies Help Adult Children Monitor Aging Parents", in the New York Times this morning. But as I read the article and checked some of the related links, I couldn't help but be dismayed that so many companies are developing systems that are based around a pricey monthly subscription plan and the more complex systems rely on an expensive system of sensors throughout the elder person's home.

Although such systems are touted as far less expensive than a nursing home, they ignore the fact that most of the activities they monitor could be keyed to the daily activities that surround medication management for a lot less money.

For example, the article talks about using motion sensors to tell if a person has gotten out of bed. If the person's daily routine includes taking medications in the morning and the medications are in the bathroom or the kitchen, then the person has obviously gotten out of bed if they have taken their morning medications.

One of the more elaborate systems costing in excess of $8,000 uses sensors on the refrigerator to track when the door is open or closed and for how long. The apparent assumption is that if the door is open for more than a few seconds, the person has gotten enough food out of it to indicate they have prepared a meal. A much more reliable indicator would be to use blood glucose levels, whether a person is diabetic or not, and weight. Both of these activities could be incorporated into the morning medication routine.

As for using motion sensors to track whether the person is moving around the house, how do those systems distinguish between the resident and their pet(s)? The article mentioned the case of a man becoming panicked because his mother's motion sensors showed a flurry of activity in the sun room. She had decided to paint the room and was happily redecorating when he called her. When I examine my own activities during the day as a retired person, I find that, although I have somewhat of a daily routine, my activity levels often vary based on the weather, the time of year, unscheduled visits of friends and family or weekly or seasonal errands. This morning, for example, I went outside to do yard work early in the morning because it is supposed to be pretty warm later in the day. In the winter, however, I may sleep in a little longer. If I've worked hard out in the yard I may decide to take an extended nap after lunch and motion sensors would not track much movement at all although I am perfectly fine. So I think minute by minute tracking of a person's daily movements is overkill in my opinion.

Of course such precise monitoring and reporting via email, text message or phone call is the justification these companies are using to charge their monthly monitoring fee. But we all know that we don't really want to know all the times things are within normal parameters. We only really want to know when something is wrong.

The really promising device mentioned in the article was the computerized Med Minder, lovingly called "Maya", produced by Med Minder Systems, Inc.. It resembles a large weekly medication dispenser with a power cord that has a computerized monitoring system incorporated into it. The device is wireless like a cell phone and can transmit a host of reminders to family or caregivers via phone, email or text message:

Medication was not taken on schedule
Medication cup was taken out at the wrong time
Medication cup was not returned to the compartment
Scheduled refill has started
Refill was started, but not finished
Unscheduled refill occurred
MedMinder tray was not replaced during the refill
Reminder to take medication
Reminder to refill the box
Scheduled refill was missed
Pillbox registration failed
Pillbox was deregistered
Loss of wireless connection
Wireless connection reestablished
Pillbox turned on
Pillbox lost power and is running on battery
Pillbox power restored
Pillbox shut down

As many older people have problems with vision or hearing loss, Maya's alerts include both visual and auditory signals.

"Maya provides alerts that are both visual and auditory. The beeps can be easily heard and the lights flash on & off to get your attention. The system also provides automatic phone calls as reminders, in case the lights and beeps do not prompt taking the scheduled medication. You can also choose to receive just some of the reminders and disable the others. If you are visually impaired, the unit opens easily and the cups and compartments are large enough to feel and easy to remove and replace." - Med Minder website

For the technology the device uses, it's hardware price of $147 is actually pretty reasonable. However, it also requires a $19 per month subscription fee. This fee is not exorbitant but for elderly patients with a computer system and a DSL wireless router, I think the device should be configurable to use an existing wireless network instead to eliminate the monthly subscription fee.

If the device were combined with a wireless enabled digital scale, a wireless blood glucose monitor, a wireless blood pressure cuff, and software that can be configured for individual normal parameters and only emails family and caregivers if daily readings vary by a specified degree, I think many seniors would welcome it without concerns about control and privacy. Such a system could probably be produced for less than $500 and still give the manufacturer a decent profit. It could also be expandable to include add-ons like a wireless CPAP machine interface, wireless exercise bike or treadmill, an interface to a Wii or a smart card interface.

Many grocery stores have incorporated buyer "preferred" cards that they scan along with your debit card when you buy groceries so they can offer you more targeted coupons (and probably sell your preferences to corporate marketers). Just think of the nutritional information that is available by simply having software analyze the weekly grocery purchases. In fact, a good nutritional analysis program could also make recommendations for more nutritious alternatives which I'm sure many seniors, including me, would welcome.

Doomday fear mongers point to Iran's new Surena-2 humanoid robot as further proof of weapons manufacturing

2010-07-06T09:26:00.000-07:00

I am thoroughly disgusted by doomsday fear mongers in the west that point to Iran's newly minted humanoid robot as further proof of Iran developing technology for nuclear weapons manufacturing, In fact, the University of Tehran has had an artificial intelligence and robotics program since 1993.

"Current research directions include cognitive robotics, multiagent learning, biologically inspired learning methods, distributed robotics, object manipulation, and mobile robots. - University of Tehran Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory website

Any positive advances in technology development should be celebrated regardless of where such advances were developed.

Episodic online games with movie tie could snag casual gamers

2010-05-18T11:32:00.000-07:00

The movie industry may be on to something with their efforts to tie the theater experience with online episodic mobile gaming. This article describes a new game being prepared to tie in to the new Angelina Jolie spy thriller "Salt" and it intrigued me when "Day X Exists" is explained as a "a genre that blends online and offline clues and relies on players collaborating to solve puzzles."

[Promotional Image courtesy of Sony Pictures]

It mentions that a similar game was released for "District 9". Although I really liked that film I somehow missed any reference to an online game. I wonder what venue the movie studios are using to announce such product tie-ins?

Since the article mentions social networking too, I guess the collaboration part of the game is expected to take place between Facebook friends or something. I guess I should pay more attention to Facebook but I really don't have time between my writing, photography, book reviews and household adventures. At least I have my Flickr account and blogs connected to Facebook so links to my writing and photography make it there without me having to double or triple post.

I think the movie studios are on the right track although I was a bit offended by the following paragraph:

"On the way now, as evidenced by Day X Exists, are games that feature complex narratives and depth, but do not require a master’s degree to figure out. Women in particular are a focus. " - Using Online Games to Get Movie Audiences Involved by Brooks Barnes, New York Times.

It's as if the NYT writer is inferring that women are not as intelligent as the average male gamer. They are correct about developing games as entertainment, though, rather than something expected to take hours before any psychological reward is offered. I think introducing the social aspect to gaming will be interesting to observe as well since females have been conditioned to be more socially aware in our society.

I also think their efforts to utilize mobile GPS for location-specific gaming strategies is commendable as well. I guess I'm going to have to explore this Day X Exists a little further although to be honest, I would have been more interested in the game for "District 9" or maybe "Robin Hood"! I have to confess that I fell asleep trying to watch "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" and was equally bored with "Mr. and Mrs. Smith". So I haven't yet been won over to the camp that view Jolie as an action hero. It's not that she isn't a talented actress, as I found her performance in "The Changeling" quite riveting. It's just that so many of these so-called spy thrillers have such a thin or overly cliched plot.

I wonder if they'll create a game for "Prince of Persia"? Can you imagine that? A game developed for a movie based on a game. It sounds like one of those dreaded infinite loops!

Firefox now compatible with Netflix Streaming! Yeah!!

2010-04-07T14:57:00.000-07:00

My older PC workstation in my home office seems to revolt if I try to use Internet Explorer on it and for quite a while that meant downloading movies from my Netflix instant queue was dicey at best. If I just ignored the "Internet Explorer has encountered an unknown problem and must close" error and left it minimized on my desktop I could go ahead and play the movie and it would USUALLY play but my system would later hang at some point. If I tried to use Firefox - my regular default browser - I would get an error message telling me that the streaming service required Internet Explorer. Well today I tried it again and behold - Firefox worked like a charm! I did receive a notice that the content I had chosen to download (Spartacus: Blood and Sand) was protected by Microsoft Digital Rights Management software and asked if I wanted Silverlight to automatically install the proper software to play my selected choice. Of course you have to agree or you can't watch the movie so I granted permission. I had previously installed Silverlight for some multimedia work I was doing a while back so I'm not sure if someone who has never installed Silverlight would have to install it first or not.

Of course the other thing I was excited about was the availability of "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" in streaming format before the last two episodes of the series on STARZ has even finished airing. Go STARZ!!

I also noticed that the Wii has added the ability to stream movies from Netflix. I already have a Roku player with that capability in the living room (I bought it about a year before I bought the Wii) but it looks like I will need to move my Wii to my office if I ever want to use it much as my retired husband spends a lot of his time watching TV in the living room and I can't get much screen time for the Wii.

I've been thinking about buying a 40" Proscan LCD HD TV for my office (It's price is less than $500 - not bad for 40" and I'm used to playing the Wii on a 60" screen so I can't downsize too much!) and it would be nice to watch instant movies on it as well without having to add any more equipment. My husband is balking at this point, though, because he's afraid I'll spend even more time in my office than I do now. But, come on, now - how much "Ax Men" can a girl take!!

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