MAC TREAT #95: Crush Those Pages File Sizes

We got some great responses to last week’s article, “iPhones Go Academic: One School’s Experiment.”:http://blog.smalldog.com/kibbles/?c=kb631

Marisa writes,

__”It’s so much easier to sit in large lectures with my iPhone recording. I end up taking notes, too, but I know that if there’s anything I missed, I’ll have it.”__

Kevin writes,

__”I’m always using it to document life on campus. Between the camera, video (I have a 3GS) and microphone, I have everything I need to remember what life was like in college! My friends who work on the school’s website often ask me for files they can put in the student life section.”__

Lu writes,

__”I’ve been teaching 1st grade for 31 years… love technology and LOVE Apple! Last year, one of my students was autistic, and difficult to motivate. None of my usual rewards would work and get him to complete his work or improve his behavior. That is, until I offered to let him use my iPhone as a reward!__

__Once I realized THAT using the iPhone was an ultimate reward for him, I added some games to the iPhone. He also LOVED music and was quite the singer, so I added an entire playlist on it for him, too. (Silly me–I added the bowling game app on it and it quickly became one of his favorite games to use–until my iPhone was sent flying across the room when he accidentally ‘let go’ of it while bowling.) It was then I realized I cold no longer let him use the iPhone and I wrote a grant for an iPod touch. He never knew the difference!__

__He was allowed to earn the reward 2x/day, and for the last 6 months of the school year, he worked hard on his school work and behavior in order to use the touch. After I added a few 2-player games on the touch, I allowed him to choose a friend to play with him during his reward time with the touch and I started to notice his social interactions with classmates improved tremendously, too!”__

Thanks for your feedback!

“If you have a comment about how you use your iPhone for academics, tell us here.”:http://blog.smalldog.com/article/one-school-s-experiment-free-iphones-for-students/#comment

*Save an extra $50 off of the $100 you’re already saving on the closeout aluminum MacBook bundle!*

This week, save a total of $150 off the 2.0GHz aluminum MacBook with 160GB hard drive and 4GB RAM (upgraded from 2GB RAM), plus 3-Year AppleCare Protection Plan and free Hammerhead reversible neoprene protection sleeve.

Plus, there’s free shipping and no sales tax on orders that ship out of Vermont!

It is truly the “dog days of summer”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Days now with the county fair season heating up and sweet corn starting to be in season here in Vermont. There was sweet corn just about everywhere else as we were riding home on our trip, but when we got to Vermont, none could be found yet at the farm stands. The massive amount of rain and clouds in July have delayed a lot of crops.

On Tuesday, I just got tired of it and after work, hopped on my motorcycle and vowed to ride until I found some sweet corn. Fortunately, I didn’t have to go too far; corn was available in Montpelier, VT!

Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

Your Kibbles & Bytes team,
_Don & Kali_

*Start Soapbox*

This week marks the 64th anniversary of the first use of an atomic weapon. The US atomic bombing of Hiroshima marked the start of the atomic age and also killed 260,000 people with a single bomb, marking a new height in man’s inhumanity to man. While I do not want to debate the wisdom or morality of that most difficult decision of Harry Truman to end the war, I do think the words of the pilot, Captain Robert Lewis, of “My God, what have we done?” ring true 64 years later as they did at the time.

With trillions of dollars of the world’s wealth spent and being spent now on maintenance of nuclear arsenals that have the power to destroy our planet, it is time once and for all to eliminate nuclear weapons from our planet. While we continue to pay lip service to eliminating useless nuclear weapons, little has been done to stop their production and we have a serious issue now with more nations seeking to join the nuclear club.

Nuclear weapons remain the most serious threat to humanity. Humanity’s capacity to use those weapons makes that a threat to take seriously. Even though the tensions that caused the cold war and the nuclear arms race have subsided, the nuclear arsenals continue to be produced, older weapons are being replaced by new weapons and unstable governments around the world seek nuclear arms in a sick sort of weapons-envy power trip.

I marched in my first anti-war rally on Hiroshima Day in 1964. I told my parents I was going to the library and ended up on the front page of the Chicago Sun Times. Yeah, I got grounded. But, I do remember the fear of the nuclear arms race. My parents even had a nuclear shelter in our home when we lived in Kansas. It was sort of silly–it didn’t even have a door, no sanitation facilities and would do almost nothing to protect you from that kind of explosion. I remember the ‘duck and cover’ exercises in school that were just as silly.

The use of nuclear weapons is no longer an option in our world and they should be forever banned.

*End Soapbox*

“Tell us what you think!”:http://blog.smalldog.com/article/total-nuclear-disarmament-now/#comment

On Monday, the “Burlington Free Press”:http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20090803/BUSINESS/908030303/1003, Vermont’s largest-circulation newspaper ran an article I wrote entitled “Computer to TV: Can we talk?.” It’s a brief overview of a couple of ways to get media from your computer to your television and home entertainment system. “Click here to check it out.”:http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20090803/BUSINESS/908030303/1003

How do you get media from your computer to your home entertainment system? Apple TV? Video game console? Mac mini? Simply patch-cable connection? Or do you connect your iPod to your TV or home entertainment system with cables or a dock of some kind?

“Click here to let us know!”:http://blog.smalldog.com/article/recent-article-computer-to-tv-can-we-talk/