In the Parlance of Our Timestag:webpub.allegheny.edu,2009:/employee/s/sfenton/weblog//32009-11-11T21:22:14ZMovable Type 3.36Zipping Along!tag:webpub.allegheny.edu,2009:/employee/s/sfenton/weblog//3.67682009-11-11T09:22:18Z2009-11-11T21:22:14ZIt's been a while since I posted anything here but I'm back again to promote my favorite company. No, not Apple. It's Zipcar! There is talk of bringing in Zipcar locally and I'd like to do my part to encourage...Susan Fentonhttp://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/s/sfenton/weblog/
I have a car waiting for me in many major cities around the country and the world! Zipcar is all over the place - Boston, Portland, New York, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, DC, London....the list goes on. If I fly to any of these cities for business and find I'd like to explore beyond the environs of the conference hotel for an evening or an afternoon, I just go online, find a car within walking distance, reserve it and off I go!
I can rent by the hour! I may only want that Zipcar so that I can get to a restaurant on the outskirts of town with no easy route via public transportation. Sure, I could take a taxi there and back, but the Zipcar, at prices like $7/hr for a Prius in Boston, can be lots cheaper than two taxi rides. And I don't need to tip the Zipcar.
Insurance is included! No more feeling like I'm being ripped off at the car rental agency. Insurance is included, with a $500 deductible. Some credit cards will cover that deductible, or Zipcar now lets you buy a waiver to cover it if you like, but there's no sales clerk pressuring you to do so.
Gasoline is included! If you need gas during your trip, you use the gas card in the car at the pump. If you find yourself somewhere where the gas card isn't accepted, just pay for the gas and Zipcar will reimburse you. I've done it both ways, and it works. You get a set number of miles you can drive per day - I think it's in the region of 180 now - with gas and insurance included. If you go over this number, Zipcar will charge you a per mile rate which is quite reasonable.
A car when I want it! I don't need to plan ahead to get the best rate. The rate is the same whether I reserve months ahead or minutes ahead. So if I don't know that I need a car until moments before I need it, no problem. I can use my iPhone to check nearby availablity, reserve for right now, head over to the car, wave my magic Zipcard at it and drive away. The whole transaction hardly takes longer than it would if I owned the car and it was sitting in my driveway.
A new car every day! I don't love driving, by any means. So if I have to drive, I'd like to have the most fun possible and what could be more fun than a new car? With Zipcar I don't have to drive the same car every day. I get to pick from any of the cars near me - or any I'm willing to walk or otherwise make my way to. I can drive a Prius one day, a BMW another, a Mini Cooper the next. I haven't seen any Smart Cars on Zipcar yet, but when that happens I'll be all over it!
If I've convinced you, click the Zipcar link on the right to sign up. We'll both get $25 free driving credit!]]>
I Love Apple, But....tag:webpub.allegheny.edu,2008:/employee/s/sfenton/weblog//3.40892008-03-04T19:57:41Z2008-04-08T13:50:22ZI love the ease-of-use thing with Apple software, but sometimes that means it's real hard to learn about new features. If you're not the type who reads every bit of documentation or who spends hours on the web reading reviews...Susan Fentonhttp://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/s/sfenton/weblog/
Macworld article has lots more on the hidden features of Leopard's Preview app.]]>
How Many iPods are Too Many?tag:webpub.allegheny.edu,2008:/employee/s/sfenton/weblog//3.35672008-01-23T00:33:45Z2008-01-22T20:36:12ZThey say you can never be too rich or too thin. You can't have too much RAM or too large a hard drive. But can you have too many iPods? I started wondering about this last week as I was...Susan Fentonhttp://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/s/sfenton/weblog/
They say you can never be too rich or too thin. You can't have too much RAM or too large a hard drive. But can you have too many iPods? I started wondering about this last week as I was syncing and charging my myriad devices.
We have 5 iPods of one flavor or another in a household of two people. I'm beginning to think this is too many.
We didn't plan to have this surplus. I had just one iPod for quite some time, and that same iPod, a 15 GB one bought in 2003, still serves well - though only in situations where it can be plugged in, as its battery is shot. I bought my second iPod, a gum stick style shuffle, 3 years ago. It used to spend its time in my purse or coat pocket, ready to jump into action when I found myself stuck in front of a computer taking 20 minutes to boot or on a Walmart run. But now it's been displaced by my new iPod nano, which Louise was eyeing fondly over Christmas while repeating over and over "I still don't see why you needed this."
Somewhere along the way we picked up two more iPods. One is the iPhone, so it's really more than an iPod and shouldn't count. The other was adopted after being nursed back to a semi-productive life - so it shouldn't count, either. I prefer to think of its acquisition as an act of mercy.
Only as I was syncing all of these, it seemed I hadn't used some of them much lately. The shuffle, in particular, hasn't seen the light of day for a while. In fact, now, a week after the mega-sync session, I'm not even sure where it is. I'm sure I'll come up with a use for that shuffle, assuming I find it again, but right now I'm not quite sure what that will be.
It's beginning to look like five iPods are indeed too many. Darn. That's going to make it tough to justify an iPod Touch purchase.
Give me time. I'm sure I'll come up with something.
I Am The Master of My Domaintag:webpub.allegheny.edu,2008:/employee/s/sfenton/weblog//3.35292008-01-02T16:50:17Z2008-01-02T16:55:18ZFor those of you wondering, I showed remarkable restraint this holiday season and did not buy the XO laptop. It helped that every time the thought crossed my mind I was busy doing something else so couldn't hop online and...Susan Fentonhttp://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/s/sfenton/weblog/
XO laptop. It helped that every time the thought crossed my mind I was busy doing something else so couldn't hop online and place an order.
I'd have to say I feel a twinge of regret, though there were definitely more pressing things to spend $400 on this past month. It sure would be cool to have one.
Maybe they'll do it again next year.]]>
Flickr Rulestag:webpub.allegheny.edu,2007:/employee/s/sfenton/weblog//3.34152007-12-05T21:50:19Z2007-12-05T21:57:02ZA month or so ago I discovered that I could post a photo from my iPhone directly to a Blogger blog and was disappointed that I couldn't do the same with Movable Type. Today I learned that I could, via...Susan Fentonhttp://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/s/sfenton/weblog/
post a photo from my iPhone directly to a Blogger blog and was disappointed that I couldn't do the same with Movable Type.
Today I learned that I could, via Flickr. I already knew that I could create a post to this blog from the Flickr website - it's an easy way to include a photo in the blog - but what I learned today is that this extends to posting to the blog from the iPhone. Just as with Blogger, all I need to do is send an email from the phone to a special Flickr email address. Not only will that post my photo and text to this blog, but it also goes to my Flickr account. Pretty cool.
I tried it with the post below and it worked just fine, except that the formatting was a bit funny - some unwanted line breaks - but that was easily fixed later.]]>
We Didn't Roll On Shabbostag:webpub.allegheny.edu,2007:/employee/s/sfenton/weblog//3.34132007-12-05T21:45:07Z2007-12-05T21:48:42Z We Didn't Roll On Shabbos Originally uploaded by susan_fenton1 Cherry led us on a bowling expedition the morning after Thanksgiving and it's got us all quoting our favorite movie. We'll definitely have to arrange a screening over Christmas. I'd...Susan Fentonhttp://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/s/sfenton/weblog/ We Didn't Roll On Shabbos
Originally uploaded by susan_fenton1
Cherry led us on a bowling expedition the morning after Thanksgiving
and it's got us all quoting our favorite movie. We'll definitely have
to arrange a screening over Christmas. I'd better stock up on half and
half.
]]>
All Bets are Offtag:webpub.allegheny.edu,2007:/employee/s/sfenton/weblog//3.32942007-11-26T19:44:11Z2007-11-26T20:06:41ZI realized today that I'd made it through the two weeks of the Give 1 Get 1 laptop promotion. The addition of a year's free T-mobile HotSpot access - valued at $350 - made it hard. For $400 you get...Susan Fentonhttp://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/s/sfenton/weblog/
Give 1 Get 1 laptop promotion. The addition of a year's free T-mobile HotSpot access - valued at $350 - made it hard. For $400 you get one of these cool laptops, $350 worth of T-mobile HotSpot access and another laptop gets donated. What's not to like about this? But in the interest of cutting down on unnecessary technology spending I had decided not to participate in this program.
Today I went to the Give 1 Get 1 web site to see if there was any information about how many laptops were donated during the two week period. Instead what I saw was that the program has been extended until December 31, 2007!
I think I've shown remarkable restraint up to now. But all bets are off from here on in. ]]>
iPod = Kleenextag:webpub.allegheny.edu,2007:/employee/s/sfenton/weblog//3.32652007-11-19T23:46:35Z2007-11-19T23:48:33ZIt happens eventually to every wildly successful product - the product name becomes synonymous with other products in the same category. So all tissues are Kleenex, all copiers are Xeroxes and so on. Until now, though, iPod seemed to mean...Susan Fentonhttp://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/s/sfenton/weblog/
Amazon Pitches a Wireless iPod for Books. I clicked the link to see what this was all about. Reading books on the iPod Touch maybe? No, the word iPod was being used in a very generic sense - not as mp3 player so much as handheld wireless device.
When your grandchildren ask you some day why a whole class of handheld devices are called iPods, you can tell them that it all started on a dark and stormy night in November 2007.]]>
They're Killing Metag:webpub.allegheny.edu,2007:/employee/s/sfenton/weblog//3.31622007-11-09T21:20:56Z2007-11-09T21:37:49ZA month or two back, when the Give 1 Get 1 promotion was first announced and before my newfound resolve to control unreasonable technology urges, I signed up to get an email reminding me when it was time to participate...Susan Fentonhttp://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/s/sfenton/weblog/
Give 1 Get 1 promotion was first announced and before my newfound resolve to control unreasonable technology urges, I signed up to get an email reminding me when it was time to participate in the program.
The first such reminder turned up in my inbox yesterday. I should have just deleted it right away. But I didn't. I read it. And guess what? T-mobile is donating a year's free access to any of it's wireless locations to everyone who participates. And not just for connecting the OLPC laptop. No, you can use this access for any wireless device. Like the iPhone, for instance.
So not only am I giving up my one-chance-in-a-lifetime to own one of these sweet OLPC laptops, I'm giving up a years free wireless access for my iPhone at tons of locations.
This better be buying me some serious points somewhere.]]>
Fighting the Urge Withintag:webpub.allegheny.edu,2007:/employee/s/sfenton/weblog//3.31502007-11-06T18:44:50Z2007-11-07T02:29:00ZOver at TechNOcool, James writes about the urge to pick up a $200 computer at Wal-mart. While a $200 linux-based machine doesn't do it for me, I do understand his feelings. I have my own technology longing at the moment:...Susan Fentonhttp://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/s/sfenton/weblog/
writes about the urge to pick up a $200 computer at Wal-mart. While a $200 linux-based machine doesn't do it for me, I do understand his feelings. I have my own technology longing at the moment: to own one of the so-called $100 laptops created by the One Laptop Per Child project.
If I don't control myself in the next few weeks, one of these babies could end up on my doorstep by Christmas. Beginning November 12, and for just two weeks, we will all have the opportunity to spend $400 to donate one of these laptops to a developing country and at the same time receive one for ourselves, by way of the Give 1 Get 1 promotion.
The donate part you can do at any time, for $200. But for two weeks only you can pay an additional $200 to donate one of these to yourself.
I'm unreasonably attracted to this. I know that I'll probably never use the laptop, but I want one. Bad. It would just be cool to have.
I'm going to control myself, though. It's like the time in 1988 that Michael and I went shopping for a cassette deck for the Escort. We'd been in the country for a year, and had made a lot of purchases in that time - some a necessary part of relocating, some not so necessary. We were about to close the deal on the cassette deck when we were struck by the feeling that the spending was never going to stop. We needed to NOT buy something we wanted - really wanted - to prove to ourselves we could do it. So we walked out of the store, and for the 13 years we owned that car we never bought a cassette deck for it.
I can do this. I can NOT buy this laptop. Just watch.]]>
This is Cooltag:webpub.allegheny.edu,2007:/employee/s/sfenton/weblog//3.29902007-10-20T23:09:56Z2007-10-20T23:20:51ZI discovered recently that I can email a photo and text from my iPhone directly into a blogger blog. Very cool - just take a picture and send it as an email to the blogger email address. Within seconds the...Susan Fentonhttp://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/s/sfenton/weblog/
iphoningitin.blogspot.com, for my iPhone posts. Think of it as twitter on steroids.]]>
EDGE Trumps Wi-Fitag:webpub.allegheny.edu,2007:/employee/s/sfenton/weblog//3.25432007-08-19T18:16:06Z2007-08-19T19:19:22ZA couple of months ago, before the iPhone was released, I was telling Jason that rumors of a video iPod with wi-fi were making me rethink the need for an iPhone. After all, an iPod with video and wi-fi would...Susan Fentonhttp://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/s/sfenton/weblog/
earlier description of the iPhone. It's not just a cool toy. It's my new cool travel essential.]]>
Expressway to Heaventag:webpub.allegheny.edu,2007:/employee/s/sfenton/weblog//3.22612007-08-08T23:06:49Z2007-08-09T19:59:42ZWhat people who don't use Apple products don't get is how Apple pays attention to the little details that make the difference between a product just functioning and a product functioning elegantly. (Miele is another company that does this.) Take...Susan Fentonhttp://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/s/sfenton/weblog/
What people who don't use Apple products don't get is how Apple pays attention to the little details that make the difference between a product just functioning and a product functioning elegantly. (Miele is another company that does this.)
Take the Airport Express, for instance. I've had mine for nearly three years now and can't imagine being without it. At home I've used it to stream music, extend my wifi network, and to make a usb printer available on the network. And that's all cool. But here's where the detail stuff comes in: Apple lets you store up to 5 configurations, called profiles, in the Airport Express. Each profile allows you to configure the Airport express for the various purposes it can serve. One profile can make it a wireless client to stream music, for instance, but not provide network access, another can make it an access point to connect to a network and distribute IP addresses, another can just make it a bridge to a network, and so on.
Why would I want to change the configuration on any regular basis? Because when I travel, I bring the Airport Express with me and use it to provide wireless access in hotel rooms where only wired internet access is provided. When travelling with just one laptop, it's mostly a convenience factor (though I recently used the Airport Express to get free internet access in a hotel room where free wireless was provided only in the lobby). When travelling with two laptops, it allows both of us to use the internet at the same time while only paying one connection fee. And when travelling with the iPhone, it gives wireless internet access where otherwise I would have only AT&T's EDGE access.
It's the profiles feature of the Airport Express that really makes this all work easily. I've set up several profiles for handling the various situations and just switch between them depending on my requirements of the moment. No hassle, no fuss. I love it.
Searching Out The Truthtag:webpub.allegheny.edu,2007:/employee/s/sfenton/weblog//3.24842007-07-17T14:58:02Z2007-08-08T17:04:17ZThis week's Learning 2.0 topic is about using online resources for research. We are assigned the task of using Google or Wikipedia to search on a topic and to then search for the same topic using the online subscription databases...Susan Fentonhttp://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/s/sfenton/weblog/
Learning 2.0 topic is about using online resources for research. We are assigned the task of using Google or Wikipedia to search on a topic and to then search for the same topic using the online subscription databases available here at Allegheny. I decided to search for more information on video game addiction.
I began by using Google and the first result was this Wikipedia article on game addiction. Other results pointed to news article, blogs by gamers and anti-gamers, and research papers on the topic. The quality of these sources was very mixed. Some, like the Wikipedia article, were well written and thought out, included references for all quoted statistics, and included links to other sources. Others, like one anti-game blog, included sweeping statements and generalization without any evidence to back them up. Still others were heart wrenching stories of a life gone awry. Overall, I think the Google search gave me a better picture of the topic than I had before I started.
For the database search I decided to try PsycINFO. Perhaps this wasn't the best choice, but with so many databases available, it's hard to know what is best. My search turned up 25 print sources, only some of which were relevant to game addiction. I was shown abstracts of books, journal articles and book chapters, most of which were at least two years old. If there was a way to get the full text of a journal article, I did not see it. I gather one would either contact the library to gain access to the actual material, or check one of our other databases to see if the journal article was available there. One nice feature of PsycINFO was the ability to export the reference into RefWorks.
For the topic I chose to search on and for my purpose, the Google search was much more satisfactory. It gave me immediate access to very current material on the topic and at the end left me feeling like I knew more about the area than I did when I started. If I were doing scholarly research on the topic I would definitely need to supplement the Google search with a database search, and would probably not limit my database search to PsycINFO. But I do not think that I could get the full picture on this topic using just the online databases. The Google search led me to some valuable information that I would not want to ignore.]]>
I'm Not Buying Ittag:webpub.allegheny.edu,2007:/employee/s/sfenton/weblog//3.24832007-07-17T14:48:42Z2007-08-08T17:03:42ZThis news article about Parents charged with child neglect due to video game addiction bothers me on many levels. I'm appalled that parents can neglect their children like this and that's what bothers me the most about this story. But...Susan Fentonhttp://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/s/sfenton/weblog/
Parents charged with child neglect due to video game addiction bothers me on many levels. I'm appalled that parents can neglect their children like this and that's what bothers me the most about this story.
But I'm also very concerned at where the blame is being placed. That video game addiction can be cited as the reason these parents neglected their children is very disturbing. I just don't buy it. As I see it, the parents didn't seem to have any trouble finding time to take care of themselves, to shop for a plasma TV and computer equipment, even to have sex (as evidenced by the second child). They just didn't find time to care for their children. To me that's neglect, plain and simple, and we shouldn't be making up excuses for them by saying it's due to video game addiction.]]>
