photo credit: miheco I’ve been intrigued for many years by the philosophy of Zen and its impact upon the aesthetics of traditional Japanese art … particularly Noh theatre, a topic I teach in a history course. I also love good design. So, I’ve been a fan of Garr Reynolds’ blog Presentation Zen for some time.
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It’s summer outside and lots of other people are out there enjoying the joys of the great outdoors … hitting the surf, strolling the countryside, and just hanging out as you do on these long, sunny days. It’s an outdoorsy time for most, but not for me. I’ve been hanging out at my desk, and for a lot of the time, staring at a screen.
Since making the big move from Wordpress.com across to my own domain using Wordpress.org, I’ve been steadily tinkering away under the hood. I now have some idea of what it’s like when people get caught up with reconditioning things: clocks, cars, and other sundry ‘machines.’ It’s what goes on underneath that makes the outside … eventually … work so well. Well of course, anything to do with machines, engines, algebra, coding and anything vaguely associated with mathematics has guaranteed a vertical learning curve for this non-DIY little arty. I’ve had the smile wiped off my face more than a few times along the way, but right now, I’m feeling pretty darned pleased with myself. As a result, I wanted to write about how I got from where I was to where I am now blog-wise. If and when you decide to make the break to your own domain, you might find this longish post useful. You might also find some nuggets here if you’re thinking about making a move from another blogging content management system (CMS) to Wordpress.
Continue reading ...Fascinated to see how lots of people in my Twitter network stayed up around the world waiting, waiting for that keynote speech. When I got out of bed next morning it was all over bar the blogging, Tweeting, and podcasting. There was predictable gushing and cooing over the MacBook Air, quickly followed by a dousing
Continue reading ...Image: Lovehearts from Duncan Now I am not a fickle friend. I stick with the tried and true, but b’gosh the new Mac Air looks fine from out front. It has the sleekness of a thoroughbred race-horse, a denizen of the catwalk, a sports-car. Having said that, and despite drawbacks some of which are already
Continue reading ...moar funny pictures It’s Macworld right now in San Francisco, a city I love. However, when I think of SF, it’s not the fog or tramcars that spring to mind, but raccoons… see, there was an encounter one night in a suburban backyard round a trash can … but I digress. Another scary story for
Continue reading ...Yesterday was the first anniversary of my niece’s wedding. I’d been feeling guilty about the dozens of digital images I had lurking in iPhoto and my tardiness in getting them out there for sharing as I’d promised. Truth is, I was looking for an app that would make putting a slideshow together quick and easy.
Continue reading ...The UK-based Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies is worth a visit, and Centre Director Jane Farmer’s ‘Learning Tip of the Day’ definitely worth subscribing to. Right now there’s a call out for educators to contribute their current favourite top-10 tools. The lists get boiled down at year’s end, and the top 100 for 2008
Continue reading ...And of course this post from 2007 which was prepared on Spinning’s former incarnation (on WordPress.com) had gently falling snowflakes across its face. Not any more, sadly. We’re now in WordPress.org and the snow has melted. If you do have a WordPress.com blog, lucky you for this sweet little festive feature. Somewhere up there, it’s
Continue reading ...There have been some great apps come my way this year. One of the best has been the aptly-named del.icio.us (I still have to think about the spelling when I type). I have no idea how I came across this marvellous, democratic, imaginative tag system back in January, but the first bookmark ever was ‘How
Continue reading ...I’m often asked to comment on how I use Web 2.0 technologies, including blogs, iPods and podcasting in my teaching and learning projects. I presented on the topic a few times this year at conferences and a phone call this week from someone I met at the AUC Create World conference in Brisbane in late
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