Just picked up my first droid phone, the DroidX, and I’m sure I’ll be posting more about things I learn on the phone. For now, though, I want to talk briefly about how to import .pub books into the Aldiko app. This took some time to figure out and I couldn’t find a post to help me, so I’m writing it. I did research ereaders when I purchased this phone, and Aldiko is the best, in my opinion.
Initially the directions said to create a folder called eBooks/Import and drop the books into there (connect via USB and use the Finder to navigate). This didn’t work. I copied 10 books I knew worked perfectly, but Aldiko just searched for a second when I clicked “Import” and then said there were no books on my device.
Later when wracking my brain and searching for other ereader apps, I noticed that the file directory now had a new folder on my sdcard called ebooks/import. This was in a different place than the other directory path I created myself (which I placed under the Aldiko/ folder). On chance I moved my books into this new directory, went back into Aldiko and imported again. This time it took a few extra seconds and found the books! Presto!
So here are the directions:
1. Install Aldiko ereader app on your droid device.
2. Go into application and ask the app to import your .pub ebooks.
*** do step 2 BEFORE step 3! You and I know there are no .epub books on the device… yet. The droid doesn’t.
3. Mount your sdcard on your computer. (Easiest way is via usb).
4. Navigate to ebooks/import directory on your droid. This path will have been automatically created by Aldiko. Do not manually create this. The app will do it for you.
5. Go back to Aldiko. Repeat step 2. It’ll find the books this time, and then navigate to your Bookshelf and enjoy the books!
When you tweet about photography you tend to gravitate towards other local photos and them to you. This is how I came to know Tom Boggan a local former East Valley Tribune photographer who is now a professional freelancer. Prior to Easter I’d heard about this photowalk where Tom answered questions and shared whatever information you wanted to know. The classes are held at Bryce Arboretum near Superior, AZ out route 60. I decided to sign up for the June class but was wait listed to July. I signed up even though it was the morning after I flew back from a month vacation. The course was well worth it.
Tom helping out Paul, one of the neophyte photos.
A few things Tom mentioned right away in the eight person class was being prepared to shoot the “peak moment” and how to find the perfect lighting. While many of the comments he made for the group initially I’d already been practicing, it’s always refreshing to hear the technical aspects of photography in a new way. For example, he uses F8 a lot for photojournalism work and keeps the shutter around 500. I’ve always shot nearer F2.8 (and sometimes Tom does, too). Also, the shutter speed should only be one number lower than the focal length. Tom pointed out (and I completely agree) that we all break these rules often. Even my friends and colleagues who shoot often sometimes don’t even understand the Rule of Thirds. With my artist’s eye, this comes natural to me and I choose to break it at times, too.
Tom showed me how to use my light meter so I can shoot without removing my eye from the eye piece. He showed me how to view my histogram, and we discussed ISO and telezooms. All great information; take his class and follow him on twitter.
I was driving by an old abandoned building this morning in the rain and came across a woman on the side of the road with a Canon Rebel & binoculars. I pulled over to say hello and see what she was shooting. She said she was “birding” and lived in Houston. I told her I was looking forward to shooting around the area, and we said our goodbyes. I drove up the hill, found a pull off, and headed into the brush towards the building. As I was walking it started raining again, so I tucked my Canon 40D under my shirt and used my dad’s G11 that I grabbed that morning for more wide-angle shots since it drops to 6mm.
There were boards on all the basement windows and a fence around one side of the building. The other side had what amounted to two main doors. One was wide open. I was curious. I headed inside. There were three floors with what was once patient bedrooms along each side of corridor. It was pretty wild looking, kinda empty, and a little scary. I kept hearing noises outside.
The rooms were mostly empty but occasionally I found a sink, radiator, or bed left behind. It was pretty eerie.
This was once Mayview State Psychiatric Hospital opened in 1893, and I later discovered that my grandfather had spent several years employed here. The corridors were dark and quiet, but it was raining outside and I could swear I heard footsteps from time to time. This kinda freaked me out so I headed to the third floor. I figured if someone was coming I’d have more notice if I was upstairs. After shooting on the third floor, I walked slowly through the second floor before looking out the window towards the car; there were flashing police lights. I muttered something under my breath, kept making photos as I slowly made my way outside.
I heard rustling through the bushes and called out the security guard coming through the under brush miserably. The first thing he told me was to “dump the film”. I just cocked my head and wondered how I should answer that. I almost wish I still carried film so I could unravel one just to make him less cranky. Behind him a police officer emerged from the under brush with “why the hell are you down here in all this crap?” I told him I was a photographer. He asked for me ID, frisked me, and escorted me towards my car.
As we approached it, the friggin’ “birder” was there with the guards. I turned to the cop and told him that I’d talked to that woman a half an hour earlier and she knew exactly what I was doing. He said she was the one to call the police. Now, why would you be shooting in an area, finishing up, chat with another photog, and then call the police on him. The cop said she told him I looked suspicious. Suspicious how, I wondered? Ugh.
I waited by my car while he talked to the guards and the lady kept eyeballing me. I was to say something to her but I still didn’t know the outcome. Eventually he came over and said he was letting me go and to “have a nice vacation but spend it elsewhere.” He also said they were forcing me to delete the photos; he said it with a roll of the eyes and a shrug of his shoulders. I quickly did so so I could get the hell out of there, and then headed home.
After changing out of my rain drenched clothes, I ran the data recovery program on the disks to retrieve the photos, which are here. I feel ok with saying that and posting the photos because 1) the land was not posted, 2) I did not touch anything (including any portal to enter), 3) because I cooperated full with the officer be deleting every photo I made there, and 4) because the hospital was purchased just last week to be razed (supposedly) for a Walmart. It turned out to be part of my history and it’s a huge part of the history of Western Pennsylvania that will soon be gone forever.
As the idea of “tagging” files, images, folders, etc… caught on over the last few years, I’ve embraced it for so many reasons. Instead of sticking a file into a folder, that file could not represent so much more. For students, this could be “paper”, “draft1″, “Sci 302″, “subject”, “term written”, “year”, and so on. The concept of tagging allows the user more freedom with how he or she categorizes and organizes electronic work. While this still has far to go in tagging files inside the OS, the cloud is much more favorable to tagging. While social bookmarking, I will tag various website relatively liberally, but my photos are a different story.
I use Flickr to organize my photography and originally my audience was very limited. I remember one day two years ago I went into my Flickr tag cloud and was mortified by how many there were. I tried to merge tags, organize them, and drop some that didn’t seem pertinent. Looking back I was limiting myself.
But things change. I’ve been shooting more for other people: clients, yearbook; conferences; @dailyshoot; and picture of the day. My Flickr followers has exploded over the last year, too. Recently I wanted to add some photos to a presentation I was creating and couldn’t find this photo of a student I wanted. I knew the shot and knew it was on my Flickr. The boy was in my classroom, sitting at a desk, texting. He had red hair. I searched for “mobile”, “cell”, “classroom”, etc… and did not find the photo. Around the same time I was searching for dance shots I’d taken and couldn’t find them.
My tagging philosophy has now changed. Flickr lets you tag any photo with a maximum of 200 tags and I always wondered who would need so many. Well, I don’t use 200 but I sure use more than I use to. Now I tag photos in several ways. I begin with simple tags that include “Month Year”, then “Year” and then “Month”. Those are always standard for me now. If I can remember the month I shot something, I can flip back to everything from that month quickly. I then tag the event: e.g., “First Friday” or “Boys Varsity Volleyball”. Then I get more specific. For the volleyball example I just mentioned, I’d also include tags for “boys” “varsity volleyball” and “volleyball”. I’d tag those with both teams’ names (if I know them). If I shot it for yearbook, I’d tag it as such so the photo editor can go straight to a tag made just for that event. I am also beginning to tag minor things. When was the last time you needed a shot of a woman wearing a bandana? Today I edited a photo that matched that description and included tags to show that. Also, if the majority of the photo is a certain color scheme (like blues), I also tag it with the color name.
I cannot guarantee that in six months or a year, I will remember how my brain thought that single day when I tagged that shot. But I can guarantee that if I liberally tag my photos, one of the tags I will use to try to find that shot will pull it up from my Flickr.
I am the editor for The Music Matters Project, a not for profit music photography benefit project out of Arizona in conjunction with Sweet Relief a benefit for terminally ill recording artists out of California. Today I wrote a post on art, what it means, and why we, as artists, need to have faith in our work. Here’s an except to the original post.
hotography is art (sure there’s a science to it, but it’s truly art.) Photogs like Jim Marshall or Annie Leibovitz have certain styles that some people adore and others abhor. In the 20s & 30s people didn’t understand Picasso and in the 60s people didn’t understand why Warhol would want to paint soup cans. Art is made for the artist. Unless you have a client asking for a specific shot, the photographer makes the image that he or she sees through their artistic eye. We make images because we have to, not because it’s a chore or a punishment. We create art and release it into the world like a child leaving home for the first time. We don’t make excuses for our art or worry what people will think. Once the photograph is unleashed to the world it can take on a life of its own; some people will love it and some people will hate it. Some people will criticize it while others will praise it.
As photographers we need to have confidence in our work. We need to have faith in our art and send it out into the world. We all have those images that we feel are just average and then someone saw it and loved it. We wondered why. It’s because different people interpret art differently. We have those images we adore and our partners just shrug when we show them, the Flickr groups never make a single comment, and the shot is buried for only us to love. Then there are other shots we aren’t even sure we should submit to a contest, post online, or share with anyone because we just don’t know, but you know what? Sometimes that’s the shot that’ll make all the difference.
Several years ago a writer developed a storyline that he loved. He thought the world would love it. He worked on his art for years, but no one wanted it. He became disparaged. He married, loved his wife and sired a daughter. They had little money as he worked on his art. Finally a publisher sent it back and asked for revisions. He got irate and threw his manuscript in the trash. He was done. The world didn’t want his art. He had lost his confidence, but his wife hadn’t lost her faith in him. She pulled that manuscript from the trash and had him make the changes. He then sent his art back into the work. It was accepted. At first by the publisher and later by millions of people worldwide. That first book was Carrie. The man was Steven King.
If we hide our art away, our photography, no one will have the chance to love it. Had Jim Marshall not picked up a camera in high school, would Woodstock have become so iconic? Had Gertrude Stein not purchased odd looking art from a homeless street artist, would the world have ever seen Guernica?
The Music Matters Project was begun because the photographers and musicians involved love art. We love the idea of capturing an emotion, an image, a moment. We love art, music, photography just like you.
You have that photograph on your computer, usb drive or storage device that you think isn’t good enough, that we wouldn’t want. You’re second guessing yourself. You will never know what others think of your photographs without letting others see them. Release your art into the world. Be happy with your work, and be ok with others seeing it.
I’m at an in between place as a photographer. I do agree I’ve been a photographer most of my adult life and have only cared more about what I shoot and how I shoot it in the last 1 1/2 years. Also, I was never paid for my work before last December, but now I am picking up more and more gigs. Which brings me to an impasse.
Flickr was originally, for me, a place to share pics of my kids with the family in other parts of the country. Then it became a place where I posted my 365 as I began a yearlong challenge of taking daily self-portraits. As I did this Flickr became so much more social for me. Then I started doing “photoshoots”, which for me has been either 1) concerts or 2) portrait shoots (family, holidays, senior shoots, etc…).
Around that time I was looking for cloud storage. I talked to another photographer, Adam Nollmeyer, who asked “well, don’t you use Flickr”. I said I did. He reminded me that I am already archiving everything I shoot. I realized I was and he was right. He also showed me apps that would batch download straight from my Flickr. I post pretty much everything I shoot (that I edit and keep) to Flickr, but frankly, I need a portfolio site, but I have a few needs.
1) No Flash. We’re really going the way of HTML5 and I want iPad users to see my stuff, so none of these froo froo flash sites for me.
2) I want to be able to sell directly from the site. I also hate ordering prints and shipping so I’d prefer a site from a company that takes a small percentage and prints & s&h for me.
So this is where I am now. I’m ready to move forward with that, but not sure where to begin.
There are two weeks of high school class left and it’s always a stressful time of the year. Teachers are trying to wrap things up, AP teachers are (often) looking for rigorous ways to teach after the test, admin is trying to keep order and prep for graduation, and then there’s the parents and students.
Please understand I don’t mean everyone when I say this, but don’t you think high school would be a more awesome experience if the communication and caring was as intense and often the whole year as it is these last two weeks.
Students suddenly care about their grades. They are emailing, stopping by, caring, complaining, try to beg for make ups and extra credit. Parents are calling, emailing and going to administration to get this grade changed, that concern heard, etc… As I said, it’s not everyone (and it’s not all bad) but we teachers wish the communication was there all year. Sure, some of us (and I’m no angel) don’t call and email as much as we could, too, but suddenly we’re so busy about grades, behaviors, etc… I have meetings Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday after school next week. I have a parent who will probably want to meet Monday so we can tell him what we’ve already said three times via email.
Our school is a family, a community, sure but why don’t we all take a page from this playbook and make grades matter, make parents part of the equation (and make parents want to be part of the equation), make kids turn in work on time, realize the importance of their grades/classes, and actually care (other than just when grades are due or athletic eligibility). If we can all learn from this, will there be a chance? Now, if you’ll excuse me I gotta run and grade these essays.
For my students independent reading project this quarter, they had to make a video that showcased one of the books from a short reading list that included Socialnomics by Erik Qualman. This group wanted to turn their’s in two weeks early. Here it is.
Here’s a video turned on to me from a colleague in LA. It showcases a partnership between APPLE and students at Paradise Valley Unified School District with how today’s students use mobile devices, like iPod touches, to better enhance their learning and education. Something I try to do daily in my own high school classes.
PV USD provides the video to educators through their iTunesU subscription & Arizona’s IDEAL eLearning Platform. I hope you try similar projects with your classes and children!
Here at the Conference on College Composition and Communication I’ve been talking to various publishing companies and the publishers are beginning to rethink their text book and learning management system models. I’ve used different text books for both high school and college over the last decade and come to realize a few things. Some of which I envision has come from my discussion with others, but the first thing we need to do is stop thinking in terms of pages and chapters. Books… (erg, I don’t think we can even call it that anymore. What do we call it? Modules? Ok, modules for now…) modules now need to be not only more organic but also more parsable. For example, I’ve never used an entire researcher/textbook/guide for any class I have taught. The current researcher I use, The Wadsworth Guide to Research by Miller-Cochran and Rodrigo, includes sections on APA or CSE but I don’t teach those styles (now I realize if the student owns the entire researcher and eventually takes a social science course, then that chapter on APA is really important to them). I am required to “use” a reader in my AP courses albeit do you think we use the entire thing? Straight through? No.
For years there’s been discussion of an la carte model for television so why not for modules, too. The argument is always money. We sell what they do need with what they do not need.
I’ve talked to two different publisher’s sales people in the last 24 hours about tagging. Why can’t we move to an electronic model where the instructor chooses which modules they will use in their classes? The whole (paper) book version will be an optional purchase for the student while the electronic modules will be available via laptop, ereader, etc… Rather than simply a taxonomical index, the student will use a tagging system (folksonomy) that includes a predictive text and suggestions to other sections or modules. (This could include suggesting modules the students probably really need, rather than where the end up.)
The next most important notion in terms of tags is self-tagging, or the ability for the student user to be able to add their own tags. I’ve seen this in Google where they let users play “games” by tagging images, which they then include for all users. By making that a game, it encourages people to add to the collective intelligence of the product. Now, if we can do this through publishers with the self-tagging system and then also include those tags back in the main server (student and faculty users can them moderate the tags for nefarious additions, much like Wikipedia does) then the publishers module databases become more robust without anymore money spent by the publishers.
Some publishers will tell you that they like the idea of self-tagging but only through a collection of module elements in a “personal student notebook space”. But doesn’t this defeat the purpose? The users can (and will), much like Wikipedia, manage the folksonomy themselves. My colleague calls this new module based system “project” rather than “book”. We first need to remove the idea of starting with the book and then parsing it out. We need to think away from the formalized, traditional book. We need to think of the module system of a system, but we also need to continue the discussions we’ve started with the publishing reps to help them envision this new learning paradigm.
July 26, 2010 
Posted in applications, droid, gadgets, storage, technology 
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