Written on January 8, 2009 – 2:12 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
While Nicolas Negroponte tries to find an affordable solution for e-learning in developing countries, some educational institutes try to find one for the western world.
I know it’s not a Touch, but hell, what a funny pic
A class of year 8 students at Shepparton High School in central Victoria in Australia is currently participating in a global mobile learning project. They’re not using the XO laptop as their gear, but an iPod Touch. First results - whatever they’re worth, as it’s test group of 8 persons- show that school work has increased attendance and increased enthusiasm for homework.
After some time of getting used to - students weren’t as savvy as the initiators expected - kids used the shiny devices for searching the web, downloading music, participating in quizzes, submitting assignments and collaborating with a school in Singapore. Yeah! I’d have come to school for that too.
Founder of the project, Louise Duncan, says that the iPod is a lot cheaper than your average laptop. Plus it allowed students to tailor information and stay focused in class. I think it’s a brave and good step to find new ways that might appear scary - the thought of using an entertainment device -, but in the end make class more attractive for kids.
And it’s great promotion for Apple…
I hope you like that post!
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Written on January 8, 2009 – 1:27 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Atherton Bartelby, a Brooklyn-based graphic designer, art director, writer, blogger, and photographer, wrote an interesting blog post on Mashable. He compares his Twitter experience with a party where everybody has a great time - which is in the end spoiled by a person that “doesn’t fit”. So he publishes an article on one of the world’s largest blogs to tell you when he won’t follow you. Ok, this kind of behavior is accepted in 2.0 land and if you ignore his initial concept, “FOLLOW FAIL: The Top 10 Reasons I Will Not Follow You in Return on Twitter” is actually a very valuable post.
Atherton Bartelby
Here are the ten reasons why Mr. Bartleby from Brooklyn, New York won’t follow you on Twitter:
You have no user avatar
You list no location, no website, or no bio
Your “website” listed is a MySpace profile
You’re following over 1,000 users, have 20 followers, and no updates
Your profile features any variation of “Internet expert”
Your updates clearly indicate that your Twitter activity is always, only, about pushing your own service/product
Your following and my return follow result in a poorly-constructed auto-DM reading, “Thx for the follow! How can I help you get to a 4-Hour Work Week?”
Your most recent updates make references to any need to achieve “more Twitter followers”
Your Twitter stream indicates a propensity for consistent arguing
You do not engage your Twitter followers
Refer to the Mashable post to see Bartleby’s motivations. You can ignore a couple, like “Your profile features any variation of “Internet expert” - since that one comes from a man who calls himself a “social media connoisseur” (it’s always the social media experts who are truing to critize other social media experts of being one). The first two are pretty obvious and the third really matter of taste. But the ones about pushing, auto-DM’s, “more Twittter followers”, arguing, and engaging are pure gold.
Written on January 7, 2009 – 6:00 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Remember those videos of gifted fellas drawing the Mona Lisa in Paint? I was amazed by it back then. Now there’s a new example, representing a new generation of tools and apps. It’s called Brushes, a natural media painting application for the iPhone and iPod touch.
The €2,39 app offers several realistic brush styles, an advanced color picker, a gallery view, and virtually unlimited undo and redo. To see what you can do with Brushes, have a look at this video I found on the blog of Erwin Blom.
There’s a small digital subculture emerging around this app, with heroes like David Gribouille (who made the video).
Design magazine Core77 highlights the work of Disney artist Stef Kardos - who makes quick sketches (5-10 minutes each) and then adds some flavor to it with Brushes (see picture).
Here’s a slideshow from the dedicated Flickr pool:
Written on January 7, 2009 – 1:54 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Have you ever retyped too many lines of text from a PDF doc because you couldn’t select it? Instead of a simple copy/ past action, you spend too much time on mindless work. ConvertPDFtoWord.net is a nifty web application that makes sure you’ll never have to do this again. I made the effort of writing an extensive manual for you, so using the tool shouldn’t be a problem.
Written on January 7, 2009 – 12:39 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Dagan Cohen presenting the list
My co-editor Zee reported about it last night, yet co-editors Boris, Patrick and I actually went there: Upload Cinema. A monthly gig in Amsterdam where organizers Barbara de Wijn and Dagan Cohen take web videos to the big screen. It’s sponsored by Amsterdam advertising agency Draftfcb and invitation only, however you can apply for membership here.
On Monday, Upload Cinema presented their fine selection of last year’s best viral videos. Cohen explained that they left out the Idols/ X-Factor stuff, as that’s sooo 2006. One of the most sexiest virals was also excluded by the strict judges, since they already showed that one during a previous edition.
We were all surprised by the original and sometimes artistic entries. So give yourself a well deserved break and watch the ones you haven’t seen.
Written on January 6, 2009 – 2:59 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
If you’re not a professional designer, it might be hard to come up with the right font for the right message. Stuart Robinson wants to make your life easier by offering you a new to explore the popular typefaces on your computer. It’s called Flipping Typical and it’s actually really handy. Just type in the test text and make your pick out of the results:
He has created some hidden elements and measured them before and after changing their font-family to figure out which fonts are on your computer. It works with on Firefox 2+, Safari 3+, IE7+ (OS/X a fair bit nicer than Windows).
By the way, Zee wrote about another interesting font tool last week. WhatTheFont detects fonts from images for you.
Written on January 6, 2009 – 1:36 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
One of our favorite sources for discovering new services is the Museum of Modern Betas (MoMB). It has an impressive track record, as the blog - founded and painstakingly maintained by Saurier Duval - reviewed the 6000th beta last October.
MoMB’s Duval is the perfect example of somebody who has put his heart in something and creates something really useful and beautiful over the years.
The betas blogger has the tradition of publishing a short list of the year. Although he skipped it in 2007, he did rank the betas of 2005, 2006, and now 2008. Here’s the top three, but make sure you browse to MoMB to check out the runner ups. They’re also rather interesting and different than the ones you see on the major tech blogs.
1. Goosh - The Unofficial Google Shell
This google-interface behaves similar to a unix-shell. You type commands and the results are shown on this page.
// Goosh.org
2. 280 Slides - Presentations made easy
Create beautiful presentations, access them from anywhere, and share them with the world.
// 280slides.com
3. Google Insights for Search - See what the world is searching for
With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames.
// Google.com/insights/search
Written on January 6, 2009 – 12:03 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Last night, editor in chief of Lifehacker - sixth blog of the world - Gina Trapani announced that she will pass the blog torch to editor Adam Pash:
After a wild and woolly four years at the helm, I’m stepping down from the site lead position to work on Some New Stuff on a day-to-day basis in 2009.
An ultra short bio
Trapani a a Sun-certified Java programmer and builds Firefox extensions and web sites. She has written two books about the Lifehacker philosophy and authored articles for Popular Science, Wired, Women’s Health, PC World and Macworld.
The Wall Street Journal Online wrote a piece about her and some of the world’s largest magazines couldn’t resist the temptation of mentioning her.
You just gotta love her GTD tips
The last couple of months, her Getting Things Done tips really improved the way I work blog. Therefore, I might as well share my two favorites - as they can be projected on other professions too. She has mentioned them in an interview with Michael A Banks for his book Blogging Heroes:
When you get stuck writing a post, step away from it for a while and work on something else.
If a feature doesn’t come along easily, it’s probably not the right topic for you to cover.
Another favorite is the interview she had with the king of eliminating work, Mr. Tim Ferriss.
Trapani told Ferriss that she rejects the super-structured, old school of time management thought. “As a “web worker,” by nature I embrace serendipity and tangents, and like to keep myself open to working on unexpected things that excite me, even if they’re not in the plan”, Trapani said. Read the rest of a summary I made on The Next Web.
Will she share her secrets for blogging?
Many people have wondered how Trapani is able to pump out so many posts as she does. Will she share those secrets a few months after she stepped down? Let’s hope so. It’s gonna turn the blogosphere into a GTD battlefield. Interesting…
Written on January 5, 2009 – 8:09 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
When Jobs spread the word about his weight-loss this afternoon, Next Web editors Zee and Boris immediately started typing an article. Since they’re not sharing an office (Zee lives in London, Boris in Amsterdam) and both were utterly excited by the words from Mr. Apple himself, they didn’t see each other’s post. Thus sharp readers might have seen two posts about Jobs’ announcement on The Next Web (We deleted Boris’ post. At first he was devastated, but he’s feeling better now).
Nah, it’s just Arrington force-feeding you some CrunchGear and MobileCrunch news. See the graphic Boris made to check out how TechCrunch’s 1.7 million RSS readers also get a load of John Biggs and the likes. Some of these articles also appear on the recently redesigned frontpage of TechCrunch.
This raises an interesting question: is it OK to show your readers posts from other blogs you own? Some readers are obviously not amused and speak of violating trust and all that. Others just ask the same question like me. I believe you can of course share news from your blog network, but doing without any notice or graphic hints is less stylish - if not confusing.
After all, you haven’t asked for Crunchgear posts, have you? Maybe you read Gizmodo for the latest gadget news because you like the tone of voice better. Who knows? Arrington doesn’t, that’s for sure. So there’s no motivation for him (except promotion) to shove it under your face.
Written on January 5, 2009 – 2:36 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
This post is nothing special. Just a quick line to let you know there’s a rather easy way to generate a “Follow me on Twitter“-button. Browse to Twitbuttons, type in your username, hit return, and get ready for some copy/paste action.
Oh and if you’re not afraid of some healthy vanity, you can also give Boris’ Twittercounter show off-badge a shot.
Written on January 8, 2009 – 2:12 pm
There’s a small digital subculture emerging around this app, with heroes like
Last night, editor in chief of 
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