You’d think with how much is spent on libraries, that we, as taxpayers, could pay for a favorable reading experience of public domain online.

Even GooReader, a free download for reading Google Books, forces you to either install Search Toolbar powered by Bing or set Bing as your search provider.  There is no other way to install it.  This is bizarre considering I want to read Google Books, but I have to use Microsoft’s search engine.

In the end, Project Gutenberg appears the best place to get your free public domain books online.  I didn’t see any ads on the front page and the reading experience is pretty basic and functional, HTML or text, with options to download.

This decision was a negative blow to Flash developers and Adobe in particular.  In case you haven’t heard, but recently he has changed his mind, and now Flash and Adobe is back in the game.  I plan to try my best to create some apps since I’ve been learning Actionscript, but through all of it, I’m puzzled by Steve Jobs’ vision.

I know he wants to create a positive user experience, and certainly has achieved the goal.  But I wish he’d relax his control and realize choice is a good thing.  In releasing his Apple TV, he apparently scoffed at including YouTube because of the content containing so much amateur videos.  Steve Jobs does not like “Amateur Hour.” However, he should be celebrating all that amateur video which is made possible by Apple’s software, including IMovie and Garage Band.  His business makes more money because of amateur hour and Apple’s role in making video editing easy and possible.

Google sees itself as more successful as more people use the Internet because the more people searching, the more money they make.  Apple should see that the more ways people can view YouTube, not only Google profits, but Apple.  And there are many excellent videos created in this free market of creation.

Apple also released guidelines for the types of apps that the App Store will accept.  Again, he frowns on amateur apps.  I can see restricting inappropriate or pornographic apps, but so what if there are a hundred To Do List managers.  He shouldn’t restrict apps just because they are less polished and not designed by a professional design company.  With restrictions, the two companies that create a quality To Do List manager will have a monopoly on that area of the app world.

The Android market allows all apps and shows no restrictions.  This is good, and how Windows and Mac software has been developed for years.  Everything is permitted.  No regulations.  And we survived for many years.  The general public is smart enough to identify the quality from the amateur, but at least allow all the amateur apps to exist.  Who cares if there are hundreds of fart apps?  Just make better filters and searches in the user interface and let us choose.

For a company that celebrates creativity and a positive user experience, it appears Steve Jobs is not comfortable in the Wild West of choice and free markets.  In the end, I guess there are certain limits to how he earns his money.

I love the openness and freedom of the personal computing space (found via a laptop or desktop computer with software installed locally on a computer). I feel handcuffed by many online web tools and IPhone apps limited by bandwidth and tiny screens.  I dare you to try getting a document or video in and out of an IPod Touch or a cell phone and move it from one computer to another. Every little tool costs a dollar here and a dollar there. How often did people pay for software in the PC environment? Most software, outside of professional level programs like Office or Adobe, and Windows, was shareware or freeware.   You could install what you wanted and use it how you wanted.

I have to pay an additional fee ($15) to use the MLB app EVERY YEAR (even after I’ve paid $100 for the streaming service) and advertisements fill the limited real estate of small screens on most of the free apps, driving me to delete them. I’ve had an IPod Touch for two years, and I have only bought a handful of apps and have no more than three screens of apps.  Once I buy an app, it’s soon to become out-of-date if I buy a future IPod Touch. The IPad wants me to pay two or three times the amount for apps, even though I would have to dish out $500 to get it.

As a cost-conscious user, I think we should all take a five year break for the day when mobile phones become more CPU capable and break free of all the restrictions and experience the freedom we have enjoyed in the personal computing space for years.  I can live with the fear of malware and viruses for the ability to use any software in an open environment without being nicked and dimed for everything. I love my IPod Touch, but my joy is tempered by how awesome it could be if it had the freedom of my simple $1000 laptop.

I wish all music services allowed the freedom to explore and discover new bands and music. It always reminded me of the listening booths you see in a Borders where you can sample entire albums. But it makes much more sense in your own home on your computer. If the music industry is paying attention, I have bought more music and been more engaged in finding new favorite bands/singers as a result of Lala. And I’m confident that my students become more avid music aficionados as a result of Lala.

Apple bought it out and shut it down, and hopefully they will offer something comparable in its place. But there is no guarantee. The way Apple controls distribution of content through ITunes, I’d be surprised if we see a valuable service like Lala. Spotify is a similar service in Europe, but we haven’t benefited–it has been promised in the United States, but no signs yet of it here.

Lala is one of many online services that I discover through observing students in the computer labs. We should be aware of our students’ activities when they think we are not watching because sometimes they will make us aware of tools and services that might help or benefit our instructional practices.

There is no doubt that I’m a Flash enthusiast and what I love the most about Flash is the creative power of one application.  I use it everything from graphic design, web design, animation, and programming.  The potential of this tool is staggering for e-learning to web applications.  If you are an educator or a creative person, delving into the potential of Flash is well worth anyone’s time.  It’s hard to explain to most people what Flash is capable of.  Most people when they think of Flash think of Flash Video or Flash Player.  But this is shortsighted.  It is a content creation tool with enormouse power.  I’m excited about the future and with Moore’s Law, as mobile devices become more CPU capable, Flash will become increasingly more mobile and ubiquitous.

2. IPod Touch

The IPod Touch is really a great device if you don’t want the monthly fees of an IPhone.  There are few things you cannot do with the Touch and every day with new apps released, the Touch becomes even more useful, from listening to movies, checking email, texting, and syncing your data.  I think it would be perfect if it offered a Zune subscription service or something like Spotify or Lala.  There are few technologies I use more religiously than my Touch, relegating MP3-only players to the bottom of my drawers.

3. Moodle

Creating an engaging online course for students would not be possible without Moodle.  It’s easy to install on your own server and provides a safe interactive space for teachers and students to share and collaborate.  I’ve advocated it more with teachers at my school and its quick and slim interface makes it the preferred option for online course development.  I am learning daily about its ability to support student learning.

4. WordPress

WordPress has solved the pain of blogging for me.  I tried years ago and gave up due to the frustration of theming and updating content.  The newest updates this year to the backend interface have really made the experience simple and convenient.  Installation on your own server is simple and the appearance to the end user is customizable to your tastes.  I still have not figured out a satisfying way to support commenting (Goal for 2010).

5. Lala

I used to be a music enthusiast years ago, but lost the interest in listening to the radio, which is plagued by advertisements.  Discovery of new music became difficult.  Lala is one of many services online that allows you to listen to songs one time for free, upload your music library to the cloud for streaming, and purchase costs at low-cost (10 cents) for unlimited streaming.  It is the best option for previewing an album to determine whether it’s worth buying in entirety or a select number of songs.  With the a la carte format, it becomes much more imperative for artists to make more than a few quality songs.

6. Google Reader

The ability to subscribe to the stories and websites of interest to me is indispensable.  Subscribing to the Times is pointless when I can subscribe to several national newspapers online and get, on the most part, the same content.  It keeps me fully updated with topics of interest to me.  Google Reader has a easy to use interface online and even through the IPod Touch app.

7.  Twitter

I like Twitter because it is public updates on all topics.  It’s fun to just see what’s going on real time from the mouths of the masses.  I’m definitely not a Twitter junkie like other people, but I can see its value and as a developer, it’s open API allows for some intriguing mashups.

8. Google Chrome

I swore by Firefox last year, but with the release of Chrome, I’ve found myself choosing to start this application first.  It’s snappy fast in my opinion, and the interface is simplistic like many Google services.  After using it awhile, it makes me feel like Firefox is clunky and cumbersome.  They’ve recently added extensions and bookmark syncing to the developer edition of Chrome making it even more useful.  If my next favorite of the year, Diigo, adds bookmark syncing or filters to an extension, I may have no reason to use Firefox again.  Also, some websites do not render in Chrome like Moodle’s HTML editor.

9. Diigo

I started with Delicious and moved on.  Diigo is great for tagging and organizing my bookmarks.  And I bookmark everything.  I keep a constantly updated library of links in the cloud for constant reference.  Bookmarking is a type of journaling for me.  It keeps a record of what’s interesting or important to me.  Diigo has a slick interface online and provides a large amount of collaboration tools (sharing, annotating, read later, filters, quick-bookmarks) in the toolbar.  Even signing up for a Diigo account is simple now.  I tried to help someone create a Delicious account and the experience of creating the account was so frustrating that I said, “Let’s just use Diigo.”  Even though I find Delicious easier for the novice user.

10. Free Technology for Teachers Blog

If you want good tips about all the websites for teachers, this blog is unparalleled.  New content is posted religiously about different services and the write-ups are concise and useful.  Of all the blogs regarding technology and education, this simple blog is worth following on a daily basis.  If I could only follow one blog as a teacher, this might be the one I’d choose.

Technologies I Predict on my List of Technologies of 2010 and into the future:

Drupal, AIR and Flex, Android based-Phones, Spotify (if released in US), and an EBook reader with $5 books

Fortunately, I had backed everything up just a few days ago.  All my databases, and most of my posts stream into Google Reader, so I lost very little.  But what if I had everything in the “cloud”.  I cannot describe how devastated I would be.

Apparently, the hacker formatted the main drive and the backup drive.  It blows my mind how a hosting company could ever let this happen, since this is their business.  I will no longer trust my data to anyone else.  If my host can be hacked and lose everything, it shows that you must get into the habit of backing up as often as possible in multiple places.  I’m tempted to move to another hosting service, but you’d think my current host would be smarter as a result of this mishap.  More than a company who hadn’t experienced the same ordeal.

Our school website uses a translation engine on the content on the pages, and when I asked Spanish speakers whether the translation was satifactory, the answer was "No."  It seems translation is a gimmick for sales on the most part.  Sure, it’s nice to see the option available as opposed to no option at all.  But I wonder if anyone actually benefits from the option to translate, for the time it takes to develop.   It seems appealing to say that a button will translate the content s of a document into another language, and then another thing altogether when the speaker of this language has to translate the pseudo-hodgepodge created.  With idioms, slang, and the subtlety of language, I doubt translation services will ever perform the translation task up to par.

Prefer to use discretion when adding Firefox extension due to the loading time of Firefox.  Here’s a list of the top 10 extensions.  Can’t say these would be on my list.

Dictionary.com now defines and pronounces words on IPhone OS.  This is a nice feature.  There are words I still mispronounce like “queue” and “distribute.”  Link.

Also, I’m real excited about the possibilities of Read It Later adding content to the IPhone OS, allowing you to archive interesting articles and then sync them for reading offline.  Since I have a Touch, I sometimes want to read when I’m not near a wifi connection.  Great solution if it works.  I might also try out Evernote for this as well.  Link

Finding music for students to use in their videos is always a challenge with the strict licensing laws.  Our film teacher has the students write to the recording industry for permission to use popular songs in their movies, and they get rejected or receive no reply.  The new Free Music Archive might offer an alternative for finding music to use.

I’m also planning to try using annotated pages using Diigo.  Check out a sample page here annotated.  Annotated article about Ask the Dust, a great book.  Will also have to try out Glogster.

Two quick tips for the IPhone/IPod Touch I learned on accident: Hold down top button and click home button and it will take a snapshot of what’s on the screen and saves them into your Photo folder.  If you double click the home button, it pulls up the last played song, video or podcast.  Funny how I stumble upon these things (sure wasn’t in the instruction manual, or if it was, I didn’t read it.)

For Viewing:

Film School for Video Podcasters.  Link.

For Discussion:

Should colleges host email for their students?  Read