The Math Mojo Chronicles » Mac/Apple

Some Stuff about Life Hacks

Brian — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 18:21:05 +0000

Life-hacks are great little tips that help you shortcut some things that you want to do/learn. For example, mnemonic techniques are hacks for memorizing things; math-hacks are shortcuts for doing mathematical operations.

Basically, MathMojo is about math-hacks, some life-hacks, making math meaningful, critical thinking, and Eduction (also know as Edux – which I won’t be dealing on the site until I’ve finished with the math-hacks).

Among the life-hacks that I can recommend most, is Macintosh computers. If you are one of the unfortunate ones who still lives on the “dark side,” you have something to look forward to if you can switch to a Mac.

I realize that is a finance-intensive hack. But consider it when you can.

Beyond that, there are tons of online-based life-hacks. Many of them involve “Web 2.0” sites. I’ve created a Squidoo lens (a mini-website, on the Web 2.0 site called “Squidoo”) about what “Web 2.0″ is, and how to get involved with it.

Basically, Web 2.0 sites are social networking sites, where you, the reader, can have a lot of input. If you look at the left-hand column of this blog, you will see links for del.icio.us, digg, furl, reddit, technorati, subscribe, etc. Those are links to social networking sites where you can bookmark pages you like (like this one!), leave comments about blogs, posts and other things you like on the web, and develop and interact with communities who share interests that you have.

On the right side of this page, you may notice a bunch of little pictures (usually of my dogs, Galileo and Maia) that are on Flickr. Flickr is a Web 2.0 site, which is a social photo sharing site. It’s not just a place to store photos, but a great way to share them and build a community of people who like the same kind of photography you do.

The reason I’ll be writing about some of these social networking sites, is that I know that a lot of my readers are curious students, parents and teachers, who’d like some seriously good and easy tools to create their own curriculums, schedules, community of like-minded learners, etc.

I’d like to help provide some info and tutorials on how to find and use sites that can help you do that.

The Squidoo lens that I’ve created is “Web 2.0 for Non-Geeks,” and you can find it at:
http://squidoo.com/web20nongeek

My plan is to get as many readers as possible up to speed on this stuff, and maybe we can form our own little community, where we can share Ideas that help other readers motivate, inform, educate and streamline the learning experiences of each other.

To this end I’ll also be starting a forum soon at Mathmojo.com. That should be a good way for us to be able to communicate with each other.

If you have any thoughts on these Ideas, I’d love to read your comments. In the meantime, head out to
http://squidoo.com/web20nongeek and poke around.

Hotcha!

Of Web Browsers and Search Engines

Brian — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 14:09:23 +0000

This has nothing to do with math, per se, but I think some readers will still find it useful.

As a member of the Macintosh Users Group of Oneonta, NY (MUGONE.com), I notice that even some savvy computer users are a little shaky on some of the basics. So once in awhile I’d like to put up a basic video tutorial on simple subjects just to solidify some people’s computer skills.

This week, I cover the difference between a web-browser and a search-engine. In the future I’ll cover some slightly more advanced skills, like how to sign up for and make a Squidoo lens.

Let me know if you notice anything on MathMojo or the Chronicles that you wonder about, or want to know how I did. I’m not exactly and expert, but I’ll help where I can.

Hotcha!

Brian

Click here to view the embedded video.

Addition Podcast

Brian — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:41:23 +0000

After having spent some time trying to find the best way to deliver some MathMojo, I have arrived, so far, at podcasting. But not that old “audio-only” stuff. I’ve made an “enhanced podcast” about the very basics of addition, which you can access here. (whoops, that site is down. I’ll try to get this fixed soon. Sorry.)

What is an “enhanced podcast?” It’s one with visuals, like a PowerPoint presentation. Not every browser can see it, though, although most can. You may need a fast connection to hear and view it – at least a bit faster than dial-up, although it will work with dial-up if you have a lot of patience. You don’t need iTunes or an iPod to listen to or watch it, although if you want to subscribe to it, iTunes is the way to go. iTunes is free, and if you don’t have it, you can find out all about it and get it at apple.com.

What is “subscribing” and why should you do it? When you go to the above site, to view the podcast, there will be a button on it, from which you can “subscribe.” That means that every time a new episode is published, it will automatically be sent to your computer the next time you open your iTunes program. That way, you will always be up-to-date with new podcasts from MathMojo, without having to do anything further.

A word about the podcasts. They were made on a mac. I love my mac. I never was a geek, but this thing is user-friendly. It’s user-promiscuous! Using Garageband, iWeb and a dotMac account, it is pretty simple to do podcasts. I hope to get more heavily into this technology, because it is a great way to communicate with the world.

I’ll also be putting up some videos on this blog, and on the main Mathmojo.com site, and on YouTube in the near future, so stay tuned. By the way, if you are at all interested in the kind of magic I do, you can check out a very old video I made (in about ’91 or so, when I was living in Germany), below.

Click here to view the embedded video.