Ryan Collins

Ping.fm bookmarklet for multiple Ping.fm accounts

Mr.Rcollins — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:53:12 +0000

Since Ping.fm doesn’t allow you to add multiple Twitter accounts to one Ping.fm account, I’ve resorted to have two accounts with them, one for my personal accounts (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace) and one for my professional accounts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn). To update my status for either Ping.fm account I use the special email addresses they offer and my email client.

My problem was when I wanted to post the current page I’m reading to either account. Ping.fm offers a bookmarklet, but it uses the current logged in ping.fm account, so I would have to continually log in and log out. I decided to put together my own bookmarklet that starts up a new mail message in my default email client addressed to the correct Ping.fm account. To get started, drag the following link to your bookmark bar:

Ping.fm

Once there, right click on the link, select edit and replace YOURPRIVATEPINGADDRESS with your private Ping.fm email address (just the part to the left of the @). Would you like to do it with GMail? Drag this link:

Ping.fm

And once again, right click on the link, select edit, and replace YOURPRIVATEPINGADDRESS with your private Ping.fm email address.

You can drag the links multiple times, editing the email address and the name of the link so you can associate each one with a different Ping.fm account.

Weekly Twitter Updates for 2010-02-14

Mr.Rcollins — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 04:04:00 +0000

At the HS moving virtual machines around. #
And I will not be denied my Taco Bell today!!! #
Running errands before the big snow hits! #
Ok, I think I've got everything set up in case we're snowed in. Plus I'm hoping to have enough pop stored up at home. #
Snow day!! May be able to get caught up on a few things today, and even get my eTech presentation posted!!! #
Note to self, turn traction control off to make it up hills. #
Hitting the treadmill for 5 miles, wish I was outside. #
is going to see Mariah Carey in concert tonight!!! #
RT @chad_rex: just learned cool keybrd trick in 10.5/10.6-cmd tab (and then use the up/down arrow keys to have expose activate for that app) #
Fourteen Help Desks completed among everything that needs to be done. Forty seven more. #
Found out there's no way to clear responses from a Google Form except by copying the sheet. #
finished a 5.0 mile run on the treadmill in 43:07 (8:38 pace). #
Sharing: "I'm Concerned that Your Class Is Fun" http://ryancollins.org/u/5c #
Sharing: Classroom iPod touches: Dos and Don'ts http://ryancollins.org/u/5d #
http://aviary.com/ online photo editor is now free for all features. #
http://ping.fm/p/6KyQf – Help at work. #
's Internet is down. Is anyone else having problems with Time Warner in Kenton? #
Pizza acquired! #
still does not have internet. #

Weekly Twitter Updates for 2010-02-07

Mr.Rcollins — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:04:00 +0000

First day of the eTech Ohio tech conference. First session, the
paperless classroom. Thepaperlessclassroom.com #etc10 #
iPods in the classroom, year two. #
#oetc2010 I'll be presenting at 3:45 on cellphones and mobile technologies. #etech #
Very impressed with the number of users using Twitter at #oetc10 see more mobile tech examples at my session at 3:45. #
Attending CoSN's Framework of Essential Skills of the K-12 CTO by
@Chad_Rex #oetc10 #
Attending WordPress MU. #oetc10 #
Is everyone at the Kent wpmu session? I looked at drupal, and I agree it was confusing. #oetc10 #
Wow, makes my wpmu server look pretty wimpy. (wpmu/Kent) #oetc10 #
Is she using a Wiimote to go through the presentation? #wpmukent #oetc10 #
Did they say whether the students have accounts? #wpmukent #oetc10 #
Maybe next year eTech can give each session a hashtag in the program. #oetc10 #
Attending Using Social Networking to teach 21st century learners.
#oetc10 #
Attending the $100 wiimote interactive whiteboard. #oetc10 #
Replacement for smoothboard for OS X? #wiioetc10 #oetc10 #
You can buy a license for smartboard's Notebook software. $300 I think. #wiioetc10 #oetc10 #
OS X Wiimote could use Omnidazzle to write on the screen. #wiioetc10 #oetc10 #
#oetc10 #
Now at Brother's, anyone else from #oetc10 here? #
Attending optical illusions and math. #oetc10 #
Attending 21st century learning with smartphones in the classroom.
#oetc10 #
Attending Breathing new life into obsolete computers #oetc10 #
Thank goodness ie6 is dead. #oetc10 #
Found out I wasn't accepted into the Google Teacher Academy for
Administrators. Pretty bummed. #
Training KCS administrators on Twitter. Say Hi to them! (And follow them: https://twitter.com/mr_rcollins/kcs-staff) #
is heading out for a 4 mile run in the snow! #
http://ping.fm/p/yw63E – Running in the snow! #
http://ping.fm/p/VYE5K – shoveling #
Trying out Tweetdeck, still haven't found the perfect client for OS X. I need multiple accnts, Twitter lists, and Facebook Fan Page support #
http://ping.fm/p/BjnaC #
Editing the audio from my eTech presentation, hope to get it posted today! #oetc10 #

Weekly Twitter Updates for 2010-01-31

Mr.Rcollins — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:04:00 +0000

is waiting with anticipation to see what Apple is unveiling today. #
Testing posting by email, please ignore! #
is NOW waiting patiently for Apple to tell him at 1:00pm what to buy. #
Am I the only one concerned about the price of the Apple tablet? $1000 would put it out of reach at school. #
I'm hoping the iPad has some sort of surprise to separate it from the Touch! #
Does the iPad to video out? Is that how they're demoing it? #
Come on, give us a camera or two in that thing! #ipad #
No camera? Ugh. #ipad #
Multitasking? More than 4 icons in the dock? #iPad Come on Apple, I really want this to be a "must have". #

Google Teacher Academy for Administrators Video

Mr.Rcollins — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:51:24 +0000

I’ve applied to attend the Google Teacher Academy for Administrators, and as part of the submission process I was required to complete a video entitled “Innovative Leadership in the Age of Google”. I decided to list what words inspire me as an educational leader and arrange them with pictures and music.

Weekly Twitter Updates for 2010-01-24

Mr.Rcollins — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 04:04:00 +0000

iPhone/iPod Touch tip of the day: hold down zero and it will pop up a
little menu to type the degree (Â°) symbol. #
RT @ryanmalany: Sad Day! RT @BreakingNews: Glen W. Bell Jr. , founder of fast-food chain Taco Bell, dies at age 86 â€“ AP #
Back at work after a four day weekend, Help Desk didn't break 100! #
If you're an Ohio educator could you check to make sure you're in my ohed list: http://bit.ly/78ofGy #
Nerd alert: http://ping.fm/m6ClG(unless you're happy with the watch you currently own) #
Network's back up, I can go home! #
It's good it's Friday, it's bad that there was a power outage last night. I can't wait to see what's not working today! #
Sharing: Performance Pay Will Kill Our Schools http://ping.fm/fAk6S #

Weekly Twitter Updates for 2010-01-17

Mr.Rcollins — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:04:00 +0000

is reading '10 Things to Do When You Only Have 5 Minutes Left in Class' – http://ryancollins.org/u/4u #
is reading 'I installed a Wii-Whiteboard! (Not a SMARTboard, but not a STOOPIDboard, either)' – http://ryancollins.org/u/4x #
is reading 'John Spencer: Musings from a Not-So-Master Teacher: 10 hijacked words' – http://ryancollins.org/u/4z #

OS X Widget to show machine name

Mr.Rcollins — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:39:58 +0000

I use Apple Remote Desktop or a KVM (Keyboard/Video/Mouse) switcher to administer several OS X servers and machines. When you’re working on machines in this way you can sometimes get confused on which machine you’re currently controlling. If you’re lucky you won’t do anything stupid, but there have been times when I’ve shutdown/restarted a server that I didn’t mean too!

Over Christmas break I wrote a little OS X widget call Show Name. All it does is show the name of the current machine. To start using it you just install the widget onto your Dashboard. Once there, it will show you the hostname of the machine you are currently using.

Where things get interesting is when you drag it off of the Dashboard and put it on your Desktop. This way you can alway see what machine you’re on. To drag widgets off of the Dashboard, you need to turn on the widget developer mode. On the Show Name widget, you can click the little “i” in the bottom right and check the box to turn it on. As soon as you click Done it will restart the Dock, so the Dashboard and the Dock will disappear for a second. To drag the Show Name widget (or any widget for that matter) out of the Dashboard and onto the Desktop, click on the widget and start dragging. Don’t let go of the button and close the Dashboard. The widget you are dragging will stay with your mouse pointer, and you can drop it anywhere on your Desktop. To put the widget back in the Dashboard, start dragging it, open the Dashboard, and stop dragging it. It will now re-attach itself to the Dashboard.

Where things get interesting is when you drag it off of the Dashboard and put it on your Desktop. This way you can alway see what machine you’re on. To drag widgets off of the Dashboard, you need to turn on widget developer mode. On the Show Name widget, you can click the little “i” in the bottom right and check the box to turn it on. As soon as you click Done it will restart the Dock, so the Dashboard and the Dock will disappear for a second. To drag the Show Name widget (or any widget for that matter) out of the Dashboard and onto the Desktop, click on the widget and start dragging. Don’t let go of the button and close the Dashboard. The widget you are dragging will stay with your mouse pointer, and you can drop it anywhere on your Desktop. To put the widget back in the Dashboard, start dragging it, open the Dashboard, and stop dragging it. It will now re-attach itself to the Dashboard.

Grab the widget here.

Following lots of people on Twitter? You need ReadTwit

Mr.Rcollins — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:06:03 +0000

photo credit: fifikins

A couple of months ago I decided to expand my use of Twitter, and began following more and more people in the education community. This was awesome, until I realized I could not keep up with the barrage of data that I was being given. In November I started brainstorming ideas on how to keep up. I noticed in any of my twitter clients that they were not grabbing all the tweets that had been posted from the last time I checked. The reason being is the API only gives you the last 200 tweets, and for me that was about 40 minutes worth.

My first course of action was to write some software that would grab the tweets from my @mr_rcollins timeline, parse the info and store it in a MySQL database. Besides pulling out the data I was interested in of each tweet, I also stored the complete tweet. This became impractical, since in a month the complete tweets themselves occupied 4.2GB! I stopped storing the complete tweets which left me with a 20MB database after a 5 weeks of collecting, which was a lot more manageable.

The next step was to start parsing the tweet’s text for urls, resolve any shortened urls, and dump them into another table for me to peruse. While I got that software working, I came across ReadTwit.com. This is a great service that will take your timeline, parse out the urls, resolve shortened links, and give you a RSS feed that you can subscribe to in your favorite RSS reader (I use Google Reader. Now I just go through Reader like normal, and am able to tag/star important sites that are posted to my Twitter timeline.

Weekly Twitter Updates for 2010-01-10

Mr.Rcollins — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 04:04:00 +0000

Posting a picture with Tweetie Mac and to Posterous as a test. http://post.ly/HFVT #
Cacoo and other diagraming sites http://post.ly/HKsN #
Sent to you by Mr. R. Collins via Google Reader: DIGITAL LEARNING
ENVIRONMENTS: Tools and Technologies for Effective Classrooms via
Readtw #