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And here’s my config file that I use with Newsbeuter.
article-sort-order date asc
auto-reload yes
reload-time 60
show-read-feeds no
show-read-articles no
mark-as-read-on-hover no
bookmark-cmd "~/Development/bookmark"
bookmark-autopilot no
save-path "~/Documents/Research"
I’m a big console fan, preferring to do as much work as possible from the command line. So it shouldn’t be surprised that I also use RSS even as others have abandoned it for things like Twitter. I prefer to supplement my news feeds with Twitter and not replace it.
Since the demise of Google Reader, I’ve settled on Feedly as my RSS reader. It’s web interface has keyboard shortcuts, and the Reeder app works very well on my iPhone and iPad. But I think it could be faster
Before web forums were all the rage, there was Usenet News. It was international, and distributed, which made it very resilient. It was also, for the most part, limited to text interfaces. There were several GUI interfaces for accessing Usenet, but for me, the command line application tin was all I needed. With it I could navigate an alarming amount of posts, selecting the ones I wanted to read while ignore the rest. It was pretty amazing how fast the whole process was. Alas, speed is something we lost on the transition to graphically interfaces.
Newsbeuter is an open source command line RSS reader that can run on most UNIX based operating systems. A simple sudo apt-get install newsbeuter installed it on my Ubuntu host, and I was good to go. I’m still in the honeymoon phase, so we’ll see how long it lasts. To see it in action you can check out the screenshots on the Newsbeuter site.
I’ve been playing around with Sphinx as a digital publishing tool. It can take multiple files written in reStructuredText (similar to Markdown, which is plain text with minimal markup) and create not only a website, but also PDFs and ePubs (and more, list is on the website). An example is the Sublime Text Unofficial Documentation. If you click on the Read the Docs link in the bottom left of the window, you can see the documentation in other formats.
Read the Docs will automatically create a website and other files from a Github repository, but you can also publish yourself to Github without using another service. My problem came from an issue with Github ignoring the folder _static, which is where Sphinx puts assets for the website. The solution is simple enough, have a .nojekyll file in the root of the website. The question was how to do that automatically. What I did was add a new target to the Makefile[1]:
github:
$(SPHINXBUILD) -b html $(ALLSPHINXOPTS) $(BUILDDIR)/html
touch $(BUILDDIR)/html/.nojekyll
ghp-import $(BUILDDIR)/html/
git push -u origin gh-pages
@echo
@echo "Published to Github"
Now when I type make github, the website will be rebuilt, a .nojekyll file will be created, the website will be imported into the gh-pages branch and that branch will be pushed to Github.
[1]: This assumes you have already set up authentication to push a branch to Github and have installed ghp-import.
I love how technologists love to brandish the term “ease of use” like it’s some sort of badge of honor. Here’s what I’ve found out, most people dislike being told “this is easy” when they are learning new technology. The irony is not lost on me, since if it was so easy, why am I teaching it.
This leads into something that I’ve begun to realize. There is no easy. Life is hard, difficult, and the lessons can be harsh. Technology is no different. Take the iPhone for example. Seven years ago it was hailed as an easy to use smartphone. Part of that ease of use came from the fact that it didn’t do much. You didn’t have to know how to copy and paste, since it couldn’t do that. There was no app store, so you didn’t have to learn how to install and remove apps. No notifications to learn how to control. No multitasking of apps to learn how to switch between. No privacy controls. Etc. All of these have now been added to iOS, making it more complicated but more useful device.
Unfortunately, this makes it even more difficult to learn how to use technology effectively. There will always be something new to learn tomorrow. When I’m working with teachers I’m often asked why I don’t have all of this “how to use” tips written down. The problem is that I could talk for a day on just all the features that Google GMail has, and still not hit everything you can do with it. Teach Like a Hacker started as a way to demonstrate alternative uses of the technology teachers already know, and use that as a stepping stone.
This Saturday I will be presenting at the University of Akron’s iPad Symposium. As I’ve attended numerous conferences throughout my professional career, I’ve started to realize I should create a to do list so I don’t forget anything before a conference.
My usual compliment of devices I take to a conference consists of my laptop, iPad, and iPhone. Along with charging them, I also have a battery case for my iPhone and a Jackery Giant USB battery pack that needs to be charged. Multi-day conferences are not a problem.
I’ve started to use Twitter to write my notes during a conference and If This Then That to capture them. The recipe I use looks for any of my tweets with the conference hashtag, and if found, it appends that tweet to a text file in Dropbox. At the end of the conference I’ll have an entire text file with everything I want to save from the conference.
The hashtag for the conference Saturday is #iPadSymposiumUA. What I did on my iPhone and iPad is create a keyboard shortcut (Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts). The shortcut is iii which expands to #iPadSymposiumUA.
The name tag I’ve started to use is a 4 generation iPod Touch running Keynote. I have a lanyard that connects to the dock connector, and I created a 3 slide presentation that continually loops. Keynote keeps the display on while showing a presentation. If I shut it off during sessions, the battery lasts an entire day.
Oh, how frustrating it can be to get in your car for a multi-hour trip and realize you have to stop for gas. Even though I hardly use cash anymore, it’s a good idea to have a few bucks on you, just in case. The Ho Hos? They’re self explanatory.
I forgot to upload my presentation from the Neotech 2014 conference!
For an English paper I’m supposed to have written by now, I read the book Ethan Frome. The tale of a man who let life be done to him instead of him doing life.
Tags: office
I don’t know why I’ve never heard of this before, Kingsoft Office Suite: Free Office 2013, Professional Office Suite looks like it could be very handy for schools running Windows, but that isn’t even the best part. The requirements listed on the website show that it supports iOS 5, which means all of those iPad 1s that are out there can use it. Unfortunately, the App Store lists iOS 6 as an requirement, so I’m going to have to wait until I get home to try it.
Via: Kingsoft Office 2013: The best free Microsoft Office alternative? – CNET
Satellite tracked Malaysia plane in ‘unprecedented’ way writes:
In its further detective work, Inmarsat studied the so-called Doppler effect, the name for what makes the noise from an approaching vehicle sound different from one speeding away from a listener.
Right up there with the so-called gravity effect and so-called wind resistance effect that ultimately brought the plane down.