Mitch Wagner's Blog

Apple iPad: A closer look at the iBooks, Photos, iPod, and video apps

Apple's Guided Tour iPad videos, released this week, provide a detailed look about how the iPad will work. Some of the more interesting videos focus on the entertainment apps -- iBooks, Photos, Video, YouTube, and iPod. It'll change the way we entertain ourselves, the same way that the iPod changed the way we listen to music.

First, the iBooks app. It looks great. Books appear turned face-front on a bookshelf. Tap one of the covers, and that book comes forward to be read.

When you turn pages, the display changes with a page-turning animation (which might turn out to be a bad idea -- see this essay by Marco Arment, lead developer at Tumblr and the fantastic Instapaper reading app for the iPhone: Overdoing the interface metaphor.

Read the rest on the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: Apple iPad: A closer look at the iBooks, Photos, iPod, and video apps

I bought new clothes that actually fit

I was putting off buying new clothes for a very long time. I've lost 49 pounds in the past year. Until today, I was still wearing the same shirts as I wore a year ago, and pants one size down.

Then I saw a photo of me taken a couple of weeks ago. My pants look huge, like clown pants. My T-shirt is too big, too.

So I bit the bullet and went to the store today, and bought a couple of pairs of pants and a couple of shirts to last me a few months, until I have to go again. Julie came along and provided invaluable personal-shopper assistance.

I've gone from a size 46 waist to a 38. That's somewhat misleading, because the new pants fit with the waistband between the hips and waist. That's how I wore pants through the 80s and 90s, until I got to be too fat.

On shirts, I've gone from a 2XL or 3XL to an XL.

And I no longer have to wear suspenders to keep my pants up. I can just wear a belt, like a normal person. I like the suspenders, but it's good that I have the option to do without them.

I went to Sears and bought Dockers. I know they're excruciatingly boring pants. But I don't want my pants to be exciting. They're just pants.

I'm almost at the halfway point. 51 pounds to go.

Procrastination advice from Gina Trapani

Latest Videos: Productive Procrastination and Eating Your Frog

One additional tip, not covered in these videos: Listen to the voice in your head telling you to procrastinate. That voice might mean you're not ready to do the task you need to do, you need to do something else first. You can't paint the room until you've decided on a color, bought paint, cleared away furniture, and so on.

Or that voice might be telling you that you don't need to do the task at all. Maybe you shouldn't be painting the walls, maybe you should be moving instead.

I got that tip from these podcasts by Merlin Mann. I can't remember which one.

A talking dog and puckered shoes: Derby Dugan’s Depression Funnies

Tom De Haven’s Derby Dugan’s Depression Funnies is a beautiful, sad, and comic novel about the time when the people who created newspaper comics were rock stars.

It’s the story of the writer and artist behind Derby Dugan, the fantastically popular newspaper comic strip about a boy in a bright yellow derby who travels around the country getting into adventures, accompanied by his talking dog, Fuzzy, and a magic wallet that always has a ten-dollar bill in it.

Derby Dugan isn’t fantastic literature, but it’s about fantastic literature. The character names sound like characters in comic strips, starting with the first-person narrator, Alfred Bready, the scriptwriter behind Derby Dugan.

Al is a wisecracking street-smart New Yorker in 1936. He works as a scriptwriter for newspaper comics, as well as author of stories for pulp magazines. Read on to hear Al tell how he started his writing career:

Read the rest on Tor.com: A talking dog and puckered shoes: Derby Dugan’s Depression Funnies

iPad: New "Guided Tour" videos from Apple are the next best thing to hands-on

Apple released 11 iPad "guided tour" videos on Monday, each of which provides a detailed overview of a single iPad app in action. The videos give needed relief to people who are in danger of spontaneous combustion in anticipation of getting the device in four days.

The videos, each about two minutes long, provide individual tours of the major iPad apps, including Safari, Mail, iBooks, Pages, Keynote, and more.

Read the rest at the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: iPad: New "Guided Tour" videos from Apple are the next best thing to hands-on

Apple iPad: Details leak about magazines and comic applications

Apple blogs are reporting details about magazines and comics for the iPad, as well as the availability of *koff* *koff* explicit content.

Magazine publishers are using the iPad's features and sexiness as a tool to flog ad sales, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Time, for example, has signed up Unilever, Toyota Motor, Fidelity Investments and at least three others for marketing agreements priced about $200,000 each for a single spot in each of the first eight issues of the magazine's iPad edition. Sports Illustrated and Condé Nast's Wired are also getting in on the fun.

Read the rest at the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: Apple iPad: "Details leak about magazines and comic applications"

A simple fix for Internet censorship in schools

Schools and libraries are hurting students by setting up heavy-handed Web filtering software that block access to potentially educational sites. Instead, educators should trust teachers and librarians to oversee schools Internet access, says Craig Cunningham, a professor at National-Louis University.

Web filtering software should be configured so that, when a student stumbles across a site that's blocked, the teacher or librarian can make a judgment whether the content is appropriate for study, and if it is, the teacher or librarian can let the site through.

"If a student tries to show something that's part of a presentation and it's blocked, the teacher types a password and everyone sees it," Cunningham said. "Why should teachers not be in charge of what to teach?"

Read the rest on the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: A simple fix for Internet censorship in schools

How Internet censorship harms schools

Last week, I wrote about how Web filtering software, designed to protect children from porn and other harmful content on the Internet, is being used in an excessively heavy-handed fashion, and frequently blocks students from accessing legitimate educational materials. ("Internet filtering as a form of soft censorship.")

Readers took me to task -- I think correctly -- for failing to provide examples. So I went back to the source of my information in that blog, Professor Craig Cunningham, of National-Louis University, to ask for specifics.

In the course of our conversation, we also clarified his central point, which is, I think, common-sensical and inarguable: People, not machines, should have authority over what students are allowed to access on the Internet. The final authority over Internet access should reside with the teachers and librarians charged with overseeing students, not software.

Read the rest on the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: How Internet censorship harms schools

Next: Springtime for Second Life, with Linden Lab's Tom Hale

Next on Copper Robot our guest will be Linden Lab chief product officer Tom Hale. I'll talk with Tom about Viewer 2.0, and Linden Lab's plans for Second Life in the springtime and beyond. Join us!

WHEN: Wednesday, March 31, 6 pm Pacific/Second Life Time

WHERE: The lovely Copper Robot Theater, World2Worlds Island in Second Life, or watch the live video on the Web, or listen to the podcast afterward.

As chief product officer, Tom, known in Second Life as T Linden, drives product strategy for Linden Lab, reporting directly to CEO Mark Kingdon (M Linden).

Tom joined the company in September, 2008. Prior to joining Linden Lab, he worked 15 years in product development, marketing, and management, most recently serving as "entrepreneur-in-residence"" at Redpoint Ventures. Before that, he was vice president and general manager at Adobe Systems' Knowledge Worker Business Unit, driving strategy for Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Connect, and Flash Media Server.

Tom is a Harvard man, but despite that disadvantage, he seems to have done well for himself in life. I myself went to the State University of New York at Stony Brook, but I try not to be snobby about it.

We're going to try something a little different this time: We're using Twitter for backchannel discussion and questions during the event. Use the hashtag #CopBot. Also, we'll continue using Second Life chat for comments and questions as well.

Next on Copper Robot: Springtime for Second Life, with Linden Lab's Tom Hale

Next on Copper Robot our guest will be Linden Lab chief product officer Tom Hale. We'll talk about Viewer 2.0, and Linden Lab's plans for Second Life in the springtime and beyond.

WHEN: Wednesday, March 31, 6 pm Pacific/Second Life Time

WHERE: The lovely Copper Robot Theater, World2Worlds Island in Second Life, or watch the live video on the Web, or listen to the podcast afterward.

As chief product officer, Tom, known in Second Life as T Linden, drives product strategy for Linden Lab, reporting directly to CEO Mark Kingdon (M Linden).

Tom joined the company in September, 2008. Prior to joining Linden Lab, he worked 15 years in product development, marketing, and management, most recently serving as "entrepreneur-in-residence"" at Redpoint Ventures. Before that, he was vice president and general manager at Adobe Systems' Knowledge Worker Business Unit, driving strategy for Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Connect, and Flash Media Server.

Tom is a Harvard man, but despite that disadvantage, he seems to have done well for himself in life. I myself went to the State University of New York at Stony Brook, but I try not to be snobby about it.