Mobilemind

Based on my last post, Paul C thought I was carrying a lot of junk. It's really quite small considering the SD card goes inside the Treo and I've added a charge/sync cable. Click the picture to see an actual size image.

For me, this is a compliment to a laptop, with the minimum capabilities I need in a very mobile form. I don't want to regularly bring a laptop to lunch, use it in parking lots, or stores, but the Treo is perfect for all that and takes calls too.

With the 2GB card I have 1GB+ to spare after loading Gaim, Firefox, Thunderbird, N-vu, and other junk. Plenty of space for transporting the equivalent of a CD-R or two inside my phone if I need to transport data. When I need a laptop, I want the ability to drive one or preferably TWO 1600x1200 displays. That is called for when working on training for avionics displays that run natively at 1280x1024. I really want a desktop-peer, a "luggable", when I want a computer.

For Paul, he probably wants more capabilities than the Treo + PortableApps can offer- a better keyboard, bigger screen, "real" apps, no worries about the OS or configuration issues on "other" machines and so on. A 7 lbs. dreadnought Dell, tank-esque ThinkPad or overweight Alien craft would break his back more than bring "on-the-flyweight" mobile productivity like his Sony TR.

I actually considered all of the computers just listed, and think they all have their merits.

The right answer? D) All of the above. Needs vary too widely for anyone to prescribe universal solutions.
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Someone asked about what I use for mobile work since I wrote about SyncToy and I've written about PortableApps.com before. Here's the details on hardware and my must have applications, that I use in conjunction with the SyncToy trick I wrote about yesterday.

Hardware- I use a Palm Treo 650 GSM that I paid to get unlocked to use in Europe too. I ended up just using my Cingular SIM in Denmark and Finland though-- and the Palm worked great! I did disable email though, I think GPRS would have been a fortune that way. Next time I'll look at getting a SIM there with data coverage. Sometimes there is a good deal on Palm Treo 650 at Amazon, I'm not sure I'd do a two year contract now though. I've had mine about a year and will stick with it until a faster Palm-version comes out or the Treo 700W Windows version gets stable and a service pack. Maybe late this Fall or early 2007.

I just bought a Ritek 150x 2GB SD Card for extra speed running Thunderbird and Firefox as PortableApps. I swap the 2GB card in & out of the Treo, and use a SanDisk MobileMate SD+ 5-in-1 Mobile Reader to work off of, or transfer data to a PC. Thunderbird in particular is a little slow to start running off of USB, but the Ritek card makes it more tolerable. The Ritek definitely helps with the SyncToy transfer speeds too.

Software- On the Treo, my must have applications are ChatterEmail, CityTime, DateBk5, eWallet, Resco Explorer, mo:Blog, SeaTraffic, TinySheet, TrackerDog, TravelTracker, Uninstall Manager. I've used most of these for years either on the Palm, PocketPC or both.

Lately the most indispensable Palm applications have been ChatterEmail and SeaTraffic. ChatterEmail provides GREAT, always-on, "push" email WITH NO EXTRA FEES. All you need is an IMAP email server. I can't say enough good things about ChatterEmail and its author, Marc Blanc. SeaTraffic is awesome for this area. Traffic is so unpredictable and often bad. SeaTraffic lets you route around it, or even just brace for the worst before you turn the ignition.

As for PC applications and portability, it is web apps or the PortableApps.com stuff I wrote about in the previous posts here and here. For use on my PC (or other PC's) I keep these Portable apps on the SD card- Firefox, Thunderbird+Engimail, and Gaim.
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I have some cool tips on use of the free Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP , specifically SyncToy and Taskbar Magnifier.

Cool tip #1: Set-up your Portable applications per the instructions on PortableApps.com. Then go get the Microsoft SyncToy. Create a SyncToy folder pair and auto-magically synchronize your desk/lap-top and the portable drive. Then you can carry your offline folders and current address book with you on the USB (or SD) memory. I sync my address book and offline folders, from my Thunderbird default profile directory with the USB. See this Thunderbird link for more information on locating your profile folder.

Below I've used the standard Windows token %AppData%, which expands to the user data directory for applications. On my machine %AppData% is equivalent to C:\Documents and Settings\tomking\Application Data\. Here are the two folder pairs I use for quick Thunderbird synchronizations.

Folder Pair to Synchronize Address Book, Preferences, etc.
Left Folder (Hard Drive):
%AppData%\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\

Right folder (portable memory):
drive:\PortableThunderbird\profile

Options for folder pair:
Files to include: *.dat, *.db, *.js, *.mab. *.sig

Folder Pair to Synchronize Offline folders and indexes (for IMAP)
Left Folder (Hard Drive):
%AppData%\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\ImapMail\

Right folder (portable memory)
drive:\PortableThunderbird\profile\ImapMail

Options for folder pair
Files to include: *.dat, *.html, *.msf

Depending on your work and travel plans you may want to use SyncToy to synchronize, echo (copy left-to-right, w/adds & deletes), subscribe (update left-to-right), contribute (copy right-to-left, w/out deletes), or combine (synchronize, w/out deletes).

I always use the SyncToy "Synchronize" setting, but I am very careful to make sure my primary Thunderbird is backed up before I use SyncToy. You can use a similar strategy with Portable GAIM using folder pairs with the hard drive folder %AppData%\.gaim\ and the USB drive folder drive:\PortableGaim\userprofile\Application Data\.gaim\.

Cool tip #2: Use Taskbar Magnifier to assist with precision alignment of hot spots and graphics when using development tools like Authorware, ToolBook, etc.

Taskbar Magnifier lets you to magnify part of the screen from the taskbar. This is very similar to Magnifier that can be found under Start > Accessories > Accessibility, except the PowerToy version remains in the taskbar.

Though the PowerToy has a smaller viewing area, it does not interfere with pull-down menus and most "full-screen" elearning applications. After installing Taskbar Magnifier, you access it by right-clicking on the taskbar, selecting toolbars, and then "Taskbar Magnifier." Use a similar process to turn it off.
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Just noticed this in the new Brandon Hall Research Newsletter; they've created "LMS Central" to consolidate all their reports, vendor profiles, comparison lists and LMS-related workshops. Very handy if you need to shop or just keep current.

Labels: LMS

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A few weeks ago I was elected as AICC Communication Chairperson. Since then, I've taken on the task of doing some updates to the AICC website, including adding the AICC News blog. I encourage you to check it out if you're interested in seeing some pretty good presentations on elearning and staying current on elearning standards activities too. For those of you who don't know what the AICC is, here's a little description that I culled from the AICC FAQ page.

The Aviation Industry CBT (Computer-Based Training) Committee (AICC) is an international association of technology-based training professionals. The AICC develops guidelines for aviation industry in the development, delivery, and evaluation of CBT and related training technologies.

I'll antipate your next question, My company is not involved in aviation so why should I care about AICC? Again, citing their FAQs:

The AICC wants the aviation training community to get the best possible value for its technology-based training dollar. The only way that this is possible is to promote interoperability standards that software vendors can use across multiple industries. With such standards a vendor can sell their products to a broader market for a lower unit cost. AICC recommendations are fairly general to most types of computer based training and, for this reason, are widely used outside of the aviation training industry. If you are concerned about reuse and interoperability of online learning, the AICC is a good group to participate in. The AICC also actively coordinates its efforts with broader learning technology standards organizations like IMS, ADL, ISO SC/36, and IEEE LTSC.

I hope to see you there.

Labels: AICC

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Adobe (as Macromedia) selected Rapid Intake to oversee the future of CourseBuilder and the Flash Learning Interactions. A beta version of CourseBuilder for Dreamweaver 8 is now available from the Rapid Intake website. Updates are summarized here, (text repeated below for convenience):

CourseBuilder for Dreamweaver 8 BETA release: We have completed internal development and QA testing for the Dreamweaver 8 update. We are fixing some known bugs in the current version of CourseBuilder as well as making sure it is compatible with Dreamweaver 8 for both the PC and MAC. We expect the final version to be released by March 1.

It will be nice to have CourseBuilder working well and stable with Dreamweaver 8. I'm also hoping for more features and tighter SCORM 1.2/2004 integration in subsequent releases.
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There is a nice post over at The Learned Man with links to papers from MLEARN 2004 & MLEARN 2005, links to info on Flash Lite, a report from the NESTA Futurelab and more.

The Learned Man: m-Learning New Resources & Update

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What would a Google Pack for elearning look like? Are there free or open source equivalents for common elearning developer tools? What about administrators and learners? Here's my quick stab at these ideas. Those using RSS feed will likely need to read this post on the web site to view the HTML tables that follow. For those who don't know, Google Pack is a Free collection of essential software, with a few more niceties thrown in too. It includes Firefox, Google Desktop search, Norton Anitvirus special edition, Ad-Aware SE (anti-spyware) and Acrobat Reader. It also includes Google Earth and the Picasa photo organizer and more. A pretty good start. Learners, Developers, and Managers/Administrators alike will need other basics- web browser, email, IM, word processor. Developers will likely want the latest and full versions, and some development tools. Its a similar list for administrators, but I'll hold back on editors and development tools. For learners I'll go on a limb and recommend the portable versions. Smaller footprint, easily installed on a desktop and offers the option of a USB thumb drive for mobile learners. Though it looks like I'm picking "lesser" tools for learners, I actually use those tools myself in many cases, and I think other developers should use them too. I'll cheat a bit and fill out some "development" tools in the learner category. This allows learners to create content, and gives developers a Fee or Free option; use the free "learner" tool if you like. For administrators, I'm going to just go with what likely comes with their machines and open-source where appropriate/applicable. Note that sometimes the SME (subject matter expert) can be a learner and sometimes a manager or administrator. The table of software applications and links follows below. My own choices appear in bold.

A Google Pack for Elearning

Category	Manager/Admin	Learner	Developer
Search/Browse/Secure	Google/Internet Explorer/Norton Antivirus	Google Pack	Google Pack1
Office tools (Word processing, presentations, spreadsheets)	MS Office	PortableApps Suite, Open Office	MS Office
Calendar/Scheduling	Outlook	Sunbird3	Outlook
Document processing (more than memos)	Word	PortableApps Suite/Abiword	Word
Email	Outlook	Portable Thunderbird, Thunderbird1,2	Outlook
Instant Messaging	MSN Messenger	Portable Gaim / Gaim	Gaim2
Learning Management	Moodle	Moodle	Moodle, AICC CMI Test Suite, ADL SCORM Sample RTE
Meeting/Collaboration	MS LiveMeeting	NetMeeting	Breeze
Telecommunication	Desk phone (POTS/VoIP)	Skype	Skype / Gizmo Project
Development
Animation	?	?	Flash
Audio	Sound Recorder, Windows Media Player	Audacity	Audition
Graphics	Image Composer	GIMP / GIMP Shop	Fireworks, Photoshop
Elearning - General	PowerPoint	N-vu, Open Office	Authorware, Captivate, Dreamweaver, Flash
Elearning -Rapid Elearning	PowerPoint, PowerPoint Producer	N-vu, Open Office	Articulate, Breeze, Captivate
Web editor	Contribute, FrontPage	N-vu, Portable N-vu2	Dreamweaver
Web server technology	IIS/.NET	PHP	PHP
Video	Windows Movie Maker	Windows Movie Maker	After Effects, Encore DVD, Flash, Premiere

1-Heavily customized with lots of great extensions.
2-I use this as a PortableApp running off a USB thumbdrive when it's handy to do so.
3-Very interesting, very free, very beta.

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FierceMarkets has done it again. They have an excellent daily newsletter about mobile content. This covers all types of mobile content, such as mobile music, gaming, video, marketing, etc. That is just a heads up if you are into m-learning, but you're not hardcore on all things mobile. However, if you are even close to having a hard core interest in this area; then Fierce Mobile Content, or FierceMoCo, is THE list to register for to get the latest scoops in this space. Click the FierceMoCo link to sign-up.
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