travel

Using a bunch of stuff to make a great day

Posted by Dean Shareski on in fun, geocaching, Google Earth, travel 2 Comments

This post was last updated on September 5th, 2011 at 11:06 am

Last week I got to spend 3 full days learning all about Palm(R) handhelds and the wonders of one to one computing. Very cool and the possibilities continue to mount.

I scheduled my flights to insure I was able to spend a full day in San Francisco. So Saturday was my day to enjoy the city by the bay.

Being a small town boy and never having been to San Fran, I wanted to make sure I was prepared for the day and get the most out my time. So early preparations began with many tours using Google Earth.  I created a folder of all the major sites that included, transportation, hotels, sights, geocaches and more. Next I downloaded the BART schedule to my Palm® TX so I knew exactly when and where to catch the train. I also downloaded several geocaches into my device as well as a tourism application for San Francisco.

Arriving on Saturday morning at the corner of Powell St. and Market, I hoped on a cable car and headed for the Fisherman’s Wharf. I walked around a bit and decided to go after … Read the rest

Thinking Mobile

Posted by Dean Shareski on in Classrooms, One-to-One, travel 1 Comment

This post was last updated on September 5th, 2011 at 11:06 am

I’m in Santa Clara (the heart of Silicon Valley) at the Palm Educator’s Training Coordinator’s certification. This is largely connected to our current Palm(R) Handheld project. The training emphasizes early on that the Palm products are not PDA’s (Personal Digital Assistants) but handheld computers. The distinction is significant in that the term PDA or PalmPilot usually diminishes the power of the handheld to an organizer. Clearly there’s more to it than that. The Palm company is committed to being the word’s leader in mobile computing. Obviously after the recent unveiling of the iphone, they won’t be alone but certainly the push to mobile computing is huge.

In a school division facing many budget cuts and change, the advent of one to one computing will be a tough sell. Add to that, mobile computing now can include cellular phones. That’s going to be another challenge. Wake Forest is currently using smartphones and is discovering some great benefits. This recent posting by Leonard Low, outlines why mobile computing matters.

As I continue to manage the current Palm project and begin to launch another laptop based project, the … Read the rest

One good thing about my new beetle

Posted by Dean Shareski on in Personal, Podcasting, travel 0 Comment

This post was last updated on December 12th, 2011 at 03:18 pm

My wife has always wanted a VW beetle. I pretty well do what she wants so we got a 2007 red Beetle. I would have been happy with a 1995 Ford Focus but we got the beetle.

Anyway, besides the fact that it was way more than I wanted to spend, I discovered one little feature that might make the whole thing worthwhile.  A tiny auxilary jack located next to the stereo allows me to plug in my mp3 player. So my drives around my school division are now the perfect opportunity to get caught up with podcasts. Yesterday the 100km trip back and forth from Assiniboia allowed me to listen to:

I guess we’ll keep … Read the rest

Flickr map…a great enhancement

Posted by Dean Shareski on in flickr, travel 1 Comment

I’ve been playing around with geotagging for about a year using a firefox extension. It was always a bit wonky. Flickr has now added geotagging. There are several ways to utilize it from the geotag bookmarklet to flock’s uploader extension. I prefer the bookmarklet but whatever works. The result is a great opportunity to tag photos to locations. I’ve started tagging a few of my photos with this result:

My flickr map

There are even a couple of screencasts on Youtube on geotagging and flickr.

… Read the rest

Dean and Family’s Excellent Adventure

Posted by Wesley Fryer on in guestblogger, travel 0 Comment

Dean and his family are having a great vacation in Montana, and will be soon (if they are not already) enjoying Yellowstone National Park. He dropped me an email today with a link to his family blog, “The Shareski Blogging Experiment.” Dean’s daughter Martha is also blogging about her vacation experiences separately. Looks like an excellent adventure is being had by all so far! 🙂… Read the rest