TED
One of my favorite activities to do is to listen and watch TED talks on my iPad through the TED app. What an awesome way to share knowledge and insights. People have the most fascinating things to say. I love listening to these speeches.
Actually, going off on a tangent here but I joined Toastmasters at work and one of the reasons I have really enjoyed the group is because I have gotten to hear so many stories that I normally would not get to hear about my co-workers. Believe it or not I actually enjoy getting to know the people I work with! But anyhow, I will perhaps talk about my experiences with Toastmaster in another post. I like listening to people talk about topics that they are passionate about.
So back on the topic of TED talks, their repertoire of interesting speeches is amazing. So much to stimulate your brain. I love it (remember how much I love to learn?).
Tonight I watched the TED talk by Simon Sinek about “How great leaders inspire action”. Here is a link to the video and also to a written synopsis (if you would rather read it than listen to it). This was actually recorded in May 2010 so I am surprised I stumbled upon this tonight. I was doing a search on my TED app looking for another talk when I found this pop up in my search results.
I have always found the “law of diffusion of innovation” to be an interesting concept. I recall reading this in Malcolm Gladwell’s book “The Tipping Point”. I also always considered myself to be one of the innovators or early adopters but perhaps I am in reality closer to tail end of the early adopters group. Being a person that is into technology makes me want to try new products all the time. But I only want to try the products that I believe are good. The crappy ones I can forgo and have no desire to waste my time on them. With the good products I will promote and evangelize about them.
Anyhow, great speech.
I have also been talking a lot today (work lunches, meetings, interviewing people, etc.). Many good conversations about motivation and leadership. I really thrive on being around people. So it just seems very suiting that I coincidently found this TED talk tonight.
About.me
I am long overdue for an update. It’s been hard to think of interesting topics to write about…
I signed up for an about.me page a while ago but never got around to updating it. I just updated it this week and I have to admit that I really like the concept. Basically it is tying in all your social media sites together in one page (e.g. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.). It’s so simple but yet so clever (why didn’t I think of that?). I’ve actually redirected my website ghislaine.ca to my about.me page now.
If you haven’t signed up yet, you should do so. It’s fun!
(BTW, photo credit for my profile pic goes to Joe from ChicGeekPhoto.ca.)
In other news, my boys are growing up so quickly. Time flies, especially when you are a mother. My little boys aren’t so little anymore. I am trying to enjoy them every day and want to remember them being “small”.
It’s been fun watching the two brothers interact with each other. They bicker but they also know to run to each other when they are in trouble. My mom was telling me that the other day my youngest boy (he’s 1.5 years old now) was being naughty and when my mom was disciplining him, he got angry at her and decided he would run to his big brother (who is 4.5 years old now) and cry to him. His big brother gave him a hug and would pat him on the back. How sweet that they know to depend on each other when they are in trouble! I hope this tendency will continue to stay with them as they mature into men. It’s always been one of my hopes for my two boys to be the best of friends.
Anyhow, I am getting a little sappy now. As mentioned, I hope to enjoy these moments whenever I can. But of course, there are just those days when I feel like God must have had a good sense of humour to think that I can handle raising two highly energetic boys!
Getting late… Goodnight for now.
iPad WordPress Theme
Wow, just after I posted my entry about tablets I noticed that the WP theme that is run from my iPad is this OnSwipe theme. So it feels very much like an interactive digital magazine (with swiping motions to turn the page). Very cool! I think you will only be able to view it if you are on a tablet. Kind of like how the iPhone theme only shows up on mobile browsers.
Anyhow, I thought this was neat and something interesting to share.
Screen shot below.
Tablets
Some of you may have known that I purchased an iPad 2 last month. I have to tell you that once you have a tablet you can never go back to not owning one. I personally chose the iPad because I am an iPhone fan and an iPad would just be natural for me to use. In my opinion, the apps are still the best on iOS but I am sure that there are some good apps out there for Android and the Playbook.
I think it is awesome that I can use my iPad instead of my laptop most of the time when I am at home with my wifi. I can even connect to my work PC by using VPN on the iPad and then remote desktop. That is just so fantastic that I can just switch on my tablet and be able to connect without starting up my computer with minimal loading time.
Right now I am actually typing this post in the WordPress app on the iPad. I have done this before on the iPhone as well but typing on a larger screen resolution than my phone is just so much better.
I am also really liking some of the photo editing apps on my iPad. I just paid $4.99 for the Snapseed app 2 days ago and I am loving it. If I wanted similar photo software on my PC I would probably have to pay at least $30 for the filters.
Anyhow, I think that the future in computing will be the movement towards tablet devices and less of laptops or PCs. I can even plug in a Bluetooth keyboard with my iPad and use my tablet with a netbook-like feel (without mouse though). I am definitely planning to get an external keyboard sometime.
I wish I could have gotten my hands on one of those $100 discounted HP Touchpad. I would definitely recommend tablets as a productivity tool.
To end off, below are some of the pictures I have edited with Snapseed on the iPad. It may seem like a lot to pay $5 for an app but if you think about that is less than the cost of eating out for lunch. The last picture was taken and edited with the iPad. Not too shabby right?
P.S. It looks like I might stay on WordPress.org for a bit longer. I was seeing ads but I am not anymore.
Geo-tagging
Technology can be great, but it can also be dangerous to many unsuspecting people. I was forwarded an email from an old friend about how smartphones and the geo-tagging features on them can expose information you don’t want exposed to the public. (FYI, the YouTube video that was sent to me is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2vARzvWxwY.)
I have always been careful about not sharing too much information about my children on the internet. I mean, really do I need to explain why? But what I did not realize was that many of the pictures that I was taking on my iPhone was embedding the GPS information in the EXIF information of my photos. Which meant that if people wanted to view the EXIF information on a picture that I took at home, they would be able to locate where I live on Google Maps.
What is EXIF? EXIF stands for “Exchangeable Image File Format”. This is information about the picture that was taken such as which camera was used, what settings where used to take the pictures (what lens, how fast the speed was, aperture setting, etc.), and even location of where the picture was taken. I always knew that EXIF contained a lot of information about the photo but what I did not realize was that it could also store GPS information. And by default, many smartphones out there will store the exact coordinates of where the picture was taken with the phone. With this information you can open up any mapping website on the internet and pinpoint the address that the picture was taken. This, can be VERY dangerous if you post pictures of yourself or of your children that were taken at home or their school or daycare. If somebody out there wants to stalk your kids (or even you) then you can become an easy target if you set the geo-tagging function on for your phone.
How do you view the EXIF details? There are many websites out there that can show EXIF information by simply typing in the URL of a photo. There are also some browser plug-ins that exist that allow the viewing of the EXIF details by a simple right click of a picture in a browser. (e.g. www.findexif.com, EXIF Viewer for Firefox)
So now that you know this, you are probably wondering, “How do I disable this?” Here is a link to another website that shows you how you can disable the geo-tagging option on your iPhone and Android phone (http://icanstalku.com/how.php#disable). On the iPhone iOS4.x, go to Settings, Locations Services and then disable by setting the picture taking apps to “off”.
I suggest that you check your photos online to make sure that you don’t have the EXIF information displaying the GPS details that you probably don’t want to share with the rest of the world, especially if you have children! Please do the safe thing. Don’t make yourself and your family an easy stalking target.
Books
Wow. I just realized that I started this blog over a year ago and I have hardly written any posts. Maybe it is because of the lack of readers. Then again I realize that in order to get subscribers you also need to update often. I think it may also be because I have my other blog (mostly about crafting and my kids) which I tend to update more frequently. Could also be because I am on maternity leave so I am mostly engrossed with my kids at the moment.
Anyhow, while I am busy with a young infant I still manage to find the time to read a little.
Lately I just finished reading “Superfreakonomics”. I read the first one “Freakonomics” before and therefore it was natural for me to read the follow up. I tend to like reading these books nowadays (also a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell). I don’t want to ruin the book for anyone but if anybody read it did you find the last story about the monkeys and how they learned how to use money pretty fascinating? That is some crazy stuff.
Been also reading this book called “Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger” by Ronald Sider. This book definitely makes me look at my wealth quite differently. I have only read about a quarter of the book and I already feel quite convicted to spend my money differently. I think it is a really hard book to read for many Christians as it digs deep into how we spend money and makes you think about the poverty that exists around the world that most of us try to ignore.
Being a mom of young children now it breaks my heart even more thinking about how there are hungry and starving children out there. I know some people think that there is nothing they can do to help them because in the grand scheme of things the problem is pretty huge however to become ignorant to the rest of the world (and this is the majority of the world that lives in poverty) is pretty irresponsible in my opinion.
My husband and I sponsor 8 kids via different organizations. Our goal is to sponsor 10. Getting close. Some people don’t believe in giving money to the third world but we believe that it helps and that it makes a difference. And just because we sponsor 8 kids doesn’t mean I feel good inside because I did my “good deed” of the day. I don’t think it should be about feeling good to give. We should really do it more often living in such an affluent society.
Anyhow what a contrast it is with those two books that I have mentioned above! I also want to read this book about how the history of “marketing” started (cannot remember the book title now but they are Canadian authors). Feels weird to be mentioning about marketing after writing about poverty. Yes I have a diverse range of interests.
I need to sleep now. Maybe I will post again soon.
P.S. My husband is getting the iPhone 4 soon. I think I am going to be jealous.
