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During the presentation Brad mentioned the 6 big social networking sites that universities participate in and on that list was MySpace. Being a geek I follow and participate in most social networking sites and it has been my opinion that quite frankly MySpace is dead, so I promptly tweeted my doubts about MySpace being one of the big 6 sites.  My tweets were quickly answered by two other attendants and IU East faculty:

@JODaltonIUE: @BeckyMcKimmy, yes, MySpace is still relevant; @iueast has more than 900 on MySpace, about 750 fans on FB. #blogindiana

@aaronmhill: @BeckyMcKimmy Some people still have landlines, don’t they? #BlogIndiana

And Brad went on to discuss the necessity for primary research and knowing your audience and specifically used the IU East website’s use of MySpace as an example.  IU East surveyed incoming students and found out that a much larger percentage of their students used MySpace (a “dead” website) than Facebook and used that information to propel their site forward.

The point that Brad and both twitter respondants made was that despite prevailing perceptions about the popularity of social media tools or any tools for that matter, knowing your existing and intended audience is always key.  Just because your fellow tech-geeks have declared a social media network “dead”, doesn’t mean it should be discounted. If your audience uses that network and not the popular one, it is vital that you reach out to  them where they are, not where “they should be”.

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The new Barbie comes with chic pink glasses, a pink laptop complete with binary code (no clue what it says), a blue-tooth headset, laptop carrying case, and watch.  She is also wearing pants, albeit sparkly pants, but this is the first time I  personally have seen Barbie come from the store with something other than a skirt.

As a female geek working in the technology world, I am not sure what I think about this.  On one hand, it is exciting to see Mattel attempting to make being a geek cool and encouraging little girls to “think outside the box”.  On the other hand,  Barbie is still Barbie, and I doubt it will be long before she returns to her fashion diva ways.

What do you think?  Does this make you happy or mad?

To read the official press release about the new doll check out the Barbie website.

And the moment I know you have all be waiting for… I give you Computer Engineer Barbie:

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I have had my new phone for 2 whole days now and I am feel like I have a good feel for it.  So I will share my first impressions of the phone.  I am sure over time some of these will change, but for now, here’s how I like it. (I LOVE it).

Keyboard:
One of the main reasons I wanted the Droid vs other Android phones on the market was because the Droid has a physical keyboard.  After using my enV 2 for two years I had fallen in love with the physical qwerty keyboard and considered it a must in my next phone.  However, as I have started to use the Droid with earnest, I find that I actually prefer the on-screen landscape keyboard for multiple reasons.

First, the physical keyboard is off-center on the device and causes my thumb and wrist on my right hand to cramp and hurt when I attempt to type more than one or two words. Second, the on-screen keyboard has predictive input and corrects my spelling errors.  Neither of these options are available when using the physical keyboard.  Third, the on-screen keyboard has haptic feedback and larger keys than the physical keyboard, which makes it easier for me to type quickly. And lastly, it is quicker and more convenient to simply use the on-screen keyboard.

I am honestly very surprised that I like the on-screen keyboard as much as I do, but for now, I think I will use it the most.

Homepage Screenshot

Launcher/Home:
Having a fellow geek for a husband, who is never happy with the status quo, means I often find out about options for our technology that “typical” users never see.  The Droid is no exception, and Matt quickly found out that you can change the launcher app (aka home screen) on the Droid.  While the original home screen was fun and useful, the Home++ home screen works a lot better for me.

It allows for up to 7 home screens instead of the standard 3, minimizes often used apps such as the phone and browser into smaller buttons that are constant at the bottom of your home screens, and allows you to hide the status bar at the top of the screen to provide more usable space.

Apps:
Like the iPhone, the Droid comes preloaded with an “app store”, the Android Market Place, where you can download thousands of applications. There is pretty much an app for anything you could possibly want to do on your phone and a large percentage of those handy-dandy apps are free.  The Market Place is also quite easy to use and installing applications is amazingly simple.  The Droid even sends you a friendly notification to let you know your download has completed, your app is installed, and allows you to open it up immediately.

I have used it to install multiple twitter apps, a flickr app, a ping.fm app, and a weather app and to update existing apps on the phone.  I am sure as I continue to use the phone and delve deeper into the market place, I will find even more useful apps.

Photo take with the Droid. Click to view full-size and see the blurriness

Camera:
The Droid  comes equipped with a 5 megapixel camera that offers auto-focus and a flash. However, whether due to user error or software bugs, I have not been able to take many pictures I am happy with.  They tend to come out blurry like the camera or subject has moved when the photo was snapped.

I am hoping after some further testing and searching online, I will be able to alleviate this problem.

Email, Contacts, & Calendar:
The Droid synchronizes with Google Contacts, Gmail, and Calendar nearly seamlessly. Your Google contacts are automatically pulled to your phone when you log-in to your Google account and you can manage them both from your phone or desktop computer. The Droid also allows you to merge your Facebook contact data in with this information.  You can choose to add all your Facebook contacts, or do what I did and only add information for contacts already present in your Google contacts list.

The Gmail app has push email so as soon as emails arrive at the Google server they are sent to your phone.  This can be both great and a pain depending on how many emails you get and how interested in seeing them you are.

The Calendar app is quite useful and probably one of my favorite features.  You can view all of your Google calendars and it even imports the colors you have assigned each calendar.  You can choose to view your events in agenda, day, week, or month format and the add event feature is quite comprehensive. I generally do a good job of remembering Matt’s and my schedule from week to week, but it is great to be able to have my calendar with me at all times.

Maps:
The Droid has a native Google Maps app that is amazing.  Not only can you do the typical maps stuff, but it provides GPS-based turn-by-turn voice navigation.  Matt and I tested it out and it is amazingly accurate and can even handle rerouting you if you make a wrong turn.  The voice it uses is a little synthetic, but otherwise it is fabulous.  I had hoped to get a GPS unit for my car this year as I tend to get lost, but the Droid’s Google maps app has totally fulfilled that wish!

Phone Calls:
So far I have done a lot more “playing” with my new phone than actually making phone calls, but what I have seen so far has been good.  There are multiple options for making phone calls, including a dial pad, contacts list, and home screen shortcuts.  The call quality is also great, though part of that may be due to the carrier not the phone itself.  I am also impressed with the speakerphone.  It is loud and clear and the person on the other end can actually understand what I am saying.  With a car dock, this could be a great hands-free setup to use when driving.

Display:
I love the display on the Droid.  It is bright, large, and responds well to touch.  My only complaint so far is fingerprints. I am sure this is a problem with all touch-screen phones, but I feel the need to compulsively clean my phone to remove all the fingerprints.  It is especially noticeable when using the phone in the sunlight.  The glare off the fingerprints can make the screen hard to read.  This is, however, a small price to pay to have such a capable computer at my finger tips (pun intended) virtually everywhere I go.

Facebook:
I would guess one of the most commonly used apps on most smart phones is Facebook.  However, the app on the Droid falls really really short of useful in my opinion.  The notification feature rarely works and almost never refreshes with out a forced refresh and even then it is flaky at best.  Also the news feed only refreshes in 30 minute intervals at the fastest.  In a world where people are carrying around smart phones and updating their status constantly 30 minutes is just not going to cut it.

The app does allow you to take and upload photos directly to your Facebook wall but you can use the camera interface for the same thing.  Or if you prefer you can use a service like ping.fm that allows you to add your photos to multiple sites at once.

I have been so dissatisfied with the Facebook app that I have stopped using it entirely and simply put a bookmark to the Facebook mobile-touch site on my home screen.  While it doesn’t give me nifty system notifications when someone does something exciting on Facebook, it is highly usable and is always up-to-date.

All in all I am highly pleased with my new phone.  It is capable of far more than I have described so far, and I am sure as I continue to use it, I will find more and more reasons to love it.

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I mostly use Ravelry to keep track of my projects, stashed yarn, and knitting needles.  Each user has a notebook that stores this information for them. In the projects section there is a list of all the projects you are working on or have completed.  There is a searchable database of patterns or you can add your own pattern.  Each project entry also includes information about the yarn used, (there is a search able database of yarn), the status of your project, the progress of your project, your rating of the pattern and yarn used, and information about what needles were used.  The project entry also contains a place to store images of the project.  You can upload photos you have taken directly through Ravelry or through amazing integration with Flickr, you can simply drop and drag photos you already have listed on Flickr .

The stash section has a similar interface and will allow you to keep track of yarn you have on hand, including information about the brand, color, weight, and number of skeins.  There is a searchable database of yarn available that has nearly every type of yarn, even that old neon green 1970’s skein you have leftover from your grandmother’s stash. Ravelry is also smart enough to reduce the number of skeins of a particular yarn if you list it as being used in a project.  Another great feature is the ability to search for patterns that match yarn in your stash. Ravelry has a huge database of patterns sorted by yarn, project type, etc.  This is a great way to make use of random skeins of yarn.

If all those great tools and helpful sections weren’t enough, Ravelry also provides an online community for knitters and crocheters.  Users can connect with friends and view their projects.  There are also groups based around different topics, geographic locations, events, etc.  And possibly the most helpful, Ravelry has a large online forum system.  This allows users to connect with others who are working on similar projects, ask questions of more seasoned knitters or crocheters, or find solutions to common problems.

Ravelry really is the place to be if you knit or crochet!  For me it is the perfect melding of the two parts of my life and personality.  The creative artistic knitter and the technical geeky webside developer.  It feels as though this site was built with me in mind.  If you knit or chrocet and haven’t checked it out yet — GO NOW! If you are already on Ravelry, you can find me at http://www.ravelry.com/projects/bemckimmy.

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Matt mentioned off-hand one night when we were discussing “the lap top of my dreams” that I should just get a netbook. After some thorough online research, I agreed with him whole heatedly, and eight months later I absolutely love my Lenovo s-10.

It has the same fit and finish as its larger counter part, but comes in a compact, portable size that lets me easily take it anywhere I want. The smaller screen took a little a getting used to, but for the most part there isn’t anything I use my netbook for that I need a larger screen for.  It also has a keyboard that is 85% of full size, but the transition to the smaller keyboard was quick and easy.  The only complaint I have about the keyboard is the placement of the right shift key.  The up arrow where the right shift key normally is, and the shift key is one space further to the right.  That has definitely taken some getting used to, and I would suggest Lenovo find a way to upday the layout so this important key is in the default position in the future.

Because I kept my desktop computer and use my netbook as a supplemental/travel computer, I use it mostly for surfing the Internet, word processing, and processing photos we take with our new camera.  For those purposes, it works like a charm.  The only time I have noticed the slower processor is when trying to do extremely processor heavy activities like design work or trying to access my computer at work remotely.  For any other day to day function the netbook has more than enough processor power.  As any good geek, I also made my first order of business to remove the Windows XP the netbook shipped with and replaced it with Ubuntu.  Ubuntu is designed to work more efficiently on less powerful hardware and does not come loaded with lots of unnecessary applications that slow the computer down.  Ubuntu is also more stable and secure, but that is another blog post.

Probably one of the biggest reasons I chose this netbook over others is the fact that it does not have a glossy screen.  All the other netbooks on the market at the time I purchased the Lenovo came with a glossy screen.  I have found them hard to use in anything other than low-light situations and love the fact that the Lenovo netbook does not have one.

Last but not least, I love the design of my netbook.  The red cover is attractive and eye catching.  For me, having a laptop that I enjoy the look of was just as important as having a laptop I enjoyed the functionality of.  Lenovo also makes other color options in case red is not your thing.  The only complaint I have is that the red cover has a glossy finish that tends to show finger prints.  A matte finish would be more practical.

All-in-all, I absolutely love my netbook and am very happy with my purchase.  I would and have recommened this computer to others.

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