ENTR200 and Prezis

Throughout this semester students have had a requirement to use Prezi.com for at least one of their major ENTR200 class presentations. There have been some great ones and many students suggest they have embraced the Prezi concept and used Prezi to an advantage in other classes. Competitive advantage works in class as well as in real life, don’t you know.

However, not everyone embraced Prezi with open arms which is OK too. One of the last “holdouts,” Collen C., authored the Prezi embedded below for support of her team’s presentation on the success case Pixar. [For readers not familiar with Prezi, click on the -> button at center bottom, then on bottom right corner click "more" then Full Screen] Her Prezi merits inclusion in this blog for several reasons: 1. Note the framing used for the Prezi – film – which is what Pixar is about. 2. Note the use of Pixar-related graphics to support the presentation which are colorful and eye-catching. 3. Note the use of management concepts – differentiation strategy to frame part of the analysis. 4. In general, good use of Prezi to SUPPORT their analysis. Makes me proud, as well as all the other great Prezis during the semester. Hank

AuthorStream example

Providers are scrambling to meet the requirements to best display their wares on the iPad. AuthorStream was mentioned in TechCrunch as one such company that is ahead of the curve. To test it out, I uploaded the PowerPoint presentation embedded below [thanks to my BIL Jerry for the content].  Couple of items. Go full screen to really get the impact of the presentation. You have to click/advance the slides yourself. I didn’t see a “stop” button anywhere? BUT, it is one of the few presentation sharing sites to faithfully include audio from the original PPT/PPS. Note: The audio placed on our PC, NOT the iPad?  Strange indeed. Hank

Iggy and the iPad

Thanks to ENTR200 student Zach M. for providing this entertaining use of the new iPad. Hank

Have A Happy Friday: This 4 yr old lad is!

EV-GP @ Purdue Sunday

This is personally the most satisfying blog I’ll write this semester. This coming Sunday at 1PM, the first of I’m sure many Electric Vehicle Grand Prixs will be conducted at Purdue University. Turns out, one of my current ENTR200 students Tony, is a participant, which makes it personal. We’re racing to win. How cool is that? I plan on attending with Brutti and a camera. Come out and give Brutti a hug and the participants a cheer.

Here are some links [here, here and here] for more info about the event.  See PR video below. Hank

Who is George Nissen?

When George Nissen was a  child he began training as a gymnast.  He tumbled on his junior high tumbling team and continued to have a  passion for  acrobatics throughout his life.  When he was only sixteen he was inspired by acrobat safety nets at the circus.   As he watched the trapeez artists gracefully land and bounce on the net he thought “Jeez, if you wanted to, you could keep rebounding into other tricks”.  This kid from Iowa began to visualize his destiny.

The summer after finishing high school Nissen worked in his parents garage building his bouncing contraption from a junkyard mix of scrap steel, canvas and cut up inner tubes. That fall his first prototype became very popular with his friends and led to “surprisingly no” injuries. Nissen was convinced that he could commercialize this idea and spent the rest of his life doing just that.  A champion gymist at the University of Iowa, he graduated with a degree in business.   He served in the Navy and travelled the world.  Nissen learned that the spanish word for diving board was el trampolin.  He registered “Trampoline” as a trademark ( it eventually became a generic name) for his bouncing apparatas and incorporated his business;  The Nissen Trampoline Corporation.  George heavily promoted his product with innovative ideas such as publicity shots of him jumping on the trampoline with a rented kangaroo!  This got him some attention and a few interested buyers, but his initial market became the US military who used the trampoline to train pilots.   70 years after his idea first came to him, the trampoline became an Olympic sport.   ”It is something I dreamt, like people winning a million dollars,” Nissen told reporters as he sat in the audience for the first night of the 2000 Olympic trampoline competition.

Nissen died last Wednesday at the age of 96, having relentlessly pursued his passion. See link below. [Embedding is disabled by YouTube.] Beth Carroll

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb2z3-QIZnE&feature=related

iPad: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

I have been using the iPad consistently since receiving it opening day, Saturday April 3, 2010. Unlike the Apple fanboy reviews, below is my assessment of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly attributes of the iPad and available apps:

The Good:

• Long battery life – over 10 hours and counting. Can go days without recharging.
• Short charge cycle – so rapid I haven’t worried about it
• Great screen appearance and presentation
• Several of the apps are outstanding including Netflix, Pogoplug and WSJ
• I’ve only had to reboot it once since turning it on – some might consider this “bad;” I don’t.
• Speed of heat on and into apps as fast as can tap – UBER!

The Bad:

• With a build cost on the order of $260, a retail price of $499 is too high. s/b $399 at most
• No printer drivers so can’t print “stuff” without a hack
• The Wi-fi tends to be flaky – Locks on sometimes, sometimes not. Lots of negative press about this.
• The screen gets fingerprints like you won’t believe
• Accessories not available concurrent with launch
• Online support (VGA dongle) is completely useless

The Ugly:

• Try as I might, I haven’t been able to get the VGA-dongle to work, and neither have the rocket scientists at Best Buy nor advanced students @ Purdue.
• Don’t want to be tied to AT&T for wireless access. Really would prefer tethering with Droid but iPhone would work in a pinch
• It’s a closed system with Apple deciding what is available or not. Just like our government

I’m certain much more can be/will be added to the above in due course. Keep in mind, If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room.–Anonymous. Hank

Google is at it again: SearchStories

The guys at Google like to have fun at times. Thus, SearchStories for the masses to generate short  clips based on “searches.” Could be used to make short adverts. BTW, can be addicting. My first is below. Hank

Brutti + Greenhouse

I have been spending most of my time outside working on the yard, garden and greenhouse. Yesterday I shot the last video of the season of the interior of the greenhouse to share with you what it looks like prior to moving the plants outside in the next couple of days, weather permitting. Brutti was playing with his “ball” and the video starts with a shot of him romping. Enjoy. Hank

The world needs a Droid to iPad tethering app

But you say they are already “out there.” Not really. Let me expound a little.

When the 3G version of the iPad comes out later this month, it will cost an additional $130 plus either $20 or $30 a month fee to ATT for the 3G pipe. There are millions of people like me who own/would own both an iPad AND a Droid and  for many reasons shy away from ATT’s “great” broadband disservice. There is currently a free app in the Android market to tether a Droid to either Windoz  boxes or Macs via USB called PDANet. What the world needs is a Droid to iPad app that does not require root access on the Droid [which was just accomplished on 2.1 ]. Forget getting a similar app for the iPhone. Currently the iPhone doesn’t tether without jailbreaking, and even then you’re still on ATT, which in essence is going from bad to worse.

So here’s the deal boys and girls, without  rooting or jailbreaking [for the iphone], how can I use my Droid/iPhone to provide broadband access to my iPad? Barnacle from szym.net is a start but requires root access.  Why Droid you might ask? I’m already paying $30/month extra for unlimited bandwidth, and it’s on Verizon dude. Hank