The Thesis Whisperer

Dr. Inger Mewburn runs a blog titled The Thesis Whisperer. Recently Inger provided 5 key reasons why she finds Scrivener better than MS Word for writing research papers. She is currently using the Scrivener for Windows beta version. If you do research-type writing I think you'll find Dr. Mewburn's observations very useful. Check it out:

Is your computer domesticating you?

List of Educational iPad apps

Acalanes High School district has put together a very comprehensive list of apps people might want to use for educational purposes. There's a lot of suggestions here, but they are organized well by curricular discipline. Thanks to Lara for suggesting this resource!

acalanes ipad educational apps web page

MacWorld Review

In early February, MacWorld posted a review of Scrivener 2. Bottom line: they gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars. Their evaluation seems very fair to me in terms of pointing out strengths and weaknesses. This review can be helpful for both Mac and Windows users. Check it out:

macworld review of scrivener

Taking Rehearsal Notes

People use Scrivener in very inventive ways by taking advantage of its core features. Obviously the main use is for writing longer documents, but I recently ran across a post by a stage director who uses Scrivener for rehearsal notes. His/her technique may be useful (with some obvious tweaks) for educators as well. Kaydot writes:

I'm a stage director and have switched from paper to scrivener for taking notes during rehearsal.

Before the run, I create a new folder in the binder titled with date. Then while the actors are running I keep my MBA in my lap, hands on the keys. Without taking my eyes from the stage I can hit cmd-N to create a new note, tab into the new note, type the first few letters of the character name (which I've entered as cast so scrivener autocompletes and switches to caps), hit return for a new line and type out the note in typical theatre shorthand. Scrivener automatically titles the note with the character name.

To check out the full description follow the link below. Perhaps you have your own innovated way of using Scrivener?

scrivener for rehearsal notes

Zotero for Citing the Web

About a month ago Jason Fitzpatrick wrote an article for Lifehacker titled: How to Clip, Sort, and Cite the Entire Web with Zotero. It provides a short overview of Zotero, the free and ever improving reference citation software program. Jason looks at some ways to extend the usefulness of Zotero beyond the obvious use of typical academic references. Check it out:

cite the entire web with zotero

The Story Behind the Software

Recently James Fallows of the Atlantic Mobile asked Keith Blount, founder of Scrivener, to write a piece about starting a software company. Keith's wonderful story was posted yesterday. Check it out:

keith on starting a software company

iPad 2 Rant

On March 4 Jeff Lamarche posted a very interesting piece about the iPad 2, Zoom, and other tablet devices. He creates software products for both the Mac iOS and Android mobile platforms. Here's a short quote from early in his piece:

Think about this: yesterday when I checked, the Android Marketplace had sixteen Honeycomb tablet-resolution apps. Sixteen. And you know what's not included in that sixteen? That space game that they show the guy playing in the Xoom commercials. In other words, they had to put a fake game in the commercial. Would they have done that if they had even one compelling application that could make the Xoom look better than the iPad?

As a tablet platform, Android has two big challenges.

First, it has a chicken-and-egg problem with software. Developers are waiting for people to buy Android tablets in sufficient quantity to support the platform, and many consumers are waiting for good apps to buy Android. In the phone world, Android seems to be past that hump. While the app situation is nowhere near as good as on iOS yet, there are apps — including some good ones — for the platform.

But, even if the Xoom were every bit as amazing of a piece of hardware as the iPad 2, it would still have the problem that it does less cool things. There's nothing comparable to Garage Band or iMovies, or any of the hundreds of jaw-dropping iPad apps that have been created in the last year like Infinity Blade, The Elements, or Alice. There's just no "wow" app you can put on your Xoom and show people that's going to make them want to run out and buy one. There's nothing you can do and confidently say "your iPad can't do that shit right there, bitch".

The second, and much larger problem is simply one of price. I see people constantly comparing the Android/iOS situation to the Windows/Mac situation of the eighties and nineties. I usually see this claim by people laughably arguing that Apple's failure is imminent.

In the nineties, Apple kept insane profit margins on their products while dozens of manufacturers created inexpensive commodity PCs running Windows. There was a margin war on the PC side, and PCs became noticeably cheaper (despite paying hefty licensing fees to Microsoft), and that price difference, combined with Microsoft closing some of the usability gap with the Mac, is what lead to the dominance of Wintel machines. In the nineties, Macs simply cost more. You could argue that Macs were cheaper based on TOC or employee efficiency, but in the quantifiable terms that bean counters understand, the Mac was a lot more expensive and didn't do noticeably more, especially once Adobe jumped ship and become cross-platform.

That's not where things are now, however. For typical consumers - people who don't have a dog in the technology race, so to speak, are going to buy based largely on price, Apple's mobile "post-PC devices" aren't just better than their competitors, they're cheaper than comparable competitors.

Check out the full article, plus several comments, at:

the ipad 2 rant post