Ruralocity Blog http://blog.ruralocity.com Sat, 05 Apr 2008 02:56:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 en No March Madness on Joost for me. http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/03/20/no-march-madness-on-joost-for-me/ http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/03/20/no-march-madness-on-joost-for-me/#comments Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:22:31 +0000 Aaron Sumner http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/03/20/no-march-madness-on-joost-for-me/ I was pretty excited about live broadcasts of every NCAA tournament game on Joost, especially given CBS’ bad habit of dropping a game of local interest in favor of something nobody outside the east coast cares about. Well, sucks to be me–I’ve been trying, unsuccessfully, all morning to get a game to load.

JoostScreenSnapz001.jpg

Adam Ostrow at Mashable got a game to load, but I know it’s not a problem between me and Joost in general–I mean, I got an episode of What’s Happening! to play, no problem. Just no basketball.

It’s too bad, because it looks like CBS has completely dropped the multi-paned live look-in view I always loved so much.

]]> http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/03/20/no-march-madness-on-joost-for-me/feed/ iPhone SDK announcement roundup http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/03/06/iphone-sdk-announcement-roundup/ http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/03/06/iphone-sdk-announcement-roundup/#comments Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:49:27 +0000 Aaron Sumner http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/03/06/iphone-sdk-announcement-roundup/ Apple officially announced the software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone today. In short: It looks like it will be really easy to download and install third-party applications for your iPhone. You’ll be able to install and uninstall programs directly from the phone or through iTunes. In addition, if you rely on enterprise e-mail (such as Microsoft Exchange) you’ll be able to access mail directly via Exchange protocols (I can access my KU mail from my phone via IMAP, for what it’s worth).

Tons of blogs have covered the news in detail, so I won’t rehash what they’ve said–read for yourself:

One downside to how software will be distributed–that is, exclusively through Apple–is that the availability of freeware from small developers will probably be slim and none. Apple is charging developers $99 per year to distribute software through the exclusive channel. So, unless software developers adopt freeconomics en masse, we may be limited to freebies from the big guys only. That’s not the worst thing in the world–giving the small developers a few bucks every now and then is what keeps things moving forward.

Either way, I’ve been waiting for this since the day I bought my iPhone–I’ve been a chicken about jailbreaking my phone because (a) it’s my only phone, and (b) I’m not well-off enough yet to go around throwing money at expensive cell phones willy-nilly.

]]> http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/03/06/iphone-sdk-announcement-roundup/feed/ Half-finished Video Games: A Series http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/03/01/half-finished-video-games-a-series/ http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/03/01/half-finished-video-games-a-series/#comments Sat, 01 Mar 2008 06:12:57 +0000 Aaron Sumner http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/03/01/half-finished-video-games-a-series/ I finish grad school in December. That’s still quite a ways away from now, but it doesn’t stop me from thinking about how I’m going to spend all of that new free time I’ll have on my hands. One project, I’ve decided, will be to revisit the short stack of games I actually enjoyed but never got around to finishing. This series will be a commentary on these games and eventually (hopefully) reports that I’ve indeed finished them.

Let’s take a look at the games, roughly in the order of when I started them:

  • Beyond Good and Evil (PS2)
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GameCube)
  • Tekken 5 (PS2)
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Super Nintendo, via Virtual Console)
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (Gameboy Advance)
]]> http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/03/01/half-finished-video-games-a-series/feed/ iPhones as standard-issue equipment for college freshmen! http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/02/26/iphones-as-standard-issue-equipment-for-college-freshmen/ http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/02/26/iphones-as-standard-issue-equipment-for-college-freshmen/#comments Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:27:18 +0000 Aaron Sumner http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/02/26/iphones-as-standard-issue-equipment-for-college-freshmen/ iphone.jpgLast week I worked on a small school project in which we explored the merit of iPhones in education. Abiliene Christian University, it turns out, is on the forefront of this cause, with an excellent blog called iThinkEd posting the progress of their study into the matter.

Today, ACU announced they will begin handing them out for free to incoming freshmen, beginning this fall. Students will be able to “receive homework alerts, answer in-class surveys and quizzes, get directions to their professors’ offices, and check their meal and account balances” via web-based applications developed by the school.

This is very intriguing! Makes me kind of wish I’d contacted them last week about their work; they’re going to be hammered with requests now. Good luck, ACU!

(Via Engadget)

]]> http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/02/26/iphones-as-standard-issue-equipment-for-college-freshmen/feed/ Keywurl makes keyword searches in Safari easy! http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/02/25/keywurl-makes-keyword-searches-in-safari-easy/ http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/02/25/keywurl-makes-keyword-searches-in-safari-easy/#comments Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:52:19 +0000 Aaron Sumner http://blog.ruralocity.com/2008/02/25/keywurl-makes-keyword-searches-in-safari-easy/ I use Safari as my web browser because it’s pretty. There, I said it. OK, I also use it because it’s easy to sync up bookmarks between multiple computers and my phone (yes, I use del.icio.us, but I don’t like adding sensitive stuff there, such as where I bank). But as pretty as Safari is, it can be a little light in the features department. That’s what makes Keywurl so neat.

Keywurl is an open source (read: free for you) plugin for Safari, meaning it adds extra functionality to the browser. Once you install it and restart Safari, you can search particular sites directly from Safari’s address bar (or, where you type a web address). Let’s look at why this is handy. This table outlines a few examples:

Without Keywurl With Keywurl
  • Open amazon.com
  • Type made to stick in the search field
  • View your results
  • Type amazon made to stick in Safari’s address field
  • View your results
  • Open imdb.com
  • Type no country for old men in the search field
  • View your results
  • Type imdb no country for old men in Safari’s address field
  • View your results

OK, maybe it doesn’t look as impressive in table form as I thought it would, but it’s really handy, trust me. You can also extend it. For example, here’s an expansion you can use to search KU’s directory:


http://www.aims.ku.edu/directory/search?searchfor_name=@@@

Give the expansion string a simple keyword such as ku, then you can easily look up contact information on campus, using the main KU directory by typing something like


ku aaron sumner

Pretty slick, huh? Here’s one for Emporia State University:


http://www.emporia.edu/search/facstaff/staff.php?search=@@@&Input=Submit

(Note: From what I can tell, ESU’s faculty/staff directory only supports one keyword–so enter in just a first or last name.)

Installation can be a little tricky–locate the README file in the download and follow the instructions carefully. It should only take a minute or so.

Download Keywurl and give it a try. If you have any handy searches to share, add them to the comments.

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