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Online Inspiration

Simon Robinson — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:57:08 +0000

There are a number of concept mapping tools some free, some not so free. Inspiration is not super expensive for what you get (IMHO) but it’s not free. What it does do super well that makes it my application of choice is switch seamlessly between what they call “diagram” and “outline” views. So it goes from the concept map bubbles to bulleted list format and makes sense most of the time. What was holding Inspiration back over the last 12 months or so has been the explosion of collaborative tools such as Bubbl.us CMaps and others. Well no more. Webspiration is the Web2.0 successor of Inspiration (and Kidspiration). It’s in beta at the moment so there is bound to be a few bugs (for instance I have had difficulty uploading files) but the upside is you can try it for free. It has all the major features of the desktop version and adds the ability to track changes and collaborate with other Webspiration users. I don’t know what the business model is going to be around this product (I imagine it will be a subscriber account type thing?) but it would be great if non members could at least view the document even if they can’t collaborate. Ability to embed maps into a blog, wiki etc would also be super hot. You can be I’m putting in that suggestion.
Sign up for an account and start planning/creating/mapping/visualising. Then share it with me. I don’t have any friends you see…

Keepass

Simon Robinson — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:35:43 +0000

First Steps Tutorial – KeePass

This short tutorial will show you how to actually use KeePass. It describes only the basic usage, advanced features are covered on separate pages.

Okay. I “shared the love” on this one through my delicious network (add me to yours and I will add you back : see link top left) but it appears to have passed people by, so I’m posting. At least now the 3 people that read this blog will pick it up.
For those not in the loop Keepass is “the free, open-source, light-weight and
easy-to-use password manager.” If you download and start using it with a bit of luck you won’t be accepting those pens quite so quickly. The portable version is perhaps the most useful (anyone NOT on a managed machine?) and is available here
The caveat is that I don’t actually use Keepass myself. It’s Windows only and I pretty much live in OSX. For others on OSX, I got SplashID bundled with a Palm PDA I purchased a few years ago so I’ve stuck with that. The latest desktop version is super hot. 1Password also gets a pretty good wrap with PDA and iPhone versions.

Assess all the options

Simon Robinson — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 10:14:34 +0000

Got this link from a mailing list I subscribe to. It’s nice to see that we have not been the only ones trying to subscribe to the “right tool for the right job and the right price” club. Don’t be sucked in by the first few sentences Christopher Dawson isn’t on a Mac rant. He talks about presenting options so people can make informed decisions. Check it out.

Bring it on (a Mac that is) by ZDNet’s Christopher Dawson — “What are they up to now? Cheetah? Leopard? I don’t care, just bring it on.” This is roughly how a conversation with one of my users went today. Obviously, there was quite a bit more too it, but we got to talking about the new laptops we’ll be leasing for teachers this summer. [...]

Tags: hardware, teachers, laptops, osx, xp, vista