Now this is actually a real challenge to me considering I’ve been sitting on my butt for 3-4 months doing nothing but drinking beer and eating out every day. I gained quite a few pounds and weighed the most I’ve ever weighed – 150lbs. Nothing like a nice round number to wake you up. 150! Yikes!

So on November 1st, I started working out. I bought a new Garmin GPS watch to help motivate me. I love the watch and I’m loving working out everyday. I’m doing a variety of things, but the best thing is I don’t really have a plan. I can do anything I want so long as I do something everything everyday. So I’ve committed to doing P90X again, riding at least 3 times a week, running at least twice a week, and if I feel like it, I can hike or walk. My calendar for the first two weeks is quite full.

This past week I worked out a total of 13:23.55 hours, covered 73.11 miles and burned 4,920 calories. And I’ve lost 3 lbs this week, 6 lbs total in November. Not bad. Two more weeks to go.

So on Steve’s recommendation, I got on Amazon and ordered me a IPEVO Point 2 View document camera for $65. I ended up paying $75 total because I had to choose expedited shipping. I wanted to make sure I got it in time to try it out before we leave for San Jose, CA next Tuesday for our mobile learning workshop. So although I don’t have an iPad, I do have lots of mobile devices that we will be demonstrating in the workshop, and my co-presenter Lisa Young will have several iPads with her. My IPEVO arrived yesterday, but I waited until this morning to open it and try it out. I literally had the thing out of the box, installed and working in 5 minutes.

We’ll be using Lisa’s MacBook Pro for our presentation computer next week, so I chose to test the camera out on my Mac Mini. I put the CD in the drive, chose Intel Mac over PowerPC Mac, and then clicked the icon once the software loaded. The program opened up and nothing was there. So I plugged the camera into a USB drive and a picture displayed in the program on my screen. It was that easy. The hardest part about the whole thing was sticking the camera onto the bendable display base. I was afraid I might break it since it is plastic.

I made this video to show you how well the camera works. The image is as clear as any image displayed on the ELMO document cameras we have a school, and those cameras cost over $700. The IPEVO is a steal. The displayed image looked great at all resolution settings. Resolution is adjustable to up to 1600 x 1200. It also has a vertical mirror setting so your image doesn’t appear upside down on the screen, and it has an auto focus button the camera and on the screen in the program. That was all I needed. I’ll try Zoom and Exposure later when I need it.

I use my phone everyday, so my picks here a based on that usage. There are many awesome apps available, but I don’t use them every day, so they are not on this list. First, let’s throw out the obvious. Yes, I’m addicted to social media, so Twitter, Foursquare, and Facebook are a given. I use the native apps for all three. I use these three apps more than any of the others aside from Gmail. Another set of obvious picks are Gmail, Google Talk & Google Voice. Come on. It’s not called a Google phone for nothing. Okay it’s not really the Google phone, but close enough.

With the obvious out the way, here are my top 10 Android apps by daily usage.

Soul4real’s Top 10 Android Apps

9 total, 9 free (100%), 0 paid (0%), 7MB total size, $0 total price

• Aldiko Book Reader : Great app for reading ebooks in the epub format. Organizes the books and has lots of features to make reading easier on the small device.
• Barcode Scanner : Handy app for getting more information about something on the web. Just scan the bar code and the web page pops up. Great for downloading new apps.
• Dolphin Browser : Great alternative to the native browser. Allows for pinch and zoom, bookmarking and more.
• PdaNet free edition : Need to connect your laptop to the internet? This is the app for that. Works great. Connect via usb or bluetooth. Pretty fast speeds once connected. This is a must have app.
• RunKeeper Free : Great app for tracking your athletic activities. Uses the GPS to track your every move and then creates a great map to review. Very accurate and keeps track of pace, distance, altitude, speed. Integrates with Google Earth too.
• Pixelpipe Post & Upload Pro : Awesome app for posting to multiple social networking sites. Take a photo and send it to Twitter, Flickr and Facebook at once. Easy to set up pipes and easy to use. Integrates will with all services on the phone.
• PRO Paint Camera : This camera app is far superior than the standard camera app. You can really tell the difference in quality, especially in bright areas. The picture viewer is really cool too once you figure out where it is.
• Dropbox : If you need files from your computer on your phone, this is the app for you. It works great. Let’s you view just about anything you can put in your Dropbox. Must have app.
• YouMail Visual Voicemail Plus : Replaced my Verizon voicemail years ago in favor of YouMail. The Android app works great. Records voicemails and then transcribes them (fee)and sends a notification and an email with the transcript. Excellent visual voicemail.
• Car Home: This app comes standard on your Android phone (except for AT&T), so you won’t find it in the Android Market. It is very cool. Use Voice Search to tell it to navigate to McDonald’s and it uses the GPS to locate you and then finds the closest McDonald’s and gives you turn by turn navigation. When you arrive at your destination it shows a Google image of the front of the location so you know you’re in the right spot. Totally awesome. It does more, but that’s the coolest part for me.

View this app list on AppBrain

San Diego 2010

Originally uploaded by dr.coop

Well, I haven’t blogged in a while, so I’m just going to try and see if I can still do it. I went to the SITE (Society for Information Technology and Teacher Ed) conference last week. C was able to tag along since she can work from anywhere, and what better place to work from than San Diego in spring. So we hung out in the late afternoon and evenings, and I attended the conference sessions during the morning and afternoon.

There wasn’t much special about this conference. It was interesting, however, just a bit different from the usual conferences I attend. This one focused on teacher education and the use of technology in those programs. I’m not in teacher education, but most of the topics the sessions covered were relevant to regular education as well. I can say that I learned a few new things, but this was a bit of a stressful trip.

The biggest thing that stressed me out was being away from school for so long and not having internet access. Sure the conference had wifi and the hotel did as well, but my school doesn’t pay for internet access when on trips likes this. So basically that means as an online instructor, I have to cancel class for the week or pay out of my own pocket. $15 x 4 days = $60. On principle I refused to do that. If my college feels that not being in contact with the students and work for a whole week is the best solution, why not give it a shot.

Let me just say not answering an email (I get them on my phone) from a student is akin to just walking by someone in a grocery store who has just dropped a bunch of oranges. You just have to stop and help pick them up. Normally if I’m busy, I will just hold those emails until I get in front of a computer, but I had to answer on the phone or while I was at the conference since that is when I had wifi on my netbook. It was a pain in the butt. I couldn’t really concentrate on the sessions because I had a constant stream of email. I tried to ignore them, but I couldn’t. So much for me proving a point. I ended up losing all around on that deal. Stressed the whole first day and night I was there, and then eventually broke down and spent my own money on wifi access to work for two days. Skipped half a day of the conference to work the fourth day. Seems so pointless for the school to pays hundreds of dollars for me to attend a conference, but not pay for something as essential as wifi and parking.

Yeah, don’t get me started on parking. I spent $60 on shuttles and cabs, which the school will reimburse, instead of just parking at the airport for $24. That extra $36 could have paid for 2 days of internet in San Diego. Come on GCC. It’s 2010. We teach online and hybrid classes now. You pay for subs for regular teachers, but you make me pay to teach while I’m away? That’s so not fair.

Music Players

Originally uploaded by dr.coop

There’s always room for more. That’s my moto. Actually it’s not. There’s a story behind each mp3 player purchase, and each player has it’s own specific use. Yes, of course, one could probably do it all, but at the time of purchase, that one just might not have been available. That’s the true story behind why I own 5 ipods and two other players. Now that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

ASU Graduation 2009

Originally uploaded by dr.coop

I was really excited when my friend and colleague Shelley Rodrigo invited me to go to her graduation at ASU last night. I’m not big on crowds or ceremonies. Heck, I didn’t even go to my own graduations for my Master’s at NAU or my doctorate at Nova Southeastern University. I just didn’t want to travel to Flagstaff or Miami, FL and deal with the hassle. So the opportunity to go to Shelley’s was exciting, especially with the added bonus of seeing President Obama speak live. And it was only a hop, skip and a jump away in Tempe.

It only took me 2 hours to get from my house to my seat in Sundevil Stadium. I took the new light rail, and I must say it was very convenient. It did get a little crowded after a few stops though. I must give props to ASU who did a great job of planning such a big event that ran smoothly. They even entertained the poor souls who actually showed up at 3:30pm like their tickets suggested. My hour and a half spent waiting for the main event was quite pleasant despite the fact that I was sitting in the sun and 100+ degrees. It helped that I got to visit with Shelley’s awesome husband and co-author Susan.

I was really surprised by the number of graduates – rumored to be around 9,000. There were so many they didn’t all fit on the infield. They spread up into the stadium seats on the east end of the stadium. I don’t have much experience with university graduations, but I felt a little sad for the undergraduates who were barely recognized for such a big accomplishment for them. I mean I had a better seat than they did, and they didn’t even get to hear their names called. I’m actually thankful for that because we’d still be there if they had.

The doctoral grads, which Shelley was a part of, were lucky enough to walk across the stage and shake President Obama’s hand. I had a great vantage point during the speeches, but during this procession they moved further to the right of the stage and I couldn’t see very well. I did happen to capture a decent shot of Shelley shaking Obama’s hand on the big screen however. Sweet. I just kept thinking how cool is that. Only a few people we be able to say they had a similar experience at their graduation.

President Obama’s speech was awesome. The man has a great sense of humor. He handled the whole honorary degree fiasco nicely and with humor, and actually made it a big part of his speech. He agreed with the committee that his body of work is not complete. He said, “There’s always more to do.” “Always more to learn. Always more to achieve.” He urged graduates to continue to complete their own body of work. It was very inspirational. You can watch the speech on YouTube in 3 parts. Part 1 is below.

All in all it was a great event and an experience I’ll remember for some time now. I’m grateful and thankful that Shelley thought enough of me to invite me to join her family in experiencing her graduation. Thanks Dr. Rodrigo and congratulations! Now let’s party.