Sungei Buloh Wetlands, Singapore. Malaysia in the distance.

The other day my good friend Siva tweeted that since I felt liberated after renaming my blog I should post a few items about my life in Singapore. Well, this is my first post in that series. I have lifted much of the text for this post from a page created about this event. Just noticed that I typed in the wrong date! It was January 3rd and not January 1st, 2003.

As many of you have figured out my wife Shao Ping and I spent a number of years in Singapore. During that time one of the things I was partially involved in was the creation of a CD-ROM about mangroves and the Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve in Singapore. That was how I met Siva. He was one of our subject matter experts. Incidentally, Siva was blogging before most of us were born. All his and his students’ blogs can be found here.  Siva and I have been the best of friends ever since we met.

I went to Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve on the 3rd January, 2003. It was late in the afternoon and the weather was closing in somewhat. It was a good thing to go however. I was taking time off work from the eLearning job. I had worked over Christmas and the New Year and life was closing in. I needed a break otherwise I felt I would surely break.

Sungei Buloh is a great place to go in order to unwind. Especially on week days if you can make it. You can recharge your batteries, so to speak. It would be neat to work there, I think. I have formed good friendships at Buloh.

Have you ever seen the rain?

Anyway, during that afternoon the heavens opened up and I watched the downpour from the boardwalk. It was actually quite cool, at least for Singapore. I took a lot of photographs. The rain fell down and the mud lazily danced as each drop met its maker. The greys painted the world in Sungei Buloh that afternoon.

Thank God I was there to witness it. Infinitely better than slaving away in an office where working 60 or more hours a week was considered admirable and critically essential for a pay rise or promotion. I was there for another three more months after that. I then relaxed for about three months. Did a few odd consultations and was lecturing part time at the NIE. Spent a few weeks in Australia. That was a long time ~ 3 months. Recharged my life. I then moved on to the CED at NTU. That was a good move. I will be back at NTU later this week. I cannot keep away.

During the last week read a few reports about Swurl. I have some good news and a point that I think is not so good. Some background, the good news and then some potential bad news follows. [Please not my addendum too]

The initial reference to the tool that caught my eye was made by Jane on her excellent eLearning Pick of the Day blog. I was then impressed with the screen shot on the Read/Write Web review of the tool. Since then Silvia Tolisano and Alan Levine have blogged about the tool.

I have been looking for something to replace my Jaiku badge as its servers are down quite often and I cannot perceive that any changes have been made to Jaiku since Google purchased the company last October. I thought that perhaps Swurl was the answer. As I mentioned I was impressed with the screen shot published as part of the report. I thought, “Could this replace my Jaiku badge?”

After reading the review I skipped over to Swurl and signed up. I was able to plug into my blog, twitter, del.icio.us and Last.FM feeds. That was all. For some reason I could not plug into my Flickr feed. I made several attempts. No luck.

So, I left a question on their suggestion page. More on that in a moment. Anyway, this morning I received an email from Jonathan Neddenriep at Swurl. He is pictured here with the other chap behind Swurl, Ryan. These gentlemen are real. Their feedback is excellent. This is impressive.

Jonathan mentioned in the email that they had added an additional feature that allowed you to enter the full url of your Flickr account. It worked for me. I could switch on Flickr. I think this level of support is brilliant. Simply outstanding. That is the good news.

Now, Swurl is good but it is not the solution for me. I was after a sidebar badge that could replace Jaiku but it was not to be. Perhaps one day Swurl will have a badge that I can embed on my home page. The Jaiku badge there takes in all my feeds (except Twitter ~ my choice) and it acts like a “What’s New” for my site and feeds. 

Now, for the not so good point. There is one thing that concerns me about Swurl. When you mouse over any post or entry on your Swurl page a hidden comment field appears. Anyone can comment. What if spammers get a hold of this? It could become a nightmare. Even each individual Twitter post allows for comments. See below.

The comment feature needs to have controls not unlike that of a blog in my opinion. This has been raised on the Swurl suggestion page.

Addendum. Now for some more good news. This blog post has received a comment from Jonathan Neddenriep at Swurl. These guys are brilliant! Please read Jonathan’s comment below. Excellent.

Just completed an iChat with Westley Field. He is a much traveled chap. He is in London doing this and that. Anyway, here he is, having breakfast with Richard Millward, an educator delving into learning, technology and its development through his research and development work with Core Education UK and the IDIBL project in the Institute for Educational Cybernetics at the University of Bolton.

Good morning gentlemen

Richard and I laughed about our foreheads. I then sent Westley, via iChat, the link to my previous post about QR Codes and asked Westley and Richard to check out my forehead replete with my blog’s QR Code.

I explianed QR Codes to Westley and to my surprise Richard grabbed his phone which had software capable of reading QR Codes. He pointed his mobile phone at the QR code on my blog and, on cue, my blog appeared on Richard’s mobile phone. Now, I think that is quite neat.

Proof of concept ~ the QR Code pointed to my blog

We chatted a bit and I provided Westley with some pointers for a presentation he must be doing later. I have a knack at being in the right place at the right time when it comes to Westley. And vice versa.

How did I create this post? I took the screen shots of the iChat session using SharpShooter. I imported the images into Comic Life and added the word balloons, etc. I exported the Comic as a jpeg image and then resized each image it in Adobe Photoshop Elements and exported it using the Save For Web… option which allows you to fine tune file size and quality. I used CyberDuck to upload the two images.

First learnt about these a few weeks back. Read about them in a newspaper somewhere and then made a mental note to follow it up. Well, an article in the Sydney Morning Herald reminded me about the QR Code so this afternoon did a Google search using these terms “QR Code your own”. Came up with a  few sites and selected this one: Kaywa QR Code Generator. There was also a generator at Winksite.

One can generate a code badge of varying sizes together with embed code and a permalink. The QR Code for this blog is displayed above.

QR Codes are not unlike bar-codes and were originally developed in Japan for use in manufacturing. Now, how can you use this code? Well, imagine this… you print a large version of your QR Code on a t-shirt. Someone points a mobile phone equipped with a camera and the QR Code reader software and scans your QR Code on your t-shirt. Then your web site, text message, mobile business card, image or whatever you create the QR Code for will appear on their phone. No searching or typing required. You could print QR Codes on your name cards.

QR Codes will appear in adverts, on billboards, CD jackets, books, restaurants, catalogues and elsewhere. I have visions of the codes being used on motor vehicle registration plates, license papers, ID cards, etc. They have been used in Japan for sometime where they have become popular among Japan’s highly mobile youth. They are now being used in Australia.

Exclusive QR Codes may be published at concerts, performances, conferences and even un-conferences. Point your suitably equipped phone at the QR Code and the relevant data will appear on your phone. QR Codes could be used in museums and other exhibitions to send data regarding displays and exhibits to the patrons’ mobile phones. It may give the term ‘point-of-sale’ a whole new meaning as you point your phone at QR coded merchandise and purchase it on the spot.

Perhaps you could your QR Code tattooed on your arm or on any other part of your exterior. The mind boggles.

Now, I wonder if I go to a different QR Code generator and attempt to create another QR Code for this blog will it be identical?

From time to time as I scan the Twitter feeds I see the adjective ‘cool‘ pop up in reference to this application or that tool. Now, because I am actually a Grumpy Old Man, I must admit that I feel annoyed when I see the term cool to describe every new tool or app that appears on the horizon. They cannot all be cool.

Yet, I do believe that some applications are deserving of the adjective cool. I will list three.

1. HyperCard. Apple’s authoring tool that spawned an entire generation of educators willing to give technology a go in the classroom. HyperCard changed my life. HyperCard and similar tools led to the origin and growth of research and development laboratories such as EmLab at the University of Wollongong. Sadly, HyperCard is with us no longer. Link: Apple’s New Hypercard 2.4.

2. KidPix. Excellent software for kids that integrates multimedia elements and a variety of publishing possibilities. It is fun for everyone. Available here.

3. Comic Life. The team at plasq created Comic Life not long back. An incredibly easy application to use  with a diverse range of uses and a plethora of publishing possibilities. This is a fun application as well. I am yet to try out Comic Magiq Life. Mac | Win

Now, I think blogging, wikis and podcasts are also excellent developments.

It is now over to you. Would you like to suggest an application that is worthy of mention?