Nano iPod how happy I am with you! If only your shiny silver back, all carefully engraved, did not scratch so easily. Maybe you need some clothes:

• iKitty - Rubber kitty wrapper
• iGuy - Rubber guy wrapper
• Legion - Rubber devil wrapper
• Tetran - Rubber monster ball that “eats” your headphones
• Sleevz - Felty, yet techy, in fun colors
• Crocheted Cuties - A mouse, bunny, or frog
• Monster - Furry, google eyes and big, big teeth
• DuoBand and DuoSkin - Glow in the dark work-out

Nano iPod how fun you are to listen to, especially all the great podcasts. Currently playing:

• Wired News
• NPR Story of the Day
• Tongcast
• Chris Moyles

Now if only I could find some more, some funky, more home made, yet still good podcasts. Any suggestions?

I recently bought a MacMini for my new life of working from home. So far I’ve been very happy with the Mini. I won’t be able to upgrade it like the standard tower, so in some ways it seems like a throw-away unit. However, for now and for the next year or two this machine should meet and exceed all my needs. I also love how impressively small it is. I missed out on the Mac Cube and this feels like the next best thing.

Now that I have a new machine and some time on my hands I’ve been researching some small apps that I wouldn’t otherwise have time to explore. Plus, the new machine shipped with Tiger and I’ve been having fun exploring the new interface features.

To help me track my time spent on freelance projects and to produce accurate invoices I found this great little program, Sambucus. It allows me to itemize the task and track time spent on each one and then it goes through and produces reports. It is small and slick.

I’ve also found the Macworld Macgems to be a fun source for little Mac improvements.

Last week in Portland I was attending the Slice of Life Workshop for Multimedia Developers, Educators, and Purveyors

As part of my new, open attitude to blogging about work, I’m posting some notes and links from the conference.

My favorite moments of the week were listening and discussing with Geoff Norman on the topic of cognitive psychology and learning theory as applied to computer based education. His talk changed my whole perspective on researching eductional effectiveness of on-line modules.

He recommended the book “e-Learning and the Science of Instruction : Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning” by Ruth Colvin Clark, Richard E. Mayer.

The other tid-bit I found particularly interesting was a presntation on applying video gaming principles to education. http://www.tinkering.net.

On Monday I was asked to write a small article for work about current goings on with my team and projects. This is a topic I’m intimately familiar with and it only needed to be 2-3 paragraphs. I couldn’t write a word. Completely frozen. Sometimes it is the easy things that seem insurmountable.

What brought me out of my mind blank was writing about the concept of a charette. I am using an approach commonly found among architects, to involve the community in a new project, while moving the project from planning to building.

I learned about charettes from Claire Ann, who in turned had learned about them from her brother-in-law, an architect of public libraries. I love the concepts behind a charette: listen, envision and build.

I conducted a series of charettes last fall, the results of which provided me with the foundation and landscape for a 1500 page web site. A web site built on the end users ideas has made the end users happy and excited. I believe the whole charette process has been very positive for me, my team and the site users.