Over the past week I have Tweeted about the iPad excessively (over 120 tweets in 4 days) and many were completely absurd. I have posted them in a diary format so I could see my impressions/feelings/thoughts about the release as time progressed. I also added some context to Tweets that might have seemed random. As a QA Manager, part time Product Manager and amateur marketing specialist I think it helps me to get this all down so that I can learn from it for our future products.

So here are my iPad related tweets since April 1st

April 1st

Why is my iPad still in China? Shouldn’t it be in the US by now?

8:47 AM Apr 1st via TweetDeck

Ok, by this point I am starting to think their is no way that my iPad will be delivered on time, and growing pissed I didn’t wait to pick one up at the Apple store on Day 1.

Trying to think of an analogy comparing watched pot not boiling and watched iPad shipment tracking not moving…
8:50 AM Apr 1st via TweetDeck

Seriously, my iPad hasn’t moved in Days.

So…my #iPad just left Hong Kong. Going to make the guess right now that it doesn’t arrive by 4/3…
6:56 PM Apr 1st via TweetDeck

RT @arlynasch: My friend @dmozealous tried to get Google directions from China to his house to estimate how long it would take to deliver his #iPad. || True
7:08 PM Apr 1st via TweetDeck

This is true. Unfortunately Google Maps won’t calculate travel time for this.

This is where my iPad is http://post.ly/XASM
7:12 PM Apr 1st via Posterous

Some remote island off the coast of Hong Kong…

April 2nd

My #iPad must have stumbled into a Hot Tub Time Machine. Left China today, arrived in Alaska yesterday: http://tweetphoto.com/16801797
6:41 AM Apr 2nd via TweetDeck

At this point I am not only growing impatient, I am also thinking I am really hilarious. Two topics I have tweeted about the most over the last 3 weeks combined into one really great tweet. I pat myself on the back and continue to work.

Hoping the iPad really increases my productivity to make up for the lost productivity tweeting about its arrival.
7:53 AM Apr 2nd via TweetDeck

I am on fire!

Contemplated building a Norad/Santa tracker style app last night via UPS API to track my iPad for my website. #Iamatool
8:22 AM Apr 2nd via TweetDeck

Yep, I sure did. Apparently UPS offers an API. Figured by the time I got this up and running though, my iPad would be here. I kinda suck at programming.

@dustinbrockman how come?
11:13 AM Apr 2nd via TweetDeck in reply to dustinbrockman

For some inexplicable reason I got a lot of @message spam from bots saying “@dmozealous got my #iPad and already sending it back”. Still not exactly sure what this is about…all the messages came via the Twitter API, so they were bots, but why spam me telling me this? I replied to the spam bot above before realizing it was a spam bot. I got about 4 of these messages from other spam bots over the weekend. I had some theories about why I was getting the spam:

1. A plot by Adobe to fill the Twitter stream with seemingly unhappy iPad owners over the absence of Flash. After thinking of this I quickly fashioned a tin foil hat to make sure the folks at Adobe couldn’t read my thoughts.
2. Someone just didn’t like the iPad fanboys and decided to crap all over their day…

Fairly certain I am going to have to visit the xanax fairy to get some sleep tonight…
11:47 AM Apr 2nd via TweetDeck

In case you don’t know what Xanax is, it is a prescription drug to help those cope with anxiety.

TweetDecks iPad app looks better than their desktop app: http://bit.ly/9eVqP8
11:49 AM Apr 2nd via TweetDeck

I view a video of the TweetDeck app, and sure enough, looks better than the desktop client. Seriously.

Sleeping on the couch tonight instead of upstairs in my room. Just in case the UPS guy comes really early. I don’t want to miss him.
3:00 PM Apr 2nd via TweetDeck

Again, I am hilarious…and if you are curious, did I sleep on the couch? No, I slept in my bed…with my door open

Anyone else leaving out milk and cookies for the UPS delivery guy?
3:00 PM Apr 2nd via TweetDeck

also going to leave out carrots for his reindeer…
3:02 PM Apr 2nd via TweetDeck

and finally, going to clean out my fireplace in case he decides to come down my chimney.
3:03 PM Apr 2nd via TweetDeck

True hilarity.

In between 3:00 PM and 9:00 PM I am actually on a blind date, and I see a couple of snarky tweets from Tom Kuhlmann and Jeff Holton who both bust my chops and tell me I need to get a life, and a wife and kids, in response to my excessive over the top tweeting. Takes me awhile to respond because hey, I am on a date, but as soon as I get in my car after the date I post this response:

@tomkuhlmann @JeffHolton reason i need a wife and kids is so that we can wait for my iPad in shifts. I want to go riding tomorrow too.
9:21 PM Apr 2nd via TweetDeck

At roughly 10:00 PM I get home, take my dog out, and lock my keys in my house. I get a little panicked that I might not be able to get in my house by the time the UPS guy shows up. Luckily my neighbor is a master lock picker with a credit card, so I am in my house around 10:30 PM.

April 3rd

My #iPad is in Boulder!!
5:35 AM Apr 3rd via Echofon

Wake up at 5:35 AM, can’t sleep, check the UPS status of my iPad, and great news, it is in Boulder. Looks like I am going to get my iPad!

I wonder if the UPS IT department is freaking out because of a potential F5 attack coming from Boulder right now.
6:21 AM Apr 3rd via Echofon

F5 is a way to refresh your browser. I keep refreshing to see if my iPad is out for delivery.

Use Twitter location search to see how close the iPad delivery is to your house…
6:22 AM Apr 3rd via Echofon

Think this is a cool idea. I do a location search in Boulder to see if others around me are getting their iPads. Unfortunately I don’t see much traffic.

RT @mrch0mp3rs: IT HAS ARRIVED http://twitpic.com/1cwd0v // Nice!!!
6:32 AM Apr 3rd via Echofon

Aaron Silvers gets his iPad pretty early. I am now officially jealous.

All quiet from me till 4:03 PM…why so quiet? I am really pissed that my iPad hasn’t arrived, been sitting on my couch all day napping. My butt is actually starting to get couch sore.

At 12:00 PM I take my dog out to hang out outside. I position myself to face the door to my building so that I don’t miss the UPS guy.

Around 12:30 PM I call UPS and ask if I can drive to the UPS distribution center and pick up the iPad. UPS says no go.

At 1:30 PM I am certain my iPad isn’t going to make it today. It is 1:30 PM and I really wanted to go for a bike ride, that probably won’t happen now as there is a 40 mph wind blowing. I am officially pissed at UPS for not giving me a delivery window and Apple for choosing a Saturday date.

And then, at 2:03 PM April 3rd:

Finally… http://post.ly/XaUk
2:03 PM Apr 3rd via Posterous

I try to film an unboxing experience via my iPhone. It turns out really lame as the box is impossible to open one handed. Scratch the idea to film the unboxing.

The iPad is heavier than I imagined.
2:07 PM Apr 3rd via Echofon

Initial thoughts:

• Box is cool and minimalistic…
• iPad is really heavy. Actually hard to hold with one hand.
• Glad they charge the iPad before delivery. Isn’t it lame when you buy something battery operated and you have to charge before using it? Props to Apple for paying attention to the details.
• Charger is lame. It is like the 1st gen iPhone charger but without the dock.
• Device is stunningly beautiful, but I already knew that.
• Headphones don’t have the built in microphone.
• After turning it on: Is my screen scratched?

Every time I see an iPhone, iPod, iPad box I can’t help but be reminded of this parody:

Tweeting from tweetdeck on my iPad.
2:24 PM Apr 3rd via TweetDeck

First app I install is TweetDeck, again it is a great app.

Just bought the book Drive for the iPad to replace the physical copy I left on the bus.
2:34 PM Apr 3rd via TweetDeck

iBook

First iBook I buy. Tried getting these, none of which are available:

• Anything by Michael Lewis
• Me 2.0 – by Dan Schawbel
• Catch me if you Can
• Catcher in the Rye
• Blow: How a Small-Town Boy Made $100 Million with the Medellin Cocaine Cartel and Lost It All

Finding it surprisingly difficult to find iBooks that I want to read.

Need to get to a coffee shop stat, and smugly sit reading a book on my iPad and make snide remarks about users using their laptops.
2:35 PM Apr 3rd via TweetDeck

Sometimes I can be an arrogant prick.

NetFlix

@GetAdam Blow via Netflix app is pretty sweet.
4:34 PM Apr 3rd via TweetDeck in reply to GetAdam

Figured out that NetFlix is awesome on the iPad.

Typing is harder than I thought on the iPad….hunt and peck.
4:42 PM Apr 3rd via TweetDeck

More love..

RT @mrch0mp3rs: If you had two iPads this Passover, you could really blow some minds with the Ten Commandments as the wallpaper.

So true…

So…when can I get the Wired magazine iPad app: http://bit.ly/9sEXlP
4:56 PM Apr 3rd via TweetDeck

Ok, the video on the Wired magazine iPad app is really important. Watch it below and then I’ll discuss.

After seeing this video for the first time I became ecstatic about the device. This video showed me what is going to be possible with the iPad. It has the potential to revolutionize a dying industry (the print industry). The magazine is sick. It is interactive, engaging, even the ads are compelling and as the guy that looks like Agent Smith from the Matrix points out, “It is going to enable us to view and consume media in an entirely different way…

I search for the Wired magazine app for a couple minutes and doesn’t look like it is out yet. More on this later.

The default iPad desktop wallpaper is horrible, the falling stars look like screen scratches.
6:04 PM Apr 3rd via TweetDeck

Technically they are time lapsed stars…point is they look like scratches
6:05 PM Apr 3rd via TweetDeck

I was not alone on this. Of the 6 other people I know with iPads 5 said “I thought the same thing” and even random folks were tweeting me about it.

Day 1 favorite #iPad features: internet browsing experience is awesome, battery life is incredible
7:54 PM Apr 3rd via TweetDeck

Still shocked by this. Browsing doesn’t feel as though I am browsing on a giant iPhone. It feels like an optimized internet experience. Everything looks stellar, typing a little goofy, but pages render fast. Awesomesauce. Also I am about 6 hours in and haven’t even made a dent in the battery, still cruising at 80-90%.

You know why everyone is sitting with #iPad in lap in the commercials? The thing is to damn heavy to hold and control one handed.
8:06 PM Apr 3rd via TweetDeck

Arms getting tired…

iPad commercial comes on TV, I am inspired to comment about everyone sitting down.

Update: Check this slideshow showing picks from the various iPad adds/promotional material. Everyone is sitting down with some sort of leg cross to prop up the device.

Lamest iPad app has to be the Wall Street Journal. The trick you into registering for free access then give you no content. #wsj
8:09 PM Apr 3rd via TweetDeck

Tip: if you heavily promote the app for the device launch, don’t make people register to view “free content” and then not give them any free content till day 3. No explanation from them in the app about this anywhere. Really broken feeling first experience.

Giant elephant in the room about Flash, or is it…

Anyone else notice that the blue no-Flash icon doesn’t appear on the #iPad for Flash controls?
8:37 PM Apr 3rd via TweetDeck

This is fairly significant. Apple kinda got crushed by some folks on the internet in the first couple weeks for showing someone browsing the New York Times paper and what appeared to be Flash video . So Apple quickly replaced the promo video with one that showed the familiar missing plugin icon in place of the Flash content. See screenshot below of my site and the missing Flash.

Mozealous.com without Flash

Why is this so significant? Well before, whenever you would see the blue missing plug-in icon the page would be glaringly broken. Any page you saw this on would give you pundits ammunition to criticize the device. How does Apple deal with it? Remove the blue icon and the missing Flash becomes less noticeable. Sure it is very noticeable on my site, but think of other sites that have tiny Flash control widgets in the sidebars. Those appearing as white spaces appear less broken than blue icons…

Mail felt goofy at first

Took me awhile to realize the #iPad mail app makes a lot more sense in landscape mode.
9:19 PM Apr 3rd via TweetDeck

I didn’t really dig the mail app when in portrait mode. The default portrait mode view doesn’t show you a list of your email. If you switch to landscape everything is glorious.

April 4th

Kindle App

The kindle’s iPad app has much better selection of books than Apples selection.
6:01 AM Apr 4th via TweetDeck

I finally discover the Kindle app after finding out that they offer many more book titles. Of the books I had previously searched for in the iBook store and not found most are available in Kindle App for iPad.

Browsing

Just bought a domain via iPad on GoDaddy. Complicated Internet task took 4:15. Now will compare tontime on laptop…6:38 AM Apr 4th via TweetDeck

I needed to buy two domains. I figured I would time how long it took to purchase on my iPad vs my fired up laptop. (Note the misspellings here “tontime” should have been “to time”, one thing I have been doing a lot is hitting “b” or “n” when trying to hit spacebar).

Domain purchase on already running laptop took 2:50 compared to #iPad 4:15. Further tests needed though #iPad didn’t seem that much slower.
6:51 AM Apr 4th via TweetDeck

Because typing is a little bit slower, doing complicated internet tasks is slower. In fairness though, I did test this on GoDaddy.com, which is a really complicated site to use, and I bought the domain on my iPad before trying on my laptop, so I knew how to navigate on my laptop. Also, firing up the laptop took well over 2 minutes, where iPad was instantaneous.

RT @arlynasch: Ok, now go back and take a look at your iPhone. Absolutely Lillyputian…
10:25 AM Apr 4th via TweetDeck

This is actually pretty significant as well. I was growing increasingly frustrated using the browser on my iPhone when on the couch or any place in the house really. Internet usage on the iPhone begins to falling drastically.

At the coffee shop, everyone reading physical newspapers but me. Everyone else seems soooo 2009.
10:30 AM Apr 4th via TweetDeck

Ha, all those suckers on their traditional media devices. Might as well have been stone carvings or cave art.

More Kindle love…

The Kindle #iPad app offers 5x (450k) the number of books that the Apple iBook does (90k).
about 20 hours ago via TweetDeck

Ok, beginning to think Kindle app might do well on the iPad. Apple will catch up, but right now, Kindle app is king.

Men’s Health iPad Magazine Sucks

The Men’s Health iPad app sux. Wanted to try out a magazine app. Very disappointed, text is unreadable.
about 16 hours ago via TweetDeck

Seriously Men’s Health charges you $5 for 80% ads, and JPEG’d copies of their print articles. Way to mail in your iPad support guys.
about 16 hours ago via TweetDeck

Sent an email to address listed on Men’s Health app website to complain, email address bounced…
about 16 hours ago via TweetDeck

Ok, remember above when I was talking about how great the iPad was going to be for magazine publishers and how it was going to allow us to consume media in an entirely new way? Well, Men’s health seemed to miss the point. They did nothing more than provide a PDF copy of their traditional print version, and somehow managed to make the text NON-vector, meaning it didn’t scale well, and can hardly be read.

Here are all things I hate about the Men’s Health Magazine

• It’s $5 for a PDF copy of their print magazine
• Text is unreadable (see image below)
• Content isn’t interactive at all
• Why did I pay $5 for this again?
• The email address for the iPad app support is broken, so if you complain your email bounces
• Of the first 6 pages, 5 are ads.

I might blog about this more later, specifically about how Men’s Health is sacrificing any credibility they had by charging so much for such a terrible experience. But I’ll spare you the rest of my Men’s Health rant for now.

Men's Health Sucks

Notice how poorly the text is rendered.

New wallpaper

My iPad wallpaper, morbid eh? (via @gizmodo) http://post.ly/XrHe
about 16 hours ago via Posterous

As I mentioned previously, the default Wallpaper on the iPad makes it seem like the iPad is scratched. I replaced the default wallpaper with a wallpaper that looks like the hand of someone being eaten by a zombie.

Overall impression

Ok, so now it is Monday and everyone is asking me what I think of the device. I got to say, I love this thing. Their are some missing things, but really this device does exactly what they promised. It fits someplace between a laptop and a smart phone, and it does. And although Men’s Health really sucks, when magazines actually start targeting the device as a unique delivery platform (like Wired) it is going to allow us to have really rich media experiences with the device.

My impressions in my Tweets might seem overwhelmingly negative, but hey, I am a Quality Assurance Manager for a software company where it is my job to find flaws.

The biggest reasons not to purchase I have heard from non-early adopters are:

• Lack of Flash support
• No USB/Firewire support
• No tethering
• No camera

I agree that the lack of Flash support sucks, and think this will eventually change once competitive devices add it (like Android). Right now Flash Player 10.1 is still in Beta, which is the first major release of the Flash Player that targets mobile devices. So even if Apple wanted to add it, they weren’t going to add it while it was still in beta right?

I also am going to love the camera addition on my 2nd generation iPad

The other stuff (tethering/USB) I could really care less about. I am not really sure what USB device I would hook up to it anyway, and as far as tethering…I am on the AT&T network so trying to do anything on that network that involves data is nearly impossible.

By now you have probably heard about the release of Apple’s new toy the iPad.  One of the biggest disappointments about the device so far is that again it is an apple device that will not initially support the Adobe Flash Player, much like the iPhone/iPod Touch.

Checking Twitter for comments about “Flash” and “iPad” you find a lot of disappointment:

@invaderkong: Wait….STILL NO FUCKING FLASH…yah iPad….I think I’ll wait till google copies ya and then makes you better

@sethruffer: iPad looks incredible….but no flash????without FlashI’m skeptical.

@tvilling: No it’s not a tablet computer – it’s a giant iPod Touch that does not do webpages with Flash #ipad #Apple pls. make a tablet macbookish.

Even Engadget chimed it support with a story about it within 15 minutes of the iPad announcement concluding.

Why no Flash Player on mobile devices hurts mLearning

The news of the lack of support for Flash on the iPhone and iPad is especially important to those involved in the learning industry.  Why?  Well the vast majority of eLearning training is delivered via Flash (using tools like Flash, Captivate, Articulate), and with so many prominent mobile devices (iPhone, Blackberry, Android -yet)  that don’t support any Flash Player eLearning developers are left waiting for devices to either support the Flash player, or another delivering system for eLearning content that doesn’t rely on the Flash Player.

If you listen to the folks at Adobe they will tell you that some form of Flash is available on most mobile devices, or will soon be coming to almost all mobile devices.  Well if you believe this, I have a bridge to sell you.  I left Macromedia/Adobe 4 years ago, and at the time everyone knew that the mobile platform was going to be the future.  Mobile is the future everyone would say.  Well here we are 4 years later and nobody I know actually has a mobile device that supports the Flash player.  I could go on and on about the incompetence of the leadership at Adobe, but that isn’t the point of this post.

Why adding Flash on the iPhone/iPad doesn’t solve the mLearning problem

If Steve Jobs had announced that the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch would come with the Flash Player would the entire eLearning industry jump up and shout for joy because now mLearning would be achievable?  Unfortunately no.

Why?

Not only do most mobile devices NOT support the Flash Player, but they also don’t support Java.  Why does this matter? A big part of eLearning revolves around being able to not only VIEW content, but to also TRACK content.  Tracking is fundamental to delivering formalized eLearning training, which usually involves Learning Management Systems.  Here is the second part of the mLearning problem.  Many Learning Management Systems use client side Java (meaning Java runs in the browser) to do the actual tracking with SCORM and AICC content.

I don’t know the specific percentage of Learning Management Systems that use Java, and given that there are several hundred to a thousand different LMS vendors on the market it is difficult to get an accurate count, but I did ask a couple of SCORM experts (Tim Martin and Mike Rustici from SCORM.COM) if they had any idea how many used Java.  And the responses I got were:

• too many (Tim)
• few new deployments use Java, but hard to estimate the installed base of legacy SCORM implentations. (Mike)

So to Mike’s point, “few new deployments use Java,” this is good news.  Problem is that many people are stuck on older learning management systems that still do use Java.  Licensed versions of Learning Management Systems can be several hundred thousand dollars, and upgrading can either be prohibitively expensive, or difficult to manage, so organizations elect to not upgrade.

Conclusion

So my point is, even IF by some miracle the people at Adobe get the Flash Player on the iPhone/iPad it doesn’t completely solve the mLearning problem.  Without also adding Java support we still won’t have tracking.

As a note: Articulate Online is and always has been Java free.  So if the Flash Player problem is solved Articulate Online won’t have the tracking problem.

In case you are wondering, I left Adobe, I was not fired.  I own Adobe stock, and the incompetence of Adobe leadership bothers me as a stockholder in Adobe and stakeholder in the eLearning industry that relies on Flash.

It’s 2010, and you are dying to do something that embraces mobile learning. Why not create a Video Podcast of all your Screenr screencasts?

Here is how you can create a Video Podcast of your Screenr screencasts in 4 easy steps.

A little background

One of the cool things about Screenr, is that you can view your Screenr Screencasts on an iPhone. Articulate’s CEO @GetAdam created this Screencast to show you what Screenr Videos look like on an iPhone:

View at Screenr

Cool, so Screenr screencasts play on an iPhone…how did we do that? Only certain video types will play on an iPhone (like MP4 for example), and will only play video up to certain dimensions (640×480). In order to provide the best video quality for both iPhone users, and normal web users Screenr creates two separate video files for each screencast you create. A smaller 640×480 video that is optimized for the iPhone, and a larger full resolution video that matches your recording dimensions for web users.

When we build our Video Podcast feed we are going to link to the iPhone version of your Screencast to make sure that it will play nicely on an iPhone and iPod Touch.

Step 1: Install some tools

You need a few tools to follow these steps. Go ahead and install them now if you don’t have them.

• Firefox + the User Agent Switcher Add-On
• A text editor to edit some XML (I recommend Notepad++)
• iTunes

Step 2: Get the video links

We need to get the links to the iPhone version of the MP4s. In order to get the iPhone version of the MP4’s you will need to trick Screenr into thinking your Firefox browser is an MP4.

Here is how you can do that:

1. Install the User Agent Switcher Add-On in Firefox if you haven’t already.
2. Select Tools
3. Select Default User Agent > iPhone 3.0
4. Go to Screenr.com
5. Find the video you are looking to include in your Podcast
6. Select View > Page Source to view the HTML (this will help us find the link)
7. Find the <video> tag..hint, it should look something like this:
   <video width=”290″ height=”161″ poster=”http://c0203141.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/81e750d1-56dd-4e55-97e0-72f3cb445e79_thumb.jpg” controls=”controls”>
   <source src=”http://c0203291.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/81e750d1-56dd-4e55-97e0-72f3cb445e79.mp4″ type=”video/mp4″ /><!– Safari / iPhone video –>
   </video>
8. Copy the link to the MP4 and save it for later
9. Repeat for all the videos you want to include in your podcast

Confused by those steps? The screencast below will walk you through it.

View at Screenr

Step 3: Create the XML feed

There are easier ways to do this, but we are just going to create the XML feed for the Video Podcast by hand. This XML feed is what iTunes will use to build and update your Video Podcast. So let’s get started.

1. Grab my sample Video Podcast XML feed here (Right-Click and select Save As).
2. Open up the XML file in your favorite text editor (like Notepad++).

Ok, now a little explanation about the Podcast XML structure. A Podcast XML feed is made up of a channel, and a channel has various different items, somewhat like programs. This is kinda similar to like TV channels being made up of various different programs. Like how ESPN is a channel, and has various different programs like Sports Center, Monday Night Football, etc. The Podcast XML will be similar, we first create the channel, and then we will add a bunch of items, and the items will be the individual screencasts.

Create the channel

So lets take a look at the XML file. The first thing you will want to do is update the tags in the channel. The channel has the following tags, most of which are self-explanatory, but here is a short explanation of each:

• <title> – This is the title of the Video Podcast.
• <link> – I just made this a link to my homepage (http://www.mozealous.com).
• <language> – Assuming you can read this, you can probably leave this as is. It is set to English.
• <copyright> – This is your copyright statement.
• <itunes:subtitle> – A subtitle for the Video Podcast.
• <itunes:author> – This is you. The creator of this Video Podcast.
• <itunes:summary> – A short summary of the Video Podcast. What topics does this podcast cover?
• <description> – I just made this the same as the summary.
• <itunes:name> – Your name, the owner of the Video Podcast Feed.
• <itunes:email> – Your email address.
• <itunes:image> – A picture that will appear in iTunes next to your Podcast.

If you want to see how these items relate to what is seen in iTunes check out this diagram by clicking the image below.

So update the channel tags with your info, and let’s move on and…

Add items to the channel

Now that we have created the channel, we need to add some “items” or screencasts to our feed. Most of the item tags are pretty self-explanatory, but again, here is a short explanation of each:

• <title> – This is the title of the specific screencast.
• <itunes:author> – The creator of the specific screencast.
• <itunes:subtitle>- I just made mine the same as the title, but you want to provide more info.
• <itunes:summary> – A longer description of the screencast.
• <encloure url=”link to podcast” length=”size in bytes” type=”video/mp4″/> – The enclosure tag is made up of:
  • The URL to the screencast (from step 2). I linked to the MP4 on Screenr.
  • The length, which is the size of the screencast in bytes. I couldn’t think of a really good way to get the size of the screencast without downloading the video, so that is what I did. I downloaded it and then checked the size on disk (right-click in windows and select Properties). The size should be listed with numbers only, and in BYTES (ex. 124444. Not 124,444kb).
  • type, which should always be “video/mp4″ for screencasts.
• <guid> – A unique identifier for the screencast. I just used the URL.
• <pubDate> – The date this screencast was added to the feed.
• <itunes:duration> – The duration of the screencast (you can get this from Screenr).
• <itunes:keyword> – Keywords to help users find your screencast in search.

If you want to see how these items relate to what is seen in iTunes check out this diagram by clicking the image below.

You will want to add items for each screencast you want to include in your podcast. You can update the feed at any time to include new screencasts by adding additional items.

After you have finished updating the XML feed, save the file.

Making a Podcast is an official explanation of all this from Apple. Read it if you have trouble sleeping. Or re-read this post, it should help you sleep too.

Step 4: Submit to iTunes

Now that we have created the XML Feed for our Video Podcast we will want to host it someplace so that we can submit it to iTunes. I just hosted mine on my website at http://www.mozealous.com/vodcast.xml. Once you have it hosted you can submit it to iTunes. This will allow people to find your podcast in the iTunes Store, and to subscribe to your feed.

To submit a Video Podcast feed to iTunes

1. Launch iTunes
2. Select the iTunes Store
3. Select the Podcasts tab
4. Select Submit a Podcast
5. Enter the URL to your Podcast Feed and follow the steps outlined

Within 24 hours your Screenr Video Podcast feed will be available on iTunes.

You are done. What’s next?

It might seem like creating this Video Podcast feed was a pain in the ass…well, it was. I know I know, I said that this would be 4 easy steps, and it was closer to 40 complicated steps, well ha, I hooked you anyway. The good news is that once you created the feed it is fairly easy to update, all you need to do is add the screencasts as <items> to the XML feed and the changes will be picked up by iTunes in about a day.

If you create a Screenr Video Podcast feed let me know in the comments below. I’ll highlight them in this post.

So congrats, you are done! You have created your first Video Podcast feed of your Screenr screencasts.

I just installed the WPTouch Wordpress plugin for my blog.  This optimizes my blog for the iPhone when reading it on an iPhone.  The plugin works pretty well, I have been using it on my cycling blog for quiet some time.

I posted last month an article (Amazon’s MP3 store is better than Apple’s) about how 3 of the 4 major record labels now distribute DRM-free music via Amazon’s MP3 store. Well, Amazon just announced that they have reached an agreement with Sony BMG to distribute its catalog via there store, which now makes 4 of the 4 major record labels to reach such an agreement.

In July of 2007 iTunes surpassed Amazon to become the 3rd largest distributor of music in terms of sales, but that statistic includes physical CD sales. It will be interesting to see how this changes over the next year now that Amazon offers a bigger catalog for DRM-free music in downloadable MP3 format.

So I read the article 3 down, 1 to go: Warner Music Group drops DRM last night and decided to check it out. I have been really happy with the ease of ordering music from Apple’s iTunes in the past, they really pioneered selling music on the web, and have made purchasing music and transferring it to my iPod dead simple.

What compelled me to check out Amazon’s MP3 service?

The main reason I was interested in it is that music purchased from Amazon is DRM-Free. For those that don’t know, DRM means Digital Rights Management, which “is an umbrella term that refers to access control technologies used by publishers and copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices.” – wikipedia. Since the music I purchase is DRM free it means I can easily copy it to any device I own, including my laptop, my iPod, my new iPhone, or my desktop without any limitations, which is nice because I have so many devices.

The real significance of the announcement mentioned in the article is that “EMI, Universal, and Warner now offer their catalogues in DRM-free digital formats,” on Amazon.com, which constitutes 3 of the major music labels to come to such an agreement.

The thing that bothers me so much about the DRM that Apple/iTunes uses is that it is way to restrictive, and way to difficult to backup. So far I have purchased 3 movies, and 1 season pass for a TV show, and of all those videos that I have purchased I can’t get them on all the devices that I want and own because I downloaded them to different computers. If I purchased them, shouldn’t I have the freedom to put them on any device that I choose? This also pisses me off about my DVDs…I have about 100 DVDs, but I can’t easily transfer them to my computer, iPod, or iPhone without jumping through a bunch of hoops.

Well, enough on the DRM-Free aspect of Amazon’s service, there are some other benefits too, such as price. So far I have purchased two albums from Amazon, and both were only $8.99, which is cheaper than iTunes standard $9.99 per album for music.

There is also an added benefit of increased quality of the music purchased form Amazon over iTunes. The majority of music purchased through iTunes has a bit rate of 128kbps, where as Amazon’s music is all 320kbps (Correction, it is 256kbps or higher). For those that don’t know…higher bit rate means higher quality. From what I am told the human ear can’t notice any sound quality difference at a bit rate over 192kbps, but it can distinguish the difference for anything less than that. So Amazon’s music should have a noticeable quality upgrade over Apple’s.

So to sum everything up, Amazon’s mp3 store is better than iTunes because:

• It is DRM free
• It is cheaper than iTunes
• It is better quality

The only time I can see going back to purchase any music from iTunes is if Amazon doesn’t sell it. Try it out if you are the type that buys music online. I don’t think you will be disappointed.

Check out this list of Free Education Courses online.

It is a list of free videos from Berkley courses.

Topics from Berkley include:

• Computers
• Biology
• Health
• Engineering
• Math
• Other various courses

The page also has several great resources on the left hand side of the page including links to other educational videos, links to learn foreign languages and so on.

This is a great resource.

One of the things I am most interested in when it comes to eLearning is eLearning content that is developed for portable devices such as the iPod. I was pretty excited when I saw that iTunes launched iTunes University.

Well, a new game has been developed by Apple called iQuiz, which is a trivia game for the iPod. It allows you to play downloaded “trivia packs” on the iPod.

So you can create these “trivia packs” for your learners so that they can take your quizzes on their iPods. Cool, huh?

What I like about it:

• The UI – The games look and feel is cool. Really feels like you are playing a game. The animations are really slick as well.
  
• Ability to create timed quizzes
• 3 strikes your out – Some of the quizzes have a “loose” value. A loose value is the number of wrong answers that result in losing the game

Unfortunately there are a couple of things that prevent this from becoming a really effective tool for deploying eLearning material:

• No way to capture results – This makes it an ineffective tool at it as tool for assessing student retention of information. It would be nice if users could take the quiz, and then have the results uploaded to a database or LMS when the user synchronized their iPod.
  
• No way to provide custom feedback – Only default feedback is displayed (correct/incorrect). So it is difficult to use quizzes as an effective tool.
• End user must have iQuiz installed - Which means any user who wants to take your quizzes will have to have iQuiz installed.
• Installing the quizzes is not intuitive - Quizzes need to be copied to the \My Music\iTunes\iPod Games\iQuiz folder, and there is no ability to manage your quizzes in iTunes.

So basically the game is more about trivia than it is quizzing. But anyways, I think the program is interesting, and in a follow-up blog post I will post instructions for how you can create quizzes (trivia packs) for iQuiz, and instructions on how you can copy the quizzes to your iPod.

Learn more about the iPod in Education.

iQuiz for the iPod.