Adventures in Kontula

I’m kind of amused at iBooks Author. It is most definitely the first iteration of the software, and that’s fine. Hopefully it will be more deeply integrated with future versions of iMovie and iPhoto, and soon. 

While there is nothing we as end-users can do (except Provide iBooks Author Feedback at http://www.apple.com/feedback/ibooks-author.html) to the code itself, there are some minor adjustments made possible by OS X. I’m guessing none of you would be surprised that they are simple workflow improvements based on re-configuring shortcuts.

1. Show Media Browser. Since nothing seems to be done with CMD-I, set it via System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts -> Application Shortcuts. Click on the + and mimic: 

   

2. Create Glossary Term from Selection - set to CMD-G.

   

These have helped me at least a little bit.

I do wonder why there’s no reasonable shortcut for creating a Glossary Term out of a Selection.. 

Well, there’s one good thing about sending feedback - there’s a lot to send! :)

iBooks Author is amazing. I’ve been waiting for something like this for eons. However, you can only purchase it from the Mac App Store if you are running OS X Lion 10.7.x. This is a real drag for me, especially right now (creditcard in lock-down mode). However, many have posted variations of these instructions. OS X Daily was the one I came across. The instructions worked, so…

Here’s how I’d describe the process, after having done it:

1) Go to Finder

2) Press CMD-Shift-G  (Go To Folder -dialog pops up)

3) Type in “/System/Library/CoreServices/”

4) Zoom around until you find “SystemVersion.plist”.

5) Edit it. Your editor will tell you that it is Read Only, but edit it anyway and save it. (I used Coda for all of this tomfoolery and it allowed me to save on top of a read-only file)

6) The two lines you want to change are: ProductUserVisibleVersion and ProductVersion.

7) Change both of them from 10.6.8 to 10.7.2. Save the file.

8) Start up Mac App Store, download iBooks Author.

9) Do NOT run iBooks Author now, instead go back to Finder and press CMD-Shift-A (takes you to /Applications/)

10) Rightclick on iBooks Author and select Show Package Contents.

11) Open Info.plist in your editor of choice.

12) Search for the string “LSMinimumSystemVersion”

13) Change the 10.7.* anything to “10.6.8”. Save.

14) Start iBooks Author.

15) Remember to go back to /System/Library/CoreServices/ and edit your SystemVersion.plist back to 10.6.8 for ProductUserVisibleVersion and ProductVersion.

16) Drag the iBooks Author off from your Dock so it goes ‘poof!’.

17) Open Finder, go to /Applications/ and drag the iBooks Author back to your dock. You now have the proper logo instead of the one with the strikethrough.

Enjoy using iBooks Author on OS X 10.6.8. Apple, can we have iBooks 2 for OS X?

iTunes has a nice folder by the name of Automatically Add to iTunes. It’s a very handy folder, I recommend looking into it. The presence of this folder, which was added back in 2009, begs the question: 

If an end-user was able to influence Apple by sending a feature-request for the creation of Automatically Add to iTunes, to make it simpler to add songs to iTunes whether iTunes is open or not, can a similar addition be made to iPhoto by Apple as a request from another end-user?

I decided to test this prospect out by sending a feature request to Apple a few days ago. We will see what happens to that.

Whether Apple will implement something like this or not, here is a way of using Automator to accomplish the same thing.

You will need to launch Automator.

1. When Automator opens, select Folder Action. 
2. Now, click on Choose folder and pick out the folder you will check to import to iPhoto.
3. Look to your left for Library. If you can’t see the Library, click on Show Library.
4. Type in import to the search bar.
5. Select Import Files into iPhoto. 
6. Configure as you would - my choices were Existing Album and Events.
7. Remember to tick Delete the Source Images after Importing Them, so that the files are deleted afterwards (this mimics the behaviour of Automatically Add to iTunes)
8. Save your Folder Action.

Now test what you have done. Mine worked nicely with iPhoto on, took a while and the Folder Action ran and imported and deleted the files. 

However, here come the differences.

Apple made the Automatically Add to iTunes folder function in such a way that you can add as many files and folders as you please, and they are imported when iTunes is opened. 

This folder action to do a similar thing for iPhoto, will actually start iPhoto every time you send a file to it, so this would be more useful to you if you keep iPhoto open during the import process. Also, there is no word as to what happens if you put a file onto the folder which cannot be imported. I hope a new version of iLife will bring us an updated version of iPhoto capable of having this Automatically Add to iPhoto -folder by default, with as clean behaviour as Automatically Add to iTunes already has.

NOTICE: If an image you import cannot be recognized by iPhoto, it will not be imported - iPhoto will tell you that something wasn’t imported - this is your cue to move the files away from the folder to safety. Once you click “OK” in iPhoto, the files will be deleted. If, however, you place a .MP4 or a .MOV into the folder, iPhoto will try to import it, and then fail, but not delete the file.

NOTICE 2: if you move any folders into this Folder Action-folder, they will not be imported.

P.S. Yep, you could probably do this on your own with AppleScript with clever detection methods of whether iPhoto is open, or not. I’m not saying I wouldn’t be up for the challenge, but this first iteration will do for today (13th January 2012).

P.P.S. There is no Import to iMovie in Automator, at least not on OS X 10.6.8. This is the reason why I’m importing my movies via iPhoto by using this Folder Action, and hoping for the best.

(Tried to post this on http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/big-apple-event-to-feature-digital-textbooks-rumor/12002, but failed)

I’ve been reading these “articles” on the 19th January big Education event. I’m what one would call a big Apple fan. I’m surprised at what is presented by journalists as the leadup to this event. I appreciate that some of these articles popping up are merely to relay information, and that’s fine, okay. ZDNet is probably doing that too. It’s just that it seems that one person wrote something, and everyone else is re-posting it on their websites.

IMHO, information is missing. Why? I’ll give you why.

1) July 11, 2011: Patently Apple publishes an article called “Apple Reveals the Next Chapter for iBooks & New Chip for iOS Devices”  

In it there are images. I will describe a few:

- Tap on the word Apple in text - and a picture of an edible apple shows up.

- Tap on the word Apple in text - and the translation of that, in a foreign language, shows up.

- Tap on a sentence, and the pronunciation of it will pop up and be read to you.

Now think about this for a minute. Mapping foreign language words to images which you understand, will help you learn languages real quick. There are other applications to this, as described in the article under the headline “Example Process of Augmented Information Regarding a Portion of Text”. Audio content, image, animation, interactive module, other data. 

Physics/Chemistry textbooks? Tap on a piece of text to show an experiment as video.

Music textbooks? Tap on a piece of text to play audio. Tap on the audio to be shown how it is played on the piano keyboard.

These are just examples. Take it from there, folks.

2) I’ve seen no wild analysis on the actual invitation imagery, showing a gigantic Apple logo around recognizable New York landmarks.

Surely most of you know that Apple have been on a total Mapping binge: Acquisitions of 3 companies: Poly9, Placebase, C3 Technologies Inc. 

Each of these bring in a different take on mapping, layering information on mapping, or, in the case of C3 Tech, some pretty mindblowing 3d features. We’ve seen proposals of actual 3rd party app information being mapped on top of dynamic, updated-on-the-fly 3d maps. 

The Apple Geo Team are coming up with some serious goods, who knows when, but soon. 

Placebase are the most textbook-friendly aspect of this Geo Team, imho. Before being acquired, they were working on layering multiple forms of information on a simple map. So, you could go check out an apartment you might want to buy, and immediately map crime rates and  other details onto the map around the apartment, and see if the area is completely wild or safe to move onto. However, that was simply an example.  Any kind of economical, grid-based information could be mapped - if available. Utilities networks, electrical / etc grids could be displayed.

If we still muck around the concept of this being an education / student-based announcement, then eventually foreign exchange students will be met at the airport by a person who hands them their iPad, which has all the instructions required to get to the school, to their dorm / apartment, and which areas of the city to watch out for. It will come in pre-loaded with the textbooks related to the classes they have signed up for, and they can just start previewing the information immediately. If there are typos in the textbooks - these can be corrected on-the-air by people who have the required privileges to make the edit - no-one will have to wait for the 2nd printing from the publisher. There won’t be issues with old, out-of-date, dog-eared books being traded between broke students, as everyone will have the most up-to-date textbook possible. 

But since these textbooks and additional data services will not be done in a silly way, it might be possible for the specific school to create their own iCloud pool of images, video and other information, which the school specifically shares with all of the students of that specific class. What if the best video in the textbook describing an experiment, can be improved on, and some student does it? The professor of the class likes it immensely, and sends it on to the  textbook editor, who updates the textbook with a new, improved video. Bang! You just made it possible for students to improve on the textbook they are studying. Things have just changed from “those higher-up are giving information down to us, we study it, memorize it, and forget it after the exam” to a real, dynamic, study process which inspires people with the realization that shared knowledge can be increased by anyone who sees an opening, or sees something that could be improved upon. This is going to be so much fun.

I think R. Buckminster Fuller would be smiling, he was the author of “Education Automation: Freeing the Scholar to Return to his Studies” (1962). 

The Apple “Think Different” -Ad campaign showed R. Buckminster Fuller as one of the heroes/idols/rebels. Never forget that.

3) None of you mention pico-projectors.

Patently Apple have published a multitude of patents relating to portable mobile iDevices capable of projecting information on a projector screen. Pico-projectors are going to, well, give interesting study possibilities for friends who study together in the same room.. However, maybe Apple projectors won’t be ready yet for this presentation.

4) That Grand Central store - there are 360 panorama images of the whole place - but no information as to how these pictures were taken. If Apple have a product up their sleeve which is going to make it possible to have an iDevice in the classroom which captures the whole space and transfers it to, say, a student who is sick at home or is otherwise incapable of moving there as of right now, then this is going to be some heavy artillery.

5) Steve Jobs quotes. 

Yes, you quote SJ from the Walter Isaacson. However, this is not the only time SJ has talked about education. I believe one of the most pertinent videos is the one where he shares the same room with the creator of the Whole Earth Catalog.

(Steve Jobs moving from Games to Education:)

SJ: [Describing Games] “You can look at these things as games and dismiss them or you can look at them as very simple simulated learning environments, so as an example in a simple Pong Game, the game is constantly telling you how your doing by how well you score, and so the more you learn the underlining principles the better you score. So the underlining principles in the case of most of these games were fairly fairly simple, but carry the concept much further, imagine if the underlining principles are a sophisticated macro-economic model of how France might have functioned in the time of Louis XIV. This type of simulation then becomes a little less trivial than the video game and yet the principles are still the same. And you can imagine what it would be like if we could use the historical material in the Library of Congress coupled with the interactive computer technology that we’re developing to do these things, these simulations will become what most of our students are learning from.”

The Placebase segment of the Apple Geo Team make it possible to layer exactly this type of historical information on top of a map. 

6) “Think Different”-ad. R. Buckminster Fuller. His biggest wish for changing the planet, was for someone to create a computer game, he called it the Dymaxion World Game. This method would be a way to dynamically display information on resources, electricity, on a world map, so that changes and alterations could be done to the world-at-large, to improve the transmission of electricity and information - to support and fund those research & development projects, so that information would be flowing freely and informed decisions could be made. He also planned a world grid for electricity, and other things. Obviously the point of the Dymaxion World Game was to dynamically design the world so that everyone would have electricity, heat, water, nutritious food and a safe place to sleep in. That’s changing the world on a large scale. Once the Apple Geo Team unveil what they have been working on, we’ll see if they also make it available to 3rd party iOS developers. When it comes to charities and microfunding, we have not seen anything yet! This the reason that I scoff when I come across articles saying that SJ was not a philanthropist enough to be a good guy in someone’s books - that someone isn’t thinking at all. :)

I for one can’t wait to see what they unveil.

Yours, Esa J. Ruoho