A bit of wisdom that will be ignored:
IT people, especially sysadmins, would greatly reduce their frustration levels if they stopped thinking that they can somehow get the rest of the company to use computers they way they do.
(Via bynkii.com)
Last summer I decided to join many other jews in starting the new cycle of Daf Yomi. One of the things that was part of the vision of Rabbi Shapiro is that you can be in any city at any time and walk into the class and keep up to date with “the daf”.
What happens if the class you go to isn’t on “the daf”? What if you are someone who has a schedule that doesn’t allow you to get to a daf yomi class?
This is where modern technology comes into play. Podcasts have allowed you to have a daf yomi class on your iPad, iPod, or any other device. Because the Internet can be a wonderful thing there are many options out there for daf yomi classes. This is a little guide to let you know which ones are out there. They may be some I have missed and if that is the case please let me know in the comments.
Orthodox Union – This was the first daf yomi podcast I found several years ago. In my opinion it is a good class and I listen to it and always get good insights from it. I’ll let you in on a little secret, when I have been tasked to give a daf yomi class, I listen to this podcast so I can get some good insight and sound smart.
Rabbi Fink – Rabbi Fink started his class with this cycle and gives a very short class. Although the class is short he does a good job of getting the concepts down. Rabbi Fink focuses mainly on the basic understanding of the text. Rabbi Fink also provides video of the class.
Daf HaChaim – I think that they are also a relatively new site. Thanks to my friend Ari Levine for pointing the site out to me. They have an app for the iPad which I have used and for Android devices. The nice thing about Daf HaChaim is that no only is there a video of the class, there is also a video introduction and review. Additionally when you use the iPad app, they show you the page that the class is studying and keeps the focus on the line they are talking about.
Real Clear Daf – I don’t know much about this site since I recently discovered it when I saw a flyer about the site. The concept of the site is interesting because not only is there a class but there is also a discussion board. The discussion board is a great addition and I would like to see it take off for that reason alone.
Here is a quick update from my last post about the WordPress plug-in WP-Markdown. While I was using it this week I noticed that while writing a post using MarsEdit, the plug-in wouldn’t read an asterisk as a bullet point. This bugged be since I like to use bullet points a lot. After looking at it a little further, I discovered that WP-Markdown didn’t convert other things as well.
It was at this point I decided to do some more research into this subject. While doing the research I came across this post detailing how you can use MarsEdit (or any other third party client) while writing in Markdown. I have followed the instructions and everything is now working beautifully. Once again I am happy with my writing workflow. Thanks to Francesco for figuring it out and sharing it with everyone.
A few days ago someone in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn decided to burn the mezuzahs that were placed on the outside of their apartments. The NYPD in their infinite wisdom decided that the “may” qualify as a hate crime. What bothers me about this news is the following, if someone burning religious items that belong to you, doesn’t qualify as a hate crime; why should anything else qualify as a hate crime?
This is the problem that I have with the whole “hate crime” designation. Any violent crime can be considered a hate crime.
By now I am sure you have already heard about Google shutting down their Google Reader on July 1st. My initial thought was that it sucks but it’s Google’s service and if they want to close it down because they are not getting enough eyeballs on their ads, they can close the service. The important thing to remember is that we are not Google’s customers, the people who buy ads from Google are their customers and the people who use their free services are the product.
With that digression out of the way, the question was where to go for an service? Here is how I’ve been using Google Reader:
Into the fray enter two app makers who are looking to become an end to end replacement for GR. The first is the developer of NetNewsWire, Black Pixel where in a blog post they mention that they have seen this coming for a while and they are working on new versions of NNW for the desktop, iPad and iPhone. Moreover, they will have some kind of synchronization ability in the apps. Being a long time user of NNW, I’m very excited to see what they come up with.
The second app which has made a similar announcement is Reeder, a new favorite of RSS users. Like NNW there is a desktop, iPad, and iPhone app. In a post on their site the developer indicated that development will continue and he is working on integrating with Feedbin so that everyone will be able to sync their rss feeds properly.
As things stand right now, I am still using Google Reader and biding my time until I see how things shake out a little more. It will be an interesting few months in RSS application development.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m looking at using Markdown for a lot of editing needs. While I don’t think I’ll be able to use it for writing papers while working on my [MBA])http://www.phienix.edu/mba) I do think that it will fit right in with all my other editing needs. One of the larger questions I had was how would Markdown fit in with my blogging platform of choice WordPress?
The cool thing about WordPress is that there are so many plug-ins out there. No matter what you are looking to do you can find a plug-in to do it for you. It’s no surprise that I was able to find WP-Markdown, a plug-in that allows you to use Markdown in the editor and it will then convert it to HTML. The really cool thing about WP-Markdown is that not only can you use WordPress’ editor to write in Markdown you can even use a desktop client (like my editor of choice MarsEdit) to write in Markdown and it will be magically converted when you upload the post. I’ve used it on my last two posts on this blog and my last post at BuccoBlather.
So far I have found that I’m able to concentrate more on the writing and worry less about the layout. I look forward to getting into using Markdown more as time goes on.
It is truly groan worthy:
A British Jew is waiting in line to be knighted by the Queen. He is to
kneel in front of her and recite a sentence in Latin when she taps him
on the shoulders with her sword. However, when his turn comes, he
panics in the excitement of the moment and forgets the Latin. Then,
thinking fast, he recites the only other sentence he knows in a
foreign language, which he remembers from the Passover seder:“Ma nishtana ha layla ha zeh mi kol ha laylot.”
Puzzled, Her Majesty turns to her advisor and whispers, “Why is this
knight different from all other knights?”