But now I'm terribly sad.

I guess my @timtyson has been compromised in some way. I can no longer log in to Twitter. Last week, my desktop and iPhone Twitter clients just stopped working. When I attempted to log in at Twitter.com, I got an error message that I had too many login attempts and had to wait an hour. That seemed odd. Now, all I ever get is: "Wrong username/email and password combination."

I've tried to reset my password, but I never get an email from Twitter. I fear my account has died, although no one has posted anything to it. Twitter support has not yet responded to my request for assistance. Hopefully they will soon.

In the mean time, I have no voice. :o(

Last week, I once again installed WP on one of my servers to check out the current version: 2.9.1. I've been rather amazed at how far WP has come since I last played with it—espcially when using the latest version of Firefox.

I use MT 3 on drTimTyson.com and MT 4 on my experimental blog which serves as my exploratory "proving ground." (I also used MT 3 on MabryOnline.org.) MT 3 and 4 are vastly different from one another! The learning curve required some serious time (and frustration) before I could get my head around how the system had been restructured in version 4. MovableType has recently released version 5, which I haven't explored yet. I'm wondering if it will require as steep a learning curve?!

Really important to me: I want to take complete control of the blog's design and layout. Using CSS and MovableType's template tags, I can do this in MT 3 or 4. I have a basic understanding of how that (admittedly complicated) process works.

Another really important design issue: I've also raved about the use of mediaboxAdv, which I've used here on drTimTyson.com to highlight photos and video in a shadowbox. I've successfully implemented it on Blogger and MT. I can't get it to function without serious issues in WP. I've stumbled into a few resources for WP and mediaboxAdv, but I still can't get them to work properly.

WP has a very different approach to design and layout. I have always found WP themes to be frustrating because they seem to lock me into a design I can only minimally change by dragging and dropping the widgets in the Appearances controls. Perhaps the frustration is born of my not understanding the details of the design process in WordPress like I do in MovableType?

So, as I have time, over the next few weeks, I'm going to tackle theme design and manipulation along with mediaboxAdv implementation in WordPress. WP has some really awesome features now! But before I commit to using it, I want to be able to manage the look and feel of the blog to the extent I can with MovableType and get mediaboxAdv to work properly.

So, if you know any really excellent sources on designing with WordPress, or implementing mediaboxAdv (or a different shadowbox for both photos and video that is equally as powerful), please shoot me an email or post a comment.

Image via CrunchBase

Those who use Firefox have a number of plugins you can use to download YouTube video onto your computer. Many of the more popular ones are incredibly easy. Some allow search and file conversion functionality built right in to the menu bar.

But Safari users generally have a more difficult time locating plugins for the Safari browser. In fact, I've used a little application, TubeTV, for this purpose. It will search, convert, and save to iTunes if you wish.

But I was looking for a way to download without ever having to launch an application. I found this solution.

Here's the shortcut for downloading YouTube videos when using the Safari browser.

1. Go to the YouTube page with the video on it.  
2. [Command] + [Option] + [A] to bring up the Activity window in Safari.  
3. Under the Address Column find the YouTube page.  
4. Under that column, look for the largest file size, which will be the video file itself.  
5. Double click it to download it.  Done.

It sounds more cumbersome than it is.

The file will probably download as a .flv file.  If you have Perian (a free open source QuickTime component that adds native player support for the most popular video formats) installed on your computer, QuickTime will play the file.  Depending on what you want to do with the video file, you may need to recompress it into a different file format.  I've used Stomp (Mac only) for years.  You could also use the (generally) free Zamzar online file conversion utility.

I'm far more interested in the objects themselves no longer being static - imagine holding a molecule in each hand (adenine and thymine for example - two rungs on the DNA ladder) and having them form a bond when the two molecules are correctly rotated into place. Then you start adding some sugars and phosphates - pretty soon, you are constructing your own DNA molecule. The same could be done with atoms, cells, or any number of models that can not be accurately portrayed using traditional 2D models. Once you have constructed your DNA molecule, you can zoom in on it and see the electron clouds in motion or go on a hunt for the minuscule nucleus, giving you a perspective that is difficult for most students to comprehend."

Finally, what’s the purpose of demanding that every kid in every school in every state must be able to do the same thing in the same year, with teachers pressured to “align” their instruction to a master curriculum and a standardized test? I once imagined a drinking game in which a few of those education reform papers from corporate groups and politicians were read aloud: You take a shot every time you hear “rigorous,” “measurable,” “accountable,” “competitive,” “world-class,” “high(er) expectations,” or “raising the bar.” Within a few minutes, everyone would be so inebriated that they’d no longer be able to recall a time when discussions about schooling weren’t studded with these macho managerial buzzwords. But it took me awhile to figure out that not all jargon is meaningless. Those words actually have very real implications for what classrooms should look like and what education is (and isn’t) all about. The goal clearly isn’t to nourish children’s curiosity, to help them fall in love with reading and thinking, to promote both the ability and the disposition to think critically, or to support a democratic society. Rather, a prescription for uniform, specific, rigorous standards is made to order for those whose chief concern is to pump up the American economy and make sure that we triumph over people who live in other countries. If you read the FAQ page on the common core standards website, don’t bother looking for words like “exploration,” “intrinsic motivation,” “developmentally appropriate,” or “democracy.” Instead, the very first sentence contains the phrase “success in the global economy,” followed immediately by “America’s competitive edge.” If these bright new digitally enhanced national standards are more economic than educational in their inspiration, more about winning than learning, devoted more to serving the interests of business than to meeting the needs of kids, then we’ve merely painted a 21st-century façade on a hoary, dreary model of school as employee training. Anyone who recoils from that vision should be doing everything possible to resist a proposal for national standards that embodies it. Yes, we want excellent teaching and learning for all -- although our emphasis should be less on student achievement (read: test scores) than on students’ achievements. ... "

[Source: Debunking the Case for National Standards: One-Size-Fits-All Mandates and Their Dangers. Copyright © 2010 by Alfie Kohn. This article may be downloaded, reproduced, and distributed without permission as long as each copy includes this notice along with citation information (i.e., name of the periodical in which it originally appeared, date of publication, and author's name). Permission must be obtained in order to reprint this article in a published work or in order to offer it for sale in any form. Please write to the address indicated on the Contact Us page.]

Energizing Visions are the great visions of the ultimate peace among all people and the ultimate harmony of all creation just utopian fairy tales? No, they are not! They correspond to the deepest longings of the human heart and point to the truth waiting to be revealed beyond all lies and deceptions. These visions nurture our souls and strengthen our hearts. They offer us hope when we are close to despair, courage when we are tempted to give up on life, and trust when suspicion seems the more logical attitude. Without these visions our deepest aspirations, which give us the energy to overcome great obstacles and painful setbacks, will be dulled and our lives will become flat, boring, and finally destructive. Our visions enable us to live the full life.”"

[Via: Energizing Visions.]