scott’s thoughts

The device is the hot, new White House toy, a gizmo that is popping up around Washington but seems to be particularly in vogue at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Looking for more -- ummmm -- interesting resources for the class I'm teaching this summer on Leadership and Ethics at CSU. I stumbled on these "LeaderSkillz" videos and they are actually REALLY funny as they make their points.

You must click through to this article on Justin Kemp's home office setup. Just crazy enough to make you say, "I need that!"

Best Mac OS X App for Education: Papers by Mekentosj
Runner up: Soulver by Aqualia

I use Papers all the time. It's indispensable for academic research. Just checked out Soulver for the first time tonight and I can tell you that I'll be downloading it for my iPad tomorrow!

But tethering costs $20/month and you don’t get any extra bandwidth at all. If you don’t get extra bandwidth, what are you paying for? It’s one thing to charge extra for tethering on an “unlimited” data plan, but it’s outrageous to charge $20 when the bandwidth is already capped.

Essentially, you don't get a bucket of extra data, but you get to pay $20 per month for the "privilege" of connecting another device to use the data you already have. This strikes me a bit like the power company charging you for the electricity you use and every lamp you have in your home.

According to AT&T's Seth Bloom, you will be able to call in or hop online and change that month to the 2GB plan so long as you do so before the end of that billing cycle. So if you have a bad month (or a really good month -- it really depends on how you look at data flexibility), AT&T will offer more overage flexibility. If you do not do this, you will be charged $15 for each 200MB you use -- and that can quickly add up to a lot of ouch. As Bloom added, "You can keep going back and forth between the two tiers." So if you opt into the 2GB plan for a month, you can opt right back out the next month without penalty.

Can you add tethering for just a month? Say when we travel? Tethering does not require a contract, so you should be able to add the feature and remove it as needed for as many months as required.

Looks like my two main questions have been "officially" answered by AT&T. You can change data plans monthly, and you can add tethering for a month at a time.

Social media, and in this particular case Twitter, has given average people like me the ability to use and invent all sorts of brand new sticks.

Interesting use case for Twitter. Hat tip to @BudTheTeacher for directing me to this article.