-
The best way to recover from unexpected data loss is to be properly prepared. With one of the following tools on hand, you'll always be ready to save your data from the Reaper.
-
In this Photoshop web design tutorial, you’ll learn, step-by-step, how to create a stunning and clean web layout. You’ll be using some basic to intermediate-level techniques to build your very own sleek "Web 2.0" style web design that uses the 960 Grid System.
-
Simply search or grab a chunk of text, and Juice will start performing its Magic. We'll try to understand its meaning and serve you with the most relevant information from the internet's best sources.
-
t may seem like Facebook and Twitter widen the gaps between Boomers, Gen X-ers, and members of Generation Y, but online social networks may bring us all closer.
-
Stumble on what's happening on Twitter right now
-
The biggest, baddesting singing community in the world.
Monthly Archives: May 2009
Collaboration
Last night, at the Ontario Educators’ Meetup, Ben Hazzard presented on the topic of “Connecting Teachers for Cross Classroom Collaboration”. In the presentation, he related some of the successes that he has had with projects that involved connecting his students to others outside the school.
The concept of collaborating on a common project is a very powerful one and it works so well … provided you can find someone with the same goals and timelines as you. But, how do you get started?
That’s where Ben’s resource “Teachers Connecting” fits into the picture. Ben likened it to eHarmony for educators. Come looking for your ideal match and see what happens!
A visitor to the site, after confirmed, is allowed to search through various projects and hop in. If you don’t find what you’re looking for, create your own project and hopefully others will find you. During Ben’s presentation, I signed up for an account and the discussion did get around to perhaps professional development folks getting together to collaborate about how we might roll out activities for newly licensed OESS software.
Checking in this morning, I already have one “buddy” – Mr. SadOne. Maybe, after knowing each other for a couple of years, we’ll finally get a chance to do something together!
So, if you’re looking for an “out of classroom experience”, take a look around Ben’s site. Registration is required but it’s quick and easy and you’re into the good stuff.
Social Bookmarks:
Blogged with the Flock Browser
links for 2009-05-19
-
Hi! Want to play some cool tunes on my THUMB PIANO? It looks like you have Flash 5 on your computer, so you're all ready to play. Just click on the Go! button and you'll be ready to PLAY the thumb piano, LISTEN to some tunes I played or even RECORD some of your own.
-
This is the post where we are listing out few great free apps for Mac Operating System, this is an exclusive post for our those readers who are the Mac users. But our other readers will also enjoy this post. Don’t forget to bookmark this post for your future reference as it has few most useful and free application that will be helpful for you when you are on your Mac system.
-
Watch internet tv and start your own channel
-
Direct access to the best sites, videos and games for kids on the net.
-
As he went along, Hillebrand counted the number of letters, numbers, punctuation marks and spaces on the page. Each blurb ran on for a line or two and nearly always clocked in under 160 characters.
-
For many people, the word “twitter” brings to mind birds rather than humans. But information professionals know that Twitter (www.twitter.com) is a fast-growing, free messaging service for people, and it’s one that libraries (and librarians) can make good use of—without spending much time or effort.
-
Fortunately, there are several tools out there that can help analyze Twitter data, understand user behavior, and graph it for analysis and presenting to others. Today, we’ve picked out five great tools to get you started.
-
Suggestions and ideas about panoramic photos
-
This weekend I finished setting up a fresh triple-boot install on my MSI laptop. With my operating systems ready to go, the time had come to start reinstalling applications. While it wasn't a conscious decision, I noticed that the majority of my apps were Open Source – so I decided to keep the ball rolling.
Flock 2.5
I awoke this morning to some exciting news. Overnight, the folks at Flock had released version 2.5 which they’re saying is built on the latest version of Firefox. This news came from their web ambassador Evan Hamilton.
For the longest of times, Flock was my browser of choice. I like its clean interface, its compatibility with Firefox and the Firefox Add-ons, but most importantly, the integration of so many of the web experiences that I use regularly. Integrated Delicious, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Gmail, WordPress, and Digg are part of my regular routine. Flock made it so easy to pull it all together. Built in RSS reading just puts it over the top in terms of what I need my browser to do.
As life progressed, something happened. Out of the blue, the old version of Flock began to run a high CPU temperature and would cause chaos with 100% CPU usage. I anguished and fought and drove myself crazy (crazier?) trying to find a solution. About the same time, I had the same performance issues with Firefox. Since they are developed in parallel, I tried my best to figure out what was happening to no avail. Even doing the first recommended action which was to disable add-ons, try safe mode, etc., had no effect. The best that I could figure is that there was a chance in OS that caused the problems or perhaps the Flash plug-in. Eventually, the problem was resolved with Firefox and my computers ran smoothly again so whatever it was had been resolved. I’m hoping that the new version of Flock continues to be a good actor. I tire of trying to gather add-ons to give me the same functionality.
There are things that are uniquely Flock as well. You can’t beat the opening My World, now with an integrated Twitter search widget. There is so much good in this browser for my web experiences. A particularly helpful add-on is the OpenID tool. Rather than digging around when I get to a website that supports ID, it’s right there in the toolbar.
In support of the new release, take a few moments to watch their demo videos. Flock’s strengths has always been in its support for social media and there are new features like their self-named Flockcast to get your information out to your networks quickly and easily.
And, for the blogger, the integrated blog editor has always been a wonderful feature. Straight forward, it does what I need to do. I must admit that the integrated Zemanta of Scribefire was nice. I’ve downloaded the Zemanta extension and will give it a shot.
Anyway, so far so good. The new version downloaded and installed and this post was created with the updated editor. I’m going to spend some more time with the features and see what’s up. It’s been a while since releases and so I’m looking forward to renewing my acquaintances with my favourite browser.
Social Bookmarks:
Blogged with the Flock Browser
links for 2009-05-18
-
In a few minutes Facebook will become the biggest example of a social network that allows users to log-in with OpenID credentials granted to them by other companies' websites.
-
Create online UML diagrams in seconds from inside your blog posts, articles and documents.
-
As more and more people are using Twitter (Twitter reviews) for personal and professional reasons, the demand for a Twitter client to match those multifaceted needs is rising. Here are several options to help you tweet now or later from different accounts on your desktop, via the Web, and while on the run.
-
Welcome to my odd, little world of paper toys, holiday cards, valentines, sun boxes, baskets and bags, origami and ephemera… all for you to make. My goal is to help grownups and kids spend time together making thing
-
In this video Mr Mackey tries to teach a disengaged 21st century classroom. Teachers can learn some important lessons from this video
-
The tech lets one piece of WiFi hardware be represented in Windows as two separate adapters, meaning you can connect to two hotspots simultaneously if you like, or turn your virtual device into an access point that others can connect to.
-
A new University of British Columbia study finds that our brains are much more active when we daydream than previously thought.
-
Swim with the fishes
-
Scoopler is a real-time search engine. We aggregate and organize content being shared on the internet as it happens, like eye-witness reports of breaking news, photos and videos from big events, and links to the hottest memes of the day.
-
The Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor gives a user's PC a pass/fail grade in four areas and checks to see whether there are any compatibility problems with hardware devices such as mice or printers or with applications.
-
Mockups is designed to help you and your team or clients iterate on wireframes as early in the process as possible, when it's cheapest to do so.
Didn’t Care Then…
…and I don’t care now. About the actual details anyway.
That pretty well sums up my feelings on this particular story. One of the top trending stories on Twitter was that of a 104 lady who had joined Twitter. An example of the news that announced it would be something like this.
When this news went flying by, I didn’t particularly care enough to even bother to check out the account.
This morning, I’m up early pondering what to do for Memorial Day and I see an “apology” from TechCrunch. Supposedly, we now know the full detail behind this scam. I’m still not interested in the details behind this person. Whether she wants to be using Twitter or not is something that’s up to her on a personal level.
What is of more concern to me is the whole process. Are we so fixated on the “new” and in such need for the sensational that we take sources like this and make them so popular that they’re seen as trending, all without validation or verification?
I wonder how many futurists or media specialists have incorporated the original story in websites or presentation for impact. I wonder how many nay-sayers will incorporate this as a case for not using social media as a method for communication.
The power of the Read/Write Web lies in its ability for anyone to be instantly published and collaborate with others. Written correctly, you can have instant credibility. Catch the fancy of enough people and you become viral. Viral takes its own path and goes as far as the community will spread it.
Nowhere in this cycle is there a requirement for anyone to check the facts and break the cycle if there is a problem.
This is a literacy and a tough one. However, in a world and an environment where we’re bombarded with information from all sources, it’s a critical one.
Social Bookmarks:
Powered by ScribeFire.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=71058c3e-ddd3-428f-b131-90414cc564ab)
links for 2009-05-17
-
Keyloggers can generally be classified as either software or hardware keyloggers. Software keyloggers are running as a background task on the system while hardware keyloggers are little devices that are most of the time connected between pc and keyboard recording every keystroke in their own memory.
-
Tweeji is a new website that lets you follow your all time favourite celebrities which are…well, dead. Yes, you can follow dead celebrities like William Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln, Genny Spencer, Audrey Hepburn and many more. Not only you can follow them but you can also send replies to your dead stars.
-
50 scientifically proven ways constitute 50 chapter of the book, longest of which take 7 pages. The authors take the position that persuasion is a science, not art, hence with the right approach anybody can become the master in the skill of persuasion. So, what are the 50 ways?
-
Allway Sync is free file and folder synchronization software for Windows. Allway Sync uses innovative synchronization algorithms to synchronize your data between desktop PCs, laptops, USB drives and more. Allway Sync combines bulletproof reliability with an extremely easy-to-use interface.
-
This web page is designed to give everyone an idea of what our universe actually looks like. There are nine main maps on this web page, each one approximately ten times the scale of the previous one. The first map shows the nearest stars and then the other maps slowly expand out until we have reached the scale of the entire visible universe.
-
Lyrics for thousands of songs. Includes a mobile version and a widget that lets you plug into your blog or website.
-
Here are a few of the best. Bookmark these sites, especially Thesaurus.com, which is so fast and simple I find myself visiting it nearly every day.
A Musical Coming Together
I was listening to my iPod while doing some yardwork yesterday singing along to my favourites when one of my more favourite songs came on. It was Alison Krauss and Union Station’s “Oh Atlanta”. Fortunately, the lawn mower was cranking away so that the neighbourhood dogs weren’t yelping in pain.
As the song progresses, I realized that I didn’t know all of the lyrics no matter how many times I’ve heard the song. So, once the lawn was cut and I’m back in the house, I fire up the computer to search for the lyrics just to satisfy my curiosity. There were lots of places to find what I’m looking for and the first search result did the trick for me.
I then decided to check with another site because we alway need to verify our internet information, right? I actually wanted to see a difference in presentation. I stumbled upon the website LyricsMode. I was really impressed with what I found except for the difficulty in getting their widget to display in hosted WordPress.
Here’s a link to the original page, showing the widget.
Unlike many of the sites where you’re presented with the lyrics, this website hase married a number of musical options that make it an excellent resource. Sure, you have the lyrics, but there’s an embedded YouTube video and a widget that provides scrolling lyrics so you can have your own karaoke experience. There are links to guitar tabs, other lyrics sites, and even an opportunity for you to comment on the songs.
I’m totally impressed with the results. It’s a wonderful coming together of all that I need to know and more. The site’s bookmarked now and will be my first stop for similar searches in the future.
Social Bookmarks:
Blogged with the Flock Browser
links for 2009-05-16
-
Windows 7 is free for now, and works extremely well on netbooks. That said, installing the OS on these tiny laptops—especially low-end models—can be daunting. Here's how to do it, the easy way:
-
Over the past year there has been a rapid shift in social distribution online. I believe this evolution represents an important change in how people find and use things online.
-
If you consider yourself a geek, or aspire to the honor of geekhood, here's an essential checklist of must-have geek skills.
-
This page is about the Nimrod programming language, which combines Lisp's power with Python's readability and C's performance.
-
Pull up the wrong undersea cable, and the Internet goes dark in Berlin or Dubai. See our animated infographics of how the web works!
-
Alarm clock on the net with various wakeup sounds
-
Even in 1999, the concept of journalling was available. Precursor to today's Twitter and Blogging?
A New Kind of Deep
Last night, a new service went live on the web. The service is entitled Wolfram|Alpha and it has the potential to let you get to results in a single search that other services would require multiple searches or a search and a calculator or multiple searches and some mathematical end work on your part.
It’s not going to replace your traditional search routines overnight but is going to nicely fit into a pattern of searching where your results can be enhanced by digital computation, matched with source information. And it’s all presented in one result form.
So, for example, I did a search for “Amherstburg, Ontario” and my results appear like this.
To get this much data, presented in this format, using traditional means would be pretty difficult and time consuming. Not so with Wolfram|Alpha.
It’s not too kind and reveals way more information than a Detroit Tiger fan can take!
The power behind the resource is all mathematical. If you’ve ever used Mathematica, then you’ll understand. The site claims to marry the power of Mathematica with natural language to provide the results that you get. It’s not blistering fast this morning and it’s hard to tell why – whether it’s design, product, or calculation. Time will tell. I do get a sense that I’m not using it correctly yet. But, for researchers, it claims to have the ability to generate visualizations and statistical presentation on the fly in the best available format. It’s very interesting and seems to be worth a place in your searching regimen when data and visualization is desired. Very easily, you’ll get to the deep information easier and quicker if it performs as claimed.
You can read a blog entry from the company here.
Social Bookmarks:
Powered by ScribeFire.
