Here’s a summary of some of the things I learned and published this week.
Readings
You can follow my daily readings as they happen here. Below are a selected few, with commentary, from the past week. They’re posted to the blog daily under the title OTR Links.
Sunday
- Windows 11 becomes available to more people for download. I was one of those people and was quite excited at the opportunity
- Imagine a giant floor map for use to show colonial history in Canada. What a great concept
Monday
- This is an incredible collection of images from Iceland along with descriptions. Have you ever seen a bad picture from Iceland?
- Lakeshore Harness Racing had a terrific year and actually made the local news. If you’re ever looking for on a Sunday afternoon, August-October, I’ll be there
Tuesday
- Probably the very best good deed picture that you’ll ever see about Hallowe’en
- Ontario’s minimum wage is set to raise to $15 but that’s nowhere near where it needs to be for some people
Wednesday
- I swore that I’d never buy a minivan because it was so middle-aged and ended up with at least two of them. Here’s an anniversary story about the very first one
- Checking for distracted driving should be a daily thing but every now and again you hear about a blitz
Thursday
- New Orleans was immediately obvious to me of a city that’s in danger of going under water. Here are eight more
- I thought that the Power Tools might give me back the ability to move my menu around in Windows 11 but I was wrong. Still, some good tweaks
Friday
- Google is working on a new Launcher for the Chrome OS and you can activate it following the instructions here
- The kids are all right and concerned about their own futures and it shows in the post secondary choices they’re making
Saturday
- Growing up, the atomic bomb was one of those things that I laid awake at night worrying about. Here are some interesting facts about them. I hope that I can sleep tonight
- For me, it’s because I change browsers like other people change underwear but that’s only one reason for not using my web browsers password manager
Blog Posts on
doug — off the record
My daily contributions to this blog are linked below. If you’re looking for a week in review for doug–off the record, you came to the right place.
- Sunday – My Week Ending October 31, 2021
- Weekly summary of things around here
- Monday – It was my time, I guess
- My first look at Windows 11 on my own computer
- Tuesday – Thinking about widgets
- My thoughts about widgets as included in Windows 11
- Wednesday – Changes
- What better time than a pandemic to change report card software
- Thursday – When it’s not magical
- Technology glitches on TWIOE on voicEd Radio
- Friday – This Week in Ontario Edublogs
- A review of seven recent blog posts from Ontario Educators
- Saturday – Stay in school; learn math
- A&W got me thinking mathematics
- Sunday – Whatever happened to … ?
- A weekly fun post to try to get you to reflect on things and share your thoughts
#FollowFriday – November 5, 2021
voicEd Radio

This is a mostly weekly radio conversion with Stephen Hurley on voicEd Radio where we talk about some recent writing from Ontario Education bloggers. It turns into a Friday blog post. Here are the people you need to be following.
Featured Bloggers:
- Amy Bowker – @amyebowker
- Jim Cash – @cashjim
- Nilmini Ratwatte Henstridge – @NRatwatte
- Bei Zhang – @TESLOntario
- Aviva Dunsiger – @avivaloca
This week’s show:
Opening Song:
Closing Song:
All of the shows are archived here. The show is broadcast LIVE almost every Wednesday morning at 8:45 on voicEd Radio.
Technology Troubleshooting
As noted last week, I got the upgrade to Windows 11 and have been playing around with it and actually quite enjoy it. I don’t find the challenges that others are finding; it seems to be a good actor for me.
Except for the taskbar location. I sure would like to have it on the left side of my widescreen monitor.
It’s early days and I’ve read of some tweaks.
At this point, I’m just waiting for an update from Microsoft to make it official. I can’t believe that they’ll leave so many people hanging.
My only fear is that I’m becoming used to the workaround that I’ve incorporated and may end up just going that way.
Video of the Week
This is not good news and you had to see it coming.
Photo of the Week
It was the last day of racing at Lakeshore Raceway and I stayed for all 11. Between races, I tried to see if I could get a decent picture from my phone and I’m pretty happy with the result.

Thanks for reading.
Please join me daily for something new and, hopefully, interesting for you. I honestly and truthfully appreciate your few moments reading my thoughts. Time willing, this summary appears every Sunday afternoon.
Be safe.
dp
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