Maintain Your Mac

Mac Maintenance Quick Assist

I know Windows Maintenace but sure do need help with the Mac side. This site, from Apple, has some good quick tips.

Virginia Tech - Info at Wikipedia

Virginia Tech massacre

More information on the tragedy..

Leopard Delayed (MAC OS)

iPhone before Leopard

I guess I have no choice but to wait now:

Apple today released the following statement: iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned. We can’t wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is. However, iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price—we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS(R) X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard’s features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we’re sure we’ve made the right ones. NOTE: Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh and iPhone are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Source: Apple Inc. Web site: http://www.apple.com/

Blog Code of Conduct

BBC NEWS | Technology | Weblogs 'need content warnings': "The code begins: 'We celebrate the blogosphere because it embraces frank and open conversation.'"

I like the idea of logos purposing the openness of each blog. this code is not censoring blog writings, just channeling their purpose and civility, similar to the Motion Picture Guides we are used to in the US.

Death threats and abuse should not be allowed and, to me, is really stretching freedom of the press.

Something to keep in touch with.. Tim's blog is here

Mac Backups

Complete, free Mac backup

Guess it's time for me to backup my new Macbook Pro so I found this article. Now to choose which program and method.

I have an external 250gb hard drive that I use to back up data and I had partitioned it. If anyone wants to know the results of which software I have selected, drop me a line...

BlogSafety Community

BlogSafety Community: Predators & cyberbullies:

Interesting article from The BlogSafety site. I have read a few articles about the tv show "The Predators" and mot say the show is not reality and goes overboard.

I think I would rather exaggerate on this topic if it gets kids and parents to wake up to this danger. Hopefully, through education, kids are smartening up to this danger.

Interesting idea...

Classroom Commercials

Interesting idea....

Macs Only

Website Link Checker Robot
"Feed it your home page address (url) and Integrity will follow all of your internal links to find your pages, checking the server response code for all internal and external links found."

Yes, it's free!

SunriseBrowser for web designers

Mac Only!
The SunriseBrowser is an open-source browser for web developers. For instance, the window can be automatically resized to 640 x 480 , 800 x 600, or 1024 x 768 with one button click. There are many other convenient and useful features like zoom levels, PDF export of the entire web page, etc. Lots more features as well.
Found on http://www.macmerc.com

Find your lost child

Find your lost child with a USB drive
My daughter is 26 now. I probably would have done this though. That's just the way I am....

Need to Move your iTunes to another Computer?

How to move an iTunes library from a PC to Mac (and back) - Lifehacker

CSS

(The Only) Ten Things To Know About CSS

Vista.. Cause Problems?? You're Kidding!

Vista causes an array of problems - USATODAY.com

Microsoft Suffers Latest Blow

InformationWeek: Microsoft Suffers Latest Blow As NIST Bans Windows Vista

U.S. Department of Transportation also banned Windows Vista within the agency.

IceClean

Keep your Mac running smoothly with this free software. Let me know how it works...

US university dumps Windows to go all Mac

US university dumps Windows to go all Mac
"Touted by Apple as one of the first colleges to mandate a campus-wide shift from Windows PCs to Macs, the school wasn't a bastion of all things Apple before the decision, said Scott Byers, vice president for finance and the head of campus IT. Macs, in fact, were a minority."

CSS Galleries

74 CSS Gallery Roundup

Want to learn CSS or find new ways of using it? Check out these galleries. One should suit your taste.

Switch To A Mac

Apple Mac OS Market Share at 6.22 Percent - up 48 Percent from Feb 2006

Get a Mac - More Fun with Photos

More Fun with Photos

Just another reason to have a Mac...It's included....everything is included...I love my Mac....

Picasa Web Albums

Picasa Web Albums
Picasa Web Albums has just added more features:

"First, the free version of Picasa Web gets 1 GB of storage (up from 250 MB), enough to host 4000 high-quality photos. It's interesting that Google says "1 GB (and counting)" so the storage could increase like it does in Gmail.

Like in Flickr, you can also search the public photos posted by other people. Until today, you could search only your photos and the public photos uploaded by your contacts. Google wanted to be polite and ask you before including your public photos in the community search, so you must go to settings and enable this."

I guess I had better try this one out! You may need a Google account first

African Sunsets

African Sunsets - a photoset on Flickr:
Just some beautiful peaceful photos for your perusal...

CSS Menus

8 web menus you just can't miss

Very very nice designs here....and downloadable for you to use.

The End of the jpg???

Microsoft move could be the end of the JPEG

Now this could be very interesting..a new format called HD Photo from Microsoft....Time will tell...

Web Site Footers

19 Gorgeous Website Footers

Just like a word document, a footer is at the bottom of each page. Footers usually give information such as a copyright and contact information.

Make Your Own Puzzle

Sliding Puzzle © 1530 design

Mac Users: Don't Leave Windows Open!

Don't leave the Windows open

If you are runninng Windows on your Mac, be careful. You are susceptible o all those Windows nasties...

E-Learning For Free

E-Learning for Free - Information Service

Jane is now building an E-Learning for Free Information Service to create a one-stop place to access a variety of free resources not only to create different learning and performance solutions but to provide the best advice and best practice in doing so.

Check out her site withlinnks to lots of free tools, resources, content, and solutions.

Spinach Stracciatella Soup

SPINACH STRACCIATELLA SOUP

I just may have to try this one! It looks easy and is from Epicurious.

Free Courses from iVillage

iVillage Courses
Free courses from iVillage. They don't require that you buy books or software. How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci sure looks intriguing.

Free is good. And these courses are very good.

OT: Self-Esteem Building

22 Tips for High Self-Esteem at Ririan Project:

Feel better just by reading them! Now, pick just one and put it into practice. One a week would be great. Okay, how about one a month?

Color Formats Confuse You?

Understanding Images: A Guide to Color Formats:

"Most Pantone colors are identified by a unique number, which is followed by a letter. The letter identifies what type of paper the Pantone color is optimized for, as colors – regardless of whether they are Pantone or CMYK — look different depending on the paper on which they are printed. In PMS, C stands for coated paper, U stands for uncoated paper, and M stands for matte paper."

Edit Online Videos

VIDAVEE

Take videos that are online and add effects to them. Try it...

CSS Basics

CSS Basics - Making Cascading Style Sheets Easy to Understand

Free Telephone Calls

Finding your way in free telephony

I use Skype and have attended a few educational conferences that were pretty good.

Podcast Directory

PublicRadioFan.com - Podcast directory

Looking for a public radio podcast? They sure list a lot of them here along with subscription directions and the RSS feeds. Great site and various topics from news to childrens' programs to classical music to more!

Picnik

Picnik - edit photos the easy way, online in your browser

There is a free version and it works very well. Edit your photos online. Works with many photo sharing sites. Check it out and let us know how you like it!

New American History Site

Digital History
Utilizing digital and online technologies to teach different disciplines continues to be quite popular, and the Digital History website will be a most welcome find for teachers (and students) of American history. Developed in collaboration with the University of Houston, the Chicago Historical Society, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and several other entities the site includes an online American history textbook, an interactive timeline, a multimedia section, and a very rich selection of primary source materials.

Chat Lingo

BostonHerald.com
Middle school teacher Julia Austin is noticing a new generation of errors creeping into her pupils’ essays. Sure, they still commit the classic blunders - like the commonly used "ain’t."

We MUST UNLEARN

Will Richardson hits another homerun. Here's his list of 10 things we need to UNLEARN as educators if we are to progress:

1. We need to unlearn the idea that we are the sole content experts in the classroom, because we can now connect our kids to people who know far more than we do about the material we’re teaching.
2. We need to unlearn the premise that we know more than our kids, because in many cases, they can now be our teachers as well.
3. We need to unlearn the idea that learning itself is an event. In this day and age, it is a continual process.
4. We need to unlearn the strategy that collaborative work inside the classroom is enough and understand that cooperating with students from around the globe can teach relevant and powerful negotiation and team-building skills.
5. We need to unlearn the idea that every student needs to learn the same content when really what they need to learn is how to self-direct their own learning.
6. We need to unlearn the notion that our students don’t need to see and understand how we ourselves learn.
7. We need to unlearn our fear of putting ourselves and our students “out there” for we’ve proven we can do it in safe, relevant and effective ways.
8. We need to unlearn the practice that teaches all students at the same pace. Is it any wonder why so many of our students love to play online games where they move forward at their own pace?
9. We need to unlearn the idea that we can teach our students to be literate in this world by continually blocking and filtering access to the sites and experiences they need our help to navigate.
10. We need to unlearn the premise that real change can happen just by rethinking what happens inside the school walls and understand that education is now a community undertaking on many different levels.

Skype

Learning Is Messy Blog

Priceless...Skype's possibilities. Celeste has leukemia and can't go to school. Thanks to an innovative teacher and some wonderful kids, Celeste was able to attend her 4th class via a webcam.

Too many fears of technology at our schools....this is what happens when kids are taught the correct way to use it.

Watch this video.

OER Commons

Welcome to a worldwide learning network — OER Commons: How do you use a physics simulation or history lecture? By browsing resources, using tags, ratings, reviews, and sharing about teaching and learning, you are part of this open network of shared resources and practices, from K through college, from algebra to zoology - it's all free to use.

All Videos....About Life, Wisdom, and Stuff...

VideoJug - Life Explained. On Film.

"Here at VideoJug we're all about sharing wisdom, knowledge and know-how. More and more users are adding their films to the thousands we're making. Below are some we really like. Do you have a how-to film you'd like to submit? Perhaps you make a brilliant curry or have some unique magic tricks. Whatever your knowledge, we'd love to see it, so go ahead and upload your film today."

Some great stuff here...including how to make a great first impression at a job interview.

French Students Will Get USB Sticks

French students to be given open-source software

I think this is a great idea. I run Portable Apps on 2 of my flash drives. I can do word processing, run FireFox with my own bookmarks, do some photo editing, spreadsheet work, etc., without using any applications on the host computer. Free. No charge. All open source. Check out portableapps.com for more information.

Chat With Others on Web Sites - No Software Install

Gabbly:
"Gabbly is a chat service that allows you to chat around any webpage. Its free to use on your personal page or commercial webpage. Simply type gabbly.com/ in front of a webpages URL, you will be able to chat with anyone visiting the page at the same time! For example, to chat on CNN.com, just visit gabbly.com/cnn.com in your browser. You will see the CNN website with the Gabbly Chat window floating on top."

Search with HUMAN Guide

ChaCha stands out as different and better in a landscape cluttered with common search engines because it uses the World's most powerful technology - The human brain. ChaCha's goal is to provide a better search experience by combining results that are hand-picked by our knowledgeable human guides with the best computer-generated search results. In those cases where you can't find what you need with their instant results, ChaCha will connect you with a live human guide who will find the information for you through an instant messaging-style search session.

Found thanks to Marcus P. Zillman

Geni

Geni - Everyone's Related

Geni is a unique approach to solving the problem of genealogy, which is the question of how everyone is related. Geni lets you create a family tree through our fun simple interface. When you add a relative's email address, he or she will be invited to join your tree. That relative can then add other relatives, and so on. Your tree will continue to grow as relatives invite other relatives. Each family member has a profile which can be viewed by clicking their name in the tree. This helps family members learn more about each other and stay in touch. Family members can also share information and work together to build profiles for common ancestors. Geni is a private network. Only the people in your tree can see your tree and your profile. Geni will not share your personal information with third parties.

Web Design Links

Web Design References

Lots of links...

Keep Our Children Safe

There are many sites disseminating information on how to keep our youngsters safe online and what to do if... here are a few:

WiredSafety - the world's largest Internet safety and help group

Staysafe.org

These sites also have links to other sites with lots of information and hotlines. They are designed not just for educators, but also for parents, grandparents, and children of all ages.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

It only takes 4 minutes and 31 seconds to watch this. It really is well worth your time...

Free Audio Extractor - PC only

Free Audio Extractor
AoA Audio Extractor provides you a handy tool to extract audio/sound or background music from video files. Yes, it's a freebie.

This could come in handy. Now, if it could only make those audio files into text files!

Dancing Faculty!

The Fischbowl: 2007 AHS Faculty Dance Video

What a faculty this is! Great dancers and what great sports, Wow!!! If this is how they approach dancing and having fun, I can imagine what great teachers they all are.

Eyesight for the Mac

EyeSight:

Capture pictures periodically from 10 seconds to 999 days nusing your builit in ISight camera. Sorry PC users!

Lots of CSS Links

The CSS & Web Standards News Compilation Site - DMYH

No More Stealing My Bandwidth!

Prevent HotLinking with .htaccess
If you don't want people hotlinking to your photos, graphics, and ther images, read this easy solution. They are stealing your bandwidth! You must be the site's owner and have access to the .htaccess file.

GetHuman Database

gethuman 500 database

Not sure if these tips really work but one never knows! Find a human at a faceless company! Hate listening to all those prompts to press this number then this number? Maybe this is the solution!

Kuler

Kuler is a free tool from Adobe Labs that lets users design and share color schemes for use in Web sites or other projects. If you've ever designed a Web site or PowerPoint presentation before, you know that choosing a color scheme is often trial and error.

CSS Cheat Sheet

CSS Cheat Sheet

Great pdf or flashpaper for those of you delving into CSS.

Partitioning a Hard Drive

I bought a new external hard drive for myself. I decide to split it into 2 partitions just to make it easier for me to see: PC and MAC. The MacBook Pro has a utility to make this partitioning very easy.

Last Friday, I figured I would take the hd home and copy some things over to DVD. Yes, I dropped it. 250gb hd is now broken...

Went back on eBay and bought myself another one. Partitioned it again so quickly using the Mac. I called Apple Support because I had forgotten which format to use. They answered within 5 minutes, took down my information, and gave me the answer very quickly.

I promise to be extra careful with this new 250gb hd...I hope...

A "New" Search Engine: Ask goes Ajax!

Ask X

The new search engine from Ask using the latest technologies and Ajax. Try it out..It is quite impressive!

Podcasting and Universities

Open Culture: University Podcast Collection

See what the universities are doing with podcasting. They are finding it very helpful educationally. Some school districts are also beginning to use podcasting as a TOOL and not some dreaded new technology.

Open Source Software

Open Source Alternative

They list lots of alternatives and seem to give decent advice about the software. Remember that most open source software has little tech help or support so you may be on your own! But, it might definitely be worth a look.

Are you a last minute shopper?

lastminute.com

Gifts, vacations, restaurant reservations, tickets, activities....last minute ideas. Check it out!

Whacky Uses

Whacky Uses for common household products and food

So what CAN you really use Cheerios and Cool Whip for??

How does your school rate?

GreatSchools.net

Very interesting site to check out how schools rate. Also has other information such as AP exam information for specific schools, monthly polls (January's is about schools banning cupcakes at class parties.)

Federal Resources

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence
Try out the new FREE website. It has been redesigned for the first time since it was created in 1998 to make finding teaching resources from the federal government easier.

Historical Documents

Footnote - The place for original documents online

Many original historical documents that have never been online are now available. A site worth checking out and passing along to your fellow teachers and students.

Why I Won't Drive On Ice

This happened in Portland, oregon this winter. Yes, I figured out how to add YouTube videos to the site. Hopefully you will be able to see them. If you can't, please let me know!

Dead Browser Links?

AM-Deadlink

Deadlinks? This freebie works with most browsers and will help you find and delte dead bookmarks (History) in most browsers.

Pretty cool? Best feature?? It's FREE!!

Wallpaper Rocks!

Looking for some new desktop backgrounds? No matter what your OS, you should find something here for you!

iPhone Copyright Infringment?

Uh oh...: Apple has a BIG legal problem!

Cisco subsidiary Linksys has its own iPhone. But instead of signing a proposed contract submitted Monday night by Cisco, Apple made the iPhone announcement without a deal in place. Cisco's response: a 24-page trademark infringement lawsuit against Apple.

Quizpod - FREE!

QuizPod - iPod + iTunes

Get out your ipods! Allows users to create class quizes, surveys or anything else on their Mac or PC then synchronise to an iPod. A user can then be 'quized’ on the actual iPod with results later being sync’d back to the computer.

- Creation of Quizes on both PC and Mac.
- QuizPod application for iPod using iPodLinux. Currently only supports generations 1- 4 of fullsize iPod.
- Support Bitmap image display on iPod in greyscale or full color.
- Allows sync’ing of Quiz results and quizes between iPod and computer.
- Provided a results magament tool to manage marks/ answers from quizes.

And it's FREE!

Some things parents need to know

Online Safety Tips for Parents - Education World

Linda McCarthy, author of Own Your Space: Keep Yourself and Your Stuff Safe Online, offers parents these 10 tips for keeping their kids safe online. Included: Provide a copy of our printable version to your students’ families.

Thanks to Educational Technology for this post.

WDUG

Don't forget about our April Web Developer User Group meeting. Anyone interested in the topics can register. Their district MUST be a member of our TSS or Office Automation Services. You will be able to register when the Spring MicroNews comes out about the end of March.

You can always check the web site, www.mhric.org/wdug, for more information.

How do you like the new logo on the right?

Podcasts!

Keep an eye out for our new podcasts that will be coming this month or early February. All our services will be available as podcasts so you can listen to them. They will be available in formats that will let you listen to them on your iPod (*.m4a) or just to listen to on your computer (*.mp3)

We are also working on software tips in a podcast format. Eventually, vodcasting and trainings!

There is no limit to what we can do with the right technology, hardware, knowledge, manpower, and plain old hard work!

Color Scheme Chooser

Choose Color Schemes for your website using this free tool.:

Use this free tool to study the relationships between colors. You can actually use it to choose the color scheme of your own website. Be sure to read the help section for a better understanding.

Great site for figuring out colors for your site that really mesh.

Flippid - Post What You Wan

Flippid - Post What You Want
http://www.flippid.com/

Flippid matches people who want stuff, with people who have stuff. Name your price, and let people sell it to you. Are you looking for something? Post it on flippid for free and instantly tell people who have it that you want it. You even get to set your maximum price and let sellers compete for your business. Flippid lets you name your price for the stuff you're looking for. Sellers on flippid like it because it doesn't cost them a thing to see what buyers want. Sellers will even compete with each other just to sell to you!

TubeSock

TubeSock - Rip videos from YouTube

I wonder if this is legal? It's free however..

Hack Attack

Hack Attack: A guide for switching to a Mac
Before I got my first Mac, I was fortunate to have 2 people give me a lot of help learning about the OS. One is over at Dutchess BOCES and the other is at Orange-Ulster BOCES. The Apple rep was also an invaluable resource as was reading, reading, and reading on the internet.

There is so much information out there and the Mac also comes with fantastic help files. Ask your friends and colleagues. I bet you would be surprised at the number of people who know Mac's!

This site is a great help as well. Lots of quick info and how things relate to the PC.

Woodland Home

A Low Impact Woodland Home
What a great looking place for a vacation home! Environmentally-sound, it is a Hobbit house!

Wasabi Cream Sauce

This sauce from Epicurious looks very nice. I almost made it for Christmas dinner but they wanted regular gravy! I'll make it next time and just not ask.

Google For Educators

You'll find a teacher's guide to Google products, including basic information about each tool, examples of how educators are using them, and lesson ideas. You'll also find lesson plans and videos from Discovery Education focusing on two of the most popular teaching tools: Google Earth and Google SketchUp.

Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft join forces on sitemaps

That sound you hear? It's the sound of a million webmasters shouting for joy. I certainly didn't see it coming, but Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google have entered an agreement to support a single, unified sitemap protocol, which webmasters can use to give all three companies' search engines a complete listing of their site's pages. Microsoft's Live Search Blog, the Yahoo! Search Blog, and Google's Webmaster Central Blog all have announcements about the unified effort, and the companies have launched sitemaps.org to promote the protocol. The protocol itself has been released under the Creative Commons license and other search engines have been invited to use it as well.

From Download Squad

Combat Spam Mail!

We all know that spam mail is a big problem and an annoying one. One way to combat is is to look at how you have your email addresses posted on your web site(s). If you have them as normal mailto: links, you are opening your users up to spam, spam, and more spam.

Once you are on those spam mailing lists, it is very difficult to be removed from them!

One way to help combat the problem is to change the way your email addresses are listed on your sites. Ours are obfuscated or done in javascripts. If you check out our staff page and view the source, you will see that I have obfuscated not only the email address in the mailto: link, but also the text part of that link. It's been that way for a few years now.

This article will give you some great information on how to hide your email addresses on your sites.

Your email administrator is working very hard to combat the spam problem, but he also needs the help of the users and web admins.

Never click "Unsubscribe Here" in a spam email. Now they KNOW you exist! Also, don't register for anything using your email address. Get a Google or Yahoo email address that is disposable. I have 3 that I use just for this purpose. If I start getting too much spam at one, I just close it up and open a new one.

Just a few hints ... but make sure you change the way your email addresses are posted on your web site. You can always contact me for help with this too.

Tale of an iPod and a High School

Merritt Secondary School is going high tech. When MSS vice principal Darren Coates received an I-pod for Christmas last year he didn’t know it would eventually change the way his students learned. Now, what started as a bit of an experiment by one teacher, is spreading across the school. “It’s a way to hijack a technology they use and put educational material on it,” he explains. “It’s a great way to get students interested.” Using the I-pod in class started out small but soon grew in popularity. He started with pod casts of Quirks and Quarks to grab the students’ attention. As interest grew he saw there was a lot of potential in using the technology in class.

2006

The Year in Review....done in photos and sound. Some will make you laugh, some will make you smile...and some will devastate you.

Earth Facts

101 Amazing Facts about the Earth! While you are at this site, check out some of the other pages.

Database Design

Nice article about basic database design. Remember Jeff will be demo'ing databases on web sites at our April meeting.

future Computer Interaction

I've seen this video before but it is just phenomenal

Happy Holidays!

Just a wish for a very Happy and Healthy Holiday Season to all of you. I will be on vacation next week but still posting here. Have a peaceful and safe holiday time with your families.

Regards, Pat

Annual Holiday Reunion @ DPI

Annual Holiday Reunion - Tiger Butter

Ok, so it's not web design or even software....but it looks luscious!

Foonz - Free Conference Calls and Group Calls

Foonz - Free Conference Calls and Group Calls

Photoshop CS3 Beta!!!

A Quick Look at the New Features in Photoshop CS3, Public Beta Preview "Anytime Adobe (or anybody for that matter) messes with the interface for a product, it sends chills down the spine of many users. However, in CS3 the changes can be as minor or major as you want because this is probably the most customizable interface for Photoshop yet."

mon.itor.us

mon.itor.us - FREE website monitoring

Just came across this site and it looks interesting. Free reports and monitoring of your site sent to your email address....Need to look into it a bit more.

Known issues - Internet Explorer 7

Internet Explorer 7

You may want to check this site out. I, for one, am NOT upgrading to IE7. I have it on a test machine but not on a production one. Too many complaints about it at this point...

Photo-Realistic at SixThings

Rapid Fire #1: Photo-Realistic at SixThings: ""

A Fireworks blog..this is great stuff!

CSSORT

CSSORT - A Method for Sorting your CSS files

This site claims to clean up your CSS. Just copy and paste, select how you want it to be sorted for you...and it does it. Uses Ajax to sort your code.

Great Pedagogy, Crazy Technology

Great Pedagogy, Crazy Technology

Skype vs. Jabber...very very interesting...

Question?

I am looking for a program that will convert MPEG2 files to any other format suitable for using in iMovie or importing in to Quicktime.

Any ideas? Thanks!

Patina's Treasures - Screen Savers

Patina's Treasures - Screen Savers:
Free Screensavers for the PC. I don't know the quality so, if you use any, PLEASE let us know! Sometimes the real gems have been found in freeware.

AppDelete: Mac

AppDelete
Even though it is unbelieveably easy to delete a program you installed on a Mac, this utility makes it even easier! Just drag the application to the icon and all traces are gone. Sorry, Windows users, you still have to contend with registries and all that other stuff!