We thought TEXTing and driving was dangerous!

Check out this educator who is vodcasting and driving!! (He say's because he's in Australia and the roads are less crowded it's less dangerous)

http://qik.com/video/1982598

Pet Peeves

I can't tell you how many times a student has come up to me and said, "I was absent yesterday, did we do anything important?" grrrr

I usually say something like "Well of course not, this is just school" or "We couldn't, you weren't here!"

What are other ways/phrases students can use to get caught up after missing school?

Online bullying

One way to protect yourself against online bullying, is to take a screen snapshot when it occurs. That way you have proof that someone was harrasing you. Here's how to use the PrintScreen button and Paint to do this.

Another idea is to talk about it. Tell your parents, teachers, whoever will listen. Keep talking until you find someone who will help you. If it's appropriate, talk to your friends also, so they can learn from the experience.

Online bullying is not acceptable. You don't have to take it.

Beyond Sticky Keys

I don't know how, but one of my students, Kyle, had a beeping noise everytime he moved his mouse. It was hilarious! He'd move it to save his work, it would beep all the while. He'd move it to shutdown, it would beep beep beep.

I don't know what sequence of keys does this, but it sure made me smile. Has this every happended to you? Have you had another strange phenomenon occur without notice?

BTW, a reboot fixed it.

Student Creativity - I Love it!!

I love days like today, when I gave my Web Design class and very open-ended project where they could use their creativity. Many students did wonderful things. Here are a few:

Lucus found the most fabulous background

Nick and Chris both worked with logo makers they found on the net

Justin and Emily have mad photo editing skills

I can't wait to see their final products. The winner will be posted at simplydessert.atspace.com, so check it out in about a week!!

Quote of the Day

We were studying a difficult topic in my Programming class when my student, Brian, said "This is so easy I can't do it"

Kurt Cobain is an Avatar in Guitar Hero

The widow and estate manager of Kurt Cobain (Courtney Love) approved the singer's image as an avatar for Guitar Hero. She probably thought it would be a cool way to reincarnate him (and make some more money).

But now she's mad, because the avatar is singing songs of Bon Jovi and the like. She feels this "exploits Kurt’s image in a manner anathema to the very essence of his music, spirit and essence"

I don't know what "anathema" means, but I'm guessing she doesn't have Bon Jovi on her mp3 player.

So here's my question: Who has the right to mess with a person's legacy? It's one thing for a star, say Michael Jackson, to do great and/or crazy things. And to create their own image in the public's eye. But what happens when they die, but their image lives on, and can be used in video games, animated movies, photoshopped into commercials, made to do things they would never have done in real life.

Have you seen any dead people reincarnated into entertainment venues? And did it change your impression of them?

Vint Cert, Inventor of Internet, at it again.

BBC had an interview with Vint Cert, the guy who invented the internet. It seems we're running out of unique addresses for networked devices. There's only room for 4.3 Billion computers, laptops, printers, cellphones, and those really smart refridgerators that know when they need a repairman.

So he's come up with a new version called IP6 which will allow 3.4 x 10^38 (That's 3.4 Trillion Trillion Trillion) devices to hook up. Think that'll be enough? What kinds of things will we want online in the future?

College Credit for playing Wii

Students at Univ of Houston can take a class where they play Nintendo Wii. Ok, not just any game, they have to play Wii Fitness. And they have to play twice a week for 30 mins. But still, it's for college credit.

I guess the idea is to get more people moving and to hopefully entice them to try active things. So Wii yoga may encourage someone to take "real" yoga class.

Has anyone played Wii Fitness? What is it like? Do you actually work up a sweat?

Keeping your computer Safe

Hacker have an easy time of it.



Let's share things we can do to keep our computer safe:

1. Firewalls and Virus Protection software. You should either purchase these from your internet provider or you can buy/install your own. If you do it yourself, don't forget to update the virus list regularly

2. Update your web browser. The most common way that keystroke listener programs will hack you is through following web site links. Then they can learn your passwords. So if you haven't updated to Internet Explorer 8.0 yet, do it now.

3. Keep your email password different that other important passwords. Free email services make money by showing advertisements. They want it to be easy for you to remember your passwords. So it's also easy for others to hack your email password. So use a password for your other accounts, like Progressbook, online banking, etc so that if your email is hacked, that's as far as they can go.

4. Never click the "Remember Me" box. I know it makes it easier to get in and not have to remember so many userid/passwords. But it puts a cookie on your computer with your password in it. Hackers know where to look for these things.

What am I missing? What else should we do? Have you ever gotten a virus? What was it like?

Doing Illegal Things on Internet = Jail

Here are some stories of people doing illegal things and getting trouble with the law. So be careful. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

1. The boy who hacked into Sarah Palin's email account, is looking at 2 years jail time. Yes, you can pay $100 to a Chinese company to get someone's email password. But that's like looking at someone's diary. It's just wrong.

2. There was this girl who harrassed her old boyfriend using a voice changing app for the phone, called Spoofing and got 15 months in jail. OK, it might be fun to play a prank on a friend, but this girl went overboard.

3. A college student was convicted of downloading music illegally and sentenced to 3 month jail and $5400 in fines.

Do you know of other tales-of-caution we should know about. Other things we should be careful not to do?

The World of Numbers

So it is a friday, and my class was done with their work a little early, and so they wanted to know if they could play games. Of course, I said, "No". But they could surf the net and look for interesting things to read.

Andy found this one: http://www.worldometers.info/ . It shows how numbers are increasing for things like world population, cellphones sold, gas to the end of gas, death by cancer, number of cigarettes smoked. It's mesmorizing!

What is your favorite statistic? What other quantity would you like to see monitored?

Funny Facebook Friends

I heard on the news about a pack of guerillas that has a facebook account and can be your friend. I guess the ideas is to promote understanding of these fine beasts in a fun and entertaining way. I wonder what their status updates could teach us about them.

A few months ago, I heard that Leonardo DaVince had an account. I guess "he" was posting from a daily diary that he kept in real life. What an interesting way to gain new insights into the man.

What other funny facebook friends have you heard of? Would you ever consider friending a fictional or non-human character. If so, who would you like to "converse" with?

WikiAnswers - The Rebel Wikipedia?

My students, Nick and David, were using a site called WikiAnswers that I had never seen before. It's kind of like Wikipedia, but less formal. People can ask questions and get answers. Sometimes the answers are contradictory, so be careful using them. They have not been vetted like on Wikipedia.

But I like the viral-ness of this site. It feels more like a conversation. Some questions don't have absolute answers. It depends. Like, "Which is the best cellphone to buy."

Have you ever used this site? Where did you hear about it? Are the answers usually right????

I Can Has....Money, lots of Money

The guy who brought us I Can Has Cheeseburger, a collection of cat photos with misspelled captions, is rich. Ben Huh's silly websites actually make money online. We're talking 7-figures in advertising and merchandise sales during the first six months of this year.

And he's expanding. Check out some of his other silly sites. They're called "viral blogs" because they survive on people contributing to them and talking them up to their friends. They come, they go

ROFLrazzi - Make up captions to pictures of celebrities

Totally Looks Like - Celebrity doggelgangers

There I fixed it - Botched repair jobs

Which is your favorite?

Weird Uses of Laptops

Check out this site, just for fun.

College Football Bans Technology

College football banned its fans from using technology at games. They have big contracts with ESPN who was afraid that instant tweeting, youtube videos and facebook pictures would keep others from watching the games on tv. Fans got mad, so they took it all back. Now only live streaming is banned. (Like watching some random person's hand held video, complete with all the background conversations would be preferrable to professional tv...)

Are you a fan of college football? Would you stop watching them on TV in preference of fan-based feedback?

Beyond the Mouse

Here's a really fun video of people interacting with computers other than with a mouse. They use their eyes, their arms, their speech.



Right now, it's all just for fun and for art's sake. But what kinds of things could it lead to? For example, you know how with email and text messaging and facebook, it's so hard to articulate sarcasm or excitement or disappointment? Well what if the message could express your exact feelings and not just your words? Powerful!

New Vocabulary - Jailbreak

The word "Jailbreak" is now used to refer to hackers of the Apple iPhone. It means "to hack an iPhone to install unapproved software." I gather it took only weeks to break the new iPhone 3GS, which went on sale in mid-June. Now, a hacker known as 'geohot' has release the first jailbreaking software.

So what do you do with it? OK, so you can create your own apps, you can probably "get" other apps for free, but what else? Apps are generally only a few dollars and most people only use a dozen or so. It's not like it's a big expense. What am I missing?

The thrill of the challenge....

Text a Robot

Chalkbot, is a robot project from the Lance Armstrong's Livestrong Foundation for cancer awareness. During the Tour de France, you can text the robot anything and it will write it in chalk on the road.



You simply text 'LIVESTRONG' followed by your chalk message to 36453. You will get some kind of confirmation when it's written. The idea is to honor someone who has/had cancer.

I'm sure some people will be rude, but I'm facinated with this totally open and trusting enterprise. You'll probably get some kind of advertisement about Lances charity, but we're all pretty immune to ads nowadays.

What would you have the Chalkbot write?