Category Archives: technology

What Does Twitter Have To Do With Kidneys?

I admit that I am NOT in love with Twitter.  I have seen how it is handy to let a group sof interested people know something in real time all at once.  It just hasn’t been something I use very often.  I follow a couple of folks but that’s about it.  Then I read this article about a Dad in Bonham who was donating a kidney to his three year old son.  Updates were twittered from the operating room so everyone was able to keep up with the progress!

As someone who has waited through an entire transplant hearing very little until it was all over with I can tell you that it is pure agony and time seems to creep by one millisecond at a time.  What a blessing Twitter was for all the anxious friends and family!

You can see the “Twitter transcript” here and read the article here.

SHERMAN, TX -You may have heard of the website Twitter. You might even use it yourself, but on Monday, Children’s Hospital in Dallas did something that’s never been done before. They posted real-time updates of a major operation. A Bonham father and Sherman firefighter donated a kidney to his young son. Rita Kotey has the one-of-a-kind, 21st century story.

Love it!

Powerpoint 2003 – Make a Sound Play Across Slides In Ten Steps

Students frequently ask me how to insert a sound and make it play for more than one slide.  Here is how to do it in ten steps.  This assumes that you have already found a sound and saved it somewhere on your computer. This is in Office 2003

1. Navigate to the slide where you want your sound to begin playing.
2. Go to Insert>Movies and sounds>Sound from file
3. Navigate to your sound file
4. Click OK
5. Click Automatically
6. Go to Slide Show>Custom Animation (your sound file should be listed)
7. In the drop down list next to  your sound click the effect options. Play sound, Effect tab
8. Click the radio button beside stop playing after (Here there is a drop down box where you can choose the number) slides
9. In Timing tab – to play automatically you can set to start after previous with a 0 second delay
10. Go to sound settings and adjust the volume

This is cross posted at Technology For Learning

Big Bang Theory Monday and ZORK

They are playing ZORK!  On Big Bang Theory!  ZORK was the first real video game I ever played.  Dale was working on the pipeline and we were living in a 25 foot trailer in Blythe.  One of the guys had an old TRS 80 – the kind that was all one piece, monitor, keyboard, and all.  He let me use it and I filled a legal pad with notes as I worked my way through the text based adventure.  I LOVED it!  You typed in north, south, east, or west and went that direction.  It would sya something like “You are standing before a wooden door” and you would type in open the door.  There were objects to find and many of them were needed to get to othe parts of the underground empire.  You can only carry so many items at a time so you have to figure out what to carry and what to drop.  There are some “bad guys” and some dead ends so it helps to draw a map as you go along.  In this very first version of ZORK, ZORK I there are no pictures – only text.  Your imagination provides the pictures!

This is my favorite show EVER!

P.S. If you are curious there is a java version of the game that you can play online ZORK

Have fun 🙂

Now You’re Cooking!

There is an interesting take on tutorials from Guy Kawaski (and a recipe and demonstration for making his world famous Teriyaki sauce)  It is worth the visit just for that! Show how to do something in about two minutes!

His cooking demonstration is an episode at StartCooking.com There are plenty of videos as well as recipes in text form.  I don’t know about you but there are plenty of times I have read a recipe and felt a little nervous about parts of it.  A demonstration would have been great!  Now you can have one and you can even subscribe in your feed reader or through iTunes and for those of you that do not like rss, you can subscribe to the email updates.

There are other resources as well, including reference charts for safe cooking temperatures, conversion and measurement charts, explanations on equipment and how to use it, and general how-tos for anything and everything around the kitchen.  I’ll be sending the link for this to number one son!

This will go great with my new ab lounger 🙂

Six Degrees of Separation

Wikipedia defines Six degrees of Separation

(also referred to as the “Human Web”) refers to the idea that, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is on average six steps away from each person on Earth. It was popularised by a play written by John Guare.

A few days ago I joined a group on FaceBook started by people who went to my high school in Michigan.  Today I got a friend request from Lori who is the sister of someone I went to school with.  She lives in Jacksonville Florida (which happens to be where one of my brothers lives) and has a bar there.

I found a name (Patrick) on her friends list that turned out to be the son of someone I hung out with when we were barely past being toddlers.  Both our parents and grandparents lived on the same dead end street and we made our little trek over the course of the day stopping at each house for cookies.  By the time we got back to the first place quite a bit of time had passed so we would get cookies again.  It worked well for us so we kept it up until the silly grownups talked and figured our little plan out!

Patrick’s older brother is Lori’s nephew. I haven’t talked to my brother yet (I have to actually call him since he isn’t on the internet as much as I am) but it wouldn’t surprise me to find he has been to Lori’s bar or at least knows of it.

I haven’t been back to Michigan in nearly thirty years and don’t know when and if I will ever get back so these were connections that would never have happened if I hadn’t been on FaceBook.

It used to be that if you wanted to get together with friends you had to physically get in your car and all drive somewhere.  Now I see my kids texting on their phone while chatting online and checking email all at the same time.  The connections are different than face to face.  I still miss the nuances of tone of voice and facial expression which are the things that give us emotional cues and smiley faces while helpful do not really replace those things.  The upside is that there is time to think about what you are going to say and you can always back up and delete and edit before you hit the send button.  In real life I tend to say too many words and not say enough about what I’m really thinking.

Will relationships in the future change because of this way that we communicate now?  In the last few months many of my friends have appeared on FaceBook.  This used to be the almost exclusive venue of the younger crowd but there are a lot of us  more “mature” folks showing up.  There are groups for everything you can think of and places like FaceBook give us a place to “play” without clogging up our inboxes.  It also becomes a tool for communicating with groups and I can already see several of my groups overlapping with others.

The world becomes smaller in some ways but if we can connect so easily on the net, will face to face connections happen less?  When I was growing up my mother communicated with her family through letters on a regular basis and the rare phone call. We alternated years visiting. Gas prices and phone bills dictated how often and in what way you connected.  With the present economy concerns, will sites like FaceBook and Twitter become the new letter?  Instead of traveling to visit, will we meet as a group online?  We already have the capability to video chat and most computers now come with webcams.  We can easily create online presentations with pics of the kids and create an audio file to go along with it so grandparents can see and hear the grandkids.

Interesting things to think about.  Do you think we are more or less connected to people because of the internet?  Do you have a special way you connect using the internet? Has FaceBook ever surprised you?

“A Daily Diary of Depression-Era Life, Told On Twitter”

I Twitter.  I admit it.  But I follow more than I actually tweet.  For those of you who have not been exposed to Twitter it is called a microblogging service.  You can post up to 140 characters.  You can follow other people who twitter so whenever they update their status you will see the post on your twitter homepage.  You can also set up your account so that you can update your status from your cell phone and you can also get updates from others you follow on your cell phone.  Useful and kind of fun but it just seems like one more thing to check and update online.  I don’t know about you, but my email/facebook/twitter/rss reader gets out of hand rapidly.

I recently found something to follow that gave me a glimpse of a different way to use Twitter.  Here is a link to the original site and if you twitter you can choose to follow.

The Social Path

Late last year, my family found a line-a-day diary maintained by my great-aunt from 1937 to 1941. She was in her early teens, living on a small farm in rural Illinois with her two brothers, one of which was my grandfather.

It’s a fascinating account of life in a bygone era, a time when my family’s only connections to the world were schoolhouse chatter and a neighbor’s radio.

Looking at the terse journal, my sister quipped, “This is the Twitter of the 1930s.” We glanced at each other and almost immediately began planning the Twitter account that would become Twitter.com/Genny_Spencer.

If you have run across any other diaries of this sort I would love to hear about it.  I can see this being a great creative venue as well.  Could a “diary” be created as a sort of stream of thoughts of a made of character?

If you are not into writing longer blog posts this might be a blogging outlet for you.  Have you run across creative uses for Twitter? Can you come up with some new  Twitter ideas?

Beginning To Use iPhoto

To import pictures from your camera – open iPhoto.  Plug your camera in using the usb cable or using a card reader – plug your memory card in.
Open iPhoto, click file < Import pictures

Your pictures will all be in the iPhoto library – all your pictures.  One way I have seen this described is that iPhoto is a database of all your pictures.

iphotolibrary

Let’s look at Events and Albums.

Every time you import a picture from your camera or through drag and drop, iPhoto creates an event.  It’s iPhoto’s way of automatically organizing your photos according to the date they are added.  So an Event in iPhoto is just an instance of adding photos, whether it is one photo or fifty.

Albums are YOUR way of organizing your photos according to ways that make sense to you.

A photo can only be in one event because it can only be uploaded one time.

A photo can be in as many albums as you want because it doesn’t really physically move the photo – it just is a way of saying that you want to view all photos that fit this criteria you have set.

Lets use Christmas as an example.  Maybe you have taken pictures for ten years at christmas.  You have ten Christmas picture events because each Christmas you took pictures and each time you took those pictures you uploaded them to iPhoto,

Now at the end of those ten years, you want to see just the pictures of little Susie at Christmas so you can see how she has grown.

You create an album called Christmas Susie.  To create that album you just click File < New Album and give it a name. You will now see it in the list of folders on the left sidebar.

Now all you have to do is click on Library < Photos and drag the photos you want to see when you click that album and drag them in it.  You haven’t actually moved any photos.  You can still click on Library < Photos and see all of them.  But if you click on the album you will ONLY see the pictures you added to it.

If you want to make iPhoto actually work FOR you, you can create something called a “smart” album.  Just like creating an album you go to file < new album.  This time, choose smart album (give it a name) and a new box will pop up letting you choose criteria for what goes into the album.  If you want to specify more, just click the plus sign and you will get another box to add more criteria. From now on, any picture that fits that criteria will automatically be placed into that album for you by iPhoto.

You can customize your bottom toolbar a bit to fit your needs.  To do this, click view up at the top and select “show in toolbar”.  Whatever you check will show.  You can change this at any time.

Now if you want to create a cd of some photos you can select the album you have created and click burn in the bottom toolbar making sure there is a cd in the drive.

I hope this helps you get started organizing your pictures with iPhoto.

David Merrill: Siftables, the toy blocks that think

I seem to be on a toy kick but these are just the coolest things.  I would love to play.  If you haven’t discovered Ted Talks you may be in for a treat.

From their website:

“TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. More than 200 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted. ”

You can subscribe through your feed reader or just check out the site from time to time.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/

“MIT grad student David Merrill demos Siftables — cookie-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too. Is this the next thing in hands-on learning?
About David Merrill

David Merrill works on Siftables, tiny computer blocks that interact with each other to make networks (and music).”

http://www.ted.com/talk/david_merrill_demos_siftables_the_smart_blocks.html

I Want To Be a Kid Again!

Just for the toys – ok, forget the kids.  I may have to buy one of these for myself. They are just too cute!

crayolamp3player

“The Crayola MP3 Player is designed for children 4 and older and has a fun lozenge-shaped control panel with five large differently colored buttons for each function. The MP3 player also features a built-in voice recorder and speaker, for more interactive play. It holds 2GB of music and comes with earbuds as well as colorful letter stickers enabling kids to affix their names to the unit. The player runs on one AAA battery (not included) and can be plugged into the Crayola AM/FM Alarm Clock Radio dock.”

They aren’t out yet and are supposed to run about $49.00.  I can see a whole class of first graders, wearing their little earbuds, and listening to their teacher podcast.  I love these!

Using Google Earth to Drive Your Lessons to Victory Lane TCEA09 Notes

Susan Anderson and Jim Holland Arlington isd
http://googleearthlessons.wetpaint.com
www.curriculummagic.com

the students would have two kmz files and a powerpoint
there would already be some basic prerequisite skills
lesson called Lost
geographic labeling of the earth
based on reinforcing that skill
a little on time zones

an alien has landed on earth and really doesn’t know where they are but will give you as the students, clues to help discover their location

this lesson probably targets 4th or 5th grade

TEKS come from grades 2,3 and 5

technical difficulties – they are trying to get to google earth

they have folded cards with abcd and yes, no, false, true for the “student” participants to hold up to answer questions (this would be great with writeon wipe off boards too

Asking geography questions as students hold up answer cards about hemisphere and latitude, longitude

Showing Australia – this country is not A continent, B Country, C island, D isthmus
Teacher asks why this place is not

What line of longitude is opposite of the international dateline a equator, b rime meridian, c tropic of cancer, and d tropic of capricorn

when it is summer in the western hemisphere, it is winter in the eastern hemisphere true/false

In order to navigate around the earth I can grab it with the hand or double click on the earth and it will turn. zoom in, push it around with the hand, use the rotaion
can turn off automatic tilt while zooming if you like

version 5 released Sunday

to add a placemark
click on pushpin choose add placemark
give it a name and type info into description
now if you click on the placemark the info in the description will be displayed
you can change the icon from the yellow placemark
right click on placemark to edit it choose properties
add custom icons – any jpg pr gif
right click and save place as
native extension is kmz so it will be whatever name you gave it.kmz
kmz files are very small so easy to share

all about me in the handout is a great way to intro google earth

a teaching tip with google earth – have students turn their mouse upside down (it’s hard to sneak quietly

around the world are placemarks – many with question marks

eliminate placemarks that do not have alien clues
rightclick and turn off
so now only placemarks you need to see will be displayed

Lost has a list of cities in one column and the other column is for students to write why that city was eliminated

eg if a clue said it’s a place where penguins live then you might want to eliminate Mexico city

first one done together for guided practice

first slide
students will double click on the Lost kmz file which will automatically launch google earth for you

Hi my name is Nan I’m from the planet ning I think I’m lost can you help. I’ve got a few clues to help – I am not on an island

you can password protect a ppt file
save, choose where and under tools on 07 and 03 – choose general options on 07 security options makes you enter a password
his would be useful for a ppt you want students to use so they couldn’t modify it
password can be needed to open or just to modify

can go to view menu and choose grid to see the gridlines

online tools available on their wiki
online stopwatch – you can give students specific amount of time for an activity
www.online-stopwatch.com
can be embedded into a blog or wiki

ctrl mouse properties
pointer options
show location of mouse pointer when I press the control key

also on the wiki is the random name picker (or random vocab word
classtools
random name/word picker

kml files – things like timezones can be contained in kml files
you can turn on and turn off some of these overlays if you only want it on long enough to do a task
some of the overlays make it hard to see anything else.

At this point I had to move on to the next session but most of what you would need is on their wiki

Gatekeeper, Tear Down Those Walls! TCEA09 Notes

Mr. Gatekeeper, Tear Down Those Walls!
Mary Bell
Sam Houston State University
http://forwhomthebelltold.pbwiki.com/
filtering
librarians and tech specialists need to be working together
Introduced Nancy Pearl librarian action filter
the original person one book one city
has amazing shush ability
cipa
children should be protected from pornography
does not say we should have any reflection of political views
or that students should be denied the right to search independently
high interest like games and sports – cipa does not say block or shopping
does not say teachers should be blocked from things administrators might not want them to do
passing the law was contingent upon ready and simple override capability

Survey using listserves and twitter
over 400 participates broken down by states
79 % understand web 2.0
aware of web 2.0 resources being used 59%
satisfied with access to internet and web 2.0 39%
some of the problems people comments about were bandwidth issues

Block using specific word lists
true 73%

reasons for blocking and filtering
student safety 81%
ebsco and other databases somethings blocked true 28%
filters apply equally to all levels true (and teachers
Who can override – IT most common answer
Reading blogs at school – 52% but the people who don’t know number has grown
create and particpate in blogs 38%
students and faculty having access to wikis
encouraged to use wikis 39%
access to social bookmarking 31%
access to wikipedia 97%
students are often discouraged even though they have access
google docs 63%  don’t know 36%
Blocked search tools – images
youtube not blocked 52%
Course management systems 38% used
students have access to email
access to second life at school
access to educational game sites allowed
acceptable use policy up to date and addresses web 2.0
true 27% false 49% no idea 24%
district admin are tech savvy and encourage tech and web 2.0
trues 31%
http://hweimar.wikispaces.com
http://forwhomthebelltold.pbwiki.com/

Addendum

Mary Bell was king enough to send me a link to information about CIPA so if you are interested in finding out more about what this law says you will find what you need here:

http://www.ala.org/aaslTemplate.cfm?Section=cipaandschoollib

Race Into Production TCEA09 Notes

Race Into Production
Jodi Andoe and Abby Rogers PISD
http://t4.jordandistirct.org/payattention
www whatever whenever wherever
teachers moving from dog and pony show to full fledged three ring circus with the teacher – not as the main act, but as the ringmaster
kids love to be center stage
ipods cameras phones
friend or foe?
combining what students have and what teachers have and making it work in the classroom
combine student interests and content for curriculum
provide students with info on available tools for multimedia
student engagement
reflection for deep learning
project based learning
effective integration of technology into instruction
differentiated instruction
centers, tiered lesson plans
advances photography and multimedia all the way down to basic ppt
works with all levels
critical thinking skills
technology TEKS
engages students
their minds wrapped around out content in a way they want to think about it
improved test scores
letting the students touch the learning
gather ideas – don’t re-invent the wheel
take tried and true projects and add a multimedia option to it
determine student needs and find their resources and skills
set timetable for completion
gather resources and hardware
what do you get when you mix CSCOPE Performance indicator’
students had a psp player, iPod, science closet, audacity, photostory movie maker and wax – made a rap video on global warming

used rubric that was in cscope and applied to multimedia project
what is the concept you want them to learn
rubric attributes
point of view
content
resources
curriculum alignment
organization
student cooperation
camera and images
titles and credits
sound
language
pacing and narrative
transitions and effects

make sure criteria is set beforehand and use the ribric
should be expressed in terms of observable product characteristics
scoring rubrics should be written in specific and clear language
statement of criteria must be fair and free from bias

green screen – green sheet from walmart taped to classroom wall
let kids teach you

audacity, wax 2.0 blender freeplaymusic photostory animoto
wax works with moviemaker and others
freeplaymusic – if burned to dvd becomes a copyright issue
animoto free 30 second video creation – can subscribe 19.00 year and get longer time and more options
handout includes cheatsheet of useful web 2.0 sites and free or opensource software

handouts will be available later on the TCEA site – I will post the link when it becomes available

Writing Safari TCEA09 Notes

writing safari TCEA09
Paula Alsup and Missi Downs
PISD

journey through the development of ten narrative compositions
all 4th grade students divided into groups circulate through the stations reviewing traits of well written writing compositions
technology used to record and save the group responses, select possible topics, survey attitudes about writing and extend writing activities
ten compositions well written goal

prep survey
groups
itinerary
teachers and assistants
lunch and recess
logistics
survey monkey
list of prompts students enjoy writing about
students take survey while rotating

eg imagine you were invisible for one day – write a story about that day

gives them some ownership

also survey of student attitudes – do they think they are a good writer
most difficult part
how they feel when asked to write a story
anonymous except for by homeroom – collects data

redo survey after TAKS to see if attitude changed

Import student and teacher names from winschool – number off student into random groups

use find and replace to convert numbers to team names (eg Galloping Gazelles)
have teachers check for discipline problems that fell together (head off possible problems)
inclusion students in one group so assistant can go with them (without grouping together they found it was problematic for the assistants to jump from group to group

Printed itinerary – group names, times, destinations
printed out badges and the groups even eat lunch together

pulled in volunteers from other grades and some parents
assistants can be anybody to run a document camera, type and save to the network

teachers use a powerpoint to review traits
assistants manage the technology
homeroom teachers distribute the group assignments
campus tech – ensure all technology in place and working

tshirts and pith helmets from oriental trading for teachers and assistants
principal does a kick off so the kids know this is important enough to the principal to give up a day of instruction

1 laptop connects to doc camera and data projector
word ppt and thinking map software
may use poster for prewriting
extension cords and powerstrips
folders on network for each group and folder with writing components ppt so all can access
copy of ppt on desktop of teacher computer for faster access

homeroom teachers have a 1 hour block to do lunch and recess
students attend rotation during regular time
may need to adjust time for lunch for available cafeteria space

writing ppt
written by writing teachers and tech specialist
include district curriculum terminology and thinking maps
saved to the server

The Elephant Walk – Planning
reading prompt
brainstorm real imaginary pretend
use a bubble map
prompt in the middle
magnify
Intro and beginnings
who when where
the teachers get to move through the different pieces with each new group instead of having to teach the same thing over and over all day

Organization and transitions (Zebra Zone)

transitions phases

a couple of paragraphs of story

Voice – what is it?
fingerprint of the paper
create a movie in the readers mind
students are getting to hear things from other teachers
dead words

A cheetah conclusion
ending – draws all the story together, resolves conflicts
what did you learn from story
what do you hope or wish for because of events in the story
Lets write!
the last group – the teachers will have worked with the students writing 5 stories

all ten stories are printed out and each student will have a copy, students journal or blog about their experience
survey monkey
students use rubric to score each groups compositions, identify strengths and areas that need improvement
students write an independent narrative using strategies and ideas they have learned during safari

Everything is on their webpage – all handouts, ppts
http://paulaalsup.blogspot.com/

Randomly Speaking Excel TCEA09 Notes

There was so much so fast here but she does have the links to the instructions on her website at http://www.karenferrell.net/TCEA

This was all about using the randbetween function in excel to generate random numbers in a range you designate to create flashcards, graphs, ordered pairs and more.  She shows you how to use autoshapes and this function to create dice.  I will play with this some more but wanted to get the link posted.  Excel rocks!

Dare to Use Audacity TCEA Session 2 Notes

http://sites.google.com/site/daretouseaudacity/
Resources and Links all on their google site Yay!
Audacity is opensource – free – links are on their google page for downloading
Make sure you download the lame encoder so you can export as mp3s

Classroom uses (they showed several examples)
Book talks
Substitute Instructions
Speech Pathology
Create Interviews (you can do it yourself and use audacity to change one voice so it sounds like two people – historical character. book character etc)
(files can be brought into movie maker and powerpoint
record reading a textbook for student
record students reading aloud so they can hear themselves
audio book reports
book promo for library

Headphones with mics attached helped to record without picking up background noise

Sound resource freeplaymusic

demonstrated creating three tracks – two had the music and stepped down and then back up and the “speaking” track was placed so that it fell between the steps so you had music introducing, then speech, then music for the ending
Can edit out words (uh, and like)

Can add words

Audacity saves the file as a .au (this is where all the behind the scene stuff happens – do not touch this file and you can edit it later)

When complete you have to export as an mp3 or wav file

resulting mp3 can be used as background audio, podcast, embedded in a blog, imported into powerpoint or moviemaker

Technology Staff Development Strategies TCEA09

Session One Notes

Technology Staff Development Strategies
Kaye Moore Hurst Euless Bedford ISD (HEB)
What they did – went from Windows 98 and Office 2000 to xp and office 2007 over the summer

Discussed the usual closed doors of staff dev
Time, schedules, childcare, reluctance to use personal time, facilily usage and software problems

Unlocking the doors

Went from face to face to techno tv
Borrowed a dedicated channel that was not being used
Instructional video each week plays all the time so teacher can access whenever
They do have “best of” weeks
Fun project weeks (before Christmas they showed teachers how to create a calendar or personalized notepads (use glue you buy and apply at the top of the pages to create notepad?)
At strategic times the broadcast can be gradebook instructions

Videos created using Camtasia

Also utilize a departmental website with instructional docs available to download – no login or password needed so things like gradebook are NOT found here

They also have HEBonline (blackboard) with online courses and curriculum info.  Constantly being updated.

Software central where manuals can be downloaded

They do an end of year video and instruction sheets for backing up to server

Podcasts and Vodcasts – ability to blog /wiki, or subscribe in itunes

Create a plan
do preliminary training with key people – instructional and support
Timeline for installation – support
timeline for training – instructional
timeline for implementation

They outsourced the training for their key people
Then, key instructional staff dev in house
Key instructional staff to use model that has been created and adjusted to train staff

Trained admin staff first

Information blitz entire district – IT staff provide 15 minute overview for every staff. vodcast available

Summer Training

Result of all this – fewer calls for help,
Requests for upgraded training

Used PDSA model
Plan Do Study Act
Plan – analyze
Did training using small steps to start controlled environment
Analyzed – what worked, what didn’t, revised and adjusted or standardized process
Check, Study results
Get buy in

Surfing and Reading Shares

There are blogs that I read on a regular basis and then there are articles I read just because the title catches my attention and I just have to click to see what it’s about.  Here are some that caught my interest tonight:

“Screw Flowers–You Need Cheesecake!”

What a great idea.  When friends are going through something rough, why not send cheesecake intead of flowers.  I love it!
Silver-lined Excrement
I wasn’t sure I wanted to look.  Turns out she has an elderly dog who is losing control of his er…bodily functions.  Her dad reflects on the silver lining (it wasn’t HIS poop).  Guess you’ll just have to read it.

10 Sure-Fire Ways to Be a Complete Failure At Everything
Ya, like I need directions for THAT???  What a surprise – I have 7 through 10 down pat!
Please Speak Clearly, Lord, I Have Children.
Self-explanatory
We Live in Public (and the end of empathy)

This one is thought provoking.  I have been thinking about it since I read it and while I think that we do tend to depersonalize on the internet, I have to wonder how much of that is caused by being online and how much is just an online reflection of our society.  I see some mean-ness but I tend to associate (online and off) with people that I have things in common with and for the most part they are NOT mean.  So which way does the mirror point?  I think personally I am more careful about what I say online than I am in face-to-face conversations instead of the other way around.

While I was wandering I ran across these two sites that I thought were cool – for kids a new search engine that utilizes Google’s safe search to “eliminate inappropriate material” : http://www.kidrex.org/

The next one is one I will use a lot – http://fatburgr.com/

When you go to a restaurant, do you know the nutritional content of what you’re ordering? We didn’t either. Fatburgr gives you nutritional information from your favorite restaurants.

I’ll have to walk a lot to undo the damage my supper did – 740 calories and 72 carbs and it was small!! Yikes!

Burn Audio CDs Using iTunes

Burning An Audio CD Using Your Mac

My last Mac post I talked about how I am not fond of iTunes.  That said, one thing that iTunes does nicely is burn your MP3 files to an audio CD that you can play in any CD player.

The first thing you need to do is create a Playlist. To do this either press the Command key and N or go to file and click New Playlist.  Give it a name so you will remember what it is.

Click on the Music icon under library in the sidebar to see all your music.  Put a check in the little boxes to the left of each song you want to include in your playlist.  Keep in mind that a CD will hold about 74 minutes of music.  You will see approximate times of each song to the right of the song name.  Average is about 18-19 songs, but you can add those minutes up to be sure you don’t have too many songs for your CD, then delete or add as needed.

When you have your Playlist created, select it and place a check next to each song if they are not already checked.  Insert blank CD in the drive. Right click (control-click) on the playlist title and select Burn Playlist to Disc. A Menu box will pop up. Make sure Audio CD and Use Sound Check are selected.  The other defaults should be fine.  Sound Check will adjust the volume so that all your songs play at the same volume level.

Click Burn and wait – iTunes will beep when it is complete.  That’s all there is to it 🙂

Also posted at PHS Computer Project Lab