World Have Your Say is a call-in radio program. There’s nothing special about that. Nearly every station on the AM dial has one. The hosts talk about current events, and people can call in to give their opinions. WHYS, though, takes the idea of talk radio several steps further. First of all, it’s a global show. Originating in London, it actively seeks participation from the … Continue reading World Have Your Say

Over the last couple days, we’ve had a discussion in my department over Microsoft Office versions. We’re trying to build an image to run on old computers. We want the performance to be as good as possible, even though it’s going to be running on 6-7 year old computers with limited processing power and memory. Dan used the excellent nLite Windows Installation Customizer to weed … Continue reading In Search of Simplicity

I attended a meeting last week that wasn’t a complete waste of time. A shock, I know. Sure, it did take 45 minutes to drive the 13 miles to the meeting. It was rush hour, after all. All told, the trip took me 4 1/2 hours, which included about 2 1/2 hours of presentations. The presentations were mostly of the endless-Powerpoint-bullet variety. While they did … Continue reading The Un-Conference

A pdf version of this document is also available. What is Del.icio.us and Why Do I Care? One of the first things we learned about using the web is how to save bookmarks. You are visiting some web site, and you want to save that link so you can come back to it later. So you save it as a bookmark (or favorite), and it … Continue reading Getting Started With Del.icio.us

How’s this for a goal? Comprehensive, collaborative, ever-growing, and personalized, the Encyclopedia of Life is an ecosystem of websites that makes all key information about all life on Earth accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. All key information about all life on Earth? That’s a lot of information. There are 1.75 million documented species on Earth. So far, they have about, umm, 25 more-or-less … Continue reading Encyclopedia of Life

I just finished listening to the “Multimedia” episode of the Web EdTech Podcast. At one point in the conversation, John Rappold and company were discussing web filtering in the schools. They struggled with the question of what types of content should be blocked by the web filter, and who should be making those decisions. In most school districts, when teachers disagree with the filtering decisions, … Continue reading Making Filtering Decisions

The Recording Industry Association of America considers you a criminal. They sue people for sharing music online, sometimes using questionable legal tactics. They also consider it illegal for you to copy music from a legally-acquired CD to a computer or MP3 player. If you run a radio station, you have to pay licensing fees to play commercial music on the air. That’s a 180-degree change … Continue reading Eschew the RIAA

I’m not a bleeding edge kind of guy. I don’t generally install new software right away. I wait for the bugs to be worked out. I let a couple minor revisions go by. Then, I upgrade, but only if there’s something that the new version has that I need. So why am I so frustrated with WordPress? After all, it was less than a year … Continue reading Waiting for WordPress

It’s been a while since we have had a high-profile news story about stolen laptops. You know the story. Some company or government agency or organization had some laptops that contained social security numbers or financial records or credit card numbers or confidential medical information. These laptops were stolen or misplaced or they mysteriously disappeared. The organization notified the affected people whose data might be … Continue reading Securing Mobile Data

Monday was “Read Across America Day.” Pro-reading events took place all over the country. I participated by reading a story to a group of children in North Carolina. My children are attending a big event at Kent State tomorrow, where they’ll listen to stories, make bookmarks and other crafts, and have their pictures taken with the Cat in the Hat. Tuesday was “National Grammar Day.” … Continue reading Every Dog

In order for a technology to be successful, it has to have a killer application. There has to be something that it does that people want so badly they’re willing to go out and buy the technology just to do it. In the days of the Apple II, it was Visicalc. This concept of an electronic spreadsheet was so powerful, and it saved so much … Continue reading The Killer App

The waters are getting muddier for the little laptops as more and more companies start getting into the business. We’re still evaluating the Asus eeePC here in the district, and hope to have some decisions made about them within the next month or two. In the meantime, the competition is starting to heat up. Here’s a quick roundup. I should preface these remarks by saying … Continue reading Little Laptops