Monday, April 30, 2007

Assignment #65

Screencasts

Screencasting is basically making a movie of what’s happening on your computer screen. It’s usually used for how-to videos on computing, etc.

Here’s a podcast on screencasting at SirsiDynix. It’s the 13th one down.

http://www.sirsidynixinstitute.com/archive.php

Here’s a short little screencast on screencasting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt__FskTtyE

Here’s where you can get the program Wink that you need to do a screencast

http://www.debugmode.com/wink/

Or just get it from Download.com

The program is easy and quite intuitive (and free) so just get your copy and

Play!!

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Assignment #64

My brother also gets my little emails and he had some interesting things about last Monday’s email and ALEXA:

I think alexa is a hijacker which may explain why it is so popular. It makes you an offer you can't refuse. Alexa collects information from users who have installed an "Alexa Toolbar," allowing them to provide statistics on web site traffic, as well as lists of related links.

The company offered a toolbar that gave Internet users guidance on where to go next, based on the traffic patterns of its user community. Gee, I wanted to go there but I came here. Thanks Alexa!!!!

Another concern is whether Alexa ratings are easily manipulated. Some webmasters claim that they can significantly improve the Alexa ranking of less popular sites by making them the default page, by exchanging web traffic with other webmasters, and by requiring their users to install the Alexa toolbar.

Hey alexa, thanks for changing my start up page, rerouting me to where you want me to go, and telling everyone what I am doing using the bandwidth that I am paying for.

For more see Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexa_Internet

And for your assignment

Goto http://worldatlas.com/

Click on it

Under the map of the world there’s a flag with a dragon on it--click on it.

Click on COUNTRY FLAGS

Goto –G- Guam click on it

Right click on Guam’s flag.

Save Picture as…

Play!!

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Assignment #63

Here’s a couple of interesting websites if you’re home schooling. These are sites that teach lessons through movies. The first is

http://www.teachwithmovies.org

Lots of movies here with lesson plans but not much else. A few years ago I got a yearly membership for a few bucks and my name is still on their list. Use rameyerguam with a password of asiya.

Another site is

http://www.storyofmovies.org/

They have more activities for their 3 movies (that’s right—3 whole movies) but the site is sponsored by some Hollywood biggees and does do a good job with those 3. And even though they say more movies are coming they’ve had those same 3 for at least 4 years now.

Play!!

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Assignment #62

Ok Star Trek lovers, here is Wikipedia for Trekkers.

Goto http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Portal:Main

and

Play!!

Monday, April 23, 2007

Assignment #61

This is a website that shows you the most popular web pages on the net.

Goto http://alexa.com/

Note the movers and shakers, click on TRAFFIC RANKINGS at the top.

Note the world rankings on the right.

Find the United States and click.

Check out something you’ve never heard about.

Play!!

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Assignment #60

Here’s a cool site.

Goto http://www.cnettv.com/

Click on Tips and Tricks. Watch a video or two.

Now Click on Movies and Music. Watch June Carter sing “Keep on the

Sunny Side”

Great video.

Play!!

Assignment #59

You probably ought to check this place once every couple of days. I’m not sure how much of his stuff is strictly legal but he does have some cool stuff.

Goto http://www.floodle.net/

Go down to (16 Dec 06) - CIA Book of Dirty Tricks

Click on it to check it out.

Check out whatever.

Play!!

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Assignment #58

Second Life

So I registered with Second Life last week.

http://secondlife.com/

I watched the podcast that Sirsi-Dynix has here:

http://www.sirsidynixinstitute.com/archive.php

Read both PC Magazine and Information Week’s articles from their current issues.

Watched some cool videos on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxj8RTW4ev4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=synxFmQJ_0A

Realized that I’m going need a lot of learning curve but did see some interesting potential.

But a nagging thought, since I’m doing my Near Death, Reincarnation and Other Spooky Stuff Discussion Group here at the Andersen Library, was- I wonder if WE’RE somebody else’s Second Life.

Play!!

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Assignment #57

MP3 Blogs

Here’s the wikipedia entry for MP3 blogs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3_blog

Here’s a cool example:

http://www.coverville.com/

Coverville plays covers (recordings of songs that were made popular by somebody else)

Search Coverville for covers of ABBA songs.

Here’s my favorite:

http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/

Put MP3 BLOGS into Google.

Play!!

Monday, April 16, 2007

Assignment #56

Every time I think the Internet can’t get any more fun I find some new website. Prepare to spend a couple hours exploring your favorite band on FoxyTunes Planet.

Goto http://www.foxytunes.com/planet and put in your band or artist.

Foxy Tunes is an addon to Firefox that I did download. It’s unobtrusive but I can’t really see a reason for it yet.

Play!!

Friday, April 13, 2007

Assignment #55

Here I just told you about mashups last week and I run across this today. It’s a great little tutorial on exactly how to make your own mashup with Google Maps. And it’s only 3 and a half minutes long.

http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9705175-2.html?tag=nl.e415

Play!!

Find old assignments at http://rameyerguam.blogspot.com

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Assignment #54

Here’s a useful little website if you’re writing a paper.

Goto http://ottobib.com/

Put in the ISBN number of some book and click the appropriate formatting.

Voila! You have the bibliography notation.

Play!!

Assignment #53

Goto Top Secret Recipes http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/

On the left click on RECIPES.

At the bottom of the page click on page 9

Click on KFC® Cole Slaw FREE

The two pay recipes I looked at were only $.79/ea

Play!!

Monday, April 9, 2007

Assignment #52

It was Helene Blowers who’s the Tech Director for the Charlotte NC Libraries that got me going on this little Web2.0 thingy. I heard her LEARNING 2.0 podcast on Sirsi-Dynix and thought “Hey, this could be fun.” Anyway Ms Blowers has this whole program done out for her staff that’s being copied by other groups. Here’s the variation for the California School Library Assn. http://schoollibrarylearning2.blogspot.com/

Here’s Ms. Blowers Blog which I now subscribe to

http://www.librarybytes.com/index.html

And finally, since I’ll be stealing all kinds of stuff from the LEARNING 2.0 unit, let’s just start with something quick and fun.

Goto http://www.glassgiant.com/hollywood_sign/

and put something in.

Click Make Sign.

After goto the Home Page http://www.glassgiant.com/

and

Play!! These and called online image generators.

Assignment #51

The more I’m on line, the more blogs I subscribe to. The ones that change a lot and that are basically Internet newspapers, I have on my Netvibes virtual desktop. The more personal and professional blogs I link to through Bloglines. These blogs add new items only once in a while and Bloglines only shows me the new stuff. This way I can see if anything new is on a whole bunch of sites all in one place.

Stephen Abram from SirsiDynix said on one presentation that he daily checks 500 blogs for tech news using Bloglines and it takes him about a half an hour.

Now, it’s a little querky and the interface isn’t the greatest but you’ll eventually need this.

Goto http://www.bloglines.com/

And register. When you find something you like, get the RSS feed and add it to your page.

Play!!

Friday, April 6, 2007

Assignment #50

Mashups

OK! How many of you know what a MASHUP is? A mashup is a combination of 2 or more databases to come up with – whatever. For instance a real popular mashup is to take the Google Maps database and combine it locally with houses for sale. The result is cool if the area has hi def pictures. One agent uses Google Earth to show you how to find your house from 15,000 miles in space. You can zoom right in on the house see the neighborhood, etc. Here’s one for Reno

http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Reno-Nevada/

So now put

(your home town) real estate google

into http://www.google.com/

and see what you get.

Play!!

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Assignment #49

Ok, I just learned this one. When you play a video from Youtube or someplace else, it streams the video to you. To play it a second time it doesn’t need to stream it again, it’s already on your hard drive. BUT! how do you find it?

Goto Search and look for all files that were created in the last day. Different versions of Windows have different ways of asking for your parameters.

Hit Search and you’ll get a list. Most of the files will be just a few Kb. Find the file that has about 2+ MB for every minute of video. It’ll probably be a bunch of numbers and letters. Now, if you have that Flash Video Player from Assignment #17 you’ll be able to use it by changing the file name to (something).flv (Right Click-Rename)

Go to Edit-Undo Rename if you need to later.

BUT, if you download this great media player called VLC Media Player

From http://www.download.com it’ll play it straight away.

Rename and save it if you want.

Play!!

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Assignment #48

Goto http://learner.org/

After signing up go back to View Programs and click program

Click American Cinema

Watch 1. The Hollywood Style by clicking on the

These are all those great Annenberg videos that were the best thing on PBS. You can’t watch the videos in all the programs but most of them you can. There are hundreds of hours of excellent educational videos. A few years ago that American Cinema series on VHS went for over $100 on Ebay.

You can also view some of these same videos through the Free University Project http://www.freeuniv.com/

AND

You can also get a big bunch of educational videos at

http://best.online.docus.googlepages.com/

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Assignment #47


Musicians!!

Of all the things you can find easily on the net, one thing that’s difficult

to find is sheet music. Here’s how to get some.

Goto the midi converters for Windows part of hitsquad.com

http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/win95/MIDI_CONVERTERS/

and download MidiNotate Player v1.1.1

I’m sure there must be others but I found this one pretty easily.

Install it and pop in a midi file (see assignment #22 at my blog below) and

presto-printable sheet music.

I love midi files. If any of you are doing something cool with them, let me know.

Play!!