Wednesday, June 29, 2011

What Do You Love?

Google has a new tool out that is not yet widely know called What Do You Love available at http://www.wdyl.com

This new sites lets you do a really comprehensive search on topics.  Results are then returned for images, videos, maps, and most of the other Google tools.

Looking for information on Cats on Google?  A search on WDYL returns a quick overview of Google's tools on the subject:



So check it out on What Do You Love!


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Sunday, June 12, 2011

Google's Les Paul Doodle is Here to Stay!

This week Google celebrated the life of legendary guitarist and inventor Les Paul with a very cool Google Doodle.

The playable and recordable doodle was put up for Paul's birthday on Thursday, June 9th.  And held over by popular demand to Friday.

But it now has a permanent home at http://www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html

So rock on all you Google fans, Rock On!

For those who missed the very playable Google Pacman Doodle, it's also still available at   http://www.google.com/pacman/

And for a list of all Google Doodles, click HERE.


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Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Now You Can Dial

[Cross-posted from http://www.DailyDross.com .  Here's an old-school OneCoolTip on how to dial a phone from the good folks at AT&T!]

You think it's tough teaching your parents how to use the Internet?  Think about how hard they had it when they had to learn to dial a telephone!

This AT&T video from the 50s shows how to dial a phone.

Hey's, it's tough to do!

So let's practice:
  • Be sure of the right number
  • Wait for the dial tone
  • Refer to the number while dialing
  • Turn the dial until the finger hits the finger stop
  • Avoid confusing the letter "O" with the number "0"
  • The difference between ringing and busy signals



Source: AT&T Tech Channel


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Sunday, June 5, 2011

World Class Education Online at the Khan Academy

For all of our advancements in technology, education has changed very little in the past 100 years.

Kids go to school, listen to their teachers then come home to struggle doing their assignments using only their memory, text books and maybe good notes to guide them.

Don't even ask a parent to help.

But what if there was another way?

Not to replace the role of teachers, but to help students understand subjects from world-class experts in the materials.

It's already here.

The Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization created in 2006, by Salman Khan.

It's mission is "providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere".

The website supplies a free online collection of more than 2,300 video tutorials stored on YouTube teaching mathematics, history, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and economics.

In this ideal new world, students watch the videos and then use the in class time to work with others, collaborating with each other and their teachers.

And anytime they need to get a refresher on the subject, a short video will guide their way.

Each video tutorial is about 10 minutes long.  Why 10 minutes?  Because that's the limit YouTube placed on the original videos.  But after posting, Khan has learned that a 10 minute video is the right amount of time to understand a topic.

To browse the library of video lectures, click HERE

As a sample, here is an example of Sal explaining simple equations.







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Saturday, June 4, 2011

Create a Word Cloud with Wordle

Wordle: Gettysburg AddressPerhaps you've seen a "Word Cloud" before but didn't know how to make one.

Use Wordle to do it, http://www.wordle.net/

You can add text (perhaps copied and pasted from a web page or text document) or add a URL to let Wordle create your word cloud.

After it is created, you can format and even save to the public directory.


As an example, this word cloud is Abraham Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address shown as a Wordle Word Cloud.





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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Extend Your iPhone’s Battery Life

Update 6/20/15 - a few new tips now at
- How To Extend Your Smart Phone Battery Life

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Low Battery.

It's a common warning for iPhone users.

Is it because the battery is terrible or because iPhone users really, really use their phones more than other devices?

It's the latter.

The Apple iPhone.  It is the most amazing phone ever.  And that means that users use the phone for voice, text, and a wide range of computing uses.

And these activities all drain the battery.

So what can you do?

Here are my favorite two tips for extending battery life on the iPhone.

First, be sure to keep your iPhone out of the sun or other hot place like your car or the glove box.  Heat will significantly degrade your iPhone's batter life.

Second, close any app that you are not using.   While multitasking can be useful, it can drain your battery.  Double click on the home button and then press and hold on the multitasking app icons.  Then click the "x" to close them.

Other things you can do to extend battery life:
  • You should also keep your iPhone upgraded to the latest software available for your phone.  Apple engineers often include such mundane things as extending battery life in upgrades.
  • Minimize use of location services: Applications that use location services such as Maps may reduce battery life. To disable location services, go to Settings > General > Location Services.
  • Turn off push notifications.  Many apps use the Push Notification service to alert you of new data. To disable push notifications, go to Settings > Notifications and set Notifications to Off. 
  • Fetch data less often.  The more often email is fetched, your battery may drain quicker. To fetch new data manually, from the Home screen choose Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data and tap Manually. 
  • Turn off Wi-Fi: If you rarely use Wi-Fi, you can turn it off to save power. Go to Settings > Wi-Fi and set Wi-Fi to Off. 
  • Turn off Bluetooth: If you rarely use a Bluetooth headset or car kit, you can turn off Bluetooth to save power. Go to Settings > General > Bluetooth and set Bluetooth to Off.
  • Use Airplane Mode in low- or no-coverage areas.  You won't be able to make or receive phone calls.  To turn on Airplane Mode, go to Settings and set Airplane Mode to On.
  • Adjust brightness. Dimming the screen is another way to extend battery life. Go to Settings > Brightness and drag the slider to the left to lower the default screen brightness. 
Finally, it's often useful to have power chargers wherever you are.  Having your phone fully charged makes your iPhone experience a bright one!

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Playing it Safe on Facebook

With so many people on facebook, hackers and spammers are having a field day spreading their mischief among the world's largest social networking site.

Most often users may see that a friend's account is posting unusual messages.

Don't click that link!  Or your account may suffer the same fate.

But if this happens, here is what facebook says you should do:

 If your account has been taken over and used to send spam, you should follow these steps immediately:
  • If you can’t reset your password because the email address you use to log in has changed, or if your account has been disabled, visit our help page.
  • Make sure you have up-to-date security software on your computer, run a scan, and remove any malicious files. If you don’t do this, and your computer is infected, your account may be taken over again. If you don’t yet have protection for your computer, you can download a complimentary six-month subscription of McAfee security software. Learn more on the Software tab.

If a friend’s account has been taken over and used to send spam, you should follow these steps immediately:

  • Tell your friend to check out this Page and follow the steps above.
  • Warn those who received the spam not to click on it, and to delete it from their Walls and Inboxes.

In addition, here are a few more tips to keep in mind.
  • Don't click on unusual links, even if posted by one of your friends.
  • Use the "mark as spam" button to remove a post and mark it as potential spam post. Click the "x" after a post to access the "mark as spam" option.
  • Don't download applications that you are not sure about.
  • If you think your account has been hacked, go to www.facebook.com/hacked to alert facebook and lockdown your account.



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