Author: kathleen

I have been wanting a small, portable computer that will allow me to internet stuff.  I have a Thinkpad but it is still a bit too big, plus it’s a school computer.  I have a Gateway, and again to big.  My phone and Nokia Internet Table are too small.

Office Depot  is selling the Acer Aspire 1 for $299.99 and so I snagged one today.  It seems to be the right size.  Something I can keep in my bag, and use my phone to connect with.  I’m going to try installing the software I can’t live without and see what happens.

Some fun things?  Live Writer comes with it.

So does a webcam, built in.   Also has Windows Movie Maker so I might be able to make a Vlog entry.

Buy.com — who I really like doing business with — had a sale on the Zune AV this weekend. Arrived today, via Fed Ed.  I decided I wanted it on the TV downstairs — gives me a place to recharge the Zune and an opportunity to watch the Zune on the big TV — besides I have a dock for the computer / TV upstairs anyway.

Also, my home theatre has been furbarred for a while — the TV output wasn’t put into the speaker system which has been a bummer for a while.

We have a cool system — speakers in the back of the living room and on the deck.  It’s really nice to go out to the hot tub and listen to the TV or stereo on the deck — we also have speakers in the back yard for the pool which is now gone.  I’ll have to see if we can still hear the speakers back there or if the wires have been chewed by nature.

House came with the speakers.

It’s actually no fun to do this by yourself, as you have to tweak a bit, in the back, go to the front to see if you are right but I eventually got it done.

Very happy, now I can rock the whole house AND yard literally.

It’s a good thing the neighbors are far away — and the speakers are closer to the street.  Yes I can hear the speakers in the back yard.

Anyone for a Guitar Hero or Rock Band party this weekend (no one under 21 allowed).

Many years ago, when my beagle Marcie was just about 5 months old, I was asked to participate in a photo shoot for a book — it produced the Essential Beagle.  Marcie was featured on 12 pages of the book.

So yesterday, I opened my electronic version of the book and used Snagit to capture the pages that Marcie are on.  It was quite easy.  I save them in .jpg format and put them on my Zune.

Yes, violating copyright, but it is only for my own gratification.  They are great pictures, and it captures a really fun day with Marcie.

Quoted from http://blog.acm.org/archives/csta/2009/03/fixing_computer.html:

Computer Science Teachers Association: Fixing Computer Science Teacher Certification

CSTA has recently published a white paper titled Ensuring Exemplary
Teaching in an Essential Discipline: Addressing the Crisis in Computer Science
Teacher Certification .

If you are considering teaching CS, an excellent read.  I found it interesting because I have met all the criteria.  Of course, they do find Texas has one of the better models for CS Teacher Certification.   I came from the work force, went back to school to get a teaching certificate and did student teaching.  The one thing I did not take then was a methodology course, though I did take one in mathematics. There was not a methodology course in CS offered in the area at the time.  I am certificed in both CS and Mathematics.

Several years after I began teaching, when we made a language change and a course change — from Computer Math to CS I (not PreAP), and from regular QBasic to Visual Basic, my district brought in a professor from UNT who taught a methodology course.  It was a lot of fun, and the class even produced a book that was available to other CS teachers.  What we did was to break down the curriculum in units and broke the class up into groups.  Each group produced curriculum materials for their unit.

I’ve since earned a Master’s Degree majoring in Computer Education and Cognitive Studies that really brought everything together for me curriculum wise.

It was nice to see that CSTA has validated my experiences becoming a teacher.

One of the reasons I wanted a Zune, is that I wanted a portable Game Development environment.  I want to be able to go on the road with a minimum of hardware for demos. The Zune is much easier to set up than the XBox.  If I demo with an Xbox, I really need two projectors, Xbox, computer and all the cables. Oh, and I can already do portable phone development of course.

However, the Thinkpad didn’t recognize the Zune.  I was getting a yellow box with exclaimation mark in the Device Manager and either a Code 18 or Code 1.  I’ve spent hours on the phone — literally — to see if I could get a solution from Microsoft and didn’t.

I’ve asked several people on Twitter and finally got an answer from @
ZuneFAQAH

The answer that worked?  Go to http://is.gd/me0Q install that program, and then install the Zune.  Pretty scary because the ThinkPad Touchpad stopped working. I had to go to the Control Panel, uninstall the Touchpad and then reinstall it.  Finding the driver was touchy, it was in c:\windows\system\drivers but now everything is working like a champ.

Man I love twitter.

Probably going to jinx everything BUT yesterday I left school with all the pressing issues completed.  There are always projects I could work on — inventory, for example. I think this is the first Friday I’ve left in that condition.

I know that the Campus Technology job is going to explode after Spring Break.  We’ve got TELPAS testing to prepare for. We’ve also got some new computers coming into the building.

I also need to come up with a good process for doing the inventory as people check out and as people check in at the beginning of the school year.

Ever since I finally went through some documentation on Office 2007 and the changes, I’ve gotten fired up again when it comes to using Techsmith’s Snag-It. Weird, isn’t it? But Snag-It uses the ribbon and now that I’ve gotten use to it, it makes editing easier.

So here’s the document I created:

Save paper and better use Groupwise

And I discovered after I created my "Don’t" artwork that they have a stamp for that.

I have no idea why they aren’t making anything similar to this anymore but….

I wore them today on the way to school, at school and again working out at home.  The sound with the Zune / Sony Transmitter is super.  Of course, I’m missing some frequencies so your mileage may vary.

The neat part is that I can pair the phone AND the Zune with the headphones, which freaked me out a few minutes ago.   I turned off the TV with the remote and at almost the same instant the headphones stopped working.  Turns out that I had received a phone call – one I really needed – and was able to answer without breaking my neck – the phone was in the kitchen in the back of the house and I’m in the gym in the front.

Okay the real reason I did this, as I am trying out a new feature in Snag It.  The form above is our “ticket” system for technical assistance requests.  This system sucks.  I forget the Room number half the time.

My savior is Snag-it is a really cool program that lets you take screen shots and edit them in really cool ways. I am slowly getting better at it.  It’s from Techsmith and worth every penny, especially at educational pricing.  And it seems they have an output built both for TypePad and for Microsoft OneNote.  I used the TypePad to do this.

Someone on twitter started a #goonline tweet where people are describing when the first went online. I twittered stuff until I realized that I really needed a blog post.

I have been teaching CS for 16 years, so you can probably imagine I’ve been involved in computer for some time.

Since I am a ham radio operator, etc. Most of my computers have been home built.

My first real computer though was a TI-84 computer (real meaning it plugged into the wall, had a monitor, could save data, etc).  Primarily because I was working for TI at the time.  My second was a TI PC, company issued.  That was when I really first went online but only to the company computers.  There wasn’t really any where else to go.

My first real online experience was Prodigy as it had a fixed price.  I couldn’t afford AOL.  Once Prodigy realized they were bleeding money, I left to be online with FIDONet and became a node on FIDONet.  I was pretty active with that group.

I had the second private internet account in the Dallas Fort Worth area with Texas Metronet.  They were the first here that allowed private accounts, not associated with a university or with a business.

Most of my computers have been home built until recent years.  Now I buy refurbished computers at Fryes, usually under $300.  My philosophy now is that cheap and more than one is better.