Browser Based Typing Tutor
It is rare to find great free online tools for teaching children, but today is your lucky day. While looking for ways to engage young children in learning to type, I found a flash based typing tutor that was actual fun to use. The good folks at BBC Schools have created Dance Mat Typing. It is full of color and fun animated characters. The only downsides to this tool is it requires internet access and does not record individual progress. If you plan on utilizing the site you should plan on remembering which lessons your student or child have already completed. That is just a small price to pay for an awesome and free educational tool.
No More Dirpy
The web service www.dirpy.com which we covered a few months ago in our article Audio Rippers & Intellectual Property is no more. It is an unfortunate end to a well designed and useful service.
Free No More: Font Capture
In a previous post I praised the online tool Font Capture. Since that post, it has changed it's name to YourFonts and it's price. The once free service now costs $9.95. Of course, for the quality and usefulness of this product the asking price is quite reasonable. It saddens me that the product is no longer free, but if you are looking for a cheap font creator, YourFonts is still one of your best options.
Do you create your own fonts? If so, what do you use? Let us know!
Audio Rippers & Intellectual Property
Ripping the audio from Youtube videos has been around for awhile. After testing one the other day it got me thinking: What is the difference between downloading a song that has a copyright from a bittorrent site and using a service to rip the same audio from a Youtube video? The answer is obvious, there is no difference. Although I do not think you should use the service I'm about to talk about to download songs with a copyright, that doesn't mean you cannot use the service to download songs which are in the public domain.
Dirpy is an impressive web based Youtube ripper. Not only can you use the service to download a video from Youtube, you can also rip the audio. What sets this service apart from similar sites is the ability to set Start/Stop times and add custom ID3 tags. ID3 tags include the title, artist, album, and track number.
Happy Anniversary Palm Pre
This is a follow up to the post found Here.
I am happy to announce that our video, "So, What Can The Palm Pre Do?", has won 3rd place in the "Best Use of webOS" category in webOSroundup's palmSpot contest. I would like to thank webOSroundup for hosting this contest and showing how great the webOS community really is. I hope you all get a chance to see all of the great entries.
Today marks the one year anniverary of the Palm Pre. I can't believe it has been a year already. The webOS community site, Precentral, has a Twitter contest. To help support webOS developers, this contest's goal is to get webOS users buying apps. The more people purchase apps, the more apps developers will make.
To support this effort, I have purchased "Poster for WordPress". This app allows you to write a blog on your phone and post it to your blog. An app that I am using to write this article.
Poster in App Catalog
Powerline Ethernet Adapter
I recently had a dilemma with my wireless network at home. Playing miltiplayer games over wifi led to sessions being dropped forcing us to use smaller maps (not as fun). I looked into a variety of solutions including upgrading to Wireless-N and laying down Ethernet Cable, both solutions didn't seem very viable living in an apartment (signal interference from other wireless routers and not being able to run Ethernet cabling in the walls). I thought for sure I was just stuck with what I had, then I came across something called a Powerline Ethernet Adapter. To put it simply, these adapters utilize preexisting powerlines that run throughout your home to be used as an extension of your LAN. Here is a simple diagram to explain.
Powerline Adapter Diagram
Although these adapters work right out of the box and utilize a default password, you should change the password to prevent being eavesdropped on by using the software provided by the manufacturer.
The adapters that I purchased run on the HomePlug AV standard are reported to reach up to 200Mbps. I, however, have yet to reach that speed due to interference with other electrical devices (my top speed has been 110Mbps). The new standard under development will approach Gigabit speeds, devices should be available next year.
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- Powerline Adaptor connected to Router
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- Powerline Adaptor connected to Desktop
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- Powerline Adapter Diagram
Checking In?
Tweeting your location and using the Social Game App Foursquare is all the rage in recent months and is quickly gaining steam. For those of you who don't know, Twitter is a social site to "Let your friends know what you're doing now." Foursquare has a similar premise; to let users "check in" to venues around there city in order to unlock badges, gain points, become "mayor" (the person that visits a certain venue the most times), and see who else is at the venue with you. These aren't meant for any malicious purposes, but for entertainment... but could it be used for something bad?
Please Rob Me
The website Please Rob Me, is intended to raise awareness about privacy. Please Rob Me is a dressed up twitter search page which searchers and displays who check's in using Foursquare. Are you giving an open invitation to be robbed? Can you trust that person you just met during the last "tweetup" you attended? Although chances are slim, sites like this demonstrate how easy it is for anyone to use the information that you post publicly to the world against you.
Free Classical Music!!!
I discovered this site sometime ago and was reminded of it while browsing through my old bookmarks. Musopen is a warehouse of free public domain classical music. After creating a free account you will be able to download a vast catalog of mp3's and sheet music. Musopen let's you browse by composer, performer, instrument, period, or form. If you do enjoy the site, I would recommend donating to the cause so they can pay for other performances to be recorded and uploaded for the use of the internet community.
Musopen Screencap
Opera Unite: Sharing Data
One of the coolest features about the new Opera Browser is it's ability to share data with other people. Opera Unite, is a way to share music, files, and even host a website from your own computer. All you need is an Opera Account, the latest build of Opera with Unite, and an internet connection. Once you setup a directory to keep your files in, Unite will create a url others can use to access your computer. You can password protect your files or share them publicly.
Check out this video from the Opera Unite Support Site to learn more:
Disable Google Buzz
After swarms of complaints about privacy issues with the release of Google Buzz last week, Google will finally let you choose if you want to be apart of the "hive". After talking with a few people, it seems as though the ability to change your settings is slowly being released (like all Google products) to it's users.
In the upper right hand corner of the Gmail web page there is a settings link. From here, you can change all your settings, now including "Buzz". From the Buzz tab, you will be able to control your follow lists, hiding Buzz in Gmail, and Disabling it completely. Below is a screen shot (in case it hasn't been rolled out to you yet). (Note: The color in the screen shot may vary from your account depending on which Theme you have installed.)
Google Buzz Settings
Featured Posts
Categories
- 3D Models (1)
- Apps (4)
- Editorial (1)
- Fail (3)
- Food (2)
- Free (19)
- Gaming (2)
- Mobile (14)
- Multimedia (15)
- Open Source (8)
- People (2)
- Polls (4)
- Transportation (4)
- Web (20)
