Stephen's Untold Stories

It sounds like it’s barking.

Funny cat (Google Video)

I had a conversation today with one of my former colleagues, and she reminded me that some of my old images that were linked from PhotoBucket are no longer showing up. I did recently switch most of my photo hosting to Flickr, and I will go back and replace the old images in the next week or so.

Meanwhile, I hope you all enjoy this.

You’ve come a long way baby!

Google Demo from 1997 

(I think the graphic was done by a Chimp.)  (Not a very smart Chimp.)

This is going to go great with my Palm TX and Treo.

Watch movies on all kinds of devices including Pocket PC, Palm, Smartphone, Portable Media Center. Have fun on the go. It’s so convenient to put your favorite movie, TV show in pocket and watch them anywhere, anytime. This software provides you a easy to use interface to convert video files(wmv, rm, rmvb, avi, mpeg, mpg, Tivo2Go, etc) or DVD(*.vob) into small size portable format(avi) playable on your device. Just it with SOMPY MovieEncoder !!

Link to site

All I can say about this is a big “Wow!” Andy Carvin shows us what kind of video equipment and software he uses. He gives lots of great examples, and this is one you MUST bookmark if you have any intention of getting into video production.

Andy’s Video Blogging Equipment and Compression Techniques

We’ve been waiting on WiMax for a while now. Some schools may be about to get it.

Decades ago, the government allocated a portion of the 2.5-GHz spectrum to schools nationwide for educational television programming, but much of it hasn’t been used. In 2004, the FCC issued a proposal: Any portions of the spectrum not in use or leased by 2008 could be auctioned.

Milwaukee Public Schools–where three out of four kids get the free lunch program for low-income students–hopes to build a WiMax network by next summer to give students free Internet access. “We don’t want to lose precious bandwidth that can be used to benefit our low-income students,” says James Davis, the Milwaukee school district’s director of technology.

Link to article

I just tried this, and it works. I don’t really use my Yahoo! mail much now that I have GMail, but Yahoo! has improved its interface a great deal with this new rollout.

Get Yahoo! Mail Beta

Of course nobody shoudl be surprised by this. Please share it with your school network administrators.

Last November, Ryan, a high-school sophomore, figured out a way to outsmart the Web filters on a school PC in order to visit the off-limits MySpace.com while doing “homework” in the computer lab.

A teacher eventually spotted the social network on the screen in front of “Ryan,” a fictitious name for a real student attending school in Phoenix, Ore., a small town with a population of about 5,000. The teacher flagged the activity for the school’s technology expert, who then followed Ryan’s tracks online through the school network.

Ryan had apparently set up a so-called Web proxy from his home computer so that when he was at school, he could direct requests for banned sites like MySpace through a Web address at home, thereby tricking the school’s filter. (Web, or CGI, proxies can be Web sites or applications that allow users to access other sites through them.)

Link to article

I could see the same thing happening in many of Georgia’s backwards-thinking school districts.

Anderson County school board members voted on first reading to ban personal electronic devices like iPods from school grounds and even school buses.

Supporters of the resolution, which passed unanimously, say students walking down school halls with headphones on are a distraction and that students need to be aware of their surroundings.

Meanwhile, across the country, some educators are embracing the growing technology of small electronic devices and using them to help with instruction.

Duke University gave out iPods to incoming freshmen as welcoming gifts. At a Missouri middle school, one teacher is using podcasts — or recorded lectures– as a tool to supplement teaching. His history students can listen to study lectures by way of the podcasts.

So rather than try to examine potential positive uses of the devices, the school board just decides to ban them outright.

I’ve gotten a lot of questions lately about Bluetooth technology. I am a big fan, and I use it to sync my Palm now. Here is a great overview of this wireless technology.

Like infrared, Bluetooth is a cable replacement technology for passing information between devices. However, devices using Bluetooth do not have to be pointed at one another, the distance between devices can be much greater, the speed of transmission is much higher, and the data passed can be encrypted and secure. Despite these powerful features, the battery consumption is relatively low, and the target price per Bluetooth radio makes it possible to Bluetooth-enable virtually any type of device or peripheral.

Link to article

Okay, I’ve never really thought about living in Rhode Island before, but now it at least makes the conversation.

Rhode Island is set to become the first state with a comprehensive wireless network, starting with a pilot program slated to launch this week in Providence. The first antenna installed for the network will be at the top of Brown’s Sciences Library, one of the highest points in the Ocean State.

Use of the wireless network will probably not be free, Panoff said, though several business models are under consideration. He said the project seeks to market itself to a number of Rhode Island businesses and organizations.

The project is “targeting organizations because there are already networks that service the needs of consumers,” he said. The network will be most advantageous to “organizations whose operating footprint is most consistent with the state’s borders,” Panoff said, citing as an example the state government, especially public safety agencies, which have operations in currently disconnected areas such as lakes and rivers.

Link to article

One of their best! Joan Miro is one of my favorite artists!

The Colombine shooting is one of those things that still seems like it just happened last week. In April of 1999 I was still teaching at a high school in the Atlanta area, and it just shook us all to the core. Here is an article about some of the survivors.
Colombine Victims Still Healing

Anybody else using it? I like it so far, and I look forward to being able to sync it with my Palm at a later time.

Jimi Hendrix has always been my favorite guitarist. Here is a video of his playing acoustic guitar in a way I could only dream of.

Jimi plays “Hear My Train a Comin”

Sadly, I have to admit that there were times I felt this way during my 12 years as a classroom teacher. Thankfully I didn’t have a blog back then, or it might have sounded something like this. I must say that the good times did outweigh the bad for me, but this post from a teacher blogger brings back some memories.

My main concern is your pathetic apathy. I find it incredibly sad that you don’t do your homework. I find it even sadder that your parents defend you when I bring this to their attention. My prediction that this is what our school would come to without grades has come to fruition sooner than I expected. Middle school is going to be a cold, hard slap in the face to you and I want to be there to see it all go down. I think it’s lame that you don’t take any pride in what score you might acheive on your state tests. I feel sorry for the 3-4 kids in our class who do care because I spend all my time standing on my head to motivate the rest of the class.
So, students? We have six more weeks together. They could be fun, but I suspect you will make them otherwise. I have never seen a group quite like you. A class? Yes. But never an entire grade level. I pray that you are not foreshadowing future generations.

Read the rest here

For those of you who are ready to move beyond simple HTML for your web sites, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) might be a good next step. Here are a couple of good sites that can help you get started.

• CSS Basics
• Top 10 CSS Tutorials

I recently started reading “The Da Vinci Code,” and Leonardo has always been one of my favorite people from history.

The illegitimate son of a 25-year-old notary, Ser Piero, and a peasant girl, Caterina, Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, in Vinci, Italy, just outside Florence. His father took custody of the little fellow shortly after his birth, while his mother married someone else and moved to a neighboring town. They kept on having kids, although not with each other, and they eventually supplied him with a total of 17 half sisters and brothers.

Link to biography

I’m all for it if it helps patient care, and it looks like it does.

Brown recently joined a growing number of medical and nursing schools including the University of Michigan, University of Texas and the UCLA School of Medicine that require students to buy and use PDAs. Faculty and students say the technology saves time and helps them provide better care, in addition to reducing medical errors. Drug references and diagnostic programs can be stored on them, giving physicians information at their fingertips.

Most students use programs produced by California-based Epocrates Inc., which specializes in medical software for hand-held computers. It provides its Epocrates Rx program free of charge. The program tells students drugs’ use, generic equivalents, appropriate dosages and possible interactions or side effects.

Link to article