Category: General Technology

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“What will you miss about newspapers?”

Posted on By Tom 3 Comments on “What will you miss about newspapers?”
Entertainment, General Technology, Internet

A recent post on BoingBoing.net posed this question by linking to a post from Seth Grodin with a more extensive analysis.    Both posts presuppose the demise of printed news.  True, newsprint is obselete when compared to online resources, but is it really on its deathbed? There have been some local signs.  The Greenville Cageliner has … Read More ““What will you miss about newspapers?”” »

Document Sharing with Scribd.com

Posted on By Tom No Comments on Document Sharing with Scribd.com
EdTech, General Technology

Keeping up with other education blogs often leads me to some cool new tools. Such was the case with Scribd.com. Scribd is a document sharing site that allows you to upload documents from multiple formats, then converts them into iPaper documents so that they can be viewable on the web. These documents are similar to … Read More “Document Sharing with Scribd.com” »

Classroom Swiss Knife

Posted on By Tom 1 Comment on Classroom Swiss Knife
EdTech, Gear, General Technology

Imagine an ultra-portable hand held device for the classroom that could do all of the following: take digital pictures record digital video record digital audio (for podcasting, etc.) ability to upload images and media to a variety of websites act as a media player for MP3 files and video e-mail collaboration calculator organizer/calendar type text … Read More “Classroom Swiss Knife” »

The End of an Era

Posted on By Tom No Comments on The End of an Era
General Technology, Internet

Last night I finally pulled the plug on our old AOL account.  It had served us well for over twelve years, but it was time to part company.  When we got DSL in our current house about six years ago we had scaled back to just the bare minimum AOL service, just in case of emergency or if we found ourselves in a hotel without Internet access.  Now I’m not sure we even own a computer with a modem to even access the service, so it just didn’t make sense anymore.  With Blackberries and smart phones, we can have access even when wifi isn’t available.  I plan to take what we’re saving in monthly fees for AOL and use them for expanded web access plans on our phones.

To be honest, I had completely forgotten that we still had an AOL account.  That’s how little I had paid attention to it.  AOL certainly didn’t make it easy to find a way to cancel the service.  With the dial-up interface no longer an option, and I had to go to their website and spend some time searching, but I finally found it.  As I pulled the plug on the service last night, I began to reflect on my online history, not just with AOL, but with other service I have used.

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Embeddable Google Books

Posted on By Tom No Comments on Embeddable Google Books
General Technology, Internet

From Lifehacker.com I stumbled across this post on the Google Operating System Blog about a method of embedding Google Books into blogs and web pages… Google made it easy to embed in a site any book available at Google Book Search. You can add a fully-functional widget using this code: <script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://books.google.com/books/previewlib.js”></script> <script type=”text/javascript”> … Read More “Embeddable Google Books” »

Working with Google Calendar

Posted on By Tom No Comments on Working with Google Calendar
General Technology, Internet

Fall is particularly busy for Laura and me. Between Furman football, concerts, reunions, birthdays, and festivals our weekends get pretty crazy. Our old strategy to bring some semblance of order was to jot down our various events on a calendar in our kitchen – functional, but not useful if I’m someplace other than our kitchen … Read More “Working with Google Calendar” »

A Cautionary Technology Tale

Posted on By Tom 2 Comments on A Cautionary Technology Tale
EdTech, General Technology

This is an absolutely true story which took place last Thursday, June 26. The names have NOT been changed to protect the innocent because we enjoy giving Noel Kane-Maguire grief about this. Every summer the Furman Chemistry Department hosts a corporate luncheon to show appreciation for the sponsors of their summer research program. Professor Noel … Read More “A Cautionary Technology Tale” »

Twelve Must-Have Software Tools

Posted on By Tom No Comments on Twelve Must-Have Software Tools
Gear, General Technology, Internet

Every now and then I’ll post a link to a cool new product that I think has promise, such as Jott or Jing. I got to thinking about how many of these I actually use, and which ones just seem cool at the time. I decided to make a list of my must-have software tools. These are the ones I use most on a day-to-day basis.
Some of these tools have been around for awhile and have gotten lots of press, and some are fairly new. I guess I tend to take for granted that everyone knows about Audacity and Firefox, but some may not have. So, some of these on this list will be ones that I’ve discussed at length, and some are those have just glossed over.

Anyone who’s followed this blog knows my hobbies – photography, anything dealing with maps and GPS, computer geekery, music and multimedia design. These tools tend to line up with those interests. What’s not on the list are tools which only function as file readers – Adobe Acrobat Reader and Flash Player, for example. They need to actually do something. Some are for productivity, and some are just for fun. I’ve also left off purely online applications, such as Bloglines, as useful as this might be. All these tools are geared toward the Windows environment (sorry, Mac and Linux folks), however some are cross-platform. I’ve also left off any shareware/crippleware tools with the possible exception of EasyGPS – all are free.

So, without further delay, and in no particular order, here’s my list…

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