I have been fascinated by how a small avatar seems to follow you everywhere when blog posts and comments are made anywhere on the net. After a bit of searching I found gravatar which creates avatars that follow you.
Last month, when I was attending an ICT conference, I was exposed to an online presentation software. The keynote speakers used it and it was such a refreshing way to present information. I often find that presenters use PowerPoint as it is readily available to all, but make the mistake of overloading with words. I have always thought that what gets displayed on the screen should compliment the key message. I know that I do it as well but the temptation to put every word of your presentation is far too great leading to the audience losing interest.
When the opportunity came for me to present a workshop last week I decided to jump straight in and use the new found tool. In the end I found it to be easy, fantastic as a mind map, and the links just worked. I embedded a YouTube link and it automatically plays it as a video clip. I am trying to get out of mindset of PowerPoint but I am getting there. The service is web based but the paid services can be offline which I am considering in signing up. If you don’t know about this new presenting software then head over to http://prezi.com or look below for my very first Prezi!
I get a lot of questions regarding the downloading of video clips from YouTube. There are a number of websites and applications that let you do this, however each one of them is a complicated downloading, uploading and converting steps. This process can be frustrating and time consuming. I recently found a very simple way of downloading YouTube videos.
Firstly have a read through the blog found at http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/04/download-youtube-videos-as-mp4-files.html then bookmark the Get YouTube video link into your browser. Next time you are in YouTube and want to grab that video as a MP4 file simply click on the bookmark Get YouTube video. It really is that simple.
As part of the Digital Education Revolution New South Wales project (DER NSW), the rollout out of the laptops to students has began. The Lenovo IdeaPad S10e will be issued to all Year 9 students in NSW this year. I (as a teacher) am evaluating one of the student laptops this weekend.
The first thing that I have noticed is that it is the fully activated version of Windows 7 Enterprise. There does not seem to be a lot of difference between the RC of a few months back. The DER NSW S10e have 2GB of RAM to improve the suitability of the Adobe products that come with it. There is a lag in the startup of applications but that is expected considering that it is an Atom processor. What surprised me was also the inclusion of MS ForeFront software. DET has traditional been a Symantec customer when it comes to anti virus. It is hard to tell at this moment about the effectiveness of ForeFront but with literally thousands of these Lenovos to be deployed time will tell.
All in all the initial testing seems to be a smooth OS that runs well on the Lenovo. It feels light and quick especially on the low specs of the S10e. I can only guess but it will run just as well on other desktops and laptops. I think that I would be one of the few people in the world to be using Windows 7. Let me know if you have Windows 7 and particularly when you got your hands on it and I hope that you like the screenshots 
I recently purchased a Dell Studio XPS 16 (or 1640) . My initial thought was that it resembled a MacBook Pro only in glossy black. A lovely back lit keyboard catches the eye and a noticeably clear, bright and wide HD screen embraces me as I use the laptop. Battery life is a bit a concern but at this spec and purpose will have to do.
In my work I need to connect to the work files via the Remote Desktop which is handled by the FirePass VPN gateway. One of the issues of this is that I like to have a full screen of the remote desktop and you enable it by Control + Alt + Break key combination. Well to my surprise there is no BREAK key on the Studio XPS 16. I searched high and low. Checked the manual,web site and of course google but no real answer. So how do I do a Control + Alt + Break?
EDIT: Found the solution Fn+F12 will give you a break!
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