Want to try the Netbook experience?

1. Dig up some old PC or Laptop.
2. Download and install Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 Beta
3. Terminal: sudo apt-get install ubuntu-netbook-remix
4. Restart

Open source goodness!



Image source: Neil J. Patel's Flickr Photostream

Imagine that you and a colleague walk into your classroom or office for a short discussion. As you enter your Mac senses your presence and kicks off a series of actions.

Your Mac welcomes you back to your office, launches your email, announces the number and subject of new email messages, and then announces the current date and time and upcoming appointments.

What fun to see the expression on your supervisor's or colleague's face when they see just how organized and automated you are.

You can do this and much more with a very small donationware application called Proximity.

Read the MAKE post to find out more.

Imagine for a moment that your son or daughter will be going off to college shortly. The college sends you a letter that due to circumstances students may only be provided with ONE learning tool. ONE.

You may choose a textbook or you may choose a pen, calculator, or whatever. One tool.
What would that tool be?

I know what I would choose.

Why, then, are educational spending priorities so difficult? Why are we not providing that one tool to every school age child? At the very least to every secondary student...

Ask your school leaders the ONE tool question. I'd like to hear the response. Post it here.

Could this be the next email? Google announces Google Voice!

An when this gets integrated into Google Apps for Education, THEN will we consider migrating from our beloved Exchange server?

Here are two Firefox tips that I didn't know about. Perhaps there are other Firefox users who weren't aware of these keyboard shortcuts.

1. Zoom in and Zoom out of a page with Command-+ and Command- - (minus). Handy! Mac users enjoy zooming using the Universal Access system preference. This is done in Firefox and was new to me.

2. You can scroll down using the spacebar and scroll up with shift-spacebar. I didn't know that either.

I've been computing forever (if you ask my kids ;) ) and I still love finding new features even if they're only new to me.

I was a member of an old computer club run by a famous blogger. He used to share Macintosh "Easter eggs" in the newsletter... in the olden days!

Do you have little known browser tips? I'd love to hear 'em.

KP