Teacher Tube the Tube for Education

Many schools block all content from YouTube even though there are educational resources at YouTube. A good alternative is TeacherTube. The site is about 2 years old and contains more than 26,000 educational videos.

It does not take long to sign up for a free account. Then you can watch the existing videos on various educational topics. Or you can create content of your own. This would be the time to encourage our children to become educational content producers. Again, this is another resource a parent could use with their child to supplement what is being done at school. Or a homeschooling parent could use these resources to supplement the homeschool curriculum.

Email (free mail) Faster Than Snail Mail

How many email accounts do you have? Sometimes I talk to people who give the impression that they believe they can have only one email account. I have an email account at work, I have a Gmail account, a Yahoo Mail account, an email account for my ministry, and recently I opend a Stargate SG1 email account. How many email accounts can you have? (answer)How many email accounts can you keep up with? Allow email to become another tool to help you get things done. Use it to organize your life and save money on postage. My favorite email provider is Google. They allow 2 gigabytes free for storage of your old emails. Their storage plan is called infinity +1. Creating a Gmail account is very simple. It takes less than 5 minutes. In Gmail, you can set up labels, and folders, and then create a filter that automatically labels your expected emails. The filter can keep the mail in inbox or file it immediately. Gmail controls spam very nicely but you can also create a filter to discard email that may not qualify as spam.

Email is a valuable tool. It can also be a dangerous too. It can carry viruses or worms that may damage or destroy valuable data. These worms and viruses can also affect the operation of your computer and even the network that you may be attached to. Do not open emails from people or businesses you do not know. (This is an open at your own risk kind of thing.) Do not open email attachments from people you do not know.

The more you use email, the better you will become in its use.

What's Up With The Keyboard

Did you ever accidentally bump a couple of extra keys on your keyboard, resulting in things you didn't want opening up. Those keys all have a purpose even though most of us are not acquainted with the purpose. The keys with the letter F and a number (1-12) are called function keys. A few examples are listed here.

F1 = Help
F2 = Rename selected file
F3 = Opens the file search
F11 =Full Screen Mode

There are other keyboard combinations that make things happen for you.

CTRL +Shift H =History
CTRL +Shift I =Favorites
CTRL +N =Start new browser with same web address
CTRL +P =Open print dialog box
CTRL +R =Update current web page
CTRL +W =close current window
Delete =Delete
CTRL +A =Select All
Alt +F4 = Close Active Program
Alt +TAB =Switch between the open items
CTRL +ESC =Display Start Menu
CTRL +SHIFT +ESC = Open Task Manager
Windows Logo Key = Display or hide Start Menu
Windows Key +E =Opens Windows explorer

These are a few of the keyboard shortcuts that can be useful to all of us. If you can't remember them, make a short list of the ones you would use the most. If this is something you like to use, run a search for longer lists. There are lists of shortcuts in general and there are lists of keyboard shortcuts for use in specific software (i.e. Word, Firefox, Explorer).

Let's Take A Shortcut

As computer users, the vast majority of us are newbies. We sit in awe as we watch the hands of experience move effortlessly upon the keyboard. We are amazed when shortcuts are taken in order to accomplish a task. Wouldn't it be nice to know just a few shortcuts. There are run commands that can assist in management of our time on the computer. Some of these commands can open things that we are better off leaving alone. The ability to open the registry is one excellent example of things to leave alone. There are other less harmless but helpful run commands that it wouldn't hurt you to try out. Keep what you like and forget about the rest.

To get to the run command box, click on start. When the program list opens like the one below, select run.

After you select run, a box will open like the one below. When you type a short command into the box and click OK, good things will happen.

Start with something simple. Type in calc and click OK. You will have an instant calculator. When you type in pbrush and click OK, Paint will open for you. The letters wmplayer will give you immediate access to Windows Media Player.

I have supplied a list of 14 commands below. After you are comfortable with these, you may choose to search for more. Just be cautious to not try to run complicated things that may have an effect on the operating system.

Calculator

calc

Clipboard Viewer

clipbrd

Firefox

firefox

Notepad

notepad

Volume Control

sndvol32

Internet Explorer

iexplore

Excel

excel

Powerpoint

powerpnt

Word

winword

Paint

pbrush

Windows Explorer

explorer

Windows Media Player

wmplayer

Hearts Card Game

mshearts

Spider Solitare Card Game

spider

If a program is not installed on the computer, naturally it will not open. Knowledge is power. A little more knowledge gives you a little more power over your computer.

No Floppy Drive

The floppy disk has had a shorter lifespan than LP records .(What's that?) New computers are being sold with no 3.5 floppy disk drive. What do you do? There are a couple of inexpensive options. You can purchase an external floppy drive that plugs into a USB port. That is a good way to be able to access the few floppies you have left. But we can probably expect 3.5 floppies to cease to be available someday.

The best option for dealing with this change is to purchase a USB flash drive. These drives will fit in your pocket, purse, or briefcase. I bought bracelet flash drives for my grandsons. You can get key chain, and necklace flash drives. I even saw a picture of a hamburger flash drive. You can purchase a card reader for your camera card or video card that looks like and functions like a flash drive.

Four gigabyte flash drives are selling for $10 each right now. The flash drive is a portable place to store music, videos, pictures, and even homework. A 4 gig flash drive will hold as much data as 5892 floppy disks(3.5). Imagine putting that many floppies on a necklace. The flash drive is a plug in item. It plugs into a USB (universal serial bus) port.


While plugged in it acts like any othe drive on the computer. If you open the My Computer folder, it will show up with its own drive letter. After you remove it, the drive letter disappears. When saving, click file, then select save as. Then select the correct drive letter and save. Or drag the file you want to save and drop it into the flash drive. Some computers require a special "eject" procedure for safe removal of your flash drive. If you do not follow it, you could loose data. Be sure to read and follow any instructions that come with your drive.

Once you begin to save your files on a flash drive, be very careful to not misplace it. You can loose a lot of work, photos, or other important data very easily. Backup on a permanent drive is advisable.

Free Online Media (To Educate and Entertain)

Radio, TV, and Movies have have become an integrated part of our lives. The means of delivery for all forms of media has changed dramatically over the years. We can carry music and movies in our pocket when we travel and view or listen to when we want. TV or radio were once available only from an antenna, then a cable, now can come to us on the internet via broadband, or wifi. Many of the things we view or listen to in a time schedule are available on demand from the internet. Some sites provide their own media player. Other sites allow you to use the media player of your choice. Not all media players will open all media. Make sure your players are updated.

Videolan offers VLC as an open source free for download. I have had success with VLC opening most media files even when the other players won't. You will also want to have Real Player and Window's Media Player up to date and on hand.

You can find many different genres of music on the Internet Radio stations. After you start a search your options will be great. A few that I found are listed below.

Free Internet Radio Stations:

National Public Radio

REAL Radio

Windows Media

Last FM

Weather Radio

Live 365

If you want a movie or a favorite TV show, you will also want to run a search. Some of my results are below.

Free TV and Movies Online:

PBS

HULU

TV Duck

Fancast

VEOH

TV Land

ABC

NBC

CBS

FOX

Nick

Who pays for all of this entertainment. Well the sponsors of course. Some things never change. If you don't want commercials, expect to pay.

One more very entertaining place online, full of media for our viewing is You Tube. A lot of the media is home grown. (You can produce some of your own media and post it.)But there are a lot of clips from TV and Radio of days gone by. There are also plenty of music videos. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. We will need to be careful to not play all the time. When you get on your computer, find a happy balance between work and play. Set a good example for the children.

Have I Got News For You

News and current events seem to be on everyones mind. Some newspapers find they can no longer survive financially. They are shutting down and/or going strictly online. Reading the newspaper is traditional for many. What has this to do with simplifying geekdom? If you are new to computer use or lack confidence in your skills to "surf" around, don't worry. You can become "tech savy" in this too. The search engine is your friend.

Go to your favorite search engine. (i.e Google, Yahoo, Dogpile, MSN, etc.). Run a search on news. You will come up with links for CNN, Fox News, Google News, ABC News, and Yahoo News, etc.

Next run a search for online newspapers. You will find links to newspapers worldwide. You will find pages with links to US newspapers. (LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Kalamazoo Gazette, Detroit Free Press, NY Times, Greenville Daily News, and many more)

It is possible to get RSS feeds from your favorite news sources and have those feeds brought together in an aggregator. ( for exampleGoogle Reader, and Feedreader). Once you set up a feed aggregator, you will discover there are many things more than newspapers on the web that have RSS feed. You will save a lot of time being able to go to one place to catch up with the things you want to know.

Imagine the possibilities of using this with your student (child or grandchild). Current events couldn't get any easier to find. Search for your sources, look for their RSS feeds, then begin aggregating (collecting your news).