Adding a site to Google

Inclusion in Google's search results is free and easy; you don't even need to submit your site to Google. Google is a fully automated search engine that uses software known as "spiders" to crawl the web on a regular basis and find sites to add to our index. In fact, the vast majority of sites listed in our results aren't manually submitted for inclusion, but found and added automatically when our spiders crawl the web.
However, if your site offers specialized products, content, or services (for example, video content, local business info, or product listings), you can reach out to the world by distributing it on Google Web Search. For more information, visit Google Content Central.
To determine whether your site is currently included in Google's index, do a site: search for your site's URL. For example, a search for [ site:google.com ] returns the following results: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agoogle.com .
Although Google crawls billions of pages, it's inevitable that some sites will be missed. When our spiders miss a site, it's frequently for one of the following reasons:

• The site isn't well connected through multiple links from other sites on the web.
• The site launched after Google's most recent crawl was completed.
• The design of the site makes it difficult for Google to effectively crawl its content.
• The site was temporarily unavailable when we tried to crawl it or we received an error when we tried to crawl it. You can use Google Webmaster Tools to see if we received errors when trying to crawl your site.

Our intent is to represent the content of the internet fairly and accurately. To help make this goal a reality, we offer guidelines as well as tips for building a crawler-friendly site. While there's no guarantee that our spiders will find a particular site, following these guidelines should increase your site's chances of showing up in our search results.
Consider creating and submitting a detailed Sitemap of your pages. Sitemaps are an easy way for you to submit all your URLs to the Google index and get detailed reports about the visibility of your pages on Google. With Sitemaps, you can automatically keep us informed of all of your current pages and any updates you make to those pages. Please note that submitting a Sitemap doesn't guarantee that all pages of your site will be crawled or included in our search results.

How to Keep Computer Secure & Safe on the Internet

We All know, The Internet is defiantly one of the greatest inventions of modern times. There is a lot to see on the Web. To keep computer secure on the internet, the most important way, you should master is, to get yourself educated and be smart about where you visit and what link you click on.

Here’s a list of actions under this step that you should NOT do:

1: Do not Ever open A attachments from stranger. This is 1 of the most effective ways for viruses to infect you. If you can’t define the user, then simply delete it.
2: Never open an attachment that is a .exe, .bat, SCR .pif, .com ,etc unless you specifically know the file is clean. The majority of these are always bad!
3. Stay Away From warez sites/ Crack sites!
4. Use Spam & Anti Virus Protection. Always Update The database or application moduls.
5.Turn The firewall ON

How to Make Money From a Free iPhone Application

If you look in the app store you will find tons of free apps. Some may think that free apps are a waste of time but I assure you they can definitely lead to financial success with your other apps.

Use this price point when you are trying to:

- Build your app development portfolio.
If your just starting out in iPhone development, this would be a great way to showcase your skills and let others know that you are fully capable of developing quality iPhone applications.

- Release a trial version which could lead to paid version sales.
This can be extremely effective for cheap games, that have addictive properties. If you let people get a taste of your app and they enjoy it, it is very common for them to want more and be than happy to purchase the full paid version.

- Supporting another product.
If you sell a service and want to offer additional ways to use that product. Building a free iPhone app is a great way to increase customer usage.

- Generating a base for future sales conversion.
The more people use your apps, they more likely they are going to buy one in the future.

- Use it for advertising
This can be extremely lucrative if your app is downloaded enough. There are also a lot of services available now that makes advertising in your app easier than ever.

Free apps are definitely capable of generating income, you just need to know when to use them.

Backup Your Photos Online & Preserve Memories Forever

What’s the first thing that you do when you are back from a vacation or from a family wedding? You probably connect the digital camera to your computer and transfer the photographs (a better word would be "memories") from the camera to your hard-drive.

You’ve following this routine for quite some time and, as a result, a few hundred thousand photographs reside on your computer now neatly tagged and arranged in folders. But wait, do you have a backup plan for these "priceless" digital photos?

How to Backup your Digital Photos

There are basically four ways by which you can backup your photos at home:

1. Backup your photos on CDs and DVDs – This is a cheap and easy option but please remember that disks have a finite shelf life so pictures that you burn today on to a DVD disk may not be accessible after few years.

2. Use an external hard drive – You can get a portable 500 GB drive for less than $100, they connect to your computer via USB (or Firewire) ports but again, you can’t expect an external hard drive to last forever.

3. Use Network Storage – If you have pictures across multiple computers, you can use a network attached storage (NAS) device like HP’s MediaSmart Home Server* or Apple’s Time Capsule to automatically backup all your digital content in one place.

The HP device can transfer files to Amazon S3 so you have an added layer of protection.

4. Use an online backup services – You can use photo-sharing websites (like Flickr) or an online backup service (like Mozy) to put your photos on to the "cloud" and access them from any other computer.

For most users, the best option for preserving digital photographs is often "online backup" because it doesn’t require you to burn DVDs (which are unreliable anyway), you don’t have to invest in any new hardware and your photos are likely to last forever as long as you pay the yearly bills.

Online Backup for your Digital Photos

There are again four different routes for online backup:

# 1. Online backup services like Mozy that offer unlimited storage and allow not just photographs but files of all types.

# 2. Photo-sharing services like Flickr or Picasa Web Albums that allow you to store both photographs and video clips online.

# 3. File-synchronization services like Dropbox, SugarSync or Windows Live Mesh.

# 4. Online storage services like Amazon S3 or Windows Live SkyDrive.

What should you use? 

Well, photo-sharing sites allow you to visually browse pictures in the web browser itself while a backup service like Mozy will first require you to download the photos on to the computer before you can show them to your visiting grand-parents.

File-synchronization services like Live Mesh not only provide online backup but they also save a copy of your digital files (pictures in this case) on to your other computers so even if your main hard-drive suffers a crash, you can quickly retrieve files from the other computers.

The Cost of Online Storage for Digital Photos

If you only have a few hundred photos on your computer that occupy anywhere between 1-2 GB of storage space, you can enjoy any of above backup services for free but if your storage requirements are slightly more, you probably need to for a paid version.

Now here’s a visual graph that compares the storage cost of various online backup services where you can safely store your priceless photos.

Flickr Pro costs around $25 an year and you can store unlimited number of pictures here though the maximum size of individual pictures should not exceed 20 MB (bad for professional photographs who shoot in RAW – see comments).
Picasa Web Albums on the other hand lets you purchase storage on-demand so you only pay $5 per year for 20 GB of online storage but end-up paying $100 for 400 GB of storage. Like Flickr, images uploaded to Picasa Web Albums can be no larger than 20MB and are restricted to 50 megapixels or less.
Live Skydrive is the best online storage service – it offers 25 GB of free space (50 MB limit for individual files) and that should be enough for most home users. You can upload picture libraries from your desktop to Windows Live SkyDrive using the free Windows Live Photo Gallery client though it’s only available for Windows.
Online backup services like Mozy cost around $60 per year respectively but here you get unlimited storage, your files are automatically backed up  (in the background) and there are no restrictions on file-size.
SmugMug, another popular photo-sharing site, offers a service called SmugVault that uses Amazon S3 to backup your photos, videos and all other file-types that you can imagine. They have a relaxed 600 MB per file limit and you pay the normal Amazon S3 rent for files that are not photos.
Amazon S3, where you pay only for what you use, is very reliable (their SLA promises 99.9% uptime) turns out to be very expensive if your yearly storage requirement exceeds 10 GB.

Here’s another representation of the same graph – Yearly costs (in $) vs. storage offered (in GB).
Windows Live SkyDrive offers 25 GB of online storage space for your pictures for free though there’s no option to purchase extra storage. In paid services, Google’s Picasa offers the best value for money if your photo collection can fit in 20 GB else a Flickr Pro account probably makes more sense.

Picasa desktop software makes it easy for you to upload and download photos from Picasa Web Albums. Flickr provides an uploading utility but you need to rely on a third-party hacks to download the original (full-resolution) albums from Flickr.

Download Free Books for your Kindle Reader

The Amazon store now has more than 360,000 books that you can download and read on your Kindle e-book reader.

Read Kindle Books without the Kindle Reader

If you don’t have the Kindle device, you can still enjoy any of these Kindle books on your Windows computer using the free Kindle for PC application. Amazon is also working on a Mac version of Kindle Desktop but until that happens, you can download the free Kindle app from iTunes store and read books on the move using your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Find and Download Free Books for Kindle

While most eBooks available on the Amazon Kindle store are paid, here are some simple ways by which you can find and download free books for reading on your Kindle Reader or your Kindle Desktop application.

# 1. Google Books on your Kindle

Project Gutenberg, Google Books and FeedBooks are some popular sites that offer a large collection of public domain books in the standard ePUB format.

The Kindle for PC application cannot read ePUB files directly but you can use the excellent Stanza program (from Amazon itself) to convert these public domain books from .epub into .mobi format that you can then import into Kindle Desktop for reading*. That means you now have millions of out-of-copyright books for your Kindle for free.

You can also use Stanza to convert PDFs, HTML web pages and other Office documents into .mobi format for reading inside the Kindle App but I see little reason why would anyone want to do so since the reading experience is not all that great.

# 2. Find Free Kindle Books on Amazon.com

Before your proceed, please log-in to your Amazon account, choose “Manage your Kindle” and change the country associated with your Kindle account to “United States”. This is important because most “free” content on the Kindle Bookstore is currently restricted to North America.

OK, now let’s explore ways to find free Kindle books:

#  2.1 Big Deals – This is more of an official listing of Kindle books that are currently available as a free download on Amazon.com to Kindle users. You should also check the Bestsellers category on Kindle Store as it again lists quite a good number of free titles.

#  2.2 Sort by Price – When you search for a Kindle book (or any other item) on Amazon.com, it displays search results by relevance.

If you change this default sort order from “Relevance” to “Price: Low to High”, you’ll get a list of all Kindle books that match your search keywords and are available as a free download. For instance, here’s a list of Kindle books that are related to “India” but cost exactly $0.00.

# 2.3 Listmania - This is another resource where you can discover Kindle books that are available for free.
Listmania Lists are basically a list of products compiled by Amazon users. You can use search phrases like “free kindle books”, “kindle freebie”, “penny kindle book”, etc. to discover lists that may free books you are looking for. For instance, here’s one Listmania List of 27 classic books for Kindle that are absolutely free and here’s another one that also includes copyrighted books.

# 2.4 Use Google – Here’s an unofficial method to help you find Kindle books that are available for free on Amazon.com.

You can use the following search query in Google to search the Amazon store for free Kindle books – just replace the search-phrase in green with the name of the book, author, book category, etc.

intitle:kindle site:amazon.com "you save * (100%)" search-phrase

For instance, here’s a list of free Kindle books related to Abraham Lincoln while here’s a list of Kindle books on Shakespeare that are again free.

Note: Kindle Pricing for International users 

If the cost of a Kindle book is mentioned as $0.00 on the Amazon Store, it will still show up as $2.00 for you if the country associated with your Kindle is something other than United States. This is because Amazon charges a $2 roaming fee for “international downloads”.

You can either temporarily change your Kindle country to US or use the “Transfer via Computer” option when buying a book and you won’t be charged that extra $2 fees. Thanks Dhamini Ratnam.

Feeds Recommended by Google Reader now available inside FeedDemon

If you are subscribed to "n" number of blogs inside Google Reader (or FeedDemon) but have the time to consume more content, Google Reader offers an interesting feature for you called Recommended Feeds.

It works something like this. Google Reader looks at all the feeds that are you currently subscribed to and then, like any other music recommendation service, it generates a list of new feeds that may be worth adding to your reading list.

It does this by comparing your interests with the feeds of other Google Reader users similar to you. If you are someone like me who prefers reading feeds inside FeedDemon (for various reasons), the good news is that you can now get these "recommendations" directly inside FeedDemon without having to visit your Google Reader page.

Nick has released a new build of FeedDemon that includes this useful feature (among other performance enhancements I guess). You can select Reports -> Recommendations under the "View" menu of FeedDemon to see the full list of feeds that have recommended by Google Reader for you.

You can subscribe to any of these feeds directly inside FeedDemon or dismiss a recommendation by clicking the "not interested" link and it will be subsequently removed from FeedDemon and Google Reader queue as well.

Watch 4 Days of TED India in 4 Minutes Video

Shruti Rajkumar of CNBC-TV18 has done a nice video recap of the TED India conference that happened in Mysore earlier this month. Do hit the HQ button inside the YouTube player for better quality video.
The (official) video recordings of TED India sessions aren’t available yet (except that of Pranav Mistry) but you can subscribe to this page and get notified as soon as new TED videos are posted online.
You should also check the lively TED India photoset on Flickr that has captured nearly every amazing moment of TED.

How to Connect Two Computers Without a Router

Let’s assume you have two computers at home and you want to connect them together so that you can easily share an internet connection between the two machines or transfer photos, music and other files from one computer to another. How do you do this?

Connect Two Computers Directly

There are two options – you can either buy a router or, if you are looking for something more simple and don’t want to spend money on new networking hardware, you can connect the two computers using a commonly-available cable. The latter method doesn’t involve any complicated network settings and you will still be able to share files, internet connection, and even printers between computers.

Things you need:
To set up this basic wired home network, all you need is an inexpensive Ethernet crossover cable and the other requirement is that network cards* (also known as LAN or Ethernet cards) should be installed on each of you computers.

This should not be an issue because network cards are available on most newer machines by default but if you are working with a very old computer, you can either attach an internal LAN card to your computer’s motherboard or go for a USB Network adapter that will turn a USB port into an Ethernet (RJ45) port.

An Ethernet crossover cable looks like a standard Ethernet cable but the internal wiring is a little different. You can purchase crossover cables at Amazon.com or from your local computer store. If you have trouble finding them, you can purchase an inexpensive crossover adaptor and that will let you use any standard Ethernet cable as a crossover cable.

Connect Computers with an Ethernet Crossover Cable

Before connecting the two computers with a physical cable, make sure that both machine are using the same workgroup*. Here is step-by-step guide that explains how you can change the workgroup of your computers.
Changing workgroup in Windows XP – From the Start menu, right-click “My Computer.” Select Properties in the drop-down menu, and then select the second tab that says “Computer Name” from the System Properties window. Now click the “Change…” button, enter a unique Workgroup name and reboot your computer.

Changing workgroup in Windows 7 or Vista – Open the Control Panel, type “Workgroup” in the search box, and select the entry that says “Change Workgroup Name.” Click the “Change…” button, enter a Workgroup name and restart the computer. Windows 7 users can skip one step; simply type “Workgroup” in the search box in the start menu, and select the first entry, then proceed as above.

   

Now that the workgroups are same for both computers, connect the two computers together using the Ethernet crossover cable. Simply plug-in one end of the crossover cable into the network adapter of Computer A and connect the other end of the cable to the network adapter of Computer B.
Windows will automatically recognize the new network, and you can now easily view files and folder that the other computer has shared. Simply open Networks from the Start Menu (or the Control Panel), and you should see the other computer by its name. You can then browse any shared files on the other computer, and can even utilize shared printers.

Troubleshooting – If you do not see the other computer under Networks, you probably have a prompt at the top of your Network window saying that Network discovery is turned off (screenshots below). Select “Turn on Network Discovery and File Sharing.”  In the next prompt, select “No, make the network I am connected to a private network.”  Now you should see the other computer on the home network.

While it is possible to share files between two computers connected with a crossover cable without making them part of the same workgroup, the method will only work if both computers have this network set as a private network, and may still cause problems. It is therefore advisable to have both computers on the same workgroup before sharing files and printers.

Share an Internet Connection Between Two Computers

There are scenarios where you may want to share the same internet connection between two computers. For instance:

Situation A - You have setup a Wi-Fi network at home but your old desktop computer doesn’t have a wireless network card. In that case, you can use the laptop to connect to the internet wirelessly and then share that same connection with the desktop over a crossover Ethernet cable.

Situation B – You have a netbook with a built-in cellular data connection. You can share that connection with any another computer at home through the crossover Ethernet cable.

Situation C – You use a (slow) Wireless USB modem with your laptop computer while your desktop is connected to an ADSL Broadband line and there’s no router at home. For any bandwidth intensive tasks, like when you want to backup photos from your laptop to an online service, you can connect the laptop to the desktop and things will happen much faster.

OK, let’s look at the steps required for sharing an Internet connection.
First, if you only wish to share internet connection and not files, both computers need not belong to the same workgroup. All you need to do is to connect the two computers with the Ethernet crossover cable, and then turn on Internet connection sharing in the computer that already has an Internet connection. The instructions vary for different versions of Windows:

For Windows XP – Select “Network and Internet Connections” from the Control Panel and click “Network Connections.”

 

Right-click on the network connection you wish to share (the one connected to the internet), select Properties, click on the “Advanced” tab, and then check the box that says “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection.”  Click OK, and the second computer that you have connected to this computer with the Crossover Cable should have internet access now.

For Windows 7 and Vista – Open Control Panel, enter “network connections” in the search box on the top right and select “View Network Connections.”

Right-click on the network connection you wish to share (this must be the one connected to the internet) and select Properties. Select the "Sharing" tab and then check the option that says “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection.” Click OK, and the other computer you have connected to this Windows 7 or Vista computer should have internet access now.

What’s New Inside Microsoft Office 2010

The first public beta of Microsoft Office 2010 (v. 14.0.4536.1000) is now available for download on both MSDN and Technet.

If you are not a subscriber, don’t hit the torrents yet because Microsoft may announce the general availability of Office 2010 beta sometime today itself. Update: You can download Office 2010 now.

Microsoft Office 2010 – What’s New

Here’s a quick visual guide to some of the new features of Microsoft Office 2010 that you’re likely to find useful once you get access to the software.

# 1. Save Office Documents to the Cloud

With Microsoft Office 2010, you can directly upload documents to your Windows Live SkyDrive account and access them from any other computer.

SkyDrive provides 25 GB of free online storage and, since the service is integrated with Office Web Apps, you can view and edit these documents anywhere in the web browser without requiring Microsoft Office (even on a Mac).

 

#  2. Embed Web Videos in your Presentations

With Office 2010, you can easily embed video clips from the Internet into your PowerPoint presentations just the way you embed Flash videos in regular web pages. Just copy the embed code from YouTube (or any other video sharing site) and paste it anywhere on the slide.

 

# 3. Quick Steps in Outlook

Gmail includes a useful feature called Send and Archive that performs multiple tasks. When you click this button, it will first send the reply and then archives the thread with one click.

With the new Quick Steps feature in Outlook, you can create a sequence of commands (Send & Archive is just one example) and apply them to any Outlook item with a click. For instance, here’s a quick step for “Send and Delete” which would delete the email from your inbox after you’ve replied.

 

#  4. Built-in PDF Writer

All Office 2010 programs include a built-in PDF writer to help you save documents into the PDF format with a click. Earlier, you had to download an add-on separately but now PDF support is native.

 

# 5. Document printing made simple!

With Office 2010, Microsoft has completely revamped the print dialog and it’s a tremendous improvement. For instance, you can tweak printer settings (like page margins, etc.) and preview the changes side-by-side.

 

# 6. Broadcast Slideshows within PowerPoint

This is probably my favorite new feature of PowerPoint 2010. You can deliver live presentations over the web from within PowerPoint and anyone in the world can view your presentation using a web browser. It just works.

 

# 7. Video Editing meets PowerPoint

Do you want to trim some parts of a video clip before using it in your presentation? Or do you want to apply professional styles to a video (like reflection coupled with 3D rotation) so that your audience stay glued longer? Well, that’s easy because PowerPoint 2010 now includes some very powerful video editing features.

 

# 8. Distribute your slides as video

PowerPoint 2010 can convert your presentation into a video file that you may upload on to YouTube or distribute on a portable media player like the iPod. The video conversion happens in the background so you can continue using PowerPoint while the video is being created.

 

# 9. Built-in Screen Capture

All Office 2010 programs now include a screen clipping utility to help you quickly capture any area of the desktop screen. The tool will automatically take screenshots of all open applications on your desktop (that are not in minimized state) and you can insert them directly into your document or presentation.

 

# 10. Outlook gets social

When you open an email message inside Outlook 2010, it will show you related information such as email attachments, pictures, meeting requests and all previous email messages that you may have exchanged with that person (something like Xobni).

There’s a green add button that lets you “add that person to your online social networks from Outlook” but the service isn’t live yet. Until then, you can use these add-ons to make your Outlook more social.

Important: Before installing Office 2010
1. If you are installing Office 2010 beta for the first time, the default settings will upgrade your existing copy of Microsoft Office. You can however customize this setting and install Office 2010 alongside an older version of Office.

2. If you already have Office 2010 Technical Preview on your computer, make sure you completely uninstall this edition before attempting to installing Office 14 beta. In case you still have trouble installing Office, use the cleanup utility to remove all traces of the previous version of Office from your system.

Download Microsoft Office 2010 Beta

You’ve seen all the new features of Office 2010 and now its time to try them on your own computer.
The first public beta of Microsoft Office 2010 is now available as a free download on microsoft.com/office. And other then Office, you can also download Visio 2010 beta and Project 2010 beta for your Windows computer.

This is the Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 edition so you get to experience Publisher and Infopath 2010 as well in addition to the regular Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook applications.
The Office installer weighs around 700 MB in size but you need around 3 GB of free space on your hard drive for the installation.

You can either upgrade your current version of Microsoft Office to Office 2010 Beta or select the Customize option during installation and set your current version of Microsoft Office to coexist with Office 2010 Beta.
All products require online activation after installation. In case of Office 2010, you can enter the serial number inside Word 2010 and it will automatically activate all other Office applications. Project and Visio will require separate activation since they use a different set of keys.

The beta version of Office 2010 will expire in October 2010. And other than English, Office 2010 is available for download in Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.

An Image Editor and Screen Capturing Tool for your USB Drive

PicPick is an useful Windows utility that includes a decent screen capture program, a Paint like image editing software and a whiteboard tool to help you draw freehand on the desktop using your mouse (handy when you are giving presentations).

During screen capture, you can select the "Capture Window Control" mode and capture objects that extend multiple screens (like a long Word document or a lengthy web page). And like SnagIt, PicPick can send screenshot images directly to another programs after capture or it can automatically upload them to an FTP server.

Portable Image Editor

The image editor included with PicPick sports an Office 2007/2010 like ribbon interface and supports tabs so you can edit multiple screenshot images / photographs from the same window.

If you are a web designer, you can use the built-in crosshair tool to determine the coordinates of any point on the desktop screen or for capturing the exact dimensions of an object (in pixels).

And since the software doesn’t require installation, you can put it on a USB drive and use it on any computer.

Write Your Own eBooks in the Browser with Acrobat.com

If you looking for an online service that will let you write and publish your own ebook in a format that is compatible with most ebook readers (including Sony Reader, Nook and Amazon’s Kindle), check out Adobe Buzzword at the new Acrobat.com.

Adobe Buzzword, if you are new, is an online word processor (like Google Docs but "more beautiful") that you may use to create and edit documents in any web browser. The service supports collaborative editing so multiple authors can work simultaneously on the same document from their respective location.

Now if you are looking to write an ebook in the browser, Buzzword can be a great choice as the service can export documents directly as EPUB files, a format that is supported by all popular ebook readers including apps like Stanza that let you read ebook on a mobile. Simply compose a document inside Buzzword, export it as an ePUB file and then import it in your ebook reader.

Other than creating new ebooks from scratch, you may also use the Buzzword application to convert your existing Word (.doc and .doc), or Open Office (.odt) documents into the ePUB format without requiring any desktop applications.

Today's Webspiration Training

Today I was called into a Middle School to do some training with teachers on Inspiration to help support a student with writing and reading comprehension difficulties. Last year I had done a comprehensive assistive technology evaluation and had made the recommendation to the Child Study Team that the student would benefit greatly from using Inspiration on a computer as a pre-writing strategy and to help him to better understand and retain information. When I went into the school today I decided to take a little different tact and worked with the teachers on getting them comfortable with Webspiration. Since all of the teachers did not have Inspiration installed on thier laptops I figured why not try Webspiration a tool that they could use not only with this student but with the entire class. There are lots of advantages to using Webspiration if you are teacher, most notably, you can access your graphic organizers from any computer connected to the internet and you can jointly share your webs and templates with others.

During this short session we were able to create a graphic organizer on the "scientific method" as well as add graphics from the library. We also had a chance to add notes and to look at some of the templates that come with Webspiration. The "aha" moment didn't come until I showed them how they could share their files with others. Within minutes teachers were collaborating with one another and could see just how easy it was for them to share their graphic organizers with the identified student who would need this to support his learning. It was a rell eye opener for them to also learn that the student could then access these files and open them with Inspiraiton 8 which he has installed on his laptop computer.

I had a chance to work directly with the student and showed him how to access these shared files that some of his teachers had shared with him in Webspiration. He quickly grasped how to use Webspiration and was taught how to download the files he needed so that he could use some of the other supports that were only found in Inspiration 8, Text to Speech, and the Word Guide. Using the Listen Tool the student was able to click on any symbol on the screen to hear the text being read. Likewise I also showed him how to turn on the Talking Interface which would then allow him to have the computer read the definitions in the Word Guide.

Glance to the Rescue

While I have used Glance in the past to do webinars and to do screen sharing, I have never had the opportunity until yesterday to use it to remotely control someone's computer. One of my students called me on my cell phone and shared with me that she was having trouble doing APA formatting in Microsoft Word. I suggested that we do a session using Glance and that I would take control of her computer. I quickly shot off an email with the log-on link to her colelege email address and within seconds we were up and running. I was able to take control of her PC and show her how to use the Reference Tools within Microsoft Office 2007 to create her citations and bibliogrpahy. My student, to say the least was fascinated by the support and my ability to remotely take control of her computer. The whole support call lasted about 10 minutes but after we were through we resolved all of her technical issues and she was then able to focus on her Action Research Project. Having tools like Glance at your disposal was a god send.

Creating Interactive Handouts with Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended

Earlier this week I spoke about how you could easily create printed handouts from your Captivate 4 projects. While this is certainly an added benefit and a good approach when you are doing workshops-wouldn't it be even better if you could show your participants how to accomplish the skill in an interactive handout. Why not take the printed handout an add a video demonstration to it to make it even more engaging for your learners. If you have Adobe Acrobat Pro9 Extended it is easy to add a video to your Microsoft Word document and then convert it to a PDF file and distribute it electronically.

In this example I created my video demonstration using Captivate 4 and embedded the SWF file directly into Microsoft Word handout from the Adobe Acrobat Tab within Microsoft Word. Once I have slected the SWF file I can set the Poster view for the video that the user will see when they open up the handout. Because I am creating a PDF file I can be confident that the end user will be able to view the contents of the PDF with nothing else but the free version of Adobe Reader 9.1. Using this technique is a great way to explain and demonstrate to your participants how to accomplish a task on the computer. You now have the best of both worlds- you can print out your handouts or electronically distribute them with embedded videos. Either way I'm sure your workshop participants will appreciate your efforts, having the various level of supports available to them during and after your workshop. If you need a place to host your PDF you should take a look at Acrobat.com a free way to upload your PDF and share them.

New Livescribe Pulse Smartpens Announced

Inc. announced the expansion of its line-up of award-winning Pulse smartpens, a computer in a pen that digitally captures and syncs handwriting and audio together. Customers can now select a 4GB and 2GB model in a new, stylish titanium color. The 4GB model holds more than 400 hours of recorded audio and provides ample storage for consumers to add applications such as, entertainment, education and productivity tools to their smartpen when Livescribe launches its Application Store later this year. The 4GB Pulse smartpen has a retail price of $199.95 and the 2GB model is $169.95.

Also, released today is the Pro-Pack bundle, a new option for the business professional. The Pro-Pack includes the 4GB Pulse smartpen in an exclusive black color, an A5 size starter notebook, a premium leather carrying case, handwriting to text transcription software, and the new Pro Charging Cradle. This special bundle is initially available at Livescribe.com for $249.95. The Pro Charging Cradle has a stylish ink-well design and charges Pulse from an electrical outlet or computer.

To meet growing demand and provide greater purchase accessibility, Pulse can be found at several new retail outlets, including Best Buy, select Apple stores nationally and Apple.com. Starting in mid-November, the Pulse smartpen will be available at Staples stores nationwide. Pulse continues to be available at Target and Amazon.com.

“We are thrilled to have broadened not only our product line, but also our retail distribution to reach people wherever they shop for electronics. We know that many people like to see things in person before purchase and our new retail relationships with Best Buy, Apple and Staples will help demonstrate how Pulse can positively impact their lives professionally, academically and personally by never missing a word,” said Livescribe CMO Byron Connell.

Best Buy Palms Off Used Laptop As New

A San Francisco Bay Area resident received a surprise when she opened her brand new laptop that she purchased from Best Buy. The laptop was used, and full of someone else's files.

It was Nancy Hole's first Laptop. Her niece, Maureen O' Rourke took her to Best Buy and helped with the purchase. However, when they unboxed the laptop, there were a lot of things missing. No documentation, discs, or anything. And upon booting up the system, they noticed there were photos and other things on the laptop dated Aug. 9th, a month before Hole made her purchase.

Worse, rather than taking the laptop back, Best Buy offered them a $50 gift card for her "inconvenience." Hole had to go to a local consumer action service via her local TV station to get what she should have gotten in the first place: a new laptop.

Interestingly, Hole had the Geek Squad set up the PC. For what? A boxed laptop needs to be turned on and a few things filled out. At any rate, with the help of the consumer watchdog, Hole was refunded the Geek Squad charge and also was given another $130 for her inconvenience.

What is most surprising is that Best Buy had to be "convinced" to give Hole a new laptop. Still, it's a warning: don't assume what you buy as new is really new.

Clickfree Transformer Cable Backup Solution

If you have worked with computers for any length of time you know just how important the data that lives on our computers are to us. From our music, to photographs to financial data we all rely on those files being there when we boot up our computers. So the question is, "When was the last time you backed up your computer?" You see it is not a question if your hard disk will fail but a question as to when will it fail. While we go our merry way thinking that our computers will work as they should, there will come a time when you boot up and you get the dreaded error message that your computer will not start up. If a technician can't get the system up an running you will be faced with the option of having to reformat your hard drive and lose all of you files. Wouldn't it be nice if you had prepared for this event and had a backup that you could access to restore all of your data files.? I know the answer to this question, and have been working with a number of products from Clickfree to see how well they work. Clickfree has a number of products that let you easily backup your data files without the need to install any software. Clickfree tries to make the process of backing up your hard drive as fuss free as possible and in this regards- they have accomplished their goal.

I had a chance this week to take a look at Clickfree's Transformer Cable, which turns any external USB drive into a Clickfree backup solution. The Clickfree Transformer Cable is a small USB cable with the attached Transformer pod on it that you simply plug into your computers USB port. Once the Transformer is plugged into your computer you can plug in your external USB drive and within seconds the Clickfree Backup software runs finding, organizing and backing up all of your files. It is really that easy- with no software to install. With the price of external USB drives coming way down in price there is no excuse not to have your data backed up. Clickfree Transformer Cable works with Windows Vista®, Windows® XP and Mac OS X 10.5 or later.

I have to say that the Clickfree's Transformer Cable worked as advertised. I was able to back up my Dell XPS 1210 using the Clickfree's Transformer Cable in a couple of minutes and all I needed to do was plug in my external USB drive into the Clickfree's Transformer Cable. Now I have the peace of mind that my files are safe should my hard drive crash. The Clickfree's Transformer Cable backs up all of your data files and includes a Restore function should you need to restore your files. You can also search for files using the Clickfree Backup Software and access individual files should you need them. Clickfree saves your data files in the native application's file format so that it is easy to access should you need to copy or move them to another computer. The Clickfree Solution backs up over 400 difference types of files from your hard drive so that you can be rest assured that they will be there when you need them. Clickfree Transformer also ships with a small application which you can install to your computer which will remind you to backup your files- you can also set it up the Clickfree Transformer for Unattended Backups as well. You should note that the Clickfree's Transformer Cable Backup Solution does not backup your software applications or your operating system. If this is important to you, you may want to look at another solution (I hope to share this solution with you in another post shortly). But for the peace of mind of having all your data files backed up, the Clickfree's Transformer Cable solution worked as advertised. If you need a simple no fuss method to back up your computer files then this is the way to go- trust me you will be happy you did!

Apple TV 3.0, iTunes 9.0.2 Released "Yes, It Breaks Pre Sync"

Apple has released a new version of iTunes, 9.0.2. While admittedly the release has higher aspirations than messing with the Palm Pre, such as adding support for Apple TV 3.0, a new dark background option for Grid View, and additional accessibility support, it does indeed break the Pre's iTunes sync capability, as well.

Apple TV 3.0, released earlier, adds new UI and as well as support for the iTunes Extras (movies) and iTunes LP (music) formats. From the press release:

Apple® today introduced new Apple TV® 3.0 software featuring a redesigned main menu that makes navigating your favorite content simpler and faster, and makes enjoying the largest selection of on-demand HD movie rentals and purchases, HD TV shows, music and podcasts from the iTunes® Store even better on your TV. You can now enjoy iTunes Extras and iTunes LP in stunning fullscreen with your Apple TV, as well as listen to Genius Mixes and Internet radio through your home theater system. The new Apple TV software is available immediately free of charge to existing Apple TV owners, and Apple TV with 160GB capacity is available for just $229.

The redesigned main menu on Apple TV gives you instant access to your favorite content. Recently rented or purchased movies, as well as other content including TV shows, music, podcasts, photos and YouTube, are accessible directly from the new main menu. The new software also allows Apple TV users to enjoy stunning fullscreen iTunes Extras and iTunes LP, including great new movie titles such as “Star Trek” or classics like “The Wizard of Oz” and albums such as Taylor Swift’s “Fearless (Platinum Edition)” and Jack Johnson’s “En Concert.” iTunes Extras gives movie fans great additional content such as deleted scenes, interviews and interactive galleries. iTunes LP is the next evolution of the music album, delivering a rich, immersive experience for select albums on the iTunes Store by combining beautiful design with expanded visual features like live performance videos, lyrics, artwork, liner notes, interviews, photos, album credits and more.

Now Apple TV users can enjoy Genius Mixes through their home theater system and listen to up to 12 endless mixes of songs that go great together, automatically generated from their iTunes library. Customers can also enjoy Internet radio, allowing them to browse and listen to thousands of Internet radio stations, as well as tag favorite stations to listen to later. Apple TV’s support of HD photos is enhanced with iPhoto Events, which simplifies finding your favorite photos on Apple TV, as well as iPhoto® Faces, which gives access to photos organized by people identified in iPhoto.