Delicious Social Bookmarking

http://www.delicious.com

Delicious.com is a social bookmarking application that allows users to save, tag, and share bookmarks. After users create an account on Delicious.com, they can tag and categorize links to websites for easy search and retrieval. Users can control the privacy of their bookmarks; most often their links will be public, but they can be marked private or only shared with specific groups.

In addition to providing users with the ability to access and edit their bookmarks from any computer connected to the Internet, users can also search or view other users’ bookmarks.

To make managing bookmarks easier, Delicious has plug-ins for Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and 3.0 and similar integrations for other types of browser. Delicious also has an application that integrates with a user’s Facebook.com profile.

How I Use It:

As I began doing research for graduate classes, I would come across websites and blog posts that I knew I would want to use some time in the future. I began bookmarking these random websites on my PC and laptop. Later I would try to make sense of my random assortment of browser bookmarks and it was incredibly frustrating. I knew that I had to find a better way to catalog my findings.

I learned what Delicious.com was and how to use it by observing classmates and instructors in previous classes cataloging their links. I was able to view my classmates’ Delicious.com tags and taxonomies. I could also view the resources they had identified and add them to my own profile if so desired. It for these reasons that I view Delicious.com as a tool that supports social cognitive theory; I learned it by watching those around me succeed with it and I continue to observe user trends to streamline my usage.

When I search the Delicious.com website, I am searching the tags and websites of other users who have similar interests. Often times searches on Delicious.com prove more fruitful than Google searches because I am searching a directory created by my peers.

With Delicious.com, I am able to construct my own taxonomy of links as well as continuously add to it by viewing the tags and sites of those around me. To some extent, discovering Delicious.com changed how I manage the Internet, which speaks volumes of its worth as a tool.

r u my fav prof? lol! rotf

Some professors have started adding netiquette (email etiquette) to their syllabus. I guess what is great about the digital world (i can text u or instant message you in 5 seconds any time i want to) is also what is bad about the digital world (i can text u or instant message you in 5 seconds any time i want to).

Here are some netiquette tips compiled by David Tuffley at Griffith University and edited by eLearn Magazine:

• Don't expect an immediate response to your email.
• Consider your audience.
• Check your syllabus before asking unnecessary questions.
• Use proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

The most recent student email I received was "WHERE ARE MY GRADES!!! CLASS ENDED LIKE 2 WEEKS AGO!!!" I forwarded the email to their professor, hopefully the student has GOTTEN HIS/HER GRADES!!! OMG!!!

Free Fridays - Free Wikis

My class at U of I Global Campus has introduced me to pbwiki.com, the world of free wikis. Each student in the class has to create a wiki for our background research and papers.

A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content (from Wikipedia). And you don't have to know HTML or web programming!

PBWiki is having a drive to adopt their wikis, so they have created an adoption website filled with presentations you can watch or share with your non-wiki believing friends:

http://drivingadoption.pbwiki.com/

In case you can't think of a reason to use wiki: Create a wiki for your class to share resources with one another. They will be able to collaborate asynchronously in the writing and updating of wiki pages. Then you can provide feedback to your students on the wiki as well.

Have a good wiki!

If HAL could accept you to college...

Next year, Auburn University will use Applications Quest software, in part, to admit its undergraduate class. Applications Quest software was created by Dr. Juan Gilbert (named one of the nation's top African-American Scholars by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education), Associate Professor at Auburn University.

From Applications Quest's website:

Imagine if two applications could be compared in such a manner that their relative difference, or similarity, could be quantified on a 100 point percentage scale. Using this notion, two identical applications would be 0% different and 100% similar. All other application comparisons would fall between 0% and 100% on this relative scale.

According to Gilbert, using Application Quest removes any bias from the decision process.

When They Say I WANT TO BE ON YOUTUBE

Sometimes people will hear INTERNET buzzwords like YOUTUBE or FACEBOOK, and want to jump on the band wagon. I encounter that when people want to spend little to no advertising dollars but still want a hefty ROI, all of which can be accomplished on this magic INTERNETS.

To quote myself from an email I sent this morning-

To use social networking sites (Facebook and MySpace) for free advertising/networking, you already have to have a brand awareness with users.

Example: a Facebook user may join a "Barack 2008" group or request to be friends with "Barack", but if a user has never heard of Barack, they will probably not do either. It is a catch-22.

Not rocket science, but the truth.

On to YouTube. I'm not sure yet how we will use YouTube to promote our schools.

But Duke University has done something really cool with their YouTube postings. They ask a professor 1 question about their field and allow them 2 minutes to respond. It is a quick window into the world of the Duke profs- they seem approachable, friendly, smart- all the things you'd like your college professors to be. The production value is good and after you pay for that it is free to post on YouTube! See...the INTERNETS are MAGIC!

Free Thursdays - Use Scribd to Store and Publish your Docs

Scribd is a free, web-based, document sharing community that enables you publish, distribute, and share documents of all kinds. E-books, essays, academic papers, newsletters, photo albums, school work, and sheet music are just a few of the different kinds of documents you can publish and share on Scribd.

Create your doc in any format (word, xls, rtf, jpg, etc) and upon upload to Scribd it is converted to their Flash viewer format so that it can be viewed inside a web browser. They also convert it to several downloadable formats, including PDF, Microsoft Word, and plain text. You can control the types of downloadable formats that are made available.

Visit Scribd just to search their database of docs. I searched "MacGyver" and found:

1. The Unofficial MacGyver How-to Handbook Revised 2nd Edition - written by my buddy and former Blackboard support rep Bret Terrill.
2. MacGyver Theme song sheet music.

If you're looking for something more useful...

I searched "how to write a paper" and found:

1. Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper

There are a ton of digital docs available to print (sadly you cannot edit them, you just upload a new version).

If you are looking for an alternative to posting PDF or Word docs for students, Scribd might be your answer.

Border's Discounts for Instructors!

Educator Savings Week

Wednesday, April 2 - Tuesday, April 8

Current and retired educators receive 25% off the list price of books, CDs, DVDs, and more!

http://www.bordersmedia.com/educators/

Free Fridays - Teaching with Digital Collections Web Seminar

EDUCAUSE Live! Spotlight is a series of monthly Web seminars providing in-depth coverage of topics of interest to the EDUCAUSE community. The next seminar on Teaching with Digital Collections in the Undergraduate Curriculum is March 25 at 12:00pm CST.

The description of the seminar: Teaching with digital collections means collection development that is driven by faculty needs, flexible presentation tools, and web interfaces that help students understand visual resources in context.

For those of us teach or take online classes, the digital library collections can be a critical factor in developing syllabus and coursework. I'm excited because this session is led by a web services person and a technical reference librarian.

View the Archives of Past Seminars or Register Now!

Online campus gossips hide their faces.

Juicy Campus is a website founded in August 2007 which has "the simple mission of enabling online anonymous free speech on college campuses."

So you could visit Juicy Campus and post whatever you want about whomever you want at your campus AND shield your identity.

From the CNN Story...
----
Juicy Campus and similar Web sites are protected under Communications Decency Act of 1996. The Act aims to shield Web publishers from liability for libelous comments posted by third parties. The section states "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."
----

Right now the Juicy Campus site is down...but even if it wasn't I wouldn't have linked to it.

The site was started by a frat boy from Duke who will not reveal his identity. His parents must be so proud.

Free Software Editor - Google Docs

Thanks to Ephrem Rabin for reminding me about Google Docs. Using Google Docs you can create and store documents, spreadsheets and presentations online and control others' access to them.

The programs you use to edit the documents are all browser based, but the look and feel is so similar to the Office Suite that you will think you are still using Office.

Ephrem suggested this to faculty members who wanted to allow students to edit documents, I suspect, because not all students have the Microsoft Office Suite.

Another alternative I suggested to him was to save Word docs as RTF (Rich Text Format). RTF will retain much of the formatting when a student opens the doc in Word, but a student can use Notepad or Wordpad (both included in Windows Operating System) to edit the doc as well.

What Other Schools are Doing with Peoplesoft

Forgive my absence, I've been attending the HEUG Convention (Peoplesoft/Oracle Higher Education User Group) in Las Vegas. Although this year the Wheel of Fortune slot machine was kind to me, I miss last year's rush of presenting at the conference.

Very soon we will start the project to upgrade our Student Registration System, so it was great to see what version 9.0 looks like via presentations from other schools. I also learned that my alma mater, Northwestern University, has implemented the Oracle Portal (there are a bunch of different portals to choose from). They've done some cool things with it, but they haven't yet integrated it with their Student Registration System or HR Self Service System.

That's the stuff I'm looking to do!

College Admissions Frenzy To Slow Down

From today's New York Times:

"Projections show that by next year or the year after, the annual number of high school graduates in the United States will peak at about 2.9 million after a 15-year climb. The number is then expected to decline until about 2015. Most universities expect this to translate into fewer applications and less selectivity, with most students probably finding it easier to get into college."

"Experts anticipate, for example, a decline in affluent high school graduates, and an increase in poor and working-class ones. In response, colleges and universities are already increasing their recruitment of students in high-growth states and expanding their financial-aid offerings to low-income students with academic potential."

This seems like a win for students. Who knows what it will be for college staff, though.

Free Fridays: Take Free Classes at MIT

I can't guarantee you a free MIT degree, but I can guarantee that you'll enjoy 100's of lectures and lessons from MIT's OpenCourseWare Program. Developed by MIT faculty in 2001, OpenCourseWare allows any visitor to the website to watch lectures and download course materials just as MIT students would. It would be as if we launched our Blackboard Server for all the world to view all courses.

MIT and their faculty are "paying it forward". In just 6 short years they have amassed a library of over 1800 courses in 33 disciplines- the entire MIT curriculum.

Some courses have audio and video (Computer System Engineering), some syllabus and reading assignments (Godzilla and the Bullet Train: Technology and Culture in Modern Japan).

As a faculty member, I would be very interested in who ones the intellectual property of the courses. Their FAQ states that faculty retain ownership of most materials prepared for MIT OpenCourseWare.

Anyway, in case you are bored tonight, take some classes MIT. You'll feel like a college kid all over again!

Free Image Shrinker

A friend of mine often asks me to shrink hi-res photos down for her. The original files are usually several MGs, print quality, and she usually wants to use them in an email newsletter, or on the web.

Tonight I found

http://www.shrinkpictures.com/

which did a great job of shrinking an image that was 2800kbs to 34kbs when I selected the default settings.

In case you ever need to shrink an image but aren't an image editor (PSD) user. If you want to learn more about hi res/low res, here's a tutorial.

Using Songs to Teach Percentages and Flow Charting

If you are looking for a new way to teach flow charting and/or percentages and/or geography to your students, might I suggest these techniques?

When Wal-mart Experts Blog

After seeing The High Cost of Low Price and doing some research on my own, I don't shop at Wal-mart. But I was drawn to their new "experts" blog, Check Out Blog . The blog experts are in Gaming, Sustainability, Gadgets, Lawn and Garden and Movies.

Some of the recent posts:
$500 Laptops
Hot Toys for Christmas 2008
Wal-mart Chooses a Hi-Def Platform

I liked reading this blog. I learned stuff.

Because Wal-mart is so huge, I feel as if (Wal-mart or) this blog might be able to wag the dog. If the Wal-mart buyers/experts think the new Elmo will be the new hot toy, does that it mean will be? And if it is, is it because the Wal-mart expert picked it or because it really is the new hot toy? If Wal-mart picks Blu-ray as their Hi-def choice...does that mean Blu-ray will survive and HD will cease to exist?

I might not be explaining myself properly...I'm *supposed* to be memorizing lines for the musical NINE...but I'm clearly blogging.

You've Got Your Face In My Book

According to Youth Trends, Facebook is again the top web site visited by both male and female college students.

Note that the college students they polled are ages 18-24. The average age of our (meaning CCC's) students is 27.

But we do have 3800 members of our Facebook Organization...in case you want to join.

Be my friend. Come on. Everyone's doing it.

My High School Transcript

I'm applying for a grant that requires me to submit my ACT score. If you've ever tried to get an ACT score from the dark ages, you'll know that it costs $30.00 and, at a minimum, takes 4 days to be received.

So instead I headed down to my old high school in Oak Lawn (which is now a daycare facility!) to fetch my high school transcript.

Please note the rather large list of after school activities. Please also note that I was NEVER on the bowling team. That's just a lie. Chess Club, yes. Show Choir, yes. Bowling Team?! No.

Makes me wonder what else on my transcript is wrong. I'm glad that we now have transcripts in databases... because computers never make mistakes. No computer would ever accuse me of being on the bowling team, because computers know better.

Free Downloadable College Textbooks

At Freeload Press textbooks are free for students. Before they download the textbook, students complete a short survey and then advertisements within the textbooks pay for the cost. The publishers still get paid and students get their textbook at no cost.

There are only 50 books listed (lots of math and science) now, but hopefully the list will grow. I would guess lots of students are accustomed to reading on screen.

Free Friday - Resources from the Government

Today's free Friday is about the Federal Resources for Education Excellence (FREE) website.

FREE makes it easier to find teaching and learning resources from the federal government. More than 1,500 federally supported teaching and learning resources are included from dozens of federal agencies. New sites are added regularly.
I'm impressed that FREE has managed to create such a thorough cataloging of the sites that the Federal Government has funded.

The complete subject map is extensive. Included: 37 Women's History websites, in case you want to get a jump start on Women's History Month (March).

The FREE site itself is well organized. Some of the FREE resource sites have lousy interfaces, but usually the quality of the content makes up for it. For example one rather low-end interface site has over 200 songs (?) written about Abe Lincoln and the Civil War, including his funeral march as it was originally printed.

But I don't want to leave you on a somber note, so here is Abe's 1964 Campaign song, in four part harmony for the big finale!

More Dollars for Prisons, Less Dollars for College

According to a report published by the Pew Charitable Trusts on Thursday, five states are spending more money on prisons than they are on colleges.

Vermont, Michigan, Oregon, Connecticut and Delaware

Other states aren't far behind, attributed mostly to mandatory state sentencing that creates overpopulation in prisons.

How does the computer find love?

Because I detest SPAM, I don't subscribe to many email newsletters. But one of the best is from the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. I like the idea of creative and intelligent women coming together to talk about their how they use technology to shape the world around them. Even though there are a bunch of women in technology at the City Colleges, I want to encourage more women to get involved with technology and not be afraid, intimidated, etc. I'm talking to you! And you, Mom.

Here's a poster from an Anita Borg conference about The Growing Technology and Social Implications of Online Dating from Temple University. It explains how Match.com finds your next girlfriend/boyfriend (algorithms, baby!) and has stats like...

More than 120,000 marriages a year occur because of online dating matches.

Finally, we won't have to say we met through a mutual friend. Even though I really *did* meet my fiance through a mutual friend. Really.

Money for the City Colleges

Yesterday I attended an administrator's meeting. Lots of info was conveyed, but the two numbers that jumped out at me:

$5.76
what the City Colleges of Chicago receives per square foot from the state.

$13.00
what the other community colleges across the state receive per square foot from the state.

The League of Innovation for the Community College

An administrator asked me what I knew about the League of Innovation for the Community College. I knew nothing.


Their site explains they've been around since 1968 making a difference in community college education, but they haven't posted a press release since Feb 2007.

Have any of you worked with them or attended their conference before?

Jury Sides With Blackboard in Patent Case

Surprisingly, a jury in Texas has sided with Blackboard in their case against Canadian company Desire2Learn infringing on their patents.

I remember the good old days when competition in the open market was considered a *good* thing.

Video Blog Posting

A very astute professor asked if Blogger could support videos, and it does:

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=67428&topic=12464

1. Click the film strip icon on the post editor toolbar.
2. In the popup window, click "Browse" to find the video on your computer.
3. Enter a title for your video.
4. Agree to the Terms and Conditions (if this is your first video upload).
5. Click "Upload Video."

Where are my videos hosted?
Videos uploaded through Blogger are hosted on Google Video.

Please note a video of my kitten I embedded. Sorry, I don't have kids yet, so my TREO only has kitten videos. If you turn the sound all the way up, you can hear the purring.

When Married Educators Want to Find New Jobs Together

Are you an educator who is married to (or dating) another educator? Would you like to find out if colleges have openings for both of you?

The Greater Chicago HERC (Higher Education Recruitment Consortium) has a Dual-Career Search section just for you (both)! Get help with your dual career search by registering for job alerts and linking your profile with your spouse/partner.

The Greater Chicago HERC is the web-based search engine that includes faculty and staff job listings at all member institutions. This search engine is free and available to anyone seeking employment in higher education, research, healthcare (medical centers), and arts and culture.

There are HERCs for many areas of the US. Good luck! :)

Free Friday Nights: Google Texts Provide Free 411

Tonight I realized that I haven't called 411 in years! If I'm out and need a business phone number, I text 46645 with the name of the company and city. In under a minute. Google SMS texts me back with the answers I need.

That's not all you can get with Google SMS.

For weather reports text Weather Chicago
For definitions text define prestidigitator
For sports text bears score

You can also get flight status, maps, stock quotes, etc.

There is no charge, other than your service provider's regular text charges.

Easy and Cheap Accessible PowerPoint Presentations with LecShare

LecShare can transform your PPT presentations into accessible-friendly versions quickly and cheaply

LecShare Pro allows you to add audio to Microsoft PowerPoint presentations to create QuickTime movies, MPEG-4 Video files (Video Podcasts), Accessible HTML, and Microsoft Word documents. You can either record audio through a microphone or import audio files.

• QuickTime Movies
• Accessible HTML
• Video Podcasts
• Microsoft Word Handouts

The employees at LecShare have experience in teaching courses, in instructional technology tools for higher education, using instructional technologies in developing online content, adapting already created online content to meet Federal accessibility standards, software design for the Macintosh and Windows platforms, and teaching at the university level.

Accessibility Issues in the UK

I like England a lot (shout out to my fiance in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne), especially because they seem ahead of the curve in creating and enforcing accessibility legislation.

From the Equality and Human Rights Commission, The Web Access and Inclusion for Disabled People report has in it, among other useful findings, that it took blind users 3x as long to complete a task on poorly designed website.

As a web designer, it certainly makes me think twice about making the absolute best experience for *all* users.

Accessibility Training Video

While I am waist-deep in PowerPoint accessibility research for the BPDCC Accessibility Research Group, I came across a 2 hour web accessibility training video filmed at Washington State University. Hosted by Guest Presenter Todd DeVries, the video features disabled technologists talking about their experiences using the web.

While I don't agree with all of their recommendations and comments, as a web designer I found it very useful to see disabled users speaking candidly while demonstrating assistive devices. A low vision designer pseudo-demos a refreshable Braille display, explaining he doesn't have one because they are upwards of $5000!

Screen readers, Text enlargement, skip navigation links, making links understandable in context are all discussed. For instance...click here to watch the video...not a good idea!

http://experience.wsu.edu/scholarvids/webtraining.ram

You will need to download Real Player.

Once Again, Video Games Help People

I've played Brain Age and Big Brain Academy (both for the Nintendo DS), but this morning I tried a web-based brain training game called MyBrainTrainer.com. You can subscribe to the site for $29,95/year unlimited use, however I just only the free trial. Which was sadly, a math game. Not my strong suit.

I did notice MyBrainTrainer.com had a recommendation from at staff member at Marshall University:

"I work with medical students and physicians who are experiencing academic difficulties. Many of these people have learning disabilities and/or ADHD. They have weaknesses in the areas MyBrainTrainer.com specifically targets. I have already received many positive comments about the program."

I am not crazy about my future doctor playing Brain Training games when she should be dissecting a pig. If it helps her concentrate, though, sign her up for Brain Training 101.

Now if we could only find a therapeutic use for Mortal Kombat.

The Magic of CSS

Cascading style sheets have revolutionized how we build web pages. Once we had to rely on the table tag to design all our information on a web page. As well as being clunky, using table tags alone to build a site can make it inaccessible to many users.

If you are studying CSS or just curious about the magic of CSS, visit the css Zen Garden for a quick sample of what CSS has done for the web.

Give Locally. To Humboldt Park

Dawn from Fire Belly Design has started her own nonprofit, Firebelly Foundation.

It's pretty heady and adorable stuff:

As compassionate artists and creative problem solvers we know there’s always more to be done—and better, smarter ways of doing it. While good design can change hearts and minds, we know profound, world change requires getting out and getting involved. With sustainability and cultural relevance as our founding principles, we're working towards an even higher level of social responsibility and corporate citizenship.

Reason To Give

Reason To Give provides a shopping/giving experience that's simple, quick, and personal. We connect people who give a damn with people who need a hand.

It's really that simple. You can search the Reason To Give database for a type of need and and a dollar amount (for instance, a family with clothing need under $50). Then Reason to Give makes sure your donation gets to the family.

There are videos on the site of the thankful residents. If watching Simone receive her big, big puffy jacket doesn't make you want to give them the contents of your wallet, then nothing will. :)

Who Vote? iVote!

iVote is a Northwestern University Collaboratory Project initiative encouraging Illinois youth ages 15 to 22 to vote. Using NU's own web-based learning environment, Collaboratory, students can find other Illinois youth who share their interests about problems facing Illinois, develop and share research reports, and most importantly- work together to make a difference in the 2008.

From the Collaboratory Website:
The Collaboratory Project is a Northwestern University initiative that provides project consulting, training, technical advice, and Web-based resources and services to K-12 teachers and their students who are interested in using Internet technologies to advance education.

Joining the Collaboratory is free. Please pass it along.

Test Your Ear and Get Perfect Pitch

I've always wanted perfect pitch. As a good (great?!!) singer, an average piano player and a below average accordionist, having perfect pitch would make my life so much easier.

I've started using this Free Interval Online Ear Trainer. I'm not perfect yet, but for the first time in my life I know what a tritone sounds like!

There are other helpful music lessons on Ricci Adams's Music Theory Website, everything from FLASH movies teaching chords to a Keyboard Trainer.

If you are teaching a music class this term, the Music Theory Website is packed with mini-lessons that will give students the opportunity to practice their skills, even if they aren't in front of a piano.

Maybe your parents made you take piano lessons for ten years. Maybe you can give the Keyboard Trainer a whirl and see how much you remember!

Make momma proud!

Listen To A Movie

I, for one, am never bored at my job. But sometimes on Fridays it is fun to listen to Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Frisco Kid (or any other Harrison Ford flick) while I am sitting at my desk.

At ListentoaMovie.com, you can do just that. Select from one of their 1457 films or 284 tv episodes, launch the ListentoaMovie.com proprietary audio player, and relax. Harrison Ford will be coming through your desktop speakers in no time.

Note: this isn't just the soundtrack: it's the whole movie!

Note 2: always be aware of the bandwidth available at your school...don't use it all up listening to movies all the time!

Our Deepest Sympathies

In light of the tragic events at NIU yesterday, I wanted to say that my thoughts and prayers are with the staff, faculty, students, and families of NIU.

They tried to make me go to Wii-hab

Nintendo's Wii video game system is fast becoming a craze in rehab therapy for patients recovering from strokes, broken bones, surgery and even combat injuries.

Using the game console's unique, motion-sensitive controller, Wii games require body movements similar to traditional therapy exercises. But patients become so engrossed mentally they're almost oblivious to the rigor, Osborn said.
--------
This from the CBS News Website. We have a Wii and I run around the living room like a crazy person trying to hit the digital tennis ball. Sometimes I feel like I am getting a real workout from it, so I was glad to see that some people are getting true benefit from it.

Now if they can just integrate DDR (Dance, Dance, Revolution) into rehab.

HP Offers Free On-line Classes for Windows Software

HP has jumped onto the free on-line classes bandwagon. They have classes on everything from setting up a web page to creating better marketing materials.

Also classes on:
QuickBooks
Excel
Vista
Word
PowerPoint
Linux
Photoshop CS2
Dreamweaver

All you have to do is "register" by creating a profile with HP. If you try one, let me know how it goes!

Free On-line Accessibility Class from Microsoft

When someone mentions accessibility, architecture might be what pops into your head first. Buildings no longer have just a revolving door: they have automatic doors, lifts, ramps which allow anyone with disabilities to gain access.

Electronic documents (whether it be web page, Word, or PowerPoint) should afford disabled users the same opportunity: to gain access to the information.

When you create a document, consider if someone with a disability would have the same experience reading the document as someone without a disability. Would important information be missed?

Microsoft has a plethora of accessibility training/documentation on their site:

There are five main types of disability:

• Vision
• Hearing
• Mobility
• Cognitive or Language
• Seizure

Within each type there is a range of different disabilities. So vision, for instance, encompasses blindness, low vision, and color anomalies. Some disabilities are permanent, others temporary, some age-induced.

Wow, this is the tip of the iceberg. More to come on accessibility soon.

Meanwhile, this Microsoft self-paced training is a good intro:

http://office.microsoft.com/training/training.aspx?AssetID=RC063800961033

Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V

I was talking a Malcolm X College staff member through some troubleshooting techniques for a particular web application we built for her department. During the conversation I asked her to Ctrl+C (copy) some information and Ctrl+V (paste) it into an email to me.

She was stunned. She had never used those (or any other) keyboard shortcuts before and asked me for a list of all the Windows keyboard shortcuts. So, here they are.

I can't remember a time when I didn't Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V everything. That's like pondering life before cellphones. Or texting. What a sad life I must have had.

ALT+F4 (quit program)

Kristen

Free Conference Calling!

Last week a vendor scheduled a conference call with me using FreeConference.com. At first I thought it was a little shady, but in this world of home offices and Skype/VOIP, I guess it makes sense.

If you sign up for Reservationless Standard Conferences, you'll receive a dedicated dial-in number and access code that you can use at any time. No need to schedule the conference with the service.

From their FAQ's: Do you place a surcharge on the call? Will anything extra appear on my phone bill?

No. There are absolutely no surcharges. For Reservationless Standard and Web-Scheduled Standard conferences nothing extra will appear on your bill other than the call itself, billed at your normal long distance rate.

The catch: the Reservationless Standard conferencing services do not provide Toll-Free (800) Dial-in Numbers.

Just a thought! I'm off to HW to lead a demo for the Software Review Committee!

Let's Be Friends!

Hi. Do you want to be my friend on Facebook? I think you do!

City Colleges of Chicago has a group on Facebook, and if you register with your staff email account you can join the group. We have over 3,880 members (staff and students).

All colleges have a Facebook network. It is not maintained or affiliated with CCC, but there is a message board and a Wall to post on.

Sometimes I post new sites I'm working on or answer basic questions for students about our website. Students post events and comments, etc.

Remember, you can customize your Facebook profile privacy by network. That way you can control how much info you share with fellow members.

See you on Facebook.

Test Your Strength!

No, this isn't about the World's Strongest Man Competition (although you can watch it on ESPN several times this week if you want to).

This about your Password's Strength. Last April PC Magazine posted the 10 most used passwords. They were pretty lame. Remember, somebody's full-time job is trying to crack your password.

Beef up your Password!

Microsoft has Password Checker that will gauge the strength of your password. Just type in your current password and watch the magic happen.

Incidentally, they don't store your password. They aren't planning to do anything nefarious with it. But, that was a good question. You shouldn't share your password with anyone.

Not even with the World's Strongest Man, not even if he lifts your car above his head.