Learning Japanese or Spanish?

 
 If you are learning one of these languages or would like to learn, there are some great free sites out there to help you.

The first site is nihongomaster.com  Easy-to-follow lessons are divided into small segments so you decide how fast you want to learn.  Sounds, images and text support your learning style.

For help with Espanol, livemocha is a nice site for beginning speakers. 


Another nice way is through videos. You can hear the words spoken correctly, and of course, you can replay it as many times as you want to.  One of the best sites for video tutoring is Senor Jordan. The guy's a Spanish teacher, and the videos are fun.

More languages and sites soon, but any of the above would be a great place to start.

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Shark Week Coming Soon

UPDATE: There are at least 2 different cameras to view from. At the bottom of the player is a 'Multiview' icon. Click on the icon to choose between cameras.


As many of you know, every year the Discovery Channel has a week of programs dedicated to sharks. This year, Shark Week Begins July 31.


One cool thing they have done this year is place a live streaming web cam into the world's largest shark tank. You can watch the sharks, manta rays, and all the other fish do their thing live.  Here is the link. Once the player loads, click on the full screen icon in the lower right. The live action makes for a great screen saver too.


Check it out, very worth it.

 I'll be joining the celebration by posting shark attack videos, shark meat recipes, and other fun shark facts. See you in the water....

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All About "The Cloud"

Maybe you've seen commercials where they talk about 'the cloud.' If you listen carefully, you'll notice a lot more advertisements mentioning the cloud.  Cell phone, computer, software and hardware companies are all telling you how you can use the cloud.

So, what is 'The Cloud', and how can or will it help you?

The Cloud has two main parts, and they are both easy to understand.

1.  The cloud is simply on line storage.  By having all your files, or just the ones you choose, stored on the internet, you save space on your hard drive, you can get to your files from any computer, and you can share those files with anyone you give the address to (and password if they are protected). If you have a group project, you can store the file on the cloud and each person can add to it and upload the new version for everyone to see.

Copying things to a flash drive is great if the person is there with you. But if they are far or you won't be seeing them, you can use the cloud to share and transfer.  Many, many sites offer from 1 to 25 gigabytes of cloud storage for free. An earlier post listed some of them, but I will list them again later in this post.

2.  The cloud has applications you can use.  What does this mean?  Instead of having Microsoft Word or Power Point on your computer, you can access these applications from the cloud.  Any one with a Gmail account can access Google Apps and use their whole line up of applications for free.

The cloud means you don't have to store as much on your computer, which means cell phones and tablets are going to more and more be people's main choice of computer.

Finally, the cloud is a great way to back up anything and everything you don't want to lose on your computer.

Click Here for a link to previous post listing on line storage options.

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Online Games to Keep Your Mind Sharp

Being summer and all, it's easy to let the ol' brain go into hibernation. Much easier though, to keep it sharp, instead of trying to jump start it once school begins. 

If you're in to puzzles, riddles, and other mind games, here's a collection of teasers guaranteed to keep you up longer than you wanted:

Pzzls

From simple riddles and puzzles, the site has lots of logic, math, and science puzzles to keep your brain on overdrive. You can browse through the puzzles or use the search tool.

Think Riddles

With 8000 brain teasers and riddles to choose from, you can really put your brain in a tizzy. So check out the popular riddles first. You can also go at them alphabetically with the letter links at the foot of the web page.

Mind Cipher

Mind cipher does not have a large number of puzzles, but the limited collection is arranged in neat categories. Two categories you should try out first are – Lateral Thinking and Logical. Answers along with detailed explanations are given for most of the riddles.

Brain Bashers

Brain Bashers is a collection of brain teasers, puzzles, riddles, games and optical illusions. Brain Bashers has thousands of puzzles and brain teasers, and with new material added every single day, including games and optical illusions, you can be sure there is always something to do. With over one hundred awards, Brain Bashers is the place to spend a boring Friday afternoon training your brain.

 Braingle

If your brain craves for variety, give it Braingle’s mix of quizzes, riddles, logic problems, and trivia. Try out the Puzzle Hunts on the site which is like a treasure hunt for the brain. There are only two as of now with ten levels each, but the site also links to others that may be found online.

Finally,....

A free dowload called Brain Workshop. The site says it's guaranteed to make you smarter. Spend the summer using Brain Workshop and go directly to High School.

Have Fun.....

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Starting Your Own Free Blog or Website

Some of you may be interested in creating your own blog or website. There are many reasons to create your own 'space' on the internet.  You may want to share your photos or thoughts, update friends and family around the world, or let others know about some of the great websites or software you have discovered.

Blog or Website?  What's the difference?  When blogs were first created, they were simply an online writing journal or diary. Now that blogs can include sound, video, pictures and hyperlinks, the difference between a blog and a website is very little.  Basically, a website is for a company selling or advertising, and a blog is for individuals.

There are many, many different templates, or styles you can select from depending on the purpose of your blog or site.  The following are all free sites to get set up and to claim your piece of the 'net.

Blogs

Blogger:

     The host of this site and a great choice if you have a Google account, as Blogger is owned by Google. You can store documents, videos, and pictures in Google docs and link them to your blog very easily.  Still the easiest way to get started, I believe, even if you do not have a Google account.  But, why don't you have a Google account?

 

WordPress: 

   
   Similar to Blogger, you can add audio, video, pictures, links and the rest.  Lots of free templates to choose from.  Coke or Pepsi?  Blogger or WordPress? It just depends on your personal choice.

 

Websites

Weebly:

Weebly is the easiest way to create a free website. From personal to professional sites, Weebly is both easy to set up and to add text, video or other content.  You can create free website and free blogs.

 Moonfruit:

With a nice selection of templates and a design that looks like your browser, Moonfruit is becoming more popular with people creating websites for the first time.

350pages

350 pages is easy to use free website builder that can help you create a website and edit your pages from anywhere in the world at any time. Since 350pages is hosted on the safe, fast, and reliable web servers, you don’t need to download, install or configure anything. All you need is a web browser (IE 6/7, Firefox, or Safari) and an internet connection.

Wix:

Wix is a bit different type of site builder. Wix focuses on flash templates.  Click here  for an example of a flash website. Very nice looking templates, possibly a bit more time to get set up.

Google Sites:

But of course, having a Google account allows you to set up a free web site, too.  Not as many templates to select from, but the ones they have are nice.  Worth a try.

These are just a few of the many sites available to create your own blog or website.  Summer is a perfect time to practice developing a blog or site.  Even if you don't use it right now, you will have experience creating one.  Remember, technology is not going away. The more you practice, the easier it gets.

P.S. Get out of the house, it's summertime!!

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What's the Difference?

Guys, do you often find yourself wondering, 'what's the difference between a blouse and a shirt?'  Girls, do you ask yourself over and over that all important baseball question, "What's the difference between a sinker and a slider?"  Of course you do, and it's o.k. to admit it.

At DifferenceBetween.com all of your "What's the difference between" questions can be answered. It's not a site you're going to use everyday, but when you want to know, it comes in very handy.  It has been known to settle quite a few bets as well.

I still don't know the difference between a hacker and a cracker, but thanks to DifferenceBetween.com,  I can always tell a cream from a lotion.

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Free Online Photo Editors: Part I

Digital Cameras, Cell Phones, Web Cams; There are lots of ways to take a picture. After you've snapped all those photos, there are many sites that can help you dress them up or fix them up. We'll look first at a few ' sites where you can have some fun with your pics.

Dress them Up

Kizoa

is a Free service to create slide shows and edit photos with fun effects, animations, music and more. Share your creations on the Internet or burn them to DVD.

Loonapix

Make funny photos by embedding your face from the photo to the various templates.

PhotoFunia

One of the more popular sites with tons of creative backgrounds to play around with.

Fun Photo Box

If you don’t get what you want from PhotoFunia,  check out Fun Photo Box.

MyTradingCards.com

Create Baseball, Basketball, and other custom cards with your own photo.  Very Realistic looking cards.

Avatara

Create your own 3D avatar for use on the internet and animate it if you like.

 

There are other photo editing sites which have different options than the ones listed here. They will be covered in Part II.  But for now, let's move on to the fix your photo sites.

Want to remove the red 'vampire' eyes of someone in your photo? Want to remove someone completely from your photo? Maybe you have blurry pics, or ones that are too dark or too light.  These next sites are for more 'serious' photo editing. 

Fix Them Up

Photoshop

The Godfather of photo editing programs (used for all the graphics work in this blog) is Photoshop.  It's an expensive program to buy--around $200, but at Photoshop.com you can learn the program by doing real work on your own photos. If your photo's broken, Photoshop can fix it.  They also have tutorials where you can practice creating certain effects like the ones shown below. Registration required, but of course, it is free.

SplashUp

SplashUp is a easy to use photo editing software allowing everybody to create professional and experienced photo designs.

Sumo Paint

One of the finest online painting and photo editing programs. Create and share your art work with the world.

This is just a small sampling of the many sites on the net where you can be silly or serious with your photos.

Remember: If you find a site you like, bookmark it!!

Coming Next: Part II of photo editing and free places to create your own web site or blog. 

Hope you're enjoying your summer!

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3. Free. Great. Online. Multiplayer. Games.

With the end of the school year coming fast, today's post highlights three online games that are free and of very high quality.  None of that 2D flash stuff here. If you're a gamer and want to kill some time, check these out. (Click the titles for game link.)

Vindictus

Battlefield

League of Legends

More summertime fun ideas to come, indoors and out.

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Science Alert: Human Body Maps

 Yes, I know it's the end of the school year and you probably won't need this resource now. But, you probably will want to use this and other sites I've posted next school year. So, bookmark this site for later use. You'll be glad you did.

Anyway, Human Body Maps, by Healthline is a great site for exploring the human body. You can check out the nervous, respiratory, reproductive and other body systems. Views are available for both male and female bodies. Also, there are views of all the organs, heart, liver, kidneys, etc. Everything can been seen from any angle as well.

  

Muscular System                                      Skeletal System                                             360 °

P.S.  Bring this on Monday: 

           

                                 

                                                                                                                                        
                                        

  

A Great Free Math Resource for You

Whether you want to make sure you're ready for our final next week, or any test for years to come, Math Made Easy is a great site to learn various topics at your own pace.  Since we will be having fractions, decimals, and percents on our final, you may want to check this site out, pronto.  Give it a look, bookmark it, and return when you need some extra help.

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Weekend Tips: Online Storage & More

Maybe you know someone whose computer has crashed already; possibly that person is you.  Nothing is worse that having your computer crash.  Even though there are other, harder ways to save your data, most computer shops will fix your computer by wiping your hard drive clean and starting over.

The result: You lose all of your data. Pictures, programs, documents, grandma's secret pig's feet recipe. Gone. All of it.

Here's the thing: You never know when it is going to happen. It's happened to me, it's happened to everyone who's used a computer for a while.  So, be smart, be free, and do it for free.

There are many places where you can store between 2 and 50 Gigabytes of data for free. If you have anything on your computer you don't want to lose, create an account, upload all your stuff, and never worry about a computer crash again.

An added bonus is that you can create public and private folders. If you have some pictures you want to share, upload them to your public folder and give people the web address. They can get the photos, documents or whatever themselves.  No more flash drives, dragging things around. Clean and easy.

Here are some links to online storage sites:  ADrive, OpenDrive, Flickr,   and finally, don't forget about Gmail. If you have an account, you have 7 gigabytes of storage. You can add anything as an attachment and upload it. There is no public folder with Gmail, though.

 Don't learn your lesson the hard way. Get an account, upload the things you don't want to lose, and sleep well at night.

Quick Tip #2:

If you're leaving your computer for a few minutes and don't want anyone messing with it, you can quickly and easily lock the keyboard by pressing the Windows key and the L key. Win + L. Just takes a second, and your computer is secured.

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In 20 Years

Has anyone checked out that website I posted a while back called in20years.com.  In case you haven't, you upload a recent picture of yourself, and it shows you what you will look like in 20 years. You can also choose to see what you'll look like in 30 years if you really want to get depressed.

This site is not cool at all.  I uploaded a picture of myself and chose to see what I'll look like in 20 years.  This is the picture it came back with:

Not funny, man.

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Lots 'O Fonts

                     Fonts,  Lettering Styles.
They can add a lot of personality and pizzaz to a document. Fonts can also add a personal touch, such as fonts for holidays, birthdays and other themes.

There are lots of free fonts on the internet which you can download for free.  A couple of the best sites for lots of free fonts are 1001 fonts and DaFont.com.

How to install fonts:   After you have downloaded the font(s) you want, the first step is to unzip the folder. Right click on the folder and select unzip. ( If you are using 7-zip, select "extract to "name of font".  Next, double click the unzipped folder. Right click on the font, and select "install". That's it, the font should be installed in the correct folder. You can then delete both the zipped and unzipped folders if you like.

Caution I:  Don't download fonts unless you think you are going to use it. When a program that uses fonts loads up, (like Word, Open Office, and others,) it loads all the fonts at the beginning.  Having tons of fonts will just cause the program to take longer to load.

Caution II: Please dont' use crazy, hard to read fonts for school reports or other important documents you may write. These fonts aren't really for those types of documents.

Otherwise: Download, Install, and Enjoy

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Best in Class: Media Centers

If you download movies and video clips, and have lots of songs and pictures on your hard drive, it's far easier to find, organize and play these media files if they are stored in one place. By far the best media center application is XBMC. I mentioned this program in an earlier post, but it's worth saying it again. XBMC will play almost any type of file, is skinnable (has many different 'looks' to it), can be customized with easy to find add-ons, and keeps all your files organized for easy  playing.  Here's a couple of pictures of XBMC:

You can download XBMC here. Select Windows from the list showing. As usual, since the program is free, it's worth a try. If you don't like it, or don't have a lot of media files, you can always uninstall and delete it.

If you like to look for pictures on the internet for your desktop or whatever, you may come across some pictures with writing or other markings on them that you would like removed. See picture below:

 Notice the writing on the bottom left. A website named webinpaint can easily remove this and almost anything else you may want removed from a picture. Even if you don't see a need for this now, you can always right click on the link, select 'bookmart this link', and you'll have the site saved in case you need it later. Below is the same picture after 30 seconds with webinpaint:

More to come this weekend including links from earlier posts like Avast!, Chrome, Firefox, and new stuff.

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Google Docs & More

After getting your Gmail account, you should head over to Google Docs.  Here's a screenshot of the home page.

The blue Documents tab will open a program just like Microsoft Word and the Presentation tab will open a program just like PowerPoint. You can save your document on your hard drive, and it is also saved on the internet, so you can get it from anywhere and from any computer.  Of course, it's all free and a must have since you don't have Microsoft Office on your computers.

Also, if you need pictures of Saipan for a report or anything else, this site has one of the best collections in one place on the internet. You can always bookmark the site in case you need it later.

Finally, I said Email me with the correct answer. Comments left don't count because everyone can see them. As for Matt, lurker from the abyss; your request has been accepted, look for it shortly.

Links to Earlier Posts

Here's some quick links to help you find your way around the site.

For Avast! Antivirus, and the media players VLC and KLM, click here.

For the Browsers Firefox and Google Chrome, and the background changer Oceanis, click here.

To get a Gmail account, click here. To see some of the features and things you can do with a Gmail account, click here.

To get Xtra Credit on Tomorrow's Test, click here.

For video tutorials and the handouts you'll need on our next unit, click here.

For different Websites you may be interested in, click here and here.

For other categories and items on this site, check the 'Page' lists on the right side of the page, or scroll down and see each post individually.

                                                               Test Tomorrow!!!!
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Wednesday Websites & Friday Freeware

Because of the holiday, Wednesday's and Friday's posts will be combined. In this post I'll share some interesting websites to check out and some programs you can download, all free of course.

First up, create a font out of your own handwriting. What is a font you say? The style of lettering that shows when you type. One cool way to personalize your typing is to have your own printing or cursive as the font.  It's easy to do and you can get started here. You have to print the first page out, put your writing on it, then let your webcam capture the page so the program can create your font.

Another cool font related site for the artistic types is Fontstruct. Create any font you want from grunge, grafitti, stylish or crazy. You can be as creative as you want.

vozMe is a website and a program you can download. It is a text to speech program which can read your emails, documents or any other written text. Tired of reading? Let vozMe read it for you.

Create your own radio station and stream it over the internet for all to hear. Play your favorite songs, take requests from your friends, whatever you want, it's your radio station. See the short video on setting up.

Finally, play thousands of Nintendo Games while you surf the net, for free. Check this video for the super easy way to do this.

Have a good weekend, download the math videos and worksheets and get a head start.

Tuesday's Teaser & Why Gmail

First, Today's Teaser: Name this world famous landmark. The first three people to email me the correct answer receive a period of free computer time whenever they wish (test and quiz days not included). See the 'contact me' link on the right side.

Next, Why Gmail?
As I mentioned, you will be taking a few online exams. To do this, the site requires you have a gmail account.  But!! There's much more to gmail than this.  For example, there is Google Sites, where you can create your own website for free. It's very easy to use, and there are many design examples to choose from. You can create your site a bit at a time, until it becomes the masterpiece you want.

Also, Google Docs is a great free resource. Google Docs has online word processor, power point and drawing programs that you use for free. You can also store your documents online so you can get them no matter what computer you are using. Lastly, with Google Docs, if you have a group project, everyone in the group can access the document and work on and add to it no matter where they are. While you're at it, check out Google Labs for more, all free....with a Gmail account. Get one today!!

To Do: Get Firefox, Chrome & Gmail

I have noticed that many of you are visiting this site while using Internet Explorer.  DUMP THE EXPLORER!! There are links to Firefox and Chrome in the "Lots of Links" post. Download one or both of them, try using them both, then decide which one you like better. Either way, each are WAY faster and better than Explorer.

Also, everyone should have a Gmail account.  Even if you have an email account at  Hotmail, MSN, Yahoo, Youhoo, or Boohoo, trust me, you'll want a Gmail account.  Sign up here. It takes like 2 minutes, so get your Gmail account this weekend before they're all gone.

As always, let me know if any of the links don't work.

P.S. One more free computer hour to give away for solving the Tuesday's Teaser.

Wednesday's Websites

Into taking pictures? Check out Photofunia here. Upload a picture and create many different effects and backgrounds.

Are you a gamer?  Looking to lose a little, or a lot, of time online? Check out Friv here. Friv has over 250 games in one place. Sports, shooters, races, board games, all types of games are here.

Do you like to draw? Possibly into animation?  Give Pencil a try. Create your own cartoon series, comic book, or something!!!

Finally, EVERYONE needs to practice their typing skills. I'm talking about touch typing; you know, fingers on the correct keys, looking straight ahead, and using all your fingers. Go to Typingweb, create a free account and track your progress. Since keyboarding is a major part of your 8th great computer course, you might as well get started now.

If you have not completed the handout on Proportions, Ratios, Perimeter & Area, finish it tonight. No more time tomorrow. Moving on to something new.

buonanotte,
mr. f