virtualmv

A wiki Joyce uses in her Web 2.0 classes

http://connectedteacher.wetpaint.com/

If you are running a blog and have a facebook account how can you connect them together, so you only have to type stuff in once (in the blog) and it pops up in Facebook?

Ok, so this is got to ba an example of poor “User Interface Design”. I worked this out a month ago, and thought I’d document it.. but couldn’t recall the steps (in spite of just having completed it!)

Anyway, thought I’d have another go today.. and eurika I worked out what to do!!

So follow these steps!!

1. Click on your name (on the facebook bar at the top of the screen)
2. Click on the Options link (Just below the [Share] button on the “Whats on your mind window”
3. If “Stories Posted by You” > Available sites is not showing, click on the settings button (Just below the [Share] button)
4. On the Available Sites: Click on Blog/RSS
5. In the Public URL enter your blog site, then click [Import]

.. and thats all!!

Conflicker is doing the rounds so had a quick surf and found Microsoft has a Malicious Software Removal Tool for post infection (once you have a computer that is infected). Apparently it is part of Windows Update, so it should only be an issue if you have this turned off!!

Have added to my wiki

http://www.virtualmv.com/wiki/index.php?title=Virus/Anti-virus_software

Had a pdf that needed converting to doc. Found two options

1. Free Standalone converter that can be downloaded to your PC (http://www.hellopdf.com/download.php ) and

2. A Web based converter ( http://www.pdftoword.com/  )

Of the two the web converter (#2) did the best (though not perfect) job though I’m always suspicious about web converters when they ask to send things to my email address that they are not collecting them. Will be  monitoring my email for new spam.

Probably the dumbist thing I have seen in a while is the cobbling of IE 8s view source. IE8 has an amazing developer tools feature (press F12 in the browser or Tools > Developer Tools), however with all its magic it is unable to do a simple edit. 

However all is not lost, to change the View Source from the Default viewer, to either notepad or some other editor (I like pspad (http://www.pspad.com/en/) as its as quick as notepad but has better context editing).

1. Open the Developer Tools (press F12 in the browser or Tools > Developer Tools)
2. Select File > Customise IE View Source
3. either select notepad or browse to where your editor exe file is stored (my pspad was in C:\Program Files\PSPad editor\PSPad.exe)

Makes you wonder why you get a glitzy viewer but no way to do simple editing. Would it be so hard to have a check box in the developer options to “enable web page editing” if they are worried about people accidentaly changing pages?? (And yes I know chrome suffers the same fate – but I am sure there would be a plugin for editing like in Firefox!!)

Thanks to Ramesh Srinivasan (2009) from Winhelponline for pointing me in the right direction.

Srinivasan, R. (2009)”The default View Source Editor has changed in Internet Explorer 8 – The Winhelponline Blog” Retrieved June 22, 2009 from http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/default-view-source-editor-changed-in-ie8/

JJ has found a video converter

Huang, S. (2009) MediaCoder – more than a universal audio/video transcoder. Retrieved June 17, 2009 from http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/

A bit geeky but for those who enjoy alternative Operating Systems

Interactive map of GNU/Linux OS and FOSS (n.d.) Retrieved June 16, 2009 from http://www.makelinux.net/system/

Some new stuff for this month

• http://wave.google.com (email/IM) and
• http://www.bing.com (MS Search)

Something from Joyce

Rather than giving you a list of search results, Wolfram Alpha (what an awful name) will combine your terms to give you meaningful data. For example a search for Napier + Weather, results in:

http://www16.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=napier+temperature

You can access WA here: http://www.wolframalpha.com/ and to get started it gives you some suggestions for searches on the right hand side.

And you can read about other ways of using WA here:

5 Things that Wolfram Alpha does better (and vastly different) from Google which looks at complex queries, localisation, precision, calculation and comparison.

On the theme of multiple monitors something that can cause you problems ( grief) is if change monitor types (e.g. I have an external wide screen  at work and a square one at home). So what happens is that some applications remember what the position was when they closed and try to do this on the new monitor. Sometimes this means that the top of the window (including all the toolbars are off the screen and unaccessible).

If the applications have been well designed they should have a move option available if you right click on the button on the Windows status bar.  If this is so you can click move, now the sneaky bit – just tap one of the arrows on your keyboard – somehow this attaches the mouse to the mindow and by moving your mouse you can get your window onto your current screen.

Note: You may have to double click the button on the status basr as in order to move the window it has to be in the windows desktop.