I have been taking advantage of two great sources of free software:
The OpenCD Project and Software for Starving Students. There is overlap in the tools offered, but you can’t beat the price and the functionality is remarkable. In both cases it helps to be on a broadband connection. I downloaded the CD image (ISO), burned a CD using the free IMGBURN program and installed from the CD. Check them out!
Our house has blooming flowers and fighting dinosaurs.
I recently upgraded WordPress, the software used to maintain TheSwirl, to the latest version. I also decided to undergo a change in the theme of the blog, making it look more “Swirlish”. Previously I was using the default theme which was nice, but looked like all the other generic blogs. Let me know what you think.
Eric has been on a dinosaur kick and received dinosaur puzzles, toys, and a remote control T-Rex for his birthday. BBC’s website has a number of educational dinosaur games. One of his (and my) favorites is Dinosaur World. Dinosaur World 3D can be freely downloaded from BBC’s site. This is a wonderful site and the 3D game is exceptional. It is informative with great graphics and sounds that enhance the atmosphere considerably.
Kathryn was kind enough to sew my WinterCampers.com patch onto my new fleece lined baseball cap. Styling!
We have had unbelievably nice weather lately and the past few mornings have had brilliant red skies – belaying the notion of “red sky in the morning, sailors take warning”.
Pandora – I have a lot of online music and listen constantly. Over the past year I have been listening to new music via Pandora, a music discovery service that utilizes the music genome project to recommend artists, bands and styles of music similar to an known artist. They’ve made the service more Web 2.0′ish. Now you can find shared stations within the Pandora community, see who is listening to what, and search for songs, stations and listener profiles by keyword.
SyncBack – a Freeware backup synchronization program that I use to backup our computers to a network drive as well as backup onto an FTP site.
Google Docs & Spreadsheets – Lately I have been roaming among multiple computers and I have been using Google Docs to draft documentation.
Bloglines is my favorite website for keeping track of blog posts. It’s an application that lives on the web. I like that since I can switch computers and still stay up to date on recently updated blog. I really like the improvements that let me see real time updates. And to keep my website running smoothly, I switched to dedicated hosting plans.
Dinosaur World – Eric is really into dinosaurs and BBC has one of the best set of educational games. The 3D virtual world offers exploration of three separate worlds discovering dinosaurs and plant life along the way.
Turns out there is a game of Blog-Tag going around the blogosphere in which bloggers are sharing five things about themselves that relatively few people know, and then tagging five other bloggers to be “it.” The idea of blog-tagging is, to ask 5 bloggers to tell 5 things that most people wouldn’t know. Like a kick starting a group with a group dynamics exercise where nobody knows each other. In some cases the blog tag is structured and you are asked 4 things: 4 Jobs I have had, 4 Movies I can watch over and over, 4 TV shows I watch, 4 places I have been on vacation. Famous blogger Mark Cuban refused and equated it to a mindless activity like “doing the wave”. I equate it to receiving a chain letter. I read a number of the blog tag entries and found everything from closet vegans to appearance in movies and childhood bed-wetting. About 30% of the tagged declined to participate. Having said all that and being blog tagged by my friend Alex – five things most people do not know about me:
In the afternoon I was taking down some of the outside Christmas lights when I heard a flock of geese. Thinking they were planning on overnighting at my ponds, I started looking for them and instead saw a HUGE flock of Snow Geese just forming up. I estimate 300-500 geese. Talking to some friends on New Year’s Eve – they had seen the flock earlier in the day.
I also had two spottings of a pileated woodpecker in the woods directly across from our house.
Our friend Hobart stopped by on Christmas afternoon to report he had seen a bald eagle just mile and half from our house. Eric had just gone down for a nap, so Hobart house sat while we hopped in the car to run down and take a look. The eagle was sitting on a slender tree overlooking a ravine and appeared to be floating in the air.
