I stumbled across an online booklet discussing Web 2.0 alternatives to traditional lectures. It's called "A New Way to Lecture: Using Web 2.0 to Create Interactive Lecture With Your Students" and I think it's worth a look.
A quick Google search for "word cloud generator" or "create word cloud" will produce varying results of free online word or tag cloud makers. I personally think the best of these is Wordle.net. Wordle allows you to quickly create a visual representation of keywords and their frequency. The below is one I generated from my own Curriculum Vitae or CV [PDF]:
Cool idea to revive the use of (old) USB drives: http://gizmodo.com/5101651/dealzmodo-hack-make-your-old-usb-stick-into-a-digital-multitool?skyline=true&s=i
With 8GB flash drives available for under $20 and 32GB drives edging into the mainstream, nobody can blame you for shelving old USB sticks. But there are a surprising number of uses for those rickety, sub-gigabyte keychains.There are nearly endless ways to bring a USB stick out of retirement, and they're not just gimmicks: virtually all USB sticks, 32MB USB 1.1 dinosaurs included, can be repurposed into anything from a lifesaving troubleshooting tool to an entire portable OS. Here are your best options ...
Until recently, building interactive web-based mapping applications has been a cumbersome affair. This changed when Google released its powerful Maps API. Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax was written to help you take advantage of this technology in your own endeavorswhether you're an enthusiast playing for fun or a professional building for profit. This book covers version 2 of the API, including Google's new Geocoding service.
Authors Jeffrey Sambells, Cameron Turner, and Michael Purvis get rolling with examples that require hardly any code at all, but you'll quickly become acquainted with many facets of the Maps API. They demonstrate powerful methods for simultaneously plotting large data sets, creating your own map overlays, and harvesting and geocoding sets of addresses. You'll see how to set up alternative tile sets and where to access imagery to use for them. The authors even show you how to build your own geocoder from scratch, for those high-volume batch jobs.
As well as providing hands-on examples of real mapping projects, this book supplies a complete reference for the Maps API, along with the relevant aspects of JavaScript, CSS, PHP, and SQL. Visit the authors' website for additional tips and advice.
How to Stop Checking Email on the Evenings and Weekends
http://lifehacker.com/357666/how-to-stop-checking-email-on-the-evenings-and-weekends
I need to start doing this. Maybe my boss would be willing to do this, or at least address point #4 (Hint, hint.)
And I'm going to incorporate the good autoresponders to support my new action: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/02/21/the-best-and-worst-autoresponders-of-2007/
Of extreme interest today is the fact that Google has finally come out with MS Outlook syncronization--for FREE. It only supports you main Google Calendar, but it will sync one way or two ways if you want it to.
Other useful tidbits:
Microsoft Outlook Tip: Access Google Calendar Directly From Outlook
Very useful if you're looking to integrate the Google Calendar directly into the Outlook suite. It's not a sync, but it's an additional page or item in your list.
OggSync
A yearly pay-for service (~$30) will literally do all of the syncronization between MS Outlook 2003 and 2007 and any/all of your Google Calendars as you like. The setup is easy, and the service is worth shelling out the measly $30 for, although the free version will sync up to 3 days back and 3 days ahead. You can choose to sync one-way (either Google-->Outlook or Outlook-->Google) or two-ways. You can also select how often it will happen. There are only two drawbacks: Outlook will need to be open and running OggSync to complete the sync tasks, and if your Google Account password happens to have an ampersand (&) in it, the OggSync login screen in the configuration screens WILL FAIL. (Be sure that your Google Account password does not have an ampersand (&) in it and everything will go smoothly.) Truly a great product for those of us who have to coordinate multiple calendaring accounts and devices.
Create an ETD Using Adobe Acrobat
Attention all Grad Students! This is a VERY USEFUL site!
Point all those weary and tired graduate students to this page when they are ready to convert their document into the acceptable ETD format. It's a heck of a lot easier to do it this way than to do it in MS Word 2007--trust me, I'd know.
