About three years ago I decided to make a complete career cahnge. I left an exciting career in graphic design and went back to school to get certified to teach. Why? I had always wanted to teach and at that time, only a few short years ago, the job market was wide open – especially in the field of education.
I am sure you can imagine what ahppened right around the time I was ready to look for work in the education field? Yep, the bottom dropped out of that particualr market. I am still struggling with getting off to the running start I envisioned for mysrelf. At my age, it feels quite odd to start over only to find out that the start is so sputtering.
I was talking to my step-mother today and she was stressing how most computer fields are still stable. She said that, of course, you need to make sure you get training in the specific fields that are still in demand. One of the upsides of getting training in most e-business skills is that a lot of the training can happen online.
One of the areas that is in hot demand is IT Security. As more and more people gravitate to doing more of their shopping, banking, and business online, hackers are ramping up their efforts to swoop in and find weak spots to hit for their own profit. The foil to that problem? Ethical Hacking and the need for Certified Ethical Hackers. An ethical hacker is essentially someone who knows haw to think and act like a hacker so that they can pinpoint the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in a system. They can use the same tools a malicious hacker uses in order to design a system that stays one step ahead of the malicious hacker and ensures the security of that system.
EC Council is on top of the tech careers that are still in demand. They offer certification in -Security Fundamentals, Ethical Hacking, Penetration Testing, Computer Forensics, Disaster Recovery, and Secure Programming. Their iClass program is not some shoddy, self-paced bundle of canned lectures. Rather, it is live and instructor-led – while still available from the comfort of your home or office via the internet.
I only mention this, because being in a relevant career field really appeals to me and I am willing to bet money that it matters to you as well. We are in tough economic times and we are all sitting helpless as we watch so many fields that always seems absolutely essential take massive downturns. I want to make sure I am doing something that people still want to pay me to do and IT Security appeals to me in a real and germane way.
My “newest” Mac is an old G3, and to be honest I really don’t even try to use it anymore. It has all sorts of amazing software, though, so I hate to get rid of it. My old boss gave it to me when they shut down the business. I would have taken him up n the offer of the amazing Tektronix laser printer, but it was as big as a Volkswagen bug and the ink cost a fortune.
My mom, on the other hand, has a pretty new Mac laptop. She paid an arm and a leg for it, but she got my student discount since I was with her when she bought it. Since she is not super computer savvy, the Mac has been ideal for her. It’s still the simpler computer to use and she does not have to worry about virus issues like those of us who use a PC. Plus, right around the corner this guy has a little shop where he does repairs and upgrades fro next to nothing, so she keeps it fine tuned with his help. He worked a little magic with some Apple memory last week, come to think of it. And, he had ordered a few pieces fro her keyboard. The dog jumped on mom’s laptop and popped off one of the keys, which on her particular computer must begin a chain of events that begins to make the keyboard useless.
I know I have said that instead of buying anything new right now I am just going to have my Dell laptop and desktop overhauled, and I mean that. I still wish I could run out and buy a new Mac, though. One district north, all of the teachers get issued a cute little Apple laptop. IF you are lucky enough to get issued a laptop in my district, it’s just a Dell.
Not that I have a whole lot of fee time now that I am working again, but I still like to take some time every day and unwind with some online gaming. Come to think of it, I stopped having much time to game once my daughter was born. Still, I like to fit it in when I can.
My style is to find a game I can play online preferably for free, and then find a group of like-minded players to team up with for a more interactive game experience. I’m not particularly into super aggressive or violent games, and now that my daughter is interested in online games as well, I look more often for games we can enjoy together. May as well make it a family event and work in more quality time with my daughter.
Virtual paper dolls and online games based on cartoons only interested Gigi for so long. She has her eye on the generation ahead of her, just like any young child. I have no desire for her to zip right into teen oriented games, so I’m always on the lookout for age appropriate games for her.
MEGA Brands has some very cool, very kid-friendly online games available. We’ve signed up for several. The latest in our family gaming venture is MagNext Virtual. It’s a MMORPG based on MEGA’s popular MagNext toys. My daughter’s cousin has an impressive collection and they are always the toy of preference when we are there to visit – which is often. So, you can imagine that we were sold on the concept as soon as we found the game portal.
While you are playing, you can hang out in virtual social rooms, chat safely with other players and earn Magz that allow you to “purchase” new skills and cool game gear. Because the system is multi-player, you can challenge other players to contests and learn new game skills.
The best part, aside from the fact that it is action packed and kid friendly, is that you can play free forever. Sign up and join in on the fun. We enjoyed it so much my daughter and I had to make an agreement about a daily time limitation.
How tempting is it to give in and buy a brand new computer every couple of years? I know it is something I would like to do. However, I stepped back and re-examined my situation. I have some great computers already and all I really need to do is buy memory and a few other things to give them an update. Of course, my laptop probably needs a little more work than that, including a new power cord connection and possibly a repair for the DVD drive. Still, it is a solid piece of equipment and it would be a shame for me to just give up and spend several thousand dollars to replace it with the biggest and the best.
What is stalling me is the decision to try the upgrades and repairs on my own or to find someone locally that can do it for me. Don’t tell me to go to one of the service places in the big chain electronics stores. They hire complete morons. I’ve already been in and talked to more of them than I should have. I am looking around for a small business owned by geeks who really know their stuff, so to speak. The Yellow Pages are useless, because I want real opinions by real customers. If I ask around enough, I will surely strike gold.
Well, it’s not such a far-fetched concept these days. We live in a society where most people have direct access to digital video cameras and sophisticated editing software. Starring in your own film is only a matter of your own motivation.
So, how would you like to win a cool $500 just by writing, directing and starring in your own digital short? Yeah, I know, it rocks. And, it’s as simple as creating your own digital commercial starring yourself (or even family or friends) and submitting it to Scour.com. Not only will the winning commercial win $500, it will also be featured on the Scour website.
Essentially, Scour will be paying the winner AND giving them an amazing amount of free exposure. That alone is worth more than you can imagine. Scour is a great platform for exposure, too, because the site is a sophisticated online search portal that allows users to vote and comment on relevancy, which adds the human touch that so many other search engines are lacking.
So, take a seat in your director’s chair and get going on a winning idea for a new Scour Commercial. You can check out their website for all of the nitty-gritty. Give them 45 seconds and they might just give you $500.
My title indicates I will be talking about free online games for kids, but after giving it some thought I realized the games in question are definitely not JUST for kids. MEGA Brands’ has a section of their website called Kids Zone and its positively hopping with completely free online games that pretty much anyone of any age will love.
Unlike so many websites on the internet that offer free games, MEGA Brands Kids Zone is safe, secure, and completely kid friendly. My daughter and my nephew have used the site several times and they generally sit together in one chair and take turns watching the other play games like Treasure of the Lord Pyrate. My nephew’s favorite is Shark Attack, where he has to dodge sharks in a pirate ship. My daughter usually chooses the Pyrates Navigation game (she is pretty awesome at mazes).
I’m more partial to a quest-style game, like Legends King Arthur. I like to take my time, think things out, and work toward a goal. And, more often than not, my daughter ends up on my lap coaching me as I play. I like that I do not have to worry that the content will get to a point where it is no longer appropriate for family play.
Believe me, a resource like the MEGA Kids Zone is invaluable when it comes to finding quality family entertainment that fits into a budget that’s taken a beating in our current economy. It’s free, it’s safe, and it’s fun. What more could I ask for?
Do you love video games? Are you the first one in line the night before a new version of Halo is released? Does your entire family find yourselves spending more time together now that you have Guitar Hero at home? Is the Wii Fitness part of your New Year’s Resolution?
Video games conventions aren’t just for the diehards anymore. Gaming has become a family pastime and a part of our modern era. So, if are looking for somewhere to take the family next weekend, consider the video game fest Otronicon @ Orlando Science Center January 16-20, 2009 at the Orlando Science Center. Even better, Otronicon is open for school trips and groups from January 21-23, 2009.
It’s appropriate for the entire family. There will be tournaments for Rock Band, Wii Fitness, and Guitar Hero. You can try your hand at racing, medical, and flight simulation; experience Wii on a big screen; and get in on the free-play for Super Smash Bros and GameCube. Hang out at the Dance Dance Revolution disco or perform for a live audience in the Rock Band Concert Hall. For the little ones, there are games like V-Smile and a chance to design your own storybook adventure. For those of us who have fond memories of the classic arcade games, there will be a longue where you can play Donkey Kong, Pacman, Frogger and more.
Don’t miss the Machinima film festival to get a first look at this emerging genre. There is even an art show where you can see submissions from local artists and students.
Otronicon even has a soft side. A couple who met while playing Halo 2 will be having “A Match Made in Halo Wedding”.
Admission is $17 for adults and $12 for children under age 12. OSC members get in free.
My laptop is rather on its last legs anyway. I got it when my daughter was very young and she knocked it to the ground one too many times. Still, it works and I use it now to take to the high school with me when I work. I suppose I know that the risk of it being damaged is pretty high there as well, so I may as well use the poor thing. Once I finally get around to buying a new laptop for myself, I surely won’t feel inclined to take it to the high school It’s just a rough environment, full of kids moving too fast to stop and see where they are going.
Here’s the thing, though, I know that with the right laptop case that my laptop will be reasonably protected no matter where I want to take it. I admit that the bag I have right now is all but useless. It came with an old laptop when my ex got a good deal on some used laptops at one of his tech jobs years ago.
Spire USA sells laptop bags that are designed to last a lifetime. They invite you to use the bags under the roughest conditions you can imagine. I like the idea that someone out there is still making a product that is meant to last instead of engineering it so that they can try and get your repeat business when you have to buy a replacement a couple of years later. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes I think the shrinking quality of consumer goods is happening on purpose and that the end consumer is getting screwed.
I LOVE this review on the Spire website. It’s from one of their customers:
“I’m currently working in the Northern Kuwait desert — it’s one of the most inhospitable regions in the world where not even scorpions survive. My Meta has now survived six months of daily use. Through thick mud, blazing heat that can reach 150 degrees, and merciless sand storms the Meta has faithfully protected my laptop. Not only has the Meta failed to break in any way, it still looks like new!”
JW, Meta Owner
Sounds like I’ve found a way to take my personal laptop into the high school with me without feeling like I’m risking its safety. Now, if only I’d had one of these bags back when my daughter kept knocking it to the ground.
Black Friday is typically when brick and mortar stores like to pull out their popular merchandise and price it all at prices that will make you want to wake up and be banging on their doors at 3 a.m. Internet stores, though, tend to wait for the following Monday, which has fondly been called Cyber Monday for the past several years.
Charter Communications is celebrating both black friday and Cyber Monday with a surprisingly cool deal on their Ultimate Bundle. Aside from Charter’s deals on 1 Service ($25), and 2 Service ($75), and 3 Service ($150) packages, you can buy Charter’s Ultimate Bundle and get $250 gift card. Plus, you will be automatically entered into a drawing to win one of 45 X Box 360 game consoles.
The Ultimate Service Bundle is the way to go, since for only $165.97 you get high speed internet, unlimited home phone calling, digital home TV, Charter HD, Sports View, Digital View, HBO, Cinemax, Starz, Encore, Showtime, and the Movie Channel. Not only is this a great price per service, that $250 gift card covers about a month and a half of your service – so it’s like getting that month and a half for free.
You get to choose your gift card and they have a ton of stores to choose from, including Best Buy, KB Toys, Applebee’s, Chili’s, Kohl’s, Shell gasoline and more.
Christmas is my favorite holiday. Well, Christmas and Easter and tied in my book, but I have to admit I really love the build-up that surrounds Christmas. I even enjoy the shopping I do for family and friends.
The way I do my shopping has changed a lot over the years. When I was in college, I used to head out as soon as I got out of school for the semester and do all of my shopping in a rush, usually paying full retail at the mall. Then, I moved to doing as much shopping as possible during the after-Christmas sales. I would just put the gifts in the closet for the following Christmas. Now I am back to doing my Christmas shopping in the month leading up to Christmas, but I do most of it online so I can take advantage of the online coupons and access to awesome comparison shopping. Well, that and the chance to avoid the crowds.
The fact is that I am feeling a financial pinch just as much as the next person. However, I still want to find ways to buy my friends and family gifts that express how much I care about them. I’m not going to downgrade the quality of things I buy, but I will spend a little more time seeking out bargains online. I’ve found that using coupons issued by various online sites can save me money off, get me free shipping, and often guarantee I get the best overall deal. And, you can’t beat being able to shop from home and save gas by not having to drive from store to store for days at a time.
I had my old computer rebuilt for my daughter, but I want to buy her a flat panel monitor. There is no way I am going to have my old-style 21” monitor sitting around taking up space when I can find a great deal using BestBuy coupon codes to get free shipping off one of their internet deals or even save an additional percentage off. The new monitor will take up less space, use less energy and make the computer feel like it’s all new. It’s the perfect Christmas gift in our current economic times.
I’ve talked about Dragon Naturally Speaking in this blog before. It’s that cool software that allows you hands-free typing, because it takes your voice and outputs text. It’s handy (pun, get it?) for a number of reasons, including my own favorite – a remedy for the fact that I think a whole lot faster than I accurately type.
With that in mind, I’d like to welcome an article about Dragon Naturally Speaking written by Guest Blogger, Brett Bumeter. He will tell you how you can Type at $150 Words Per Minute for $99!
The above video is not the typical Dragon NaturallySpeaking video. It was created by a blogger named Heather from British Columbia. She writes a blog called Boating in Beautiful British Columbia.
In the video that she has created, she talks about Dragon NaturallySpeaking. She talks about using Dragon NaturallySpeaking. In fact in the video, she is using Dragon NaturallySpeaking while she’s talking about it but you don’t quite realize that until the video is about halfway done.
The thing that’s REALLY interesting about this video, is not the fact that Heather is using the software and it’s not the fact the software works for her so much as HOW she chooses to use it. She took Dragon NaturallySpeaking and sat down with her father who is 95 years old. She spent a few minutes with him getting the software tuned to his voice so that the computer recognizes his sentences and words. Then she’s lets her father tell some of his great stories to the computer which transcribes everything that he says.
You can tell just by watching the video and listening to her father that he really does have some interesting stories to tell. I have a feeling that I could probably listen to the stories myself quite a bit, enjoying them immensely. And that too is not really the cool thing about this video. Although I’d love to hear her father tells more stories, the COOL THING is that she’s using Dragon NaturallySpeaking to capture a piece of her family’s oral tradition.
I can think of hundreds of different stories that my family has shared with me over the years that have not been documented. Our family is slowly losing some of those great stories and unfortunately, as we are losing some of our family members. We survivors don’t know all of the stories ourselves that our parents or grandparents or our great grandparents knew. But this video shows that you can use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to help capture some of those great stories that your parents and grandparents and great grandparents have probably told you dozens of times.
It’s something that we don’t always think about, but in a lot of ways those stories are some of the most cherished memories that we will walk away with from our family. And the sad thing is that our family cannot Be with us forever, but their memories can live on and this is where Dragon NaturallySpeaking really shows us its value. It’s true for $99 you can use Dragon NaturallySpeaking and you can type 150 words a minute. That’s a pretty good value for the software. It’s not too expensive and the benefit is tangible.
Now, you can get a useful tool at any computer store or Home Depot or Lowes, and if you don’t know how to use it well, then it really doesn’t matter what you pay for it. It is a waste of money.
Heather shows us a great way to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to capture some of the most valuable information and stories from her father that she might ever be able to record not only for herself but for her daughter and her grandchildren someday and great-grandchildren and many other branches of the family even.
So that’s just another great reason why they Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a pretty cool piece of software. $99 could help you capture your family history easily and even make it indexable too, so that you can search it from your computer. That’s just amazing.
My name Brett Bumeter, and I write about Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I’ve been writing reviews about it for almost 2 years now. You could say that I’m sold on the software, and I hope that this article and this video helps show you the value of using it as well.
Sincerely,
Brett Bumeter
Softduit Media
www.softduit.com
PS this article is about 630 words long and it took me five minutes to write and another minute or two to edit with Dragon Naturally Speaking 10. Even with editing time that’s close to 100 words per minute!
I finally splurged this summer and bought an amazing digital camera. I had a pretty great digital camera already, but I purchased it in 2000 and although it was top of the line back then there have been some any advances in technology in the past few years that it was simply outdated.
I had a rockin’ camcorder when I was married, but that ended up with my ex. Although my new digital camera will record some video clips, I really want to have a hi-def camcorder. If I am going to do something at all, I want to do it right.
It took me months to sift through reviews and specs to find the digital camera I wanted and I expect it will take me nearly as long to find the right camcorder. I actually bought one last spring and ended up returning it, because operating the thing was far too complicated in proportion to the actual quality of the video that was output. Plus, I hated the fact that the company making the cameras was using a proprietary format that was not compatible with standard editing programs. I had to use a tricky, multi-stepped hack to reformat the files.
I’m open to suggestions! Send me your opinions and personal experiences when it comes to camcorders and I will be forever in your virtual debt.
When I got my first digital camera, I bought a special card reader at the same time so I would not drain the camera’s batteries each time I uploaded pictures to my computer.
So, when I bought my new digital camera (which ROCKS, by the way), I started shopping around for a card reader for the xD cards it uses. I did not find a great deal online at the same time I bought the camera, so I put off buying the reader with the intend of finding a good deal in one of the computer stores in town.
Time passed and I was still using the cables to upload pictures, draining the battery all too often. The, just as frustration was about to get the best of me, I looked up at the new fax machine – printer – scanner that I had bout a couple weeks before and had an “Aha” moment. There were all kinds of slots on the front of the printer that were quite obviously mean to be card reader. Not only was there a slot for my xD card, but the memory stick for my mom’s camera fits in there as well. There are even a few slots for data cards I don’t recognize.
So, that is why it turns out I don’t need to buy a card reader.
Even though I have Caller ID on my phone, I still find that I am screening more calls than ever. If you combine the fact that I am doing an active job search with the fact that it is election season, you will see that means a whole lot more incoming calls than usual from phone numbers I do not recognize.
Unfortunately, people don’t tend to leave messages anymore. So, I have been using reverse phone lookup tools online for some time now to weed through the incoming calls and determine which ones I need to bother returning – or at least answer the phone the next time a call comes in from that number. I also like being able to trace a phone number I find on my phone bill, but do not immediately recognize. As long as you know the phone number you want to investigate, you can perform a search that will return results like the owner’s name and address.
While some information is free using most reverse phone lookup services, you can generally purchase annual subscriptions that will include unlimited searches that return even more in-depth results. For example, you can get just such a service to cover both landlines and cell phone numbers at PhoneInfoTracer.com for less than $40 a year. I see that as a wise investment.
If you have a particularly large amount of prank calls or sales calls coming into your phones, a service like this is amazingly helpful, and the best thing is that nobody will ever know if you are searching for this information since the searches are all confidential.
I like having information as my fingertips and the internet has opened more doors for services that provide such information than I could ever have imagined.
I guess there is no longer a reason for me to book a ticket and browse travel insurance prices for a trip tot Switzerland now that the Large Hadron Collider is damaged and projected to be down for at least two months.
That sure made for a disappointing startup, no? The planning and building of the project took about 20 years, and then it ran about 10 days and then fizzled out like an outdated bag of Pop Rocks.
I still see the thing as mostly a follow up to the many science fiction books that have centered on similar machines. And, as a time travel enthusiast (well, fictional time travel, that is), I’m all for the notice. I just don’t see it actually working the way these scientists hope that it will.
I read Blasphemy by Douglas Preston a bit ago, so this “real world” scenario seems like a bit of life imitating art, really. The book was more exciting, though.
It’s just a rough environment, full of kids moving too fast to stop and see where they are going.