New App Alert!!

New App Alert!  New App Alert!  If you have an IPad or IPhone try Leafsnap for f-r-e-e and start having fun identifying some trees in your area.  http://leafsnap.com

 I heard about this App from a few coworkers of mine and gave it a try and thought you might like to know about it.  LeafSnap is an electronic  field guides for trees being developed by researchers from Columbia University, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution.  Leafsnap contains beautiful high-resolution images of leaves, flowers, fruit, petiole, seeds, and bark.

What is even cooler is that you can go outside and collect some leaf samples, then you place them on a piece of paper and take a picture of them.  Leafsnap helps you identify it by bringing up images of the likely tree it is from.  You can then see all these really cool images of the bark, flowers and parts of the tree.    Here is my picture of a red maple that I took:

Here is just a screen shot of some of the info that Leafsnap shows me about that species.  It is so cool and it has the scientific name and tons of details of about 185 species of trees.

Hope you get out and enjoy some summer weather and figure out the name of a tree or 2 with this fun app.   Peace, Jean

It's Jeopardy!

This post is thanks to my coworker Joanne.  She provided me with these links to create Jeopardy online or via a powerpoint presentation.  It is a cool and fun activity for you do as with a group of students for test review or just a cool way to deliver information!

http://www.superteachertools.com/jeopardy/

This runs with flash so you have to have it installed for this to work.  You can either download the template and make your own or play the already complete online version.  Have Fun!

Google to rent out computers to kids!

Rumors are flying that Google is going to be renting out their Chrome laptops for $20 a month and they intend to target students!  This is really exciting news for getting more computers out to kids that could otherwise not have one!  I will keep you posted as I hear more!


http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gadgetreviews/eyeing-the-enterprise-google-to-rent-out-chrome-laptops-for-20-a-month/24571

Unplug & Regenerate!

Here is a great article on unplugging from technology and regenerating from my yoga teacher, Shiva Rea.
Read it here

Whining isn't a scalable solution.

I have been getting a daily dose of Seth Godin emailed to me.  Seth has some pretty wise words of wisdom and today's ended with this:  " Whining isn't a scalable solution."
You can subscribe here if you are interested: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/


He talked in today's post about how in the past decade our lives have changed dramatically.  AND how we are slow to change.  We want things to be as they have been and they are not.  So it requires us to not just follow along as we always have done.  Change is messy and inconvenient and requires us to adapt however that may look for each of us. 

If change is inevitable, and I think it is, we need to change along with it and not whine, instead work on how to make the change better than what we have today.  My 2 cents.

When your phone dies

So I went to use my IPhone today and poof, it's dead.  So weird.  No sign of it going to die or anything.  I happened to be by the AT&T store in Williston and had to buy a new one.    My customer service guy, Michael, was really nice and helped me to get a new phone.  He said he has dealt with 1000’s of IPhones and only 3-4 has he seen just die like this.  Gee, I feel special.  Was it just a bad technology karma day?  I stayed with the IPhone3.  They were only $50.  I really love my IPhone and it wasn’t until I had it no longer that I realized how much.  I am SURE my Friends with Words (I am Jeanvt if you want to play) were wondering when I was going to play back to them.  It had me worried.  Does this call for therapy?!

Anyway, so I got the new phone in less than ½ hour and got home and synced it with my ITunes account and all was good.  I had synced my phone less than a week ago so I hardly lost a thing.  So just a friendly reminder to backup your data, be it a netbook, laptop, desktop computer, IPad, IPhone or whatever device you have grown to love because you never know when it is going to go down the tubes fast and knowing you have not lost all your important files, phone numbers, apps, podcasts, whatever is really really comforting with it does occur!

Take away?  Backup, Backup, Backup.....Now, please?  You can thank me later.

It's about social media people!

Socialnomics!