I don’t plan on starting any time soon. I won’t start until I can afford to start, which means once I get a full-time teaching position with a school. I’ve been thinking of what I want to get my degree in. Some of the possibilities would include Education, Reading, Administration, and History. I would really love to teach at the university level some day, so I’d have to get my Masters in History in order to even be a lecturer at most universities, then PhD to be a professor. PhD will cost a lot of money and take a long time, especially if I’m teaching while going to school. I don’t think that is a realistic possibility right now. If I ever want to be a principal, I would get it in Administration, but I’m not too sure if I’d ever want to do that. What I would really like to do is find a program for Educational Technology, or something along those lines. I would like to help develop curriculum that incorporates technology use in the classroom. It would be awesome to show other teachers how you can incorporate Google Earth, Smart Boards, Wikis, and all the other wonderful new things in technology into their current lesson plans. I really think with all the technology that the kids use these days, teachers are falling behind. Kids see and do things in totally different ways than they did 5 or 10 years ago. They learn differently, research differently, become engaged differently. It’s important that we adapt our methodology to support the students. If anyone knows a university that offers something like this, I’d be very interested in knowing about it.
I knew I couldn’t stay away for long. It was only a matter of time before I came back to you. What am I talking about? Ubuntu on my laptop. After spending a couple weeks back on WIndows XP on my laptop I had to switch back. I put XP on the laptop for work reasons, but now I don’t care. I want an OS that I like and that runs well on this laptop. That would be Ubuntu. Not only am I running Ubuntu, but I’m running the beta of their October release Gutsy Gibbon. I had a few troubles with screen resolution, but I think I have that all figured out now. Enabling the wireless this time was easy. All I had to do was click the use restricted driver button for my wireless card and it downloaded the driver and firmware and I have wireless on my Broadcom card with no problem. The one downside to getting back on Linux is the one wireless access point at work is far enough away to give me a really low signal (2mbps most times on Windows XP), but that was good enough for when the computer needed to be used by a student. Linux refuses to connect to that access point and I’m guessing it’s because the signal is too weak. I have no trouble connecting to other wireless networks when I pick them up.
It’s been a great run Ubuntu. You were there when I needed a fast OS for an old laptop. I have to leave you now. I’m sorry, I wish I didn’t have to, but it’s for the best right now. Please forgive me.
Yes, I’m back on Windows on my laptop. Trust me, I didn’t want to go back, but I needed the functionality of my laptop so that I can use it for work when I’m, well, at work. I needed Photoshop (GIMP just doesn’t cut it), Internet Explorer (IE on WINE wasn’t cutting it), and Outlook for exchange email (Evolution didn’t want to update the calendar and folders). Yeah, I’m sure I could have eventually gotten everything to work right, but it was just easier to switch back to windows for the time being. I don’t plan to be on it for long though. As soon as I get a new laptop (hopefully within the next month or so) this one will be going back to the world of Ubuntu. For my next laptop, I really want a Macbook Pro, but may get a PC laptop. Anyone have any laptop suggestions?
The other day I received some crappy radio rap song on my phone. I didn’t order it or request it off the internet, my phone, or those annoying commercials on TV. The song came from a website called MyxerTones. It’s not a subscription site, so I don’t have to worry about any additional charges past the first charge of that Verizon charges for a multimedia message. I contacted their support to let them know the error of their ways. The response I got annoyed me a bit.
Hi Mike,
Sometimes people enter the wrong number for their account and it creates an account under your number. No problem, you can get the password to the account and cancel or change the info to your own. Just go to the MyxerTones Sign In page, click on ‘forgot my password’, enter your phone number as the login and we’ll send a new password to your phone.
First off, if someone accidentally put the wrong number in their account when they signed up, wouldn’t I have gotten the password verification sent to my phone in the beginning? Second, I have to incur another charge on my phone bill because some stupid website made a mistake? No. That doesn’t sound right to me. Granted the charges are small, but that shouldn’t matter. They should really have another way to change passwords or some system to prevent things like this from happening. Idiots I tell you. Idiots.
I must say I’m really enjoying Ubuntu on my laptop. I use my laptop a lot now. Before, with XP, my laptop was running slow (even after reformatting), but with Ubuntu it runs at least twice as fast, if not three times. I don’t use it for much, mostly just browsing the net, blogging, and talking with people on IM (using Pidgin). I would like to get into DVD ripping and burning on it, as well as some graphics editing. I’ve not found anything similar to DVD Shrink or DVD Decrypter on Linux yet, but haven’t really looked. So if anyone has any suggestions on those pieces of software, I’d appreciate some direction.
What is great about Ubuntu is I can find out how to do anything with just a few searches on their forums or on Google. I can find packages I need with ease via the Synaptic Package Manager or via GetDeb.net. I had my mom briefly look at Ubuntu and she could even find her way around things. It really is that easy. That being said though, it still has some catching up to do in order for a casual user from the world of Windows to be able to use it. I know nothing about command line, but that’s ok, because I can always find the command I need by searching, but most people don’t want to spend the time searching for something they should just be able to do. (Again, the package manager and Add/Remove programs helps a lot in that area). For a world run on Windows though, many users will not switch because it requires the terrible thing of learning something new. Most casual computer users don’t want to learn. They use computers to make their lives easier, and learning something new is not easy. I think if Linux gets to a point that people start learning it from an earlier age (say, Linux in the classrooms) then it would be easier to migrate more users to Linux. It’s the chicken and the egg though. You need more users to be a force, but you can’t get more users unless they know how to use it (or even know about it to begin with). I doubt I would have stuck with it if I didn’t’ get my wireless to work. I did, however, and am thankful for each moment on the OS. I doubt another OS will ever make it back on this laptop (though, a different flavor of Linux isn’t out of the question, just out of curiosity).