Hey Guys,
I said that I’d have a podcast for you guys, but I don’t think that is going to happen — sorry guys!! I do want to talk about Open Source though and tell you what is so important about it!
Open source is a movement that began waaayyy back in the 80s. Continue Reading →
Hey Guys,
I got a great video here done by a blogger you all know and love!
Yes, it is I, the great video blogger, Dan Kolansky! Ok, I’ll stop being conceited now, it is just so darn cool making your own videos.
Here is the video. It gives a quick introduction to the mindmapping software: Freemind.
Continue Reading →
Computer people talk about “open this file” “use that file” and so on and so forth and I bet that you have wondered at some point what exactly a file is. You know what a word document is, you know what an email is, but you don’t know what they are representative of: a file on your computer. Continue Reading →
Being productive in college can be a problem if you are not equipped with the right software. I have five programs which have helped me immensely in my college education which I would like to share with you.
OpenOffice.Org
The OpenOffice.org suite of programs offers a full blown alternative to Microsoft Office. So much so that I have read someone saying that Microsoft claimed that OpenOffice.Org and Microsoft Office are relatively the same in features! This means word processing, spreadsheets, database software, as well as power point software.
The real pro to OpenOffice.Org is that it is fully compatible with the .doc and .xls formats. This is a huge plus because OpenOffice can read and write to Microsoft formats. That means that documents written in Microsoft Office 2003 or earlier can be read by OpenOffice and OpenOffice can save documents for Microsoft Office. This will ensure that you can send your papers in a readable format to your teachers without spending $150 for Microsoft Office on your computer!
The best part is that it is completely free! Open Source software rocks!
You can find out more about OpenOffice.org a http://www.openoffice.org/.
If you find Open Office as useful to you as I found it then you could consider donating to their project via this link.
Freemind
Freemind is my favorite way to write an in depth paper in half the time it would normally take me. It works like an outline program but it can support infinite levels of depth and it lays out the text in a very easy way to expand on the content. I use Freemind a lot to write posts for this blog. It is a great way to flesh out your college papers so all you have to do is actually start writing as opposed to write and think about what you want to write at the same time.
Freemind is also extremely useful for taking quick notes in class because you can operate the program without ever using a mouse. This is quite useful because you can work much faster than most teachers can teach!
You can find out more about Freemind at this link: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page.
Gmail
I did not become a Gmail user until recently. I am not a fan of having big companies having access to your personal information (like emails.) But for school it has been quite useful to me, enough to look past my own non-conformity. The thing that makes Gmail different is its display of threads of information. Instead of displaying one email at a time, it keeps track of all the emails replied to back and forth and displays them in a “thread.” This makes it quite easy for you to keep track of extensive email discussions because you won’t have to figure out what you wrote that they are replying to, etc, etc.
Gmail is also good because it is easier to use than most college webmail applications. Having your college email forwarded to a gmail account is a nice way to avoid having to use your evil college email software.
Gmail can be found here: http://www.gmail.com/.
Google Calendar
Keeping track of you schedule is extremely important. Google calendar makes it easy to set up your schedule at the beginning of a semester and set up reminders via email. It is also a way to run group projects when you all are on a schedule.
You can find Google Calendar here: http://www.google.com/calendar/.
Skype
Audio conferencing is good when you can’t all be in the same place at the same time. I attend distance learning classes and Skype is the way to go when it comes to working on group projects when you have classmates in several different states and countries. It allows us to hold a conference as if we were all in the same room. You can also talk via text if a microphone is not available. However, purchasing a microphone is not that expensive anymore.
Also the ability to include people with normal telephones at a fairly low cost is not a bad thing either!
You can find out more about Skype at this link: http://www.skype.com/.
God Bless,
-Daniel Kolansky
When I first started working for a PC Repair business my boss gave me a sure-fire way to tell the difference between a hardware problem and a software problem. Hardware means hundreds or thousands of dollars, software just means finding the bug to fix it.
It is as simple as this: Continue Reading →
“Because technology works for you, not the other way around.”