Search results for: “linux”

  • Using ffWorks and FFmpeg for Video Compression

    Almost every week on Wednesday nights I co-host “The EdTech Situation Room” (@edtechSR) webshow and podcast with my friend and fellow educator, Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach). My Thursday evening routine, therefore, usually includes post-production of the show so it’s shared on edtechSR.com, with both audio and video archive versions linked from Amazon S3. In this post I’ll…

  • 16 Years of Web Hosting Changes with WordPress and Other Web Platforms: The Lessons Continue

    This past December, I started the laborious and often stressful process of migrating my 40+ websites (mostly running WordPress) to a new web host. This time, I’m moving from a VPS (virtual private server) with Site5.com to a VPS with LiquidWeb… I’m not done with this migration process, but I’m about halfway finished, and have reached…

  • Make a Windows Laptop Into a Chromebook with Chromixium

    We have two new Dell Latitude 3150 laptops at school, which we initially purchased and setup with Windows 10 as an operating system. I learned this week that the hardware of the Latitude 3150 is the same Dell is using for their Chromebook line. If you order with Windows, you pay more for the OS licensing.…

  • Fun Scratch Projects Today in STEM Class

    I’m continuing to teach my 4th and 5th graders in STEM class about coding and how to create projects using Scratch software. Last week students got started with coding using tutorials on Code.org. For our first lesson of this week students completed the “Step-by-Step Intro” to Scratch. I recorded a screencast of the instructions for…

  • RATs, WebCams & Online Predators: More Reasons to Ditch Windows-based PCs Forever

    The growing ubiquity of technology in our lives has made many parents into accidental home IT managers. How many different laptop, desktop, tablet, and mobile phone computers do the people in your household now operate and use? Another way to ask this question is: How many different devices in your home connect to the Internet…

  • Unplugging from the Commercial Software Grid: Open Source is not Three Guys in a Shed Anymore.

    Since Wes called me Oklahoma’s “Open Source Yoda turned Wyoming Cowboy”in a recent post and has given me the opportunity to write while he is away I thought I would hit on one of my favorite topics for my final post, Open Source Software (OSS). Please let it be noted that Yoda probably has more…

  • Comparing Free Ways to Privately Share Files with Others Online

    I received a question recently via Twitter concerning file sharing over the Internet. How can a person or organization securely share access to digital files with someone else, for free, so they can access them with a smart phone, laptop and/or desktop computer? Here are a few ideas, please chime in with other suggestions or…

  • Is your school network ready for multi-platform collaboration?

    Many of the networks in our K-12 schools are in dire need of substantial upgrades. Like electricity, Internet bandwidth has become a necessary part of the ‘basic utilities’ 21st century learners and knowledge workers expect and need to do daily work. Many school (as well as business) leaders have not yet understood the vital role…

  • Podcast357: Options for Saving and Trimming Online Video to Your Local Hard Drive

    This podcast is a recording of an unconference session at the Learning 2.010 Conference in Shanghai, China, on September 18, 2010. The focus of our session was different techniques for saving online videos from websites like YouTube, Vimeo, etc. to your local computer’s hard drive. This skill is important for teachers and librarians wanting to…

  • Converting a document to ePub (eBook) format with Calibre

    eBooks are proliferating, and the trend toward reading more content as bits instead of atoms (in digital rather than paper-based forms) is going to keep gathering momentum in the months ahead. In July 2010, NPR reported Amazon.com sold more eBooks than paper-based books in the first half of the year. This is a telling statistic.…