Most college Christmas concerts are this weekend. The choirs, bands and orchestras give some amazing performances. Instead of entering the shopping foray, enjoy some Christmas spirit. Use the Google query given below to find a performance at a local college. Replace the name "Wartburg" with the name of your preferred school and re-run the query.
I’ll be attending these two concerts this weekend:
This is hard to believe, but true. TechSmith is offering older versions of both Snagit and Camtasia for free. Actually, this is a great marketing move on their part to capture an increased share of the screencasting and eLearning authoring market. I’m sure their strategy is if you like the product, you’ll pay for an upgrade in the future. Act fast! Who knows how long this offer will be active.
My thanks to Tony Karrer who keyed me into this offer.
America’s Top Model (#7) winds hands down over Carbon (#97) according to Wikirage. If you’re ever curious to learn what netizens are creating over at Wikipedia, link to Wikirage. In my case, I wanted to see what articles had the most unique editors … an indication of an involved community. Looks like true knowledge creation takes a back seat to celebrities even on Wikipedia. My thanks to "CC" who commented on this blog and keyed me in to this tool. Finally, I wish I knew something about Carbon and could contribute to the article. My own Wikipedia edits have been quite small.
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In late September, I ran through the mountains of southern China, just north of Vietnam. This was a run that changed my life, and launched me upon a journey of a lifetime. Let me explain …
My friend, Dj, challenged me last Winter to make my Grandma's Marathon this past Summer more than just a physical test. He said: "Rich, Build a school." I'm proud to report that the school at JiaYou is built. However, that marathon run which began in Duluth, Minnesota and ended in JiaYou, China, launched me upon a new life's journey. (download JiaYou case study)
My wife, Molly, and I are now the Midwestern representatives of the China Tomorrow Education Foundation (CTEF). Molly's and my goal in 2008 and early 2009 is to rebuild the dorm and kitchen for a mountain school in the LingYun region. Please help with a cash pledge! It is through education that this world becomes a better place! I've created a short 4 minute webcast which explains the LingYun dorm project … Loppets for LingYun!
What are Loppets for LingYun? Watch the video and learn! The answer involves Southern China, Wikipedia, technical conferences, Grandma's Marathon, loppets, and now Legos and Birke Bashin for China's Kids!
The China Tomorrow Education Foundation (CTEF) is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt charity organization in the United States; all donations qualify for tax deduction in the USA.
Donate via PayPal … even a $10 donation helps!
2008 / 2009 Project Status:
Donor List: (will be updated throughout the project)
As with the JiaYou school project, my wife and I are also financial donors.
I became aware of a new tool from Yahoo! today, YSlow. My curiosity was piqued when I realized that Steve Sounders of Yahoo was presenting at Google TechTalks … not exactly a normal occurrence. If Google was interested in listening to the competition, then I should take note!
YSlow is a Firefox add-in which analyzes your web site, and gives it a speed rating. Better yet, it links back to Yahoo YSlow and explains what you need to fix. Here are some YSlow links to get you "quickly" started:
In addition, I just realized that Google TechTalks are not listed on the Engineering Learning Wiki software engineering page. I will rectify that mistake.