Problems To Solve

Free Personality Test

Daniel Benjamin Smith (dsmith77) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:43:49 +0000

It’s quick and it’s free. I like to do this sometimes as an activity with new students on the first day of classes. It can be a great ice-breaker.

Enjoy!

Make Einstein Say Anything

Daniel Benjamin Smith (dsmith77) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:48:31 +0000

I found a cool tool today. You can make Einstein say anything!

Go to http://sbfun.org/einstein/index.php and fill out the form. Any words you enter will display on the chalkboard behind Einstein as if he wrote on the board. The site is in Chinese (?) so here are the labels for the controls:

The big textarea on the left is for the text to display on the chalkboard behind Einstein. Duh.
The drop-down box on the right is a list of font choice. I used DFPTongTong-B5 for my image.
The first text box below the font drop-down is the font size. I used 17 point for my image.
The bottom text box expresses the rotation of the text. I used the default -3 for my image which tilts the words down slightly toward the right. Positive numbers tilt the words up and to the right.
The button below the three widgets on the right is Submit and applies the changes.

Have fun!

UPDATE: It seems the link is broken and the site is down now. Bummer.

Wordle Done Right: Two Pictures Tell the Story on Health Care Debate

Daniel Benjamin Smith (dsmith77) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:26:56 +0000

Source: FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Two Pictures Tell the Story on Health Care Debate

Regardless of your stance on the healthcare debate in this country, this is a great example of a real-world application of Wordle.

Pro-Health Reform

Anti-Health Reform

Read the full story for details.

Copyright, Fair Use, and the Public Domain

Daniel Benjamin Smith (dsmith77) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:06:55 +0000

It took me three semesters, but I’ve finally finished the set of Copyright, Fair Use, and the Public Domain Notes – PowerPoint presentation and Word documents.

As always you can find them online in My Box.net Shared Folder.

The Anatomy of a URL Presentation and Notes

Daniel Benjamin Smith (dsmith77) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:43:41 +0000

I’ve just finished a major revision to my old “The Anatomy of a URL” presentation. Just about everything in it has been retooled and updated. A lot of new content has also been added. This time, however, I have created the notes documents to go along with it. I’m very pleased with the result though not the length. At 8 pages, covering the presentation with the fill-in-the-blank notes can easily take forty-five minutes to an hour to cover.

Whew!

The FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives Database

Daniel Benjamin Smith (dsmith77) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:43:13 +0000

I’ve just completed compiling a list of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives 1950-2009. The database is now complete with 494 records. It’s well-organized with many column ‘hooks’ for activities that I have planned later including:

Time on List (From Two Hours to nearly Twenty-Six Years)
Special Additions (entries that pushed the quantity of fugitives temporarily over 10)
Two-Timers (fugitives that made the list twice)
Not Published (fugitives that were both added and captured before their entry could be published)
Gender (Only eight women have ever been on the list)
Resolution (How fugitives were removed from the list: Arrested, Surrendered, Killed during Capture, etc.)
The City, State, and Country that the resolution happened in
Tip Off (What led to the resolution: FBI Materials, Media Coverage, Informant, etc.)
Capture Quotes

I created this database as an large example database for use with my Computer Applications I course. With 494 records, it’s large enough that students will have no choice but to use database filtering, sorting, and searching features to answer questions. All of the other available databases are simply too small to enforce this. Though I don’t have any associated assignments available for it yet, I’m confident this will be a huge boost to my database curriculum.

Links:

Direct link to the file in Microsoft Access 2003 MDB format
My Public Box with all my shared files
topten.pdf [Version: Feb, 2 2006] (A source document formerly available from the FBI’s web site detailing the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives program and containing information on all fugitives prior to the year 2000. This copy is courtesy of the Internet Archive. Original location was http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/topten/topten.pdf)

(Despicable) Menu Mind Games

Daniel Benjamin Smith (dsmith77) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 04:22:18 +0000

Source: Author William Poundstone Dissects the Marketing Tricks Built Into Balthazar’s Menu — New York Magazine.

It’s amazing what lengths some restaurants will go to in order to make a buck. Oh, the greed!

This charming article exposes all the industry talk and how they make you fork over the dough.

New Vocabulary for the restaurant connoisseur:

Puzzles
Anchors
Stars
Plowhorses
Menu Siberia
Bracketing

Enc-Pk-JY Virus Screenshot

Daniel Benjamin Smith (dsmith77) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:29:33 +0000

Rebecca, my wife, found this on a teacher’s computer at her school this morning. It looks nasty. I’m posting it here so that others can see what an infected computer could look like.

Forgotten Password (It’s not what you think!)

Daniel Benjamin Smith (dsmith77) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:23:31 +0000

I snapped this on a student’s computer screen the other day. Needless to say he was confused.

Gotta love technology sometimes!

Importing Data Notes are Complete

Daniel Benjamin Smith (dsmith77) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:33:34 +0000

I’ve included lots of examples for importing data generally into a database plus clear instructions specifically for Microsoft Access 2003. I am particularly pleased with the final version.

Data File Formats covered include:

Comma-Separated Values (CSV)
Plain Text (TXT)
Spreadsheet (ODS, XLS)
Tab-Delimited (TAB)

Visit http://www.box.net/shared/e81oxeyk43 to visit my online storage and download this new Powerpoint presentation for use with your Computer Applications I classes.