I figured it might be possible to record myself doing a problem on my tablet PC and then post it online at my math website.  It just seemed like it would be too time-consuming to do that.  That’s when I ran across Screentoaster.

Screentoaster runs a Java applet that will record your screen or a portion of the screen, with or without audio.  Since its a Java applet, it is compatible on any operating system (Windows, Mac, Linux).   After recording, you can make quick annotations which appear at the bottom of the screencast.  After finishing the video, you upload it to Screentoaster, which then makes it available via link, embedding, or as a downloadable .mov or .swf file.  The quality is fantastic while the file size is incredibly small.

Here’s an example of a math problem I worked out and posted to my website:

I almost gave up on local files altogether in favor of a completely online workflow using Google Docs.  But Google Docs was a bit too simplistic for some of my needs, especially when some of my files were graphics files made with Fireworks or Photoshop.  That’s when I ran into an article about Dropbox.

What Dropbox does is so elegant and simple its the kind of thing you wonder, “Why hasn’t anyone thought of this before?”  After downloading and installing Dropbox, it places a folder (under My Documents by default) labeled “My Dropbox”.  When you put a file in here, Dropbox syncs it with their web servers and makes it available to you via a simple, clean online interface.  But that’s not where the magic happens.  If I have more than one computer, I can install Dropbox on every computer I use and configure it with the same login credentials on each computer.  Now, when I place a file into the Dropbox folder, it syncs it with every other computer that I have installed Dropbox on.  So, I create a file or change a file on my personal laptop, that creation/change gets synced out to my school laptop, my personal desktop, my office computer, etc.  The online interface keeps track of versions as well so I can revert to a previous version of a file if I need to.

Another plus to this is that each of those files is being backed up in multiple places as well as online.  If every one of my computers crashed and burned, I could still access my files through the online interface.  If I delete a file by accident, no problem, I can find it in the trash in the online interface for a certain number of days after I deleted it.

The best part about Dropbox is that its basic version is free.  Using the basic version, you get 2GB of space.  So far, using it regularly, I’m up to 1GB.  I’ll probably need to upgrade soon, which will be $10 a month for 50GB.  Or you can get 100GB for $20 a month.  Pretty good pricing for online backup, not to mention the ease of accessing your files on any computer you use.

For me, Dropbox has completely replaced flash storage.  I naturally store any file that I think I might possibly need to access on a different computer in my Dropbox folder.  And if I’m at a public computer, like at the library, I can upload a file to my Dropbox account using their online interface.  Awesome.

The only downside is that you need a broadband internet connection.  Some files can be very large and need to be transmitted over your internet connection to sync with your other computers.  I’ve had basic DSL as well as cable internet and have had good luck so far.

So visit getdropbox.com and watch their tour and see if it would work for you.  I’ve been really pleased with it so far.

FWIW, xkcd is normally hilarious and insightful, but occasionally a bit raunchy.  Read with caution.

First, some background info.  My blog was using a free template from Smashing Magazine called Color Paper.  When I set it up, my CSS coding skills were still a bit weak.  So I left it the way it came with no customization.  It looked good and seemed to work fine.  I was writing a post on tithing and realized it was time to upgrade to the latest version of Wordpress.  I found a plugin to upgrade automatically, installed it, ran it, and presto, my blog was gone.

That’s right, gone.  Blank page, no matter what I did.  I checked my database and thankfully everything was still there, I just couldn’t get anything to show up.  I tried reverting back to a previous version of Wordpress.  No luck.  Changed all the file permissions, just in case.  Nope.  I finally tracked down the problem which was with the free template I was running.

After fixing the template, running the upgrade, and finishing up my tithe post, I decided to go looking for a new template.  I went back to Smashing Magazine and found this free one, Agregado (portuguese for syndicate).  I really liked the layout and the extensions, but the color scheme was a bit girly for me.  So I decided to flex my CSS muscle and take a shot at customizing my own template.

Here it is.  I’m pretty pleased with how it came out.  I’ve still got some image icons to redo to fit my new color scheme, but I think the CSS stuff is basically done.  Let me know what you think.

1024×768; 1280×1024; 1920×1080

Now that I was in Ubuntu I could access all my data. I backed everything up and decided I would take drastic measures. I deleted my hard drive. Reformatted into a single partition as ext3, then reformatted again as NTSF. I had the recovery cd that came with my laptop and went to reload XP. When I got to the point where I needed to enter any data with my keyboard or mouse, no luck.

Well, I don’t have time right now to mess with this problem. I need to get some work done on this website. So, since Ubuntu was working so well, I just installed it on my laptop. I’m building a Joomla site, so I needed a LAMP environment, which I got with XAMPP. I use Rockettheme templates so I’m going to need a way to edit PNG files. Other than that, I can basically do anything I was doing before.

The best part is, I installed VirtualBox for virtual machines. And then, I installed XP into that and it worked fine. So when I installed XP on the hard drive, it wouldn’t work. But when I installed XP inside of Ubuntu it works fine. Go figure. Anybody have any ideas let me know. FWIW, the keyboard works fine when booting. I can get into the BIOS and make changes.

A few hiccups, first, my wireless acted weird at first. The button to turn wireless on and off doesn’t really work. A few times when it started up the wireless wasn’t on and I couldn’t get it to turn on. After a few reboots playing with the switch during boot, it started working and has been working ever since. Secondly, I attached a second monitor at school to have Ubuntu on my laptop monitor and XP on the secondary monitor, but the resolution settings won’t go over 1024×768 which is kind of bumming me out. Finally, I tried to use a headphone/microphone today and it didn’t work. I installed the Gnome ALSA mixer but haven’t had any luck yet. We’ll see how this goes.

I used an Ubuntu 8.10 live cd to repartition the hard drive.  It was formatted in three partitions, one fat16, one ntfs recovery partition, and the ntfs partition that held Vista.  I reformatted into one ntfs partition.  When I went to boot from the XP install CD, I got the BSOD and stop error 0×0000007B.  I googled the error and found it means it can’t find the boot device.  I tried a few things to no avail until I stumbled onto the answer in the BIOS.

There was a SATA mode setting that was set to AHCI.  Switching it to ATA fixed it.  I don’t completely understand what happened or why.  But I figured that might be helpful to someone searching for an answer to this problem.

So I thought maybe IE8 would work better (I was using IE7).  I went to download IE8 Beta 2 and when I clicked run, I was told that IE8 didn’t work with Vista.  Did you get that?  MS’s new browser doesn’t run under their new operating system.  Wow.  

So, I turned to my old trusty pal, Firefox (I’m actually writing this under Google Chrome because I thought I’d try it out).  I downloaded FF3 went to the MS site and started the Download Manager.  It worked.  I downloaded my copy of Vista Business and went about my upgrade.

To clarify, in order to get a copy of the software I was entitled to from Microsoft, I had to go to a different company’s browser in order to use Microsoft’s website.

A while back, I wrote sort of a position paper on why schools, churches, etc. should move away from Microsoft.  I’ll rework some of that and post it here soon.