Blogs of Note

How-to Videos (on Dangerously Irrelevant) — discusses sites that host how-to videos, including a video on the use of commas

Archive of the Dec. 6th VideoConference from Pearl Harbor — includes links to videos produced during the USS Oklahoma Memorial Dedication and links to a variet of veteran’s stories

Thoughts about Educational Change / Clarification of ‘A Vision …’ — various thoughts on education in the 21st century

Mobile Digital Storytelling / Ideas for Student Research and Story Telling in 2008 — creative ideas to incorporate new technologies into projects designed to meet curricular standards

Tracking Santa – fun on Christmas eve

What IT Wants — tips on what businesses look for in a high school graduate

It Takes a Whole Village (or High School) — video about MAD (Make a Difference) program at Heritage High School

Inventing the future – link to podcast and PowerPoint slides discussing teaching in the digital age

Protecting Your Data

How important is the information stored on your computer? Do you have a backup of your data? Have your purchased music from iTunes, WalMart or any of the other online vendors? Do you have your music files backed up? Have you downloaded family pictures from your camera onto your computer? Do you have your pictures backed up?

All of these questions are very significant to me right now since my computer crashed on Saturday. When the diagnostics were run, they indicated that my hard drive had failed. Fortunately, for me, I do have most of my files backed up. I was using the shareware program Second Copy to copy my files to a MyBook drive. I was also using Mozy to backup some of my files offsite. Not trusting either of those backup methods, I routinely backed up my checkbook data to CD. Even though I was backing up my files, I won’t know for sure that I haven’t lost anything major until I have my computer running again and have the files restored.

Home users now have a wide range of options available to protect their data. Since most computers are equipped with a burner, one can always copy files to a CD (or possibly a DVD). Another option would be to purchase an external USB or firewire drive and run either backup software such as Second Backup or file copying software such as Second Copy. A third option is to utilize an online site to backup data. The advantage of an external drive or an online site is that once the task is set up it will run in the background without user intervention.

The Best Backup Solutions (PC Magazine)
Online Backup Services Come of Age (PC World)
Five Online Backup Services Keep Your Data Safe (Information Week)
The Online Storage Gang (TechCrunch)