Clipmarks | enbar's clips

Handy programs to put on a USB stick

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 13:26:53 GMT

clipped by: kielipuoli

Handy programs to put on a USB stick.

These FREE programs do not require any installation and can be run directly from a USB drive. Keep some useful apps handy while on-the-go!

Open Source alternatives to well known software

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 12:23:18 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: osalt.com

Find open source software alternatives to well-known commercial software

Find alternatives for Visio -> Dia, OpenOffice Draw or Kivio

Or for iTunes -> Amarok or Banshee

Check-out Microsoft Access, Photoshop or Norton Ghost on you own.

Recently added commercial software: PowerDVD and WS_FTP.

Our mission is to provide easy access to high quality open source alternatives to well-known commercial products. And remember that open source software is also a freeware alternative.

1. Dia
2. OpenLaszlo
3. OpenOffice Draw
4. Inkscape
5. Gimpshop
6. KompoZer
7. Skencil
8. CamStudio
9. Mozilla SeaMonkey
10. Scribus

1. Visio
2. Norton Ghost
3. Illustrator
4. Photoshop
5. Nero Burning Rom
6. Access
7. Dreamweaver
8. MSN Messenger
9. Premiere Pro
10. Money

Tags: open source, alternatives, software

Ten cognitive distortions that mess you up

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:45:26 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: David Burns is a pioneer in popularizing the cognitive-behavioral approach to mood therapy developed by Aaron Beck. As someone who has struggled on and off with crippling depression my whole life, I have found this list of "cognitive distortions" pretty useful in reframing certain elements of my thinking.

Clip Source: www.spiritsite.com

The Ten Forms of Twisted Thinking

All-or-nothing thinking

You see things in black-or-white categories. If a situation falls short of perfect, you see it as a total failure. When a young woman on a diet ate a spoonful of ice cream, she told herself, "I’ve blown my diet completely." This thought upset her so much that she gobbled down an entire quart of ice cream!

Overgeneralization

You see a single negative event, such as a romantic rejection or career reversal, as a never-ending pattern of defeat by using words such as "always" or "never" when you think about it. A depressed salesman became terribly upset when he noticed bird dung on the windshield of his car. He told himself, "Just my luck! Birds are always crapping on my car!"

Mental filter

You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively, so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors a beaker of water. Example: You receive many positive comments about your presentation to a group of associates at work, but one of them says something mildly critical. You obsess about his reaction for days and ignore all the positive feedback.

Discounting the positive

You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don’t count." If you do a good job, you may tell yourself that it wasn’t good enough or that anyone could have done as well. Discounting the positive takes the joy out of life and makes you feel inadequate and unrewarded.

Jumping to conclusions

Magnification

Emotional reasoning

You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reject the way things really are: "I feel terrified about going on airplanes. It must be dangerous to fly." Or "I feel guilty. I must be a rotten person." Or "I feel angry. This proves I’m being treated unfairly." Or "I feel so inferior. This means I’m a second-rate person." Or "I feel hopeless. I must really be hopeless."

"Should statements"

Labeling

Personalization and blame

Tags: psychology, depression, personal

Librarian Chick Wiki: hundreds of free learning resources

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 02:37:09 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: Very cool. I haven't had a chance to dig into more than a few of the links, but looks to be a tremendous resource.

Clip Source: librarianchick.pbwiki.com

Hello, and welcome to Librarian Chick!

This a list of free resources for students and educators... and anyone else who's hip to learning. Feel free to click away! Though many of these resources could be listed under multiple categories, I've only added them once so you can CTRL+Click all links to open in tabs and never open the same page twice.

Librarian Chick's Learning Center - Search for more free educational information, sites, games and software!
Librarian Chick's Free Book Search - Quickly search for free audio books, text books and eBooks!

Tags: via:donationcoder, library, links, cool, research

Free software to use after Windows reinstallation

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 05:28:46 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: One day all software will be free, is the message at the top of the page,
and the Author created the page/site after reinstalling windows clean, and outfitting the system with free and open source software. He goes through his installation step by step, and there are user comments under his post, with feedback and other freeware suggestions by users.

Clip Source: www.freewaregenius.com

Description: I recently clean installed Windows XP on my laptop, and this meant that I had to re-install all the essential software that I use. It also presented an opportunity to write a posting about how you can outfit your computer with all the essential (and non-essential) software you need using strictly 100% freeware and/or open source titles.This posting could have been titled any of the following:

How to never use a paid program again (aside from Windows).

53 essential freeware programs that can take care of the majority of your computing needs.

I am writing this from the perspective of myself clean-installing Windows and re-installing all the software I find to be essential afterwards. This post took a long time to write, please Digg and/or Stumble it ;).

Pre-installation: before reformatting my hard drive, I used the following programs:

1. Gparted Live CD

2. Unstoppable Copier

3. Amic Email Backup

4. DriverMax:

5. Produkey

Post installation: now the fun begins.

6. PC Decrapifier

Tags: free, software, reinstall, windows, freeware, open source

How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic (FAQ)

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 21:49:11 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: More common questions and myths answered at the source, thoroughly cross-referenced and conveniently categorized and sub-categorized by type of argument:

Stages of Denial

Scientific Topics

Types of Argument

Levels of Sophistication

A nice reference that's updated with fresh comments. Many "skeptics" often are unaware (by choice or by circumstance) that their common questions have already been addressed by scientists long ago.

Clip Source: gristmill.grist.org

Stages of Denial

There's nothing happening

Inadequate evidence

Contradictory evidence

No consensus

We don't know why it's happening

Models don't work

Prediction is impossible

We can't be sure

Tags: climate, global, global warming, climate change, environment, skeptic, skeptics, climatology, atmosphere, earth, science, debate, argument, faq, questions, answers, c02, glaciers, temperature, myths

Rare Book Room

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:19:20 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: An awesome reference site with a good collection of scanned rare books.

Clip Source: rarebookroom.org

Introduction

The "Rare Book Room" site has been constructed as an educational site intended to allow the visitor to examine and read some of the great books of the world.

Over the last ten years, a company called "Octavo" embarked on digitally photographing some of the world ’s great books from some of the greatest libraries. These books were photographed at very high resolution (in some cases at over 200 megabytes per page).

This site contains all of the books (about 400) that have been digitized to date. These range over a wide variety of topics and rarity. The books are presented so that the viewer can examine all the pages in medium to medium-high resolution.

Tags: books, rare books, reference

A Field Guide to Critical Thinking - 6 Rules

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 19:10:40 GMT

clipped by: Djiezes

Clip Source: www.csicop.org

A Field Guide to Critical Thinking

The six rules of evidential reasoning are my own distillation and simplification of the scientific method. To make it easier for students to remember these half-dozen guidelines, I've coined an acronym for them: Ignoring the vowels, the letters in the word "FiLCHeRS" stand for the rules of Falsifiability, Logic, Comprehensiveness, Honesty, Replicability, and Sufficiency. Apply these six rules to the evidence offered for any claim, I tell my students, and no one will ever be able to sneak up on you and steal your belief. You'll be filch-proof.

Falsifiability

It must be possible to conceive of evidence that would prove the claim false.

Logic

Any argument offered as evidence in support of any claim must be sound.

Comprehensiveness

The evidence offered in support of any claim must be exhaustive -- that is all of the available evidence must be considered.

Honesty

The evidence offered in support of any claim must be evaluated without self-deception.

Replicability

If the evidence for any claim is based upon an experimental result, or if the evidence offered in support of any claim could logically be explained as coincidental, then it is necessary for the evidence to be repeated in subsequent experiments or trials.

Sufficiency

The evidence offered in support of any claim must be adequate to establish the truth of that claim, with these stipulations:

the burden of proof for any claim rests on the claimant,
extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, and
evidence based upon authority and/or testimony is always inadequate for any paranormal claim

James Lett

Tags: thinking, knowledge, skeptic, skepticism, logic, evidence, science, philosophy, falsifiability

Top 100 Education Blogs

Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:51:46 GMT

clipped by: gingembre
clipper's remarks: Thousands of blogs devoted to education!

Clip Source: oedb.org

Top 100 Education Blogs

Published on Wednesday 20th of December, 2006

Education blogs are becoming a means for educators, students, and education administrators to interact more effectively than ever before. Technorati currently tracks 63.1 million blogs. Over 5,000 of them are about education. ~~It is likely that there are hundreds, if not thousands, more education-related blogs on the Web.~~ (UPDATE: There are over 30,000 blogs hosted at edublogs.org alone. Thanks James Farmer!) Here is a list of our staff's 100 favorites.

Please note that this is by no means an exhaustive list of all of the great education blogs out there. Chances are you may have favorites that are not included here. Also note that this list is not ranked but rather is ordered alphabetically within each topic.

Blog Topics

College

These blogs provide tips for current college students.

E-Learning

Technology-assisted learning and online learning are topics discussed in these blogs.

Education News

These two blogs are good starting points to read more about the latest news in the world of education.

Education Policy

These are blogs written by activists who are looking to reform our school system or just education in general.

Internet Culture

Internet applications, such as RSS and blogs, and how they can be applied in a teaching/learning environment are discussed in these blogs.

Learning

The focus of these blogs is on learning theory, informal learning, and knowledge.

Library and Research

Specialty

Teaching

Tags: education, blogs, learning, library, research, teaching, technology, e-learning, college, policy

Internalized racism in black children: a new "doll test"

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 04:05:49 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: A columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette discusses a short documentary film showing that African American children as young as three identify whiteness as attractive and blackness as ugly. Also discusses several related studies.

Clip Source: www.post-gazette.com

Documentary, studies renew debate about skin color's impact


	Click image for larger version.

Miss Davis, a senior at Urban Academy High School in New York City, also recreates psychologist Kenneth Clark's legendary 1940s "Doll Test" in the film and obtains similar results. Dr. Clark's research was used to challenge school segregation in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Brown vs. Board of Education.

In the documentary, Miss Davis gives black preschool children two dolls, identical except for their color. One is black, the other, white.

She asks a little girl to show her the nice doll. The little girl holds up the white doll.

"Can you show me the doll that looks bad?"

The little girl holds up the black doll.

"Why does that look bad?"

"Because it's black," the little girl says.

She asks why the little girl thinks the other doll is the nice doll.

"Because she's white," the child says.

"Can you give me the doll that looks like you?"

The little girl hesitates -- looking back and forth at both dolls, first grabbing the white doll -- then, looking a bit sad, she reluctantly pushes forward the black doll.

Fifteen of the 21 children interviewed said they preferred the white doll.

"I learned how easily we can internalize things," says Miss Davis, who made the documentary in 2005 through the Reel Works Teen Filmmaking after-school program. "Even at 4 or 5 years old, you get the message, you get what society values and what it doesn't."

To view the film -- visit: www.mediathatmattersfest.org/6/a_girl_like_me/

It's been shown at more than a dozen film festivals and won nine awards, including the Media That Matters Diversity Award and the SILVERDOCS Audience Award for a Short Documentary.

Tags: race, news, u.s.-news, psychology

Got any nude photos of your baby? Shred them. Now!

Tue, 15 May 2007 20:55:12 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: Several people, all of whom I'd objectively call "innocent," have been investigated by the FBI, humiliated, arrested, and effectively destroyed by scandal when photo-developing and computer-repair shops discovered that they had photographed their young children naked. One father lost custody of his kids for taking a photo of them mooning him. The argument is: "we all have to view innocent photos through the eyes of a pedophile, for the good of the children." Effing scary. I mean, I've taken several pictures of my son in the bathtub, and according to this article, that makes me effectively guilty of child pornography. Better take those shots off of Snapfish.com.

Clip Source: www.popphoto.com

How a Photo Can Ruin Your Life

Your family photos could get you arrested. Just ask one New Jersey grandmother.

By Neal Matthews
June 2007

Tragically for a number of people all over the country, innocent family photos turned over to the police have led to financial ruin, divorce, debt, public humiliation, and lifelong scorn as a registered sex offender for mothers and fathers.

Some cases involved pictures much less provocative than Sarah M.'s. Based on the way prosecutors interpreted photos in a few of those cases -- Marian Rubin, a New Jersey grandmother charged for taking nude photos of her granddaughters, then aged 3 and 8; and Jeffrey B., a New York father who lost custody of his two daughters after he shot pictures of them mooning him -- it's possible to spot red flags where our innocence used to be.

The claim has been made that we all have to view innocent photos through the eyes of a pedophile, for the good of the children.

Tags: photo, image, parenting, law, depressing, scary

The language you speak affects your personality

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:07:21 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: A study of bilingual women suggests that when you switch from speaking one language to another, your personality and your perceptions change as well. I've experienced this myself switching between German and English.

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

Switching languages can also switch personality: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - People who are bicultural and speak two languages may unconsciously change their personality when they switch languages, according to a U.S. study.

Researchers David Luna from Baruch College and Torsten Ringberg and Laura A. Peracchio from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee studied groups of Hispanic women, all of whom were bilingual, but with varying degrees of cultural identification.

"Language can be a cue that activates different culture-specific frames," the researchers said in a study published in the Journal of Consumer Research.

The researchers said the women classified themselves as more assertive when they spoke Spanish than when they spoke English.

"In the Spanish-language sessions, informants perceived females as more self-sufficient and extroverted," they said.

Tags: language, psychology, news, science, gender, via:twitter

Your cell phone is a "roving bug"

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 02:57:17 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: According to this report, the FBI can activate a remote tracking and listening device built into every recently-made cell phone without having to modify or handle the phone physically. The only way to defeat the bug is to remove the phone's battery.

Clip Source: www.ktre.com

Court Says FBI Can Use Your Cell Phone To Spy... On You

Cell phone users, beware. The FBI can listen to everything you say, even when the cell phone is turned off.

A recent court ruling in a case against the Genovese crime family revealed that the FBI has the ability from a remote location to activate a cell phone and turn its microphone into a listening device that transmits to an FBI listening post, a method known as a "roving bug." Experts say the only way to defeat it is to remove the cell phone battery.

"The FBI can access cell phones and modify them remotely without ever having to physically handle them," James Atkinson, a counterintelligence security consultant, told ABC News. "Any recently manufactured cell phone has a built-in tracking device, which can allow eavesdroppers to pinpoint someone's location to within just a few feet," he added.

According to the recent court ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan, "The device functioned whether the phone was powered on or off, intercepting conversations within its range wherever it happened to be."

The court ruling denied motions by 10 defendants to suppress the conversations obtained by "roving bugs" on the phones of John Ardito, a high-ranking member of the family, and Peter Peluso, an attorney and close associate of Ardito, who later cooperated with the government. The "roving bugs" were approved by a judge after the more conventional bugs planted at specified locations were discovered by members of the crime family, who then started to conduct their business dealings in several additional locations, including more restaurants, cars, a doctor's office and public streets.

Tags: privacy, news, technology

Newsflash about me: I got tenure!

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:41:22 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: This is a personal note... This semester, I was up for tenure at the small Pennsylvania college where I work. I was just informed a few days ago that my tenure bid was approved. This clip says a little bit about what that means.

Clip Source: ursinus.facebook.com

My Notes

Tenure and what it means

11:10pm Saturday, Jan 19 | Edit Note | Delete

Thursday night (two nights ago) I got a call from my dean, saying that the Promotion and Tenure committee had met and recommended me for, well, promotion (to associate professor) and tenure. This represents the culmination of many, many years of work and the end of a long probationary period with an institution (Ursinus) I've grown to really love, so it was a very big deal. I actually found myself a little short of breath when I hung up the phone.

It means being less afraid of those dreaded teaching evaluations that the students fill out every year. It means not having to weigh the potential repercussions -- at least, not quite so much -- of speaking your mind in a committee meeting.

It also means, and this is sort of a sad commentary on society, that I have more job security than most Americans will ever experience.

Tags: personal, academe, career, post:tumblr

Police tase Fla. wheelchair-bound woman 10x; she dies

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 14:27:38 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: Disturbing story. A schizophrenic woman in a wheelchair calls 911 because she believes she's in danger. When cops arrive, she's swinging a hammer and a knife around. They tase her ten times in two minutes, and she dies within an hour.

Clip Source: www.local6.com

Wheelchair-Bound Woman Dies After Being Shocked With Taser 10 Times

A Clay County woman's family said it's seeking justice after their loved one died shortly after being shocked 10 times with Taser guns during a confrontation with police.

The family of 56-year-old Emily Delafield said it would take the Green Cove Springs Police Department to court.

Within an hour of her call to 911, Delafield, a wheelchair-bound woman documented to have mental illness, was dead.

"One, she's in a wheelchair. Two, she's schizophrenic. Three, they're using a Taser on a person that's in a wheelchair, and then four is that they tasered her 10 times for a period of like two minutes," Alexander said.

According to a police report, one of the officers used her Taser gun nine times for a total of 160 seconds and the other officer discharged his Taser gun once for a total of no more than five seconds.

On her death certificate, the medical examiner ruled Delafield's death a homicide.

Tags: police, crime, news, u.s.-news