This article has a bunch of steps that you can take to increase the safety of your children online. One of them was to be there when they are online and I think that this would be the best way - to be in the same room when they choose to go online. Schools have their own filters in place, you need to have some at home. Feeling technically challenged is not going to help :P Have a look and take some steps if you havent already.
Source: Cool Cat Teacher's site has this and many other interesting articles. Found the link on Lifehacker.
Technorati Tags: lmog, children, online, surfing, lifehacker, safety, steps
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Technology and gadgets seem to be taking away our leisure time instead of giving us more. Catching up on reading for pleasure seems to have taken a back seat. Here's a novel way of getting some reading done. Reading Classics that you did not manage to do in college or since.
I recently read an article on LifeHacker where the blurb said " No time to read? Email service Daily Lit sends you a bite-sized chunk of a novel to your inbox every day". This site will email you a page or so of your favorite classic to you everyday, Monday to Friday. I signed up immediately :D
It's not as if I don't have the time to read. I have a lot of time but can't seem to get around to knocking off a few from my list that have been there for years. Ones that I keep there because I still want to read them. Instead I find that I read books that catch my eye in the shop or ones recommended to me recently or whose review I have liked. As you must've gathered from the header and the excerpt, Sons and Lovers is a book that I had wanted to read when I was in school (!) and I still have not got around to it.
This book will be sent to me in 218 installments. Each will take about 5 minutes to read. And if the experiment proves successful, I shall sign on for another. Today I got my first installment. Here is an excerpt from the book.
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Sons and Lovers (1 of 218)
By D. H. LAWRENCE
PART ONE
CHAPTER I
THE EARLY MARRIED LIFE OF THE MORELS
"THE BOTTOMS" succeeded to "Hell Row". Hell Row was a block of thatched, bulging cottages that stood by the brookside on Greenhill Lane. There lived the colliers who worked in the little gin-pits two fields away. The brook ran under the alder trees, scarcely soiled by these small mines, whose coal was drawn to the surface by donkeys that plodded wearily in a circle round a gin. And all over the countryside were these same pits, some of which had been worked in the time of Charles II, the few colliers and the donkeys burrowing down like ants into the earth, making queer mounds and little black places among the corn-fields and the meadows. And the cottages of these coal-miners, in blocks and pairs here and there, together with odd farms and homes of the stockingers, straying over the parish, formed the village of Bestwood.
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Daily Lit has a selection of 93 classics, from the public domain, available for you to choose from. So whether like me you have the time or like most others life's keeping you a bit too busy and you want to catch up on some reading here's a new way to have a go at it.
You'll find quite a range of reading material from Emma, Christmas Carol to Freud's Dream Psychology all sent to you in small installments. And if on a particular day you have the time to read more or you just have to know what comes next just ask for more and you'll get the next installment sent to you immediately. You wont have to wait! I'm sure you'll find something you'd like to try out. If it works for you do let me know.
Ok, before you go any further let me confess that most of you will find this to be a silly one! It's after 1 in the morning and I tend to do silly things if I'm awake at around this time. Proceed at your own risk. :D
I have been a daily horoscope reader for years :D Didn't really believe it (honest! :D). I guess because most of it didn't apply to me. I haven't been so good about reading them recently given the bad internet access, travelling etc. . But lately, I've noticed that the one that I subscribe to online is pretty accurate.
Background thoda toh dena padega. I have been complaining to (all who within reach mostly ramesh :P) about feeling rushed all the time. I even refused a trip to Delhi this week because I just wanted to be in one place and not travel for a while.
My horoscope says "No wonder everything is such a blur -- you've been moving so quickly. It's time to chew your food, rather than gulping it whole. Be calm and focused and perform actions mindfully, and you won't feel at the mercy of the fate"
Maybe I'm am now, after years of reading them, able to imagine :P, extrapolate, extend anything that is written and make it applicable or maybe this method of forecasting works for me. Whenever I come across them I enjoy reading them. Mostly I find them efficiently filed as "Junk" Mail by gmail.
If you feel like checking it out. Choose the daily horoscope option on this page. Unsubscribe after a couple of days of checking it out and dont forget to give me feedback!
How to Fold a Shirt
I know you guys can do it well but this lady is amazing and it's certainly a method that I want to pick up. Hope you like it
Linatree is providing a template to make your own pinhole camera. Have a look at the "Download a Camera" sub header on the main home page, I'm sure your kids will definitely want to have a go.
I stumbled across this application a few months ago. Art Rage is an drawing, painting software programme. It is super easy and great fun to use. And unlike a lot of other software it isn't disabled in any way. It does have more features in the paid version. I've been using the free (basic) version. This is my second attempt at painting. I havent yet mastered using the mouse with suitable dexterity as yet :D
Since Summer Holidays are round the corner, I thought that your kids might enjoy using this and/or that you might too. In any case, in todays digital world even art is made on a digital canvas so you'll might as well make an attempt to learn :D I had great fun making this painting in the morning and quite a lot of it was because i could just start and didnt have to go running around for a canvas, brushes, turpentine or even a rag cloth!
Hope you guys do try this out and enjoy it as much as I do. Honest, this one gets a 10 on 10 rating from me. And have you heard me rave about something like this?
One bit of exciting news is that for the first time I shall have a room to myself for my art!! I'm very excited about the "studio" and I'm hoping that it will get me to spend sometime everyday drawing, painting or just reading. Well, I can hope, cant I?
website : http://www.ambientdesign.com
Sango, this one is especially for you. There's this new buzz called Web 2.0. Basically it's about online applications. One of the applications that is already available and quite effective even though it's in the beta stage is Writely. It is basically a chota bhai of MS Word. It is available online and it is free. 90% of the tools provided by Word are not used by people working on regular office documents - Microsoft is just a very good marketeer and has practically everyone using their applications. All that is about to change :P.
Realised that I've spent more time talking about Word than Writely so here goes. Click on the header above. It will take you to the Writely website. Register and start a document. Now you can update it, collaborate with someone, work on it offline or online. It is simply fabulous. And Sango you will not need a laptop coz wherever you go you will have access to a computer and the net.
Got into Dhaka a few days back. House hunting has started in earnest. Smeeta was here in Dhaka on work. Had dinner with her last night. Wonderful to have had someone familiar over so soon. The rest of you plot and plan and get here. Will suss out all the shopping haunts and restaurants by then. Keep posting!
All you avid readers are sure to enjoy this one. Feed in the names of a few books and it suggests the names of books that you would like to read. This seems to be similar to Amazons recommendations and it is based on the data given by other users of this service. if their suggestions are ones that you have already read add them to your list and look for more. I've just fed in about 10 books and got a nice list of suggestions from the site. Let me know if it helps you find a good book!
Hey you guys, wake up!!
and when you do, check this site out. You put in the names of your favourite groups or singers and it creates a radio station which plays songs by them or similar groups. truly fantastic and a must try. let me know if you like it. whoever i've told so far is absolutely hooked.
