Words and Links

Here’s a great idea for anyone who posts any type of original content on their blog. 

Blog Copy is a website that will track your visitor’s use of the copy command when selecting and copying your text or pictures.

You just have to add a short piece of code to the body of your site, and Blog Copy will track the users who are taking your content via cut and paste.  It is probably not significant copyright violations you will find (although there might be some), but it is nice to know how far and wide your words are traveling.

In the past we used Google to search for such things.  And we had to type in complex search strings.  But this only caught some of our scraped content because it wasn’t all published or indexed.  Blog Copy lets you know from the start when people are borrowing.

The analytics generated, the price (FREE!), and the fact that everyone’s privacy is respected add up to a worthwhile test of this service for your blog.

The easiest way to find out what your IP address is to simply look below…

This is your IP address and you can use it to configure certain network functions and or internet applications.

Bear the Dog

The most important thing to know about barking is that it is a normal dog behavior. At appropriate times and levels, barking is even considered to be a useful behavior. Many people get dogs because they want them to bark when someone is either coming to the door or prowling around at night. But when barking becomes excessive, the noise can be a real headache for owners and their long-suffering neighbors. According to the Cornell Animal Behavior Clinic, up to one-third of behavioral complaints involve nuisance, inappropriate, or excessive barking.

Before things get out of hand, take steps to teach your dog when it’s okay to bark and when she should stop or remain quiet. If you want her to bark when people approach the house, enlist your kids, spouse, or a neighbor to help with the training. Ask the helper to come to the door and knock or ring the doorbell. If your dog doesn’t bark at the noise, encourage her by excitedly asking, “Who’s there? Is someone at the door?” Praise your dog when she barks at the sound.

Once your dog is barking to alert you, the next step is to teach her when to stop. After she has given a couple of barks, hold up your hand and say a code word or command, such as enough or quiet. Give the command in a firm, quiet tone of voice. If you yell, your dog will simply think you’re barking back at her, and she’ll just bark more. If your dog stops barking, praise her¡ª”good quiet!”¡ªand pop a treat into her mouth. Be sure you give the praise and treat only when the dog is quiet.

Often, showing the dog a treat may be distraction enough to stop the barking. Say, “quiet,” and give her the treat after several seconds of silence. As your dog starts to learn what the word quiet means, extend the amount of time between saying the command and giving the reward.

Some trainers recommend wrapping your hand around your barking dog’s muzzle, or snout, and saying, “quiet” or “no bark.” That works sometimes, but you have to be careful when trying that technique. If your dog is barking frenziedly, she may accidentally bite you when you try to wrap your hand around her muzzle.

A safer way to get this effect is to keep a halter collar on your dog while you’re at home. This type of collar has a loop that wraps around your dog’s muzzle. When your dog barks more than once or twice, give a quick pull on the lead to tighten the loop around the muzzle. As soon as the dog is quiet, say, “good no bark” or “good quiet,” and reward her with a treat.

Another way to stop the barking is to call your dog to you or give her a down command. Calling your dog to you usually interrupts barking. And a dog hardly ever barks when lying down. Choose a command such as come or down and use the same one every time. Offer praise for silence and then reward your dog with a treat.

Be sure you don’t unintentionally reward your dog for barking by hugging her or saying soothingly, “It’s okay, Sweetie.” When you do that, the dog thinks she must have been right to bark. This simply encourages her to bark more the next time a similar situation occurs.

How can we nurture habits of serious, critical thought in our children? How do we help them sharpen their minds for a highly competitive future? The answer is to stretch the mind beyond the obvious. Experts say that the only route to that would be to develop a “thinking environment” in our home.

Children’s understanding and potential may be defined largely by the age group they belong to, yet a broad set of do’s and don’ts may be all we need to help them make competitive thinkers and well rounded humans as a whole. Here is a “crash course list” of some of those:

The starting step would be first and foremost to examine our own “thinking about thinking”. Deep thinkers may not always be best scholars or the most intelligent kids. The reason behind this may be that while an intelligent person may be able to give quick (read lazy) answers, on the other hand, a daydreamer may often provide deep insights.

Start early. Even as a 5 year old, an early start may give the child a much needed head start as well as an ingrained sense of really thinking about things.

Give them something to think about. Taking the kids to excursions, museums, sharing TV time with them and then discussing about what they have just experienced, challenge their imaginations. Like it may be thought provoking for them if after a tour of the museum you ask them “What might the earth be like if the dinosaurs come back?”

Involve the whole family. Dinner time conversation or small harmless talks at gatherings can go a long way in developing the thinking habit as it will develop the tendency to give and take ideas and sense of sharing thoughts and experiences.

Find patterns. Teach the child to relate new information with the old one. Once the child recognizes patterns of sorts, the decision making and understanding of choices are easier done. What factors determine the purchase or rejection of a certain toy today, may go further and help them decide whether or not a certain bicycle is worth buying or not.

Say what you mean. Be articulate so as to give clear ideas and signals to the child. Asking the child to daily relate certain story or to describe a picture in detail and then discuss the same with them. This will teach them to understand and relate their own experiences in clear words.

Urge them to wear the other person’s shoes, make them understand how others think and feel. Often putting oneself in the other person’s place can drastically alter our perception of the situation.

Teach them to take responsibility for their own expenses in an interesting way. Each time we pass a toy shop, how often have we heard “I want this …” or “buy me this”? This situation presents us with an opportunity to teach another important lesson about personal finance and savings and to make the kids understand that people often save their money for things they want to buy.
This may be done by introducing the concept of piggy bank or earnings through household chores.

Thinking is not a substitute to studies. Thinking and education can not be substitutes for each other, both are necessary for intellectual development.

Thinking takes practice so keep at it! Young people do not develop the habit of logical thought over the night. But if you keep at it then like any well learned skill, it is worth it.

The key here is to follow our hearts. Keep the malleability of their little minds in consideration while trying to instill any values in the children, and what is most important … treat them and their decisions with respect. That way they will also come to respect your decisions and aspirations for them.

It is a very simple process to add hyperlinks to whatever document you are posting on the web.  The first step is finding the HTML code for the word that you want to make into a link.  This is the computer code that is used to display a web page.  For example, if you wanted to make a word on your MySpace profile a link, you would go into profile –> edit profile. In this section you will see a box filled with code that might look something like this…

<p align=”center”><a href=”http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRvd3d3LnBpbXAtbXHJvZmlsZSb20v”><img border=”0″ src=”http://content.pimp-my-profile.com/support2.gif” alt=”MySpace Layouts” title=”Myspace Layouts” style=”position:absolute;top:0px;left:0px;”

Your code might not look exactly like this, but this is what you are looking for.  Scroll through this until you find the word you want to make into a link.  Or use other words as a clue to where you want to add the word.  When you find the location that you want to place your hyperlink, use the following template…

word = the word that you want to make into a link

xyz.com = the location that you want the link to point to

then add the code for the link as follows…

<a href=”xyz.com”>word</a>

So if I were going to add a link for this site somewhere it would look like this…

<a href=”http://wordsandlinks.com”>words and links</a>

We have all sat and wasted away hours at our PCs with little to come out of it other than looking at the clock and finding out we’re late for something.  Why not find some productive things to do while you are entertaining yourself on the computer?  Here is a list of ten ways to gain a little personal improvement while giving your computer a little workout.

1. Start a blog.  There is no better way to learn about yourself or a topic that might interest you than by writing about it.  There are many places to start, but two good free ones are Google’s Blogger, and WordPress.com.  You can get started in minutes and go on from there.
2. Learn how to program.  Visual Basic by Microsoft is an easy to learn high level language that will let you develop programs that can range from simple to the most complex.  Freetutes.com is just one online provider that has tutorials for VB.  The Visual Basic Express Edition program itself can be downloaded for free here.
3. Create art of your own.  Pick up a copy of a graphics creation program and go crazy with it.  A good one to work with is Gimp.  Then just search for Gimp tutorials to get started.  Some good ones can be found here.
4. Make a little money online.  Be careful of the scams (do some research, and don’t pay for any programs or services) but see what’s out there that can let you do a little computer work for a little cash.  You can try Short Task for example.
5. Become active in an online social community.  You can start with your MySpace account and then go on to other sites such as Orkut and Windows Live Spaces.
6. Learn something that you didn’t even think you were interested in.  Go over to How Stuff  Works and hit the Random Article button on top of the page and this will bring you to something you can learn very quickly.
   
7. Do some maintenance on your computer.  It is probably not running as fast as it used to so clean up your hard drive and see if there are any tricks for your operating system, either Vista or XP.
8. Play some games.  Ok, not terribly productive, but you can stretch it and claim improvement in the whole hand eye thing!   You can try some nice flash games at Addicting Games.
9. Volunteer for something.  There are many possibilities for this one, but one might be doing some work for an open source software project.  Or maybe becoming an editor for the Open Directory Project (dmoz.org).
10. Read a book online.  Haven’t got your Kindle yet?  No problem.  You can find many worthwhile reads for free online.  Start here at EduChoices for some good virtual libraries.

You have seen this button all over the internet and probably even have one at the top of your browser right now, but have you ever used it or do you even know what it is?  This is the RSS button and it lets you know that the site you are visiting supports RSS feeds.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary.  What it does is allow you a convenient way to stay current with your favorite web sites, blogs, and news sites without having to go to each site individually and regularly.  When you find an interesting site and want to keep up to date with it all you have to do is click this button and subscribe to it.  Then as the site is updated with new content you are immediately shown the new article or story.

You can download a feed reader program to manage all of this.  The reader programs will work in the background retrieving your feeds and then waiting for you to view them.  Another way is to use your browser.  Internet Explorer 7 users have a reader built in.  Firefox users can install the Wizz RSS News Reader.  Another easy way is to use Google’s Reader.  You will need a Google account and then all you have to do is use the reader program from your Google desktop.

Feel free to experiment with the RSS feed buttons on this page.  RSS is a great way to stay current, so start using it today!

We all know that Google is the best and most useful tool for finding information on the internet.  What you might not know is how much the company has to offer that is at least as useful as the search engine itself. 

1. Google Alerts.  Google can send you updates and pointers to information that you request, as it happens.  For example, if you are interested in keeping informed about your local representatives actions in Congress, just enter their name and when they are referenced on the internet Google will send you an Email telling you where to find the information.
2. Blogger.  Did you ever want to talk to the world about what you find fun and interesting?  A blog is the perfect platform, and Google will set you up with one for free.  They also have all the support and help a beginner could need to start blogging in a professional way.
3. Knol.  Share your knowledge by writing articles that can be shared with the world.  You keep your authorship rights, and quality writing will be propagated through the internet.
4. Calendar.  A great online calendar with typical Google quality features.  Import events easily from your Gmail account.  Share your events with friends and family.  Get important reminders via Email or text to your phone.  Never forget an important event again. 
5. Talk.  Chat with your friends using text, voice, or video conferencing.  Another free fun service from Google that will keep you connected to family or friends or even your business contacts.  You can also leave voicemails and transfer files with no size restrictions.
6. orkut.  An online social network where you can manage your existing relationships or form new ones.  Orkut allows you to search out and interact with new people based on common interests and your search of profiles. 
7. Google Blog Search.  A convenient and fast way to search the blogosphere for content that will interest you.
8. Google Groups.  A Google Group is a user owned group that allows you to manage your mailing list and provides a forum for communication and collaboration with your fellow group members.  You also have online storage and customizable pages to share.
9. Picasa and Picasa Web Albums.  Picasa is a photo organization, indexing, manipulation, and sharing tool that can be downloaded from Google.  Picasa Web Albums allow you to share your photos arranged in beautiful interactive web albums with your friends and family.  As usual this is a free Google service with generous amounts of online storage.
10. Google Pack.  An easy and convenient download of Google’s more popular and fun applications for your use.  Most of the above listed products along with Google’s web browser, Google Earth, Google Desktop, and more can be downloaded and installed with Google Pack.  You can also pick and choose which apps you want to install.

Have fun with this list, and explore Google’s site to find more useful tools and applications.