Buying a Netbook or Laptop on Black Friday?

There are many excellent deals to be had on netbooks and laptops during tomorrow's Black Friday sales. If you're not sure which deals are actually deals and which netbook or laptop is best for you or student, check out the following two articles from TechCrunch and CNET.

TechCrunch: Gift Guide 2009: Netbooks

CNET: Who makes the most reliable laptops?

For what it's worth, I haven't had any problems with and really enjoy myAcer Aspire One 10.1-Inch Blue Netbook which is now listed $50 less than it was six months ago.

Tech I'm Thankful for: RSS, Twitter

I'm often asked how I find so many educational technology resources to write about. The short answer is I subscribe to nearly 300 blogs and websites as well as spending a lot of time on Twitter and Twitter search. Watch the following videos to learn more about how RSS and Twitter help me find material to write about.

RSS in Plain English


Twitter in Plain English


Twitter Search in Plain English


I guess I should add that I'm thankful for Common Craft too.

What tech items are you thankful for?

My Great World - Geolocate Images of the World

My Great World is a free photo sharing service with an emphasis on geography. My Great World categorizes images by the country in which the photograph was taken. Users can submit their own images and rank the quality of images on a 1-10 scale. Visitors to My Great World can search for images by country or by photographers. The sharing element of My Great World allows registered users can swap images and network through My Great World's messaging system.


Applications for Education
My Great World is a nice resource for students doing research assignments on various countries. The search by country option is a nice way to find images of that country. The advantage of searching by country on My Great World over an image search on Google is that it removes some of the guess work and search refinement process younger students sometimes experience when using Google to search for images.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Google Swirl is Like Wonder Wheel for Images
Compfight - Creative Commons Image Search

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who are celebrating the holiday today. It's been a great year for me and I hope it has been great for you too.

And just as many radio stations play this at noon on Thanksgiving I thought I'd share with you Alice's Restaurant. If you're interested in learning more about this song, Wikipedia has a decent article.