July 26, 2006
Here in no particular order are some sites that might help you on a trip or while planning for a trip. Sadly this is purely academic for me; I’m not actually going on a trip any time soon.
Oanda http://www.oanda.com/
This is a great online money conversion tool.
Fahrenheit to Celsius Converter http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm
Now I can finally explain to my mother-in-law in Dublin how cold it really gets here!
Yahoo Weather http://weather.yahoo.com/
Enter your zip for a 5+ day forecast or click through the menus to find local weather around the globe.
SideStep http://www.sidestep.com
Searches 100 travel web sites to show you the best deals. (Looking for more sites like this? Here’s a good review on travel search engines: http://www.consumersearch.com/www/internet/travel-sites/index.html.)
BabelFish http://babelfish.altavista.com/
A web site translation tool, you can ask it to translate a block of text or entire web site. If you have a web site you can provide a quick link to this site from your own so that people can easily translate your site. The translations aren’t perfect – but probably better than I can do with a dated French Minor.
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Posted by Ann Treacy
July 19, 2006
OK I guess I’m kind of into podcasts now. Lily is my 7 year old daughter. We just recorded her first podcast yesterday, “10 Questions About.”
She started by writing down 10 questions she had about lions. Then we researched lions together online using Yahooligans (www.yahooligans.com), Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), and an online dictionary (www.dictionary.com).
We went to Odeo (www.odeo.com), which I mentioned in an earlier Byte. (It’s a free, phone-it-in blog creator.) I logged in. Then I went to the Odeo Studio page (http://studio.odeo.com/create). I set up a new podcast (http://studio.odeo.com/create/channel). Then I called their phone number: 1-415-856-0205.
I went through their brief login progress and menu options, introduced Lily and handed the phone over to her. When she was done I pressed the pound key and went through their brief signoff process.
It is now available here: http://odeo.com/channel/111903/view
Or for the kid who has everything, I bought the www.10questionsabout.com domain name for $9 at GoDaddy (www.godaddy.com) and redirected it to the site above. Now when the teacher asks about her summer vacation she can almost literally phone it in!
And since I’m all about family today, I’d like to tell anyone in the Twin Cities about an upcoming one-day Irish culture Summer School for adults. My husband is running the event. Guests include Liam Clancy, and experts on F Scott Fitzgerald, JM Synge, Irish music and more. You can learn more here: http://www.irishfair.com/summer_school/index.php
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Posted by Ann Treacy
July 15, 2006
Today’s Byte is for readers who work with an office of folks … I’ll start by saying that I don’t know much about this firsthand as I don’t have an office of folks – but this looks interesting. Google is beta testing a program that would bring Gmail to every user in your domain. Since Gmail for your domain is hosted by Google, there’s no hardware or software for you to install or maintain. The Gmail accounts would include the following:
Gmail – 2 gigabytes of storage and search tools that help your users find information fast.
Google Talk – Users can call or send instant messages to their contacts for free * anytime, anywhere in the world.
Google Calendar – Users can organize their schedules and share events and calendars with others.
Control Panel – Easily manage user accounts, aliases, mailing lists, and chat settings.
Google is looking for beta-testers now: https://www.google.com/hosted
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Posted by Ann Treacy
July 5, 2006
Google creates tools to help web site developers build more interactive web sites. They started a few years ago when they created search function that a developer could add to a web site. (You can see a sample here: http://www.minnesotaruralpartners.org.)
Their latest tool is a mapping function that lets you tap into their tools to create an interactive map on your web site. I looked into working with the Google Maps a few weeks ago. They provide explicit instructions on their web site (http://www.google.com/apis/maps/signup.html). I must admit that it just seemed like a lot of work.
Recently I heard about a tool that helps web developers create a Google Maps Mashup (http://www.mapbuilder.net). (Thanks to David & Rick in Minneapolis.) With Map Builder you sign up, add your addresses and descriptions, and they build the map. You can host the map on the Map Builder site or publish on your own. To publish it on your site you need to get an API code from Google (Map Builder will explain). (Actually they offer a few options.)
Here is a sample map (http://www.mapbuilder.net/users/atreacy/21033). It tracks resources that help rural businesses. I’m working to finesse the map but I was happy with how easy the site was to create.
I’ll let you know how the site progresses and what I learn about the tool.
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Posted by Ann Treacy
