I’m always looking for new desktop wallpaper to spruce up my computer. Here is a source for some very cool ones. http://innovativewallpapers.blogspot.com/
Wallpapers
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Blogging Fun
I am still new to blogging, having only been doing this for a couple of months now, but I’m really enjoying it. You may notice that my blog topics appear promptly at 9:00 AM. This is of course because of the scheduling feature at blogspot. I can write several entries one day, and have them appear one at a time on schedule. Even more fun than writing my own blog is finding new and interesting ones to read. I try to find at least one a day that I can add to my daily reading list.
My Late Lamented MP3 Player
My beloved Philips GoGear MP3 player has died. It was suffereing from a lingering illness for some time now, showing boxes instead of words on the screen, but it still played. Now it is gone. I’m going to get a new player sometime soon. I’m not sure which one I should get. I could get one comparable to the old one for a fraction of the $229 I paid for it, or I could spend another two Franklins and get an iPod Touch which will play games too. What do you think?
Computer Crashes Suck
I suppose I have to say that I’ve been very lucky. I’ve been using a computer gradebook of one variety or another for fifteen years, and until today I’ve never had a problem. Unfortunately today I did have one. My gradebook file has been corrupted. The data from one class is gone, both in my original file and in the backup. My very wonderful Education Computing Strategist is online with the tech support people to see if we can unscramble the data. Barring that, well, I have the overall grades recorded on paper, just not the grades for individual assignments. I’ll still be able to assign grades. The sad thing is that most of my students don’t care what those grades will be.
Book Cover Pro
If you’ve been reading my entries for a while, you’ve seen covers of The Steel Dragon and His Robot Girlfriend. I still hope to find a publisher for The Steel Dragon, but His Robot Girlfriend will be self-published (and freely distributed electronically). The covers shown were made with Book Cover Pro software. For anyone wanting to self-publish more than one book and has even a modicum of layout talent, this is a great investment. Since even the simplest custom covers will cost close to $100, this investment of about $180.00 will pay for itself.
Big Fish Games
If you are like me and enjoy playing little games on your computer when you should be working, Big Fish Games is a great site to check out. Many different companies distribute games like Mahjong, Villagers, or Turbo Pizza, but Big Fish probably has the best deal. If you purchase one per month for a year, you really get a good deal. My favorites are Book Worm, Build-A-Lot, Fairway Solitaire, and the afor mentioned Turbo Pizza. Check them out.
Editing Eternally
Editing is a big job. I finished the draft of The Steel Dragon last February, went through several revisions, and then set about trying to edit it. I made corrections all through the spring and summer, I had ten other people read it and edit for me, and I am still finding errors to fix. Having others edit really helped, as when you read your own material you don’t read it as closely since you know what you’ve written. Still, it’s a big job and one that has to be done. I was working on still one more editing pass the other day after school when a young lady came by my classroom to see me. She asked me how many times I had gone through my book. When I replied that it was probably at least twenty times, she asked “How can you read your own book twenty times?” I replied that if I wasn’t willing to read it, how could I expect others to.
Pimping Your Book
A great article about marketing and advertising your book is now up on the Swivet Blog. Check it out here.
Down the Right Side of the Blog
I intend that this blog will be my public face as a writer. Hopefully, as I see more of my books published, they will be displayed down the right side of the page. For now, I have the various versions of my one published work– Princess of Amathar, as well as some nifty little extras to fill the space. None of these is original, as they appear on many blogs, but I still think they’re neat.
I’m finding more and more blogs that I like to read on a regular basis. “From Other Great Blogs” lists links to some of the more interesting headlines that I have found.
As a History teacher, I’m pleased to have “This Day in History” on my page.
“Useless Knowledge” has some useless and some not so useless bits of information. I have noted a few that were incorrect bits of common mythology as well. The champagne glass was not based on Marie Antoinette’s breast.
“National Geographic Pictures” and “NASA Picture of the Day” are both very cool.
My favorite is probably the “Quotation of the Day”.
I’m finding more and more blogs that I like to read on a regular basis. “From Other Great Blogs” lists links to some of the more interesting headlines that I have found.
As a History teacher, I’m pleased to have “This Day in History” on my page.
“Useless Knowledge” has some useless and some not so useless bits of information. I have noted a few that were incorrect bits of common mythology as well. The champagne glass was not based on Marie Antoinette’s breast.
“National Geographic Pictures” and “NASA Picture of the Day” are both very cool.
My favorite is probably the “Quotation of the Day”.
Staff Development
Well, we’ve just had another staff development day, and since I teach at an N5 school (listed as needing improvement for five years under the federal NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND Act) we spent most of our time trying to figure out how to improve our students’ performance on the standardized tests. Unfortunately, we are spending a great deal of time trying to figure out how to fix a problem that we can’t even touch. The students have no motivation to pass the tests. Most of them don’t even try to answer the questions. They sit and randomly bubble answers. What happens to them if they don’t pass? Nothing. The school fails, but it doesn’t affect them at all.
City of Amathar 