michiganteacher's Xanga

Screen, Video, Image, Resolution, Hi Def

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 20:44:00 GMT

One of the fun things about having a computer is being able to watch DVDs.

Now-a-days, there are high definition DVDs (HD-DVDs) that look much better than regular DVDs, IF they are viewed on a high-definition TV or a really good computer monitor.

Monitors have special code names for their resolution. The most common for many years was VGA monitors. They displayed 640x480 pixels. Right now, good monitors will display over four times as many pixels, 1280 by 1024, also known as SXGA.

The image for a DVD is 720 pixels wide by 480 pixels tall.

The image for High Definition video is 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels tall.

To watch the best possible image of a high definition movie, the monitor should display 1920 pixels across.

The WUXGA (Wide - Ultra eXtra Good Array) gives 1920 by 1200 pixels. Hooking such a monitor up to a newer computer with a really good video card signal is probably the cheapest way to watch High Definition video.

Here are some examples of screens that will show high definition...

* Alienware m5550 15.4" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD in a laptop computer
* Alienware m5750 17.0" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD in a laptop computer
* Viewsonic VP2330wb 23.0" WUXGA 1920x1200 flat screen monitor

High Definition movies would not play on DVD players. Such movies require a special drive. Right now, these high-definition drives are very expensive.

* Sony VAIO VGN-AR190G - 17" 1920x1200 with HD DVD recording drive -- $3500
* Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650 - AVPC Laptop with HD DVD playback drive -- $2500
* Sony 2x2x2 Blu-ray Internal drive - $750 (Blu-ray is a kind of High Definition video disk.)

Looks like buying one of those is way too expensive for me! But who knows, prices on computers have always come down (in the past). I guess I'll just keep dream'in.

Summer

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 18:16:43 GMT

Summer break is here, woo hoo! Yesterday was the last day for the teachers. The day before was the trip to Cedar Point. Both were lots of fun, in their own ways.

Now I'm looking forward to the week because I'll have all sorts of time to do whatever I want. One of the first things is to catch up on my emails and reading on the internet. It usually takes me about a week of surfing before I get tired of it.

On Friday is the Michigan Energy Fair. The fair is sort of a conference, with three different 1-hour classes going on at time. I've made my list of the most interesting sessions. There are some about building a solar powered house, some about peak oil, and others about wind power. I'm going to take some flyers and try to get people all connected up so that we can chat about peak oil, work on solving (as much as possible) the problem, and to get the word out. I guess I'll be spending some time this week working on that.

My updated presentation about peak oil is going to be on TV in Grand Rapids (channel 24?) in June. I'm seriously considering doing one more rewrite to the presentation and then making it into a video myself, to put onto Google Video and YouTube. Right now, the peak oil videos there are a bit confusing or they don't really understand the issue.

My students for their final exam all made webpages using FrontPage. The topic for the web page was energy and peak oil. Some of the students really seemed to understand a lot of the ideas. I hope that helps them to talk with their families when prices get so high that there is a lot of talk at home about it.

I hope all of the students have an interesting summer. I remember being a tad bit bored when I was their age during the summer because I lived out in the country and didn't have any neighbors with kids my age very close. If I had a computer back then, I probably would have been on Xanga everyday! I guess that is nice that the students can talk online. That gets me thinking about the possibility that an energy crisis following peak oil will cause the internet to shut down. I don't know how much energy it takes to keep it up and running, but I'm sure its a huge number.

Ok then, eh? Stay safe out there!

Mexico - Yucatan - Maya

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 14:52:58 GMT

Last week, I traveled to Mexico to the Yucatan Peninsula with my family. The trip turned out excellent.

Yucatan used to be home to millions of people called the Maya. About 1000 years ago, the Maya were one of the greatest civilizations. They built lots of cities including huge buildings and pyramids. Amazingly, they didn't use animals or wheels! The largest pyramids were over 100 feet tall.

While in Yucatan, we visited three ancient Maya cities: 1. Tulum, 2. Coba, and 3. Chichen Itza.

The tall pyramid here is from Chichen Itza (sounds like Chee-Chen-E-Tsah). President Bush climbed a few steps during his trip to Mexico in March. When we were there, no one was allowed to climb this pyramid. Back in January, an old lady was climbing up, she got tired, sat down, fainted, fell down, and she died... so all the stairs are roped off.

This second pyramid was in Coba. When the ancient Maya built it, it looked fantastic. The Maya abandoned Coba hundreds of years ago. Since then, trees and bushes grew in all of the cracks of this pyramid. This pyramid was cleared of plants only on this one side so people could see it.

We climbed to the top of this one. It was quite high, but it was exciting. From the top we could see above the forest in all directions. By the way, the pyramid in Chichen Itza used to look just like this, but the people who found it around 1930 decided to try to make it look like new, so that's why it looks so fantastic.

Tulum used to be a city right on the coast of the Yucatan along the Carribean Sea. It was the center of business with boats going up and down the coast carry people and things to sell like food and cloth. Some of the people who lived in Coba probably moved to Tulum after Coba was deserted.

The reason that Coba and Chichen Itza were deserted is interesting. The people there basically used up everything they needed to live. In Chichen Itza, they used up all the trees as far as the eye could see, they ended up polluting their water supply by not taking care of their body wastes, and then when they didn't get enough rain, many died because there was not enough food or nutrition.

The same thing happened in Coba except hundreds of years earlier. They used up all their wood, and probably polluted their lakes, and after a few dry years with too many people, many died, and the rest moved away.

The ancient Maya are very interesting because knowing what happened to them will help us understand what is going to happen to us when we use too much of the earth.

Burning up all the Gasoline for Fun

Sun, 19 Mar 2006 21:11:45 GMT

What would a person do if gasoline went from $2.50/gallon to $5.00/gallon?

I think that people would still buy gasoline. They wouldn't be able to afford as much. They wouldn't just go for a drive. But they would still buy it. Some people would end up spending more money on gasoline than usual. That would leave less for fun stuff like movies, games, and other stuff.

Could the price go up to $5/gallon? Yes, absolutely. In fact, there are millions of people that already pay that much. The average price of gasoline in Europe is $5/gallon. Do you think they're happy about that when we American's are paying half that? No, I don't think so.

So why is it so expensive there? Because in the USA, our tax dollars help to lower the price of gasoline. A lot of tax money is also used to pay for our military, which helps to keep our gasoline (oil) supply flowing.

Should we be worried? No, but we do need to know the facts.

It used to be that gasoline prices stayed steady. They were steady because the more that people used, the more the Middle East would pump out of the ground. When the USA wanted 18 million barrels of oil per day, the Middle East would sell it to us. When we wanted 20 million a day, the Middle East took care of that, too.

The fact is that we have already burned about half of the oil that was in the Earth to start with. The Middle East, and the entire rest of the world, is now pumping out oil as fast as they can. BUT, they can't supply as much as the USA (or the world) want. We're currently extracting about 85 million barrels per day, and that's probably the most it will ever be.

So, what happens everyone wants to buy more, say 90 million barrels per day, but there is only 85 million barrels per day? Very simple, raise the price so that people can only afford to buy 85 million barrels! During September, after hurricane Katrina, this is EXACTLY what happened. What happened to the prices? They went up by almost a dollar per gallon!

The secret that very few people are talking about is that we are sort of in a crisis. We keep trying to buy more gasoline, but there is only just enough, so the prices are going up. Its been almost three years now that prices have been rising steadily on gasoline. We pay $2.50/gallon, and in Europe, they pay $5.00/gallon.

Based on what I've learned, there will be much less oil in a few years than there is now. Of course everyone will want it, and so the price will go up fast. It might surprise you to think about $25/gallon gasoline, but I suspect we will all see that.

The problem is that when we discovered about 100 years ago that oil could be used to run automobiles, we started burning it up. The people back then never seemed to care that oil is a non-renewable resource. In other words, it doesn't come back once its burned up.

In the last 100 years, half of all the oil that will ever exist has been burned up. That's the main reason we have global warming. By burning the oil up, we're releasing all the carbon dioxide in it. We now have about 40% more carbon dioxide in the air than the earth normally has. That is a problem because the climate is changing and the ecosystems are dying.

I am a little upset with myself even. I've burned up over 10,000 gallons of gasoline, just for my own cars. I also have spent at least $500,000 in my lifetime (money I was paid for working). Most of that money ended up getting spent on OTHER people buying oil or gasoline. So in reality, I'm probably responsible for the burning of like 100,000 gallons of gasoline or oil in my lifetime. Just imagine how much pollution and carbon dioxide that must be.

I think this is the number one thing people don't realize. WE create every single world problem by using money. Once we spend the money, we are motivating someone, somewhere, to do something... like cut down a tree or try to make something so cheap that there is tons of pollution. Once we spend a dollar, it keeps motivating people to do things as cheep as possible. The next person spends it, then the next, and then the next... On and on, that dollar keeps motivating people to do whatever it takes to get that dollar. Even if we are really, really smart about it, and only buy things from super good people, if they turn around and spend it buying from someone that isn't super good, than its just like we were the buying from those people in the first place.

I'm not the only one burning up all the oil. Everyone that spends money is burning oil, whether they buy gasoline or not. Once a person pays for something, the seller turns around and spends some on gasoline, and then buys from other people, who also buy gasoline, and so on. In the USA alone, we burn or use 20,000,000 gallons of gasoline per day!!! That is 25% of what the world uses, and we have less than 4% of the people!!! Plus, a lot of gasoline and oil are used to provide the USA with products from China and other countries, so we should really count that as well!

So, we are burning it up, and there is NOTHING that can replace what we're using up. I feel a bit sad when I imagine young people thinking that they are going to be driving cars or going into outer space... It takes a lot of gasoline to drive a car and a lot of energy to get into outerspace. I don't think its going to happen.

Is this a problem? No, not if we know what is going on so that we can take action. In Michigan, for example, we need to put up lots of wind powered electric generators. If we don't, we won't have enough electricity and we'll be all siting in the dark all the time. People in Michigan also need to find jobs where super-high oil and gasoline prices aren't a problem.

For me, I'll probably end up riding a bike or a moped to school everyday. I won't have to worry about cars because so few people will be paying $25/gallon, that the roads will be practically empty, except for everyone else riding bikes and things.

Another reality is that I'm going to have to come up with a new way to heat my home. This winter, I paid like $1,000 just for the propane. The price of that is going up just like gasoline, so when gasoline is $25/gallon, I'd be paying $15,000 just for heating my home each year.

That's not going to happen because I'm going to figure out a way to heat my house without propane. There are things called heat pumps that pump heat into the house from out of the ground. That's one choice I'm thinking about. Another choice is super-insulating the house, and then making a sun room that sucks up the heat during the sunny daytime and lets it out at night. There are actually houses in Michigan that already do that, so I'd like to visit a few.

The last big reality that grocery stores and quick marts are not going to have much food when oil gets really expensive. That's because people aren't going to buy a $10 bunch of bananas all the way from South America. People aren't going to pay $20 for a pound of hamburger either. The higher the price of oil goes, the more expensive all the food in the grocery store will be.

The solution is that I know I can grow food of my own. I used to help my family with a garden, and we had really good food from it. I'm lucky and have over an acre of land that I could grow food on. That would probably be enough food for up to 10 people if everyone pitched in and made sure to keep the garden healthy. Some of that food could be stored until winter time as well. I think I'd also have a growing room on the house to grow stuff in the winter. That would have to be different from the sun room because the sun room would get too hot for growing plants.

Oops, one more issue. I think it's entirely possible that money (dollars, pennies, etc.) might lose their value and be essentially worthless. This has happened in other countries. The solution is to make a system of buying or trading that doesn't involve money. It could be sharing things, or having coupons to trade, or something, but money might just be worthless.

Of course, its very difficult to predict some things in the future, and I hope I'm wrong about all the tough things that are going to happen. On the other hand, I don't want to be stuck not knowing what is going on or what to do. Sitting around and whining and complaining are not going to help anyone when things become challenging.

This is why its so important that people really learn things that will be useful in the future. Skills like being a leader, knowing how to learn new things by looking stuff up, knowing how to talk to people to learn stuff and get them to help... all of these skills are going to be very important. It makes me sad to think that so many people are just floating around, playing all day long, and not really talking, thinking, or planning about anything in the future.

So many people just watch TV, surf the net, play X-Box, and waste their days away. I know. I've been a TV addict. I probably have spent 10,000 hours in front of the TV. Now I feel like I've wasted all that time. No more of that. I don't watch TV shows anyone. I'd rather go spend time with people, and chatting, and writing, and doing real things. I changed, so I know other people can as well.

The young people especially need to recognize that if they want a nice world to live in, they are going to need to help take over, with other serious good people, so that there is something left for the future. Right now, our civilization is destoying the planet a little piece at a time. Global warming is going through the roof. Ice caps are melting. Hurricanes are getting worse every year. Air and water pollution is killing people. The horrible food that corporations sell is making everyone fat. We are sending all our money to China and India to buy things, which means there's no money left for people's jobs in Michigan.

We have to remember that we are doing it to ourselves. Most of us never think about anything but "how cheap is it?" when we buy things. Every purchase we make like that destroys the planet a little bit more.

Its time to get serious. This planet is in our hands. We can either use it all up, like we have been for the past few hundreds of years, or we can take action and create a better future for ourselves, our friends, our families, and someday, our children and grandchildren.

Good luck and stay safe!

Tracking Down Visitors and Lurkers using IP Addresses and Trackers

Sun, 12 Mar 2006 21:33:43 GMT

One intersting thing about having a tracker is checking out the anonymous visitors. There is one anonymous visitor who likes to check out this page every day or so. Click on the screenshot of some of the visits. I've nicknamed this person "Grand Haven Lurker"...

Here's what I know about "Grand Haven Lurker"...

Uses Microsoft Internet Explorer
Has a cable modem
Has Internet through Charter Communications of Grand Haven, Michigan
Has visited this site over ten times
Never visits earlier than 3:15 p.m.
Has visited pages of at least a couple different students
Has an IP computer address of 66.227.170.238

One nice thing about the Internet is that with the information above, it would be very easy for the police to track down the person. If "Grand Haven Lurker" were doing anything illegal, I could print out the log of the visits, and take it to the police. It would be a simple matter for the police to call up Charter Communications in Grand Haven, ask for the name and address for the person using the IP address 66.227.170.238. The police could nab that person within a few minutes.

"Grand Haven Lurker" might be surprised that I know that IP (Internet Protocal) Address. Or, might be surprised that it would be so easy for the police to match that number with their name. In fact, everytime a person uses the Internet, the computer has an IP address. This IP number is just like the home address of the computer. For "always on" connections, like cable modems, this IP number remains the same. For dial-up modem users, this number changes slightly with each log in. Either way, a log is always kept by the Internet Service Provider as to which user was using which IP address during which period of time.

One last interesting tid-bit. Almost every major web site has something like a tracker. These are sometimes called "hit counters" or "visitor logs". Not only do these logs keep track of everytime a page is viewed, they also show where the visitor came from and then where they went to next. Click on the picture above and look on the right side to see what I mean. Interesting, eh?

Good luck and stay safe!

MACUL - Day 2 - Posting to Xange using a Cell Phone

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 14:06:33 GMT

Today's session's were very interesting. Will Richardson was the main speaker for the day. He spends almost all of his time online learning about web logs, RSS, podcasting, vidcasting, screencasting, wikis, and all sorts of other interesting things.

I sent both of these pictures directly to Xanga live, from the conference, by using my cell phone. I tried to send a little video as well, but Xanga didn't accept it. I think it's amazing that a person can update their web page from a cell phone. Just imagine how cool it would be to go on a trip and update everyone each day. Of course, there are downsides like if someone posts a picture that wouldn't be nice to post.

Mr. Richardson also showed how to use some computer program to talk with other people on the Internet just like talking on the phone! Someone in the room had a handheld computer that was broadcasting the audio (sound) of the session. Then, when he called this person using the computer, the person on the other end made some jokes about the session. The computer program recorded the entire "phone" conversation and Richardson played it back... I'll have to try it out... It sounds fantastic!

One more note about Xanga. In the posting section, its possible to alter the HTML code by clicking on the "Edit HTML" check box, and then to add extra code. That's how I created the borders around these pictures, and got them to move over to the right. I suppose a table could be used to make the layout look even nicer!

Oh, I think there was one more interesting privacy think I learned... Yes, its possible to make a page so it will not be searchable using the Xanga search box. I turned off the search ability on this site, and on these pages, so someone searching for MichiganTeacher or Tracker won't find this page... Although, since someone else linked to this page, it only takes one extra click to get here. Very interesting!

MACUL Computer Conference in Grand Rapids

Thu, 09 Mar 2006 23:10:33 GMT

The MACUL computer conference in Grand Rapids was very interesting today.

I attended four of the one-hour sessions. The first was about the five big things in the next few year. The second about various blogs, wiki's, podcasting and how they are used by schools. The third talked about Michigan's technology standards. The last was about how schools need to teach general skills that students will need in life.

The coolest thing was the students who were there showing off projects they had done in school. Neat stuff!

Tomorrow I'm going to learn some new things about blogs, such as how to block anonymous users, how to update from email, and more!

Xanga, Trackers, xTracker, Gottem, Staying Anonymous Online

Thu, 02 Mar 2006 13:07:35 GMT

I just added a couple trackers to this site: xTracker and Gottem. There are lots of trackers, I just happened across these two first. I deleted the ads from the Gottem tracker code before adding it to my site. I think the neatest thing about trackers is that you can see how the person got to your site.

Since yesterday afternoon, eight people have visited. After checking the trackers, I found all their first names, most of their last names, where they go to school, and how old they are. The trackers showed the exact time they visited, what internet service provider they used, how they arrived here and where they went next!

Gottem has another cool feature... you can go to the Sniffer to see who has trackers, and which ones they have! Very cool!

Here are some things people, especially teenagers, should do to hide their identity online:

Don't look at new sites if you are logged in to Xanga. If they have a tracker, then they'll be able to find out that you visited, and will probably find out all about you from your site.
Never use your first, middle or last name or other identifying information online
Don't put any pictures of yourself or your friends or other identifying pictures online
If a visitor leaves a comment that has any identifying information or is inappropriate, then delete the comment
Don't subscribe to anyone who is giving out identifying information
Look all over your friends' sites to make sure they aren't giving out identifying information. If they are, don't subscribe to them until they clean up their site.

To stay safe and anonymous, you should turn off all identifying information like birthday, email, instant message, location, and all the other things listed above. Just go into Xanga and look around to see how to turn things off.

If someone leaves a comment you don't like , you can delete that comment! If you don't want their eProp link on your page, you will have to turn off ALL the comments on that page, then save the page, and then you can turn the comments back on. I like it better when people DON'T leave eProps and just leave great comments instead!

Be careful out there! There are creeps who live near you! You don't want to get stalked, preyed on, kidnapped or assaulted or bothered by annoying people. Check out the Sex Offender Registry for a list of some seriously creepy people near you.

Good luck and stay safe!

Staying Safe on the Internet

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 21:34:04 GMT

There are lots of things that young people should do to protect themselves online. The most important one is to NEVER give out certain kinds of information.

NEVER give out first, middle or last name. Don't even give out initials or a nickname that you use with friends or family
NEVER give out names of friends or family or anyone you know
NEVER give out ANY personal information. Examples: your age, gender, birthday, home town, address, phone number, places you visit, teams you are on, etc.
NEVER give out any info that would allow a creep to track you down.
NEVER post pictures of yourself or your friends or family or anyone you know
NEVER leave eProps or comments or subscribe to someone you don't know in person
NEVER chat with people you don't know

Remember, about half of the Internet is lies. Many of the people online are liars. Many of the people online are not who they say they are. Some of them are much older, are the opposite gender, and are only interested in getting what they want.

Posting something online is just like sending it to everyone in the world. Everyone can see what you have written, who your friends are, how often you post, and much, much more.

Imagine that all the people in all the prisons come to your school for an assembly. Then you read to them your entire site, and the sites of all your friends. You wouldn't do that, would you?

There are bad people out there who are probably reading your site. Look at what happened with one creep in Battle Creek. Once bad people get out of prison, some of them definitly go online and read people's posts.

If you don't know the person, you should NEVER talk to them. There are Online Predators who would enjoy messing with you, harassing you, or even stalking you.

The number one danger on the Internet is simply giving out too much information. If someone you know gets really angry with you, they could easily make up a fake site about you, or say horrible things. So think twice before putting anything online.

Just because you are good about keeping personal information off of your page doesn't mean that other people who have linked to you have done such a good job.

Once you post it, anyone in the world can make a copy of your page, and it could end up on the Internet FOREVER!!! So never post something that you will ever regret.

Good luck and stay safe!

National Education Association -- Resolutions Committee

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 14:38:25 GMT

During the National Education Association's meeting of its Resolutions Committee in Washington D.C. this weekend, a new resolution came up about promoting the welfare of students by protecting them from dangers on the Internet. I volunteered for the Technology Subcommittee formed to address this topic.

During researching of blogs, I discovered that many of my current and former students have Xanga sites. Almost all of these students give out huge amounts of personal information. Many have not only the first and last name of the student, but also a picture, pictures of friends, links to friends sites, infomation about their sports teams, and much more.

One of my former students even published her phone number. Using a reverse phone directory, her home address was very easy to discover.

I'm making this site to learn more about Xanga and how it works.

Good luck and stay safe!