Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 02:40:51 +0000
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Sender: The Internet TourBus - A virtual tour of cyberspace
From: Bob Rankin
Subject: TOURBUS - 22 Mar 01 - Olympic Torch Relay / Zip?
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TOURBUS Volume 6, Number 67 -- 22 March 2001
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\___/ \___/ T h e I n t e r n e t T o u r B u s \___/
FIVE YEARS of Searchable Archives at http://www.TOURBUS.com !!
TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP(S):
Olympic Torch Relay / Zip? / John Dewey Homework
TODAY'S TOURBUS ADDRESS(ES):
http://olympics.coca-cola.com/
http://olympics.coca-cola.com/rules/index.html
http://www.winzip.com/ddchomea.htm
http://www.aladdinsys.com/expander/
http://www.siu.edu/~deweyctr/
http://cuip.uchicago.edu/~cac/dewey.html
Howdy, y'all, and greetings once again from Patrick in the beautiful
city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the deepest point of the Pacific Ocean.
TOURBUS is made possible by the kind support of our sponsors.
PLEASE take a moment to visit today's sponsors to thank them for
keeping TOURBUS on the road.
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On with the show ...
-------------------
Olympic Torch Relay
-------------------
The Winter Olympics are less than a year away, and the Coca-Cola
company is seeking nominations for torchbearers in the Salt Lake 2002
Olympic Torch Relay. If you know someone who has "demonstrated
courage, dedication, inspiration, passion and/or a caring and giving
spirit" and want to reward this person with "the chance of a
lifetime," go to
http://olympics.coca-cola.com/
and nominate that deserving person.
The design of Coke's nominating form is pathetic, but here is how to
work your way around the form's many design mistakes.
The olympics.coca-cola.com page should open a pop-up window. [Web
design lesson #1: people HATE pop-up windows.] After the Flash
animation has stopped [Web design lesson #2: people HATE Flash
animations, especially when they are just "eye candy"], click on the
"Nominate Now" button in the upper left corner of the pop-up screen.
There is also a "nominate someone now" link buried in the text of the
pop-up menu, but it is pretty well hidden. [Web design lesson #3: if
you want someone to click a particular group of words, make that group
of words BLUE!]
This takes you to a completely user-hostile form. The top part of the
form is for personal information about *YOU*. Key in:
1. Your name
2. Your date of birth (two digits for the day, two digits for the
month, and all four digits of the year).
3. Your age. [You must be 16 to nominate someone, although the
form is, surprise surprise, a little confusing on this point.]
4. Your street address (NO PO BOXES!), city, state, and Zip Code.
5. Both your daytime and nighttime telephone numbers.
6. Your email address.
The second part of the form is where you key in the information about
the person that you are nominating, including their date of birth and
age (which is going to make it *REALLY* hard for you to nominate
someone you don't know too well.)
The final part of the form asks that you, in the space provided,
tell us in an original, sincere 50-100 word nomination statement
how the person you are nominating has enriched your life and/or
the lives of others through the demonstration of courage,
dedication, inspiration, passion and/or a caring and giving
spirit.
Once you have filled in all three sections of the form, scroll to the
bottom and click on "Submit." The official rules say that you can
only submit one nomination a day, despite what the pop-up window says.
Coca-Cola will randomly select approximately 2,500 torchbearers from
all eligible entries received by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on 7 May 2001.
By the way, if you want to skip the online form and nominate someone
the old fashioned way -- by snail mail -- go to
http://olympics.coca-cola.com/rules/index.html
for complete instructions.
----
ZIP?
----
Have you ever had a file on your computer that was so ridiculously
large that it was all but impossible for you to put it on a floppy
disk or send it to a friend as an email attachment? Even better, have
you ever wanted to email someone a BUNCH of different files at the
same time but didn't want to go through the tedious process of having
to attach the files to the email one after the other? That's where
zip technology comes in.
In the computer world, "zip" has two meanings. The first meaning is
actually a trademark of the Iomega corporation. Iomega makes
something called a Zip Drive that uses special disks ("Zip disks")
that hold either 100 or 250 megabytes of stuff. The second definition
of "zip," and the one I want to talk about, is a tool/algorithm that
lets your compress and uncompress computer files. The reason why I
want to talk about zip compression is that a few people were confused
by the fact that the PowerPoint files I mentioned in my last post [see
http://www.netsquirrel.com/classroom/ ] were zipped. I apologize for
the confusion.
The reason why I zipped those PowerPoint files in the first place is
so that you can download them quicker. However, to be able to use
those files -- or any zipped file for that matter -- you have to first
unzip them.
Fortunately, unzipping files is simple so long as you have the right
tools. The first thing you need to do is download and install a
special piece of software that will zip and unzip files. This may
sound like more trouble than it is worth, but a zip/unzip program is
an ESSENTIAL tool, especially if you are going to be using the
Internet a lot. In fact, call someone you know who is a computer
guru, someone whose advice you trust implicitly, and ask her if she
could live without her zip program. She'll laugh. Zip programs are
THAT important.
Where can you get a zip program? Well, for PC users, I recommend
WinZip. You can download a free evaluation version of WinZip at
http://www.winzip.com/ddchomea.htm
It has been a while since I have unzipped a file on a Mac, but I seem
to remember that Aladdin's free StuffIt Expander worked pretty well.
You can download StuffIt expander for Mac, PC, and even Linux at
http://www.aladdinsys.com/expander/
Download either program and then install it. After that, whenever you
encounter a zipped file (a file that ends in ".zip"), just
double-click on that file. Your unzip program will automatically
open, and you can then choose where you want the unzipped version of
that file to be saved on your computer.
That's it. :)
By the way, one of the reason why I prefer WinZip over StuffIt
Expander for the PC is that WinZip adds unzip capabilities to Windows
Explorer's context menus. To see what that means, install WinZip,
right-click on any zipped file on your computer, and then choose
"extract" from the pop-up window. No more double-clicking.
Happy uncompressing!
---------------------
A Quick Plea for Help
---------------------
Before I wrap up this week's post and head back to my schoolwork (only
three more weeks until spring break!), I have a favor to ask. One of
the assignments I am working on at Pepperdine is creating a John
Dewey- inspired rubric.
Dewey was a professor at the University of Chicago in the early
Twentieth Century and was one of this country's most influential
educators. In fact, there is a BUNCH of Dewey stuff on the Net at
http://www.siu.edu/~deweyctr/
and
http://cuip.uchicago.edu/~cac/dewey.html .
Anyway, my assignment is to round up a bunch of Dewey's quotes --
quotes that capture the essence of the man -- and then to use those
quotes to figure out what Dewey would look for if he were grading
something today. In other words, my job is to create a Dewey-inspired
rubric that can be applied to ANYTHING.
My instructor said that I could use any resource I want -- *BIG*
mistake! -- so I am turning to you.
Any ideas? :)
By the way, I'm not trying to scam out of doing this assignment. I
actually have a BUNCH of quotes and hyperlinks already (take a look at
http://www.netsquirrel.com/pepperdine/edc665/index.html), but I
figured that 100,00 heads would be better than one, especially since I
intend to share my rubric with y'all when I am finished.
That's it for this week. Have a safe and happy weekend, and we'll
talk again soon. :)
TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP(S):
Olympic Torch Relay / Zip? / John Dewey Homework
TODAY'S TOURBUS ADDRESS(ES):
http://olympics.coca-cola.com/
http://olympics.coca-cola.com/rules/index.html
http://www.winzip.com/ddchomea.htm
http://www.aladdinsys.com/expander/
http://www.siu.edu/~deweyctr/
http://cuip.uchicago.edu/~cac/dewey.html
---------------------------------
TODAY'S SOUTHERN WORD OF THE WEEK
---------------------------------
KOREA (noun). A lifelong vocation.
Usage: "Ah'm planning on a korea in auto repair"
(Special thanks to Emory Fong for today's word)
You can find all of the old Southern Words of the day at
http://netsquirrel.com/crispen/word.html
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