Billionaires Back Free Textbook Movement

Over at my FreeU blog, I posted an entry on how two tech billionaires are changing the game and pushing the "free textbook" pedal with lots of their own money and tech savvy.

Read here

*HOT PICK*: Skydrive Explorer Manages Cloud Storage With Drag-and-Drop Ease (and no browser!)

Many users find online storage accounts ("cloud" storage) useful to upload documents, music, Powerpoints, etc. so that they -- or others -- can access from anywhere in the world. Such cloud storage also provides an additional form of backup storage (although I would always have a portable backup to the data on your PC.

Problem 1: Cloud storage is expensive. Most sites provide only a few GB for free and then charge you for more (Dropbox costs $120/year!).

Solution: Windows Live Skydrive. For the cost of a Live or Hotmail account (free), you can use that Live username/password to log on and create a Skydrive account with 25GB of free storage per account.

Problem 2: Skydrive allows you to create folders (and subfolders) but uploading is one file at a time with any browser other than Internet Explorer.

Solution: SDExplorer (formerly Skydrive Explorer). SDExplorer is a small but powerful tool that creates a new drive on you Windows Explorer shell (the "tree" you use all day long to copy/cut/paste between folders). On my PC, it appears as a new drive "G" and shows all the folders that I have online -- without having to open a browser!

Here is the productivity boost: open your Windows Explorer and you can simply copy, drag-and-drop, or paste files from your PC to the SDExplorer (online) drive. The changes take effect immediately up in the "cloud." You can also create a new folder on your SDExplorer drive with a simple right-click. And you can delete folders that you have online from your SDExplorer drive.

The Pro version has a few additional features (including no more 50MB cap on single file size uploads). SDExplorer costs $13 for a lifetime license.

Free or Pro, this is a useful little tool to have on your PC.

REVIEWS:

http://lifehacker.com/5433481/skydrive-explorer-mounts-your-skydrive-in-windows-explorer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/18/AR2010021804606.html

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/10/30/access-skydrive-from-windows-explorer-my-computer/

Note: If you tried an early version of this program and it didn't work, the latest versions 2.1+ are very stable and polished).

Job Sites for History Majors

GENERAL ADVICE

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/opinion/06collegeadvice.html

Cost of living and other vital data (includes small towns like Carbondale!):

http://www.bestplaces.net/

Just looking at cost of living, it costs 2.5X as much to live in San Francisco. Other clicks compare crime, demographics, etc.

Compare Cities: Carbondale, IL - San Francisco, CA

COST OF LIVING Carbondale San Francisco

Overall 79 187
Grocery 97 122.3
Health 94 166
Housing 42 296
Utilities 112 144
Transportation 96 130
Miscellaneous 98 110

TEACHING

Job Bank: http://www.illinoiseducationjobbank.org/pages/

Illinois teacher salaries: http://www.championnews.net/salaries.php

PUBLIC HISTORY

This one is a cool one to get started:

http://www.beyondacademe.com/realjobs.html

http://publichistorian.wordpress.com/job-search/

http://ncph.org/cms/publications-resources/resources/

http://ncph.org/cms/careers-training/jobs/

http://www.museumsusa.org/

http://www.daddezio.com/society/hill/index.html

GRADUATE SCHOOL:

Widely read blog with fascinating data and insights into what grad school really does for (and to) you! (Read older posts -- new site not as good)

http://phdinhistory.blogspot.com/

COLLEGE TEACHING:

Community College Teaching (SIUC has the only certificate in this area!). Contact Marybelle Keim for more information (mkeim@siu.edu)

Read this first:

http://www.oah.org/pubs/commcoll/index.html

http://www.higheredjobs.com/community/default.cfm?type=1#Faculty

Four-year teaching jobs (job market data available upon request -- U.S. market is tough, Asian, Latin American better -- any field that requires languages).

http://chronicle.com/section/Jobs/61/

LITIGATION SUPPORT

A growing and lucrative field:

http://www.historyassociates.com/

http://www.hrltd.org/about_hrl.htm

http://www.morganangel.com/

There are others. See my packet on the topic.

Got recommendations for other sites?

Students! Stop Buying Software at Retail Price!

Living in a college town, I often run into students at the local Wal Mart. When I see them eyeballing software at retail prices, I point out that they can get the same software at a steep discount through our university. The same is true of K-12 students.

If you have an educational affiliation of any sort, start saving money on software and just about everything else. Educational discounts on everything from software to hotels make for the lowest prices possible.

Example: At my university, students may purchase Windows 7 at $80 instead of $199 + $16 tax ($216). That is a savings of $136!

Even better, if a student works for the college (even work study), they may qualify for the best discounts of all: faculty/staff discounts. At my university, staff may purchase a five-license DVD for Windows 7. Cost: $9.97! Same price for Office 2007 (PC) or Office 2008 (Mac).

For software not sold through your school, go to Academic Superstore.com for similar-sized discounts.

Above all, remember that freeware is often equal or superior to commercial software. See my "Best Free Software for Students (and Others)"

University finds free online classes don't hurt enrollment

From my other blog FreeU:

http://freesiu.blogspot.com/2010/02/university-finds-free-online-classes.html

CaptureFox: Can Firefox Do Everything?

My favorite computer advice site, Lifehacker.com, alerted me to this really cool and useful screencast tool called "CaptureFox":

http://lifehacker.com/5414285/capturefox-adds-screen-capture-capabilities-to-firefox#comments

This tiny (900K) add-on is amazing. It is a high-powered screencast program that runs from within Firefox. It records everything you do to create a tutorial and show your friends how to do something with their PC or Mac. You can minimize Firefox and it records what you do with other programs. Return to Firefox and click “End Record” – Save. What will they think of next?

Summary: It will capture everything streaming video and audio through your computer (you can add a microphone if you want to do a voice over).

For most people, this is a free way to screencast. The leading program for PC/Mac (Camtasia) costs $299 (nonstudents) or $179 for students. A Mac favorite, Snapx Pro, is cheaper but still costs $69. While those two commercial programs have some added features, most people don't need them.

I'm suprised how browser-based my life has become: I've junked a dozen programs because Firefox (with add-ons) can do what they did before. The result is a cleaner computer and easy access to everything I need (since I use portable Firefox on all of my PCs, I simply synchronize them and can always copy to a flash key to carry all my programs with me. Students heading home for vacation might want to copy their portable Firefox on a flash key to use on their parents' computer without messing with their settings).

WARNING: This is the type of add-on you will use on an "as needed" basis. Add-ons slow down Firefox so I highly recommend you disable those you use "as needed." To disable/enable, you open Firefox, then click Tools -- Add-ons -- Disable or Enable.

OfficeTab: Tabbed Interface in Word, Powerpoint, Excel

A Chinese software developer has developed one of the most useful freeware programs: OfficeTab. I work with multiple documents at once and hate having to go to the minimize tray and search for the document I need. OfficeTab enables me to see them all at once and simply click-Tab to the one I want. Cool and productive!

Check it out here.

If you don't read Chinese, check out the translated page to download.