Challenge Complete!

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 10 Days in Dominica Challenge. I was shocked that so many people decided to participate; 17 participated in the challenge for at least a day or two.

I am especially amazed by Jessie and Cassie who both gave birth to baby girls during the challenge! Congratulations to both of you on the new additions to your families, and your first baby girls.  

I will be keeping a quick link to the 10 Days in Dominica challenge on my sidebar. Readers will be able to click the 10 Days logo to see all the posts. If you'd like to do the same, here is the how-to:

> "tag" each of the posts under the label "10 Days in Dominica"
> from your main blog page click the label "10 Days in Dominica" and it will open up a new page with all the posts with that label.
> copy the web address from your browser's address bar.. it will look something like: http://www.pricelessadventure.com/search/label/10%20Days%20in%20Dominica
> go into your layout and click "add a gadget"
> choose to add a picture
> in the html box, paste the web address you copied
> be sure the box "shrink to fit" is checked
> choose the file from your computer with the 10 Days logo
> save, and you are done!


For those who are still working on the challenge, I would LOVE to still read your posts. Writing every day for 10 days was more difficult than I thought it would be. Not only with remembering to do it, but finding the time to squeeze it in. I really enjoyed reflecting on my time in Dominica and was reminded of some great reasons to treasure the time I have left here.

iBooks

I am loving my iPad2, and especially iBooks.  It amazes me that I can convert a book with Calibre, email myself the file, and then open that email on my iPad to have it automatically install in iBooks.  I've been sharing books recently with my friends. Here is what my bookshelf looks like today:

I really am shocked at how much I like reading books on the iPad.  I thought I would never make the jump from paper-back to Kindle, but I did.  And the jump from Kindle to iPad has been even easier.  Check out the beautiful format I read with:

I'm reading The Magicians by Lev Grossman right now and loving every minute of it.  The best way I can describe it is Harry Potter meets The Chronicles of Narnia, but with college aged characters.  If you have an e-reader, I'm happy to let you borrow it!

Happy Mac Day!

Well, I think it's no secret that I have a passion for all things tech and especially mac.  And today, is a happy day.  The Apple Store released OS X Lion today, available for download from the Mac App Store.

My primal instinct (pun intended) was to immediately open the App Store to download and install.  Fighting that urge, I first opened my browser and did a quick search on if I should upgrade now or wait.  There were a couple of interesting articles:

Lifehacker: Should I Uprade to OS X Lion?
NY Times: The Usual Apple Upgrade, Big Steps Forward a Stumble Backwards

Which led me to a website to check if all the programs I currently use will be compatible right away.  This is when I started to have my doubts about upgrading today.  A few of the programs I use quite a bit (Microsoft Office, Reeder) have some issues or are not compatible yet.  This is no-bueno when I'm on a strict deadline right now to get my global learning project website up and fully running by Sunday. 

Lion, you may be king of the animals, but if I can't rely on the fact that I can do the same thing post-upgrade as I can right now, I'm going to have to wait.  It pains me to say this but you, Lion, are just a cub right now.

 
I'm going to give you a little time to mature before I invest my $30.  Hopefully by the time my website is done you'll be an upgrade older.  And I'll be able to enjoy not only a month off of school but a lot more time to play with you and become friends.

Infographic

One of the assignments in my latest Masters class had me create a Top 12 list of the best websites for educators.  I decided to go the route of an infographic.  Have you guys seen infographics lately?!  Check out this one:

Infographics are art and information mixed together.  They are made especially for viewing on the web and most are long and narrow to fit on webpages and blogs easily. If you want to check out more, go here.  So, you can see why I was interested in trying to make my own.  Even if you aren't a teacher, you might still enjoy some of these sites!

RSS

The truth is, I've been entirely too busy reading blogs to post in my own.  There is this thing called RSS: Really Simple Syndicate.  I've always wondered what that funny symbol was, but never cared enough to find out.  It turns out that when you click the RSS button, it's kinda of like subscribing to that blog.  Then if you go to Google Reader (which if you have gmail, you already have) all your "subscriptions" are there waiting for you.  And if you use Blogspot already, all the blogs that you "follow" on Blogspot are already set up, ready to go!  So then, instead of going to check 15 different people's blogs everyday all I have to do is go to G-Reader and voila!  All the updates are there waiting for me.  What an awesome system, and a time saver!

Google Reader

More Info
Google Reader is called an aggregator which basically means a sorter for the RSS feeds.  You can also download aggregators like NetNewsWire which works on your computer, iPhone, or iPad or try a browser-based one like Bloglines or Feedlooks. 

NetNewsWire

There are things I like about G-Reader and NetNewsWire.  At first both were a little overwhelming, but once you catch up on reading what you've missed it's rather easy to stay on top of it all.  I like that I can categorize things with both programs, and I like that you can save an article to read later, or tag it in case you want to find it again.  You can also easily switch between just looking through one blog at a time to reading updates from all the blogs you follow at once.  If you are a blogger like me, you should definitely try it out!

Font-a-licious!

My absolute favorite place to get free fonts is kevinandamanda.com.  They have incredible handwriting fonts and scrapbooking fonts.  She will even make your handwriting into a font, for free!  Installing fonts is super easy, and something you shouldn't be afraid of.  Here are some directions.  My next step is going to be change the fonts for my blog titles, which Amanda gives instructions for here.  And last but not least, here are some of the fonts I downloaded today. 

   

Go Get Em!