Wikis, Blogs and Podcasts: Part One of Web 2.0 Presentation

Well, the presentation of Part One at the Socastee library had to be canceled due to some glitches in the library computer infrastructure. I/T folks are now hard at work fixing the problem and the class will be rescheduled. In the meantime I will be giving the same presentation at the September 1 meeting of the Cypress River Plantation Computer Users Club, open to residents and property owners and their friends. Part one covers Wikis, Blogs and Podcasts, shows you what they are, how they can be useful, and, in the case of Wikis and Blogs, how to create and maintain your own at no expense. You can find the slides for the presentation here. There are many links on the slides, just run the mouse around on each slide to find them.

Web 2.0 The Art of the Internet Possible

Well, I've been teaching computer related classes at Socastee Library for some time now, all of which have been classes already documented by library staff. Now I have developed one of my own, titled Web 2.0 - The Art of the Internet Possible. I intend to include blogs, podcasts. Wikis, social networks, folksonomies, and Mashups but decided to break it into parts one and two after doing the first three items in that list. I am sure that blogs, podcasts and Wikis will take us beyond the supposed one hour of a class. I will include the other three in a different class and give it later this year. I have already put part on up on Slideshare. You can find it on the web at http://www.slideshare.net/JimWhite/web-20-the-art-of-the-internet-possible-1856299

I did a "Computers 102 - Files and Folders" class yesterday at the library. I thought it went pretty well, got some nice comments. I didn't create a Powerpoint presentation for it because it was more of a hands on class. The Web 2.0 will be more lecture plus watch the presentation, not a lot of hands on. I have included lots of hyperlinks in the presentation to other sites on the web, including a link to a great film clip that beautifully explains wikis. I will be demoing the wiki I created to help our family plan our December drip.

AVG Antivirus Free Download Site

In the class I taught yesterday at the Socastee SC Public Library I mentioned that AVG offers a free version of their excellent antivirus software but didn't have the correct link available where it can be downloaded. I promised to locate that and put it up on my blog, so here it is:

http://free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition?cmpid=fr_bn_free_670

Click on the hyperlink above and it should take you there. If you are remembering what I taught you, you can confirm, before you click, that you are actually going to that web address by looking at the very bottom left of your browser window as you hover the mouse over top of the link.

After clicking on the link and going to the download page you will see three columns where AVG compares their free software with two of their for pay packages. The choice, obviously, is yours. To download the free antivirus, scroll down to the bottom of the columns and click DOWNLOAD under the "free for private use only" column. After downloading you will either have to choose SAVE and then run what you saved or choose RUN rather than save. This will install software.

Remember, if you have any questions you can use the comments link at the bottom of this blog entry. I try to look at it at least once a day and will answer to the best of my ability. Check back within a day to see my answer.

Online Security

On June 24th 2009 at 6:00 p.m. I will be teaching a class in the Socastee Public Library on Online Security. Here is a link to the presentation:

http://www.slideshare.net/JimWhite/socastee-library-online-security

There are hyperlinks throughout the presentation. Left clicking on them will take you to additional information, the back arrow at the top left of your browser window will bring you back to the presentation.

Sorry for the very basic usage info, I'm trying to make this useful for all users.

Maintaining Your PC

My wife and I volunteer teach some computer classes in the Socastee Public Library near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Tomorrow, June 16th 2009, I will be teaching "Maintaining Your PC". I have created a Powerpoint presentation to accompany the course and have put the presentation up on the Internet on WWW.Slideshare.Net. You can find the presentation by going to Slideshare's home page at WWW.Slideshare.Net and doing a search using the presentation title OR you can go directly to the presentation by clicking here.

There are many hyperlinks in the presentation. They will take you to various articles or Youtube clips that illustrate points in the presentation. Recently Slideshare has made some changes so that the hyperlinks work even if you are not in full screen mode but if you have trouble, try switching to full screen mode by clicking the word full at the bottom right of the presentation image.

I hope you find the presentation useful. Feel free to use it yourself either from Slideshare or downloading it to your own PC.

Starting a Computer Club

Finally I am getting around to starting a computer club in our Myrtle Beach home. We will meet on a biweekly or monthly schedule. I will be the presenter at the first couple of meetings after which I hope other presentation volunteers will surface. I hope to present/have presented topics for beginners and more advanced at each meeting of the club. We will also have a "self help" session, with members presenting computer or networking problems that I or other members might have solutions for. At our first meeting I think I will do two short presentation, one for beginners on basic desktop and window management and one for all on problem solving via the web. Should be fun.

On another front, I continue to volunteer at the Socastee Library, giving a variety of Computer related courses in their computer equipped classroom. Tuesday June 16th I'm teaching "Maintaining Your Computer", Wednesday June 24th I'm teaching "Online Security" and sometime during the month (date not settled yet) will be "Computers 101".

Computing 101 - I'm Teaching Again

Well, I'm back to teaching again. I have volunteered to teach computer use topics at our local library in South Carolina. Oh, yes, we now live more there than we do in Randolph. We moved part time into our new SC home in January of last year. This year we plan to spend more time here. The library I'm teaching in is the Socastee Library.

Much to my surprise, this Myrtle Beach branch library is only five years old, is larger and much better equiped than the library in Randolph, NJ. In addition to some 18 or so computers on the floor, there is a classroom with a dozen or more computers plus a screen and projector to show the teachers screen to the class. Fantastic. I'll be teaching the beginners class, computing 101, tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. I'm looking forward to it.