Hello all… I’m being told that the server that this website is on will be turned private after the first of the year. A little bit short notice, eh?

Anyhow, everything on here has been backed up, and so there may be a little bit of downtime following the first of the year until I move it someplace else. So… heads-up, guys, and I apologize in advance if it does happen.

Chances are, if you use a computer, you use one of these regularly. They allow you to view content from around the world, all at the touch of your fingertips. What am I talking about? A web browser, of course! And which web browser you chose can have a big effect on your Internet browsing experience. Many of us are obliviously happy with whatever installed on our computer, such as Internet Explorer or Safari, or what have you. This week, I encourage you to try and branch out and try others, such as Opera, Google Chrome, Safari, or… anything else you find! Have a fun time over our holiday break trying them out!

Mozilla Firefox – a classic alternative!

Google Chrome – a new kid on the block, it is very quick, speedy, and I like it! Give it a try. I DARE YOU.

Apple Safari – originally just for Macs, Safari is now for both Mac and PC, and brings the Apple browsing experience to everyone!

Opera – A underdog, Opera has been around for quite a while, but has gone unnoticed. Give it some due respect.

Flock – a “social web browser”… I think it lets you share stuff with other people more easily. I haven’t tried it yet, so why don’t you?

Seamonkey – a full internet suite, with webpage editing, email, RSS feeds, and all sorts of other stuff.

It seems like people are constantly asking me, “Hey Max, do you know a program to do this?” or, “Do you have a better program to do this?” Well, this week’s tech tip was suggested by Webster Thomas’ very own Mr. Tai. Download.com is a simple solution to many of these questions, and I could probably do a whole lifetime’s full of tech tips for all the pieces of software that they have on there. Again, the website is simply download.com, and has programs for EVERYTHING you could possibly want to do on the computer.

Secondly, Mr. Tai brings up a good point: If anyone has suggestions for what they want to see as a Tech Tip, or need a question answered, shoot me an email at max@maxkelley.com, or leave a comment on this post.

I know many people, including myself, sometimes find new Math concepts hard to understand, or you just don’t get it fully when the teacher explains it in class. Too busy to visit the math lab, or don’t understand the homework? It’s ok, try using Wolfram Alpha, a “computational knowledge engine”. What does that mean? Basically, you type in your math problem, and it will walk you through, step-by-step, how to get the answer. The address for Wolfram Alpha is simply www.WolframAlpha.com. And it’s not limited to just Math, in fact, it does almost EVERYTHING, from Chemistry, to Physics, to Statistics, to Biology, Earth Science… give it a try. If you’re not sure how, click on “Examples” on the homepage, and it will tell you exactly how.

This week, I’ve found a website that lets you print paper for free. Now, you still need to put blank paper in your printer, it’s not magical… What I mean, however, is that it has over 500 different kinds of paper designs that you can print, from your basic lined paper, to graph paper, to musical staff paper, to sports score cards, to blank tic-tac-toe, hangman, and battleship games!

PrintablePaper.net has, again, over 500 different kinds of paper in PDF format for you to print off at no charge. EVERYONE should take a look at this website, PrintablePaper.net, it’s really very cool.

This week’s tip was about online music discovery services. Now, I love music: I create music, play music, and most importantly, listen to music. There are some times, though, when I get tired of my music collection, and nothing good is on the radio. Give up? NO! Last.fm is a website that looks at the artists and songs that you listen to, and makes recommendations on artists that you may like, as well as concerts, video, pictures, artist bios, and other cool stuff like that. It’s free to sign up for last.fm, and it is definitely worth it. Give it a try! Those who like last.fm should also take a look at Pandora.com, which I’m sure many of you have heard of.

Here’s a few of my most recently played songs on last.fm.

Computers can be a great friend to us, yes, but when they fail, they can be one of our most hated posessions. Why? Well, imagine you just finished typing up every single final essay for your senior year, save them, go to print them the next day, and the computer’s dead! You should have backed them up to iDrive. Idrive is a website that offers you 2 gigabytes of safe, online data storage for free. All you need to do is create a free account at their website, iDrive.com, download the application (for Windows or Mac) and start backing up your files. If you want more space, there is the option to upgrade to a paid account.

Also try:

Mozy Home Backup – also free, 2GB of storage, sign up here.

ADrive – free plan offers 50GB of space, supports FTP transfers…

This week’s tech tip was about reliable, online databases. Often, teachers tell us, “Don’t use Wikipedia for research, it’s not reliable” and sometimes… they can be very, very right. So, what should you use instead? Try Jurn.org. Jurn is a website that indexes and catalogs articles from over three thousand scholarly journals, so it should be fairly easy to find accurate information for your topic, research paper, or what have you. Google Scholar does basically the same thing, and you can find it at scholar.google.com. Both Jurn and Google Scholar are sort of like free versions of the databases that our wonderful librarians provide for us. Give them a try, or keep them in mind for when research paper time comes!

This week’s tech tip is about video conversion. I know a lot of people have MP3 players, iPods, PSPs, and other portable entertainment devices. However, a lot of the time, I hear of people asking questions like “How do I get the video I took with my videocamera onto my PSP” or “Why won’t this DVD go onto my iPod?” Chances are, you need to convert the file to the proper format. WinFF is a program for Windows or Linux that makes it super-easy to do just that. Just select the file you want to convert, and select the format you want it to end up in, for example, “Microsoft Zune” or “iPod fullscreen”, and hit convert. To get WinFF, simply go to www.winff.org, and look under Downloads for the Windows Installer.

For Mac users or as another option for windows users, try Handbrake. It has even more options, and works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It is available at www.handbrake.fr.

This week’s tech tip was all about keyboard shortcuts.

Suppose you’re working on a really complex project in Photo, or typing up a really long essay in the library, and you need to leave the computer. There’s a simple solution. Hold down the “Windows” key, and hit L, and your computer will “lock”, which will require you to put in your password to unlock it. This way, nobody can mess with it! The “Windows” key can do lots of other things: pressing “Windows” and D will minimize everything and take you through the desktop, and Windows-F will open a file search window.

For more like these, take a look at http://www.seoconsultants.com/windows/key/… it’s where I found the ones I didn’t know!