I remember, way back in 1982/83, when math was boring to me (I finished our assignments rather quickly), and my 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Luther, was searching for something to keep me busy. She handed me a book on BASIC programming to use on the Commodore PET computers we had in the media center. I think we had the models 4016 and 4032.

A few weeks before this, or maybe the year prior, we were introduced to the PET computers and turtle tracks. Turtle tracks was a simple LOGO-L-based programming language. It taught us logic and directions at a very early age.

I remember using it in this fashion:

FORWARD 100
LEFT 90
FORWARD 100
LEFT 90
FORWARD 100
LEFT 90
FORWARD 100
LEFT 90

Not only did we have a VERY EARLY lesson on programming in the 2nd or 3rd grade (and onwards), but computers were in a pioneering state and a fairly decent part of our education, for those times. We had exposure about once a week, and this raised interest in some households. I wouldn’t say a large percentage of homes had computers in 1982 or 1983, but I’d make a guess that about 15-20% of the homes had one. Those who had them were relegated to playing games on them, and a small percentage of them were using them to do things like “socially network” on bulletin board systems.

If you go back in time and investigate what these systems were, you could easily determine they were VERY EARLY social networks. Online services like CompuServe, Prodigy, and AOL expanded on the BBS, and became the definite precursor to social networks of today, like: MySpace, Facebook, and Orkut.

Let’s wrap this up. I’m a proponent of making computer science, even elementary programming (coding) education mandatory. It will teach our youth, our leaders of tomorrow, our future champions of industry, that computers aren’t meant for just hanging out on Facebook, Google+, and playing games. It could actually help to bridge the gap between playing and using a computer.

Should Kids Learn to Code was the original article that led me to Andy Young’s article.

To do it, you go to your notifications page and click the “x” all the way to the right of the notification. From there you edit that app’s settings (even though you don’t even have that app) and choose “Never” for how it notifies you.

Here is the two step process on how to do this:

All it took was a 93ms search and the result was Insync! Not only is Insync the solution I was looking for: A desktop folder that is synced with Google Docs, but it can do this with multiple Google Accounts!

Taken from their site, here is some info about Insync:

Why should I use Insync over Dropbox?

1. Way cheaper storage — Google charges $0.25 per GB/year and Dropbox charges $2.00 per GB/year. That’s 8x difference. Plus you can get 20GB for $5/year.
2. Extensive sharing features…
   • read/write + read-only sharing permissions
   • nested sharing
   • share recipients are not charged against their storage quota
   • re-sharing permissions
   • individual file sharing
3. Multiple Google account support (personal, work, school, org, etc.)
4. You can use Google Docs web to edit docs online

Insync is 100% free. How do you make money?

We plan on making money via premium features. Example: secure remote wipe of local GDocs.

What does “Perform these operations when I’m not using the application” mean?

It just means that if you are offline, Insync still has access to your GDocs to perform operations. It doesn’t mean Insync has forever access. By the way, you can revoke access to Insync at any time using your Google accounts page.

Why does Insync need access to my Google contacts?

We use your contacts to faciliate auto-completion when you are sharing.

What’s Insync’s favorite song?

That’s a no brainer.

Google

WordPress

Watch this for more information:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

More information is here: SOPA Strike.

Nevertheless, I butchered my profile on the machine, at which point, Postbox wouldn’t even LAUNCH, saying that Postbox was already running. It seems that you shouldn’t go into your AppData/Roaming folder and delete your profile folder. Rather, you should use the Profile Manager to make these changes. So, I went into Postbox’s Profile Manager (same as Thunderbird) and deleted the default profile and created a new one. Right after that, Postbox didn’t complain about running already and all was well in the world of Peter’s e-mail.

Highlights

• Easier Uploading
  • File Type Detection – A single upload button
  • Drag-and-Drop Media Uploader
• Dashboard Design
  • New Toolbar in the dashboard, combining the Admin Bar and admin header
  • Responsive design for some screens, including iPad/tablet support
  • Flyout menus, providing single-click access to any screen
• New User Experience
  • New feature pointers, helping users navigate new features
  • Post-update About screen
  • Dashboard welcome area for new installs
• Content Tools
  • Better co-editing that releases post locks immediately
  • Don’t lose widgets when switching themes
  • Tumblr Importer
• Under the Hood improvements
  • Use the postname permalink structure without a performance penalty
  • Improved Editor API
  • is_main_query() function and WP_Query method
  • Remove a number of funky characters from post slugs
  • jQuery 1.7.1 and jQuery UI 1.8.16
  • A new Screen API for adding help documentation and adapting to screen contexts
  • Improved metadata API
• Performance improvements and hundreds of bug fixes

I’m loving the new toolbar. I’m loving that they moved Network Admin right under the My Sites menu item. LOVE THAT!

We had two iPhone 4S and one iPhone 4 phone.

One iPhone 4S was on AT&T, the other iPhone 4S on Sprint, and the iPhone 4 on Verizon.

I was quite astonished by the results of our Speedtest.net test on these phones, all running iOS 5.0.1.

iPhone 4S on Sprint

iPhone 4S on AT&T

iPhone 4 on Verizon

Shocking. The 4S on AT&T was nearly 6x faster than the same phone on Sprint. That made me happy. Sprint has the most liberal data plans from what I gathered, but I’m glad to be that much faster. The sad thing to note her was how poorly the iPhone 4 performed on Verizon.

The Verizon phone had the weakest visible connection with 3 bars, the AT&T phone had 4 bars, and the Sprint phone had 5 bars. This is just for educational purposes. Hope you enjoyed it.

UPDATE: Thanks to Greg for running his own test. iPhone 4S on Verizon, Dec-1-2011.:

Greg's 4S on Verizon

Specification

* output power: 150mW into 16 Ohm, 16mW into 300 Ohm

* SNR: >95dBA

* Distortion: <0.0009% (10mW)

* Frequency response:10Hz~100KHz

* USB power supply port:DC 5V/500mA

* Power supply mode :Built-in rechargeable lithium battery.

* Size:41mmx40.2mmx9mm

* Weight:16g

After listening to them for a few hours with low volume (25% or less through the PC) through my cheapo Dell desk speakers, I wasn’t SUPER impressed. I think you need to turn up the volume to 50% or higher to really get a good idea of how the E6 performs. I then switched to the Sennheisers and pumped up the volume to 50% (I’m using Spotify as my music player and listening to some Armin Van Buuren State of Trance 500 album). Cycling through the 4 EQ settings, I’m able to:

1. Hear the difference between them all and
2. Truly benefit from 3 of the 4 settings: Neutral (still amps the signal), +3dB, +6dB, and -3dB.

I’ve never heard my Sennheisers sound this full of life before.

All in all, I think this was a great $24.99 spent at Amazon.com and I’d highly recommend this to anyone who has felt they could tweak their headphone listening a bit.

For a more in-depth review, you can read this one at headfonics.com or this one at anythingbutipod.com.

Specification

* output power: 150mW into 16 Ohm, 16mW into 300 Ohm

* SNR: >95dBA

* Distortion: <0.0009% (10mW)

* Frequency response:10Hz~100KHz

* USB power supply port:DC 5V/500mA

* Power supply mode :Built-in rechargeable lithium battery.

* Size:41mmx40.2mmx9mm

* Weight:16g

After listening to them for a few hours with low volume (25% or less through the PC) through my cheapo Dell desk speakers, I wasn’t SUPER impressed. I think you need to turn up the volume to 50% or higher to really get a good idea of how the E6 performs. I then switched to the Sennheisers and pumped up the volume to 50% (I’m using Spotify as my music player and listening to some Armin Van Buuren State of Trance 500 album). Cycling through the 4 EQ settings, I’m able to:

1. Hear the difference between them all and
2. Truly benefit from 3 of the 4 settings: Neutral (still amps the signal), +3dB, +6dB, and -3dB.

I’ve never heard my Sennheisers sound this full of life before.

All in all, I think this was a great $24.99 spent at Amazon.com and I’d highly recommend this to anyone who has felt they could tweak their headphone listening a bit.

For a more in-depth review, you can read this one at headfonics.com or this one at anythingbutipod.com.