McGraw Hill Gets In On the Mobile Education Market

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/26/mcgraw-hill-gets-in-on-the-mobile-education-market/

A couple of timely education items hit my inbox this morning. First, a report suggests that U.S. students suck at science. From the report,”less than one-half of students are demonstrating solid academic performance and competency over challenging subject matter.” Granted, ‘science’ is an extremely broad term and encompasses many different disciplines, but the gist of that report is pretty troubling. This might be a good time to remind readers of Scitable, Nature Publishing Group’s free online science library. Although limited in scope to genetics, cell biology and ecology, they’ve been growing since last we covered them, with many new articles as well as a new guide to life science careers and English Communication for Scientists. The latter, alone, should be worth your time today.

Also word comes today that McGraw Hill is jumping into the mobile education market with their upcoming mConnect platform: “an open-standard mobile learning platform designed to bridge the skills gap in emerging markets.” mConnect will initially roll out in India, and will, much like Scitable, have a strong focus on cellphone-as-learning-device. Specific details are lacking right now, but mConnect looks to be a more general education initiative.

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Find a Less Evil Bank with Fewer Fees and Better Returns [Saving Money]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5743879/find-a-less-evil-bank-with-fewer-fees-and-better-returns

CNN Money rounds up what they call the eight least-evil banks on the block, helping steer those of us with high-fee, low-interest bank accounts to greener pastures.

Photo remixed from an original by Elliot Brown

The reasons most banks made the list included a combination of free checking, no ATM fees (and reimbursements for ATMs that do charge fees), and relatively high interest rates on checking accounts. The eight least-evil banks, according to their list (which is unfortunately a rather annoying gallery), include:

• Ally Bank (ATM fee reimbursement and a 1.05% checking APY)
• ING Direct (1.2% on balances over $50,000)
• USAA (10 ATM reimbursements a month, free checking, no minimum balance)
• Capital One (no monthly fees or minimum balance)
• Alliant Credit Union (1.1% APY on checking, no monthly fees)
• PNC (no minimum balance or monthly fees, ATM reimbursements)
• The Incredible Bank (1.35% APY, free checking, ATM reimbursement)
• Charles Schwab (no fees, no minimum balance, ATM reimbursements)

Hit up their full post for more details on each bank. The post also offers more general advice when it seems like your current bank has introduced new fees or dropped interest rates:

...when shopping around, remember that a great yield and zero fees don't always come hand in hand, so you first have to figure out what is more important to you.

If you have a large amount of money to deposit — say, over $10,000 — you should typically look for a bank with a high interest rate rather than focus on the monthly fees, Barrington recommended.

That's because the interest you make would likely offset the fees.

If you're anything like us, you're probably also keeping an eye on the up-and-coming (as in, still not available, but looks very promising) BankSimple.

Got a bank you'd nominate for sainthood? Let's hear about what makes it so great in the comments.

The 8 least-evil banks [CNN Money]

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Listening Room Lets You Share Music in Real-Time Across the Web [Music Sharing]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5742031/listening-room-lets-you-share-music-in-real+time-across-the-web

If you're trying to decide on a background track, wedding reception picks, or other crucial tunes, you don't have to be in-person to get instant reactions. Listening Room lets anyone upload tracks for playing in real time to anyone with the link.

One person heads to Listening Room, creates a room with a name, then sends the link, or just the name, to anyone else they want to be listening. Click the record player, pick an MP3 from your system, and it starts playing as it uploads. Everyone else "in the room" hears the same track, too, at roughly the same time. You can chat about the track in the right-hand with your name attached, or post the link publicly and let folks jump in and heard you DJ. It's a bit safer from the usual label/lawyer/licensing issues, too, as nobody can download the tracks, or even adjust their playback.

Listening Room is a free service. On an outside guess, it's also a passion project, so it might get overwhelmed by traffic at first, so give it some time if it doesn't respond.

Listening Room [via Red Ferret Journal]

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LibreOffice 3.3 Final Gives the OpenOffice.org Suite a Fresh Start [Downloads]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5742664/libreoffice-33-final-gives-the-openofficeorg-suite-a-fresh-start

Windows/Mac/Linux: The first finalized release of the OpenOffice.org spin-off, LibreOffice, has hit the web at version 3.3. It's got a few unique features, an ever-so-slightly tweaked look, and the ability to export to Microsoft's DOCX format by default.

You can read up on the new features and fixes and general release notes, but know that, in general, this is an OpenOffice.org package released under a different banner, for a multitude of reasons.

LibreOffice is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. Note the "Download with BitTorrent" checkbox when you're downloading, and use it if you can—my download was quite slow this morning.

LibreOffice

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175 Photos of Day Taken at Night [Photography]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5742383/175-photos-of-day-taken-at-night

The 175 photos that follow look like they might have been taken during the day. But it's not day. It's night. The photos are lying, thanks to long exposures that soak in the colorful nightlife.

Lead Shot - Lifeguard

I was camping with my son at San Elijo State Beach in San Diego, CA when I took this photo of a lifeguard stand in the middle of the night on Jan. 23rd, 2011. Since I did not have a tripod, I just leaned my camera against the staircase. When I was editing I noticed you cans see the constellation Orion in the clouds at left. Nikon D3 17mm, f2.8, 6 seconds, ASA 4000
-K.C. Alfred

Snow Day

I live in the midwest and it just so happens that, on the night of the full moon, January 20, we received a very heavy snow storm(9in where I live). The most unfortunate part about this snow storm was that you could not see the full moon at all and it really didn't help that the wind chill was 0 degrees, there was snow flying all over the place, and my equipment was getting all wet. So I decided to take this shot from my back door, I had my lens hood on and that was filled with snow even from inside the house. Overall it was a terrible night(based on the complaining I did in the previous sentences) and this was the best that I could get while being snowed in and having limited resources. Canon EOS 20D, Canon 28-70L, ISO 200, 55mm, 25.0s, f/6.3.
-George Westlake

Haystack Rock

This is Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, Oregon. The shot was taken about 3 hours after sunset and the moon had just risen. As I was finishing another project and packing up to leave I looked behind me one last time and saw this... And knew I had to take this picture. Nothing special was done in post production other than some simple RAW adjustments. Canon 1D Mark IV, 35mm 1.4, 8 second exposure, 200 ISO.
-Paul Seeber

Cliffs at Sunrise

With school engulfing much of my time on top of tragically having to sell my Nikon D200 to afford a car, I haven't had a chance to shoot anything digital recently. My boyfriend and our other friend wanted to go have a stab at this challenge, and I decided to tag along with my Mamiya RB 67 for fun. The 120 back to my camera was malfunctioning, but I managed to steal my boyfriend's Canon 5D mk II away and shot this: my first day for night exposure. The exposure was 30 seconds long using a Canon 15mm at ISO 800, f6.3, and was taken around midnight on the rocky sea cliffs of Santa Cruz. I was happy with the simplicity of it.
- Jennifer Kehl

Laguna Beach

My friend told me about this contest so we both went down to Laguna Beach to shoot photos. I had never done a full moon shot like this before. Not the darkest place in the world but we didn't want to travel very far. Shot this from a stairs that lead down to the beach. I liked the lights in the background because they still showed it was night even though it looks like late afternoon. This was really fun. Canon 20D, 70-200mm @ 70mm, F8 @ 90 seconds, ISO 400
-Zach Hunter

When the Coyotes Started Circling

This is one of my favorite New Mexico back roads, and this tree has always been my favorite feature. It stands all by itself, out in the middle of the desert. I've wanted to shoot it for quite a while, but I've never been able to envision the right scene in my head. So, every time I take this road, I just drive past and smile at it, thinking that someday I'll get that shot.

And then there was this shooting challenge. I knew what I had to do.

I started shooting around 11:30 at night. The moon, about 2 days past full, gave me a nice side light. I used my old manual Vivitar 19mm f/3.8 wide open on my Nikon D300, daylight white balance, ISO 1600, and a 20 second exposure. This let me snap off one or two before having to move the camera and tripod out of the middle of the road for traffic. However, none of those middle of the road shots came out as nice as this from-the-shoulder one did. When the coyotes started circling, I decided to pack up and call it a night.
-Adam Wolf

Spark at Dawn

I was out for a Moonlight climbing trip and stopped when I saw my friends coming up the path to me. I waited for them to enter frame and let the camera do its thing. The lights are headlamps. We were on our way out of Hueco Tanks State Park in Texas. F8 30 seconds, 14-24mm f2.8 Nikkor lense, D3 on Tripod.
-Craig Copelin

Sunrise?

Took this shot with a Canon Rebel T1i using a Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 lens. I carefully placed the camera on my bedpost and pointed it out the window, balancing the camera basically on the lens. It was also on top of a couple hats, so I didn't feel worried about it falling too much. Used a remote shutter to pull off the 8 minute exposure at F8 using ISO 100. Reminds me how Sunrise looks from the same spot, because the window faces East, so the sunrise is almost the same spot. The light source is actually a street lamp by an intersection.

Was going to try something else, but last night was -2F, which was far too cold for me!
-James Grabow

Curu Wildlife Refuge

Photo was taken at the Curu Wildlife Refuge, Peninusla of Nicoya in Costa Rica. Curu it's close to the public after hours unless staying in one of the cabin's they have for rent; this night my wife and I were the only ones on the park so we had an entire private beach to ourselves. The light in the distance is from the port of Puntarenas.
-Pablo N. Piedra

Gordan MacFarlane

This is my first submission, after many many months of weekly keeping up with the challenges, this one seamed very Interesting. The example shot seamed impossible that it was done at night and really wanted to try it out for my-self. I went out on 2 nights to take some pictures, Wed was the full moon and it finally cleared up much later at night. I got some photo's I was happy with but I realized that they did not really capture the spirit of this challenge so I went out Thursday night and decided to head to the cemetery. Sadly I could only see the moon threw some thick cloud so I had to shoot with the available light pollution that my great city was offering me. It was still night and it took a lot of experimentation to get the settings just right. I think what turned out was a great shot. ISO:200, f/11, 121s exposure, 50mm on my 18-200mm nikkor lens. Taken at around 11pm. Shot with my Nikon D70s.
-Paul MackKenzie

Water Under the Bridge

So I finally decided to take part in a shooting challenge. Why this one? Well about a year and a half ago, I shot a photo at midnight of a cow in a pasture. What made it so special was that the photo looked like it was taken on a sunny day. When I showed the picture to friends, they often could not understand what was so special about the photo. I would tell them; "what if I told you that wasn't the sun." They would think about it..... then, OMG how did you do that?. Long exposure and a cow that stood very still. I included that photo, but not as my submission for the shooting challenge. The photo for the shooting challenge was a bit different. About 40 degrees different. Saturday night my buddy and I drove out of the city to get away from all of the light pollution. After about an hour of driving, we drove across a bridge that spanned the Haw river on the outskirts of Pittsboro, North Carolina. I had fished below the bridge in the past, and I knew that it could make for an interesting photo. Over the years, frequent visitors of the area have cleared out a make shift parking area in the woods and a trail down to the rocky river. Knowing we would be there a while, the first task was getting a fire going. After thawing my hands out, it was time to get down to business. I found a flat area along the bank to set up my tripod. Took some test shots, cranking my ISO to 1600 so I wouldn't be waiting as long for my results. After finding my desired framing, I dropped the ISO down to 400, calculated my new shutter duration (5 minutes) and went for it. As you can see in the photograph, the sky moves quite a bit in just 5 minutes. You can also see the red glow of our fire, on the underside of the tree branches hanging over the river. The photo was taken Sunday Jan. 23 @ about 1:30 A.M. I had a blast with this challenge, so expect more entries from me in the future!! Canon 30D, Canon 24-70L 2.8 @ 25mm, f/ 5.6! , ISO: 4 00, Shutter Speed: 5 minutes (I used an intervalometer)

p.s. The timing of this challenge worked out well for digital SLR photographers. Shooting in low temperatures helps keep long exposure heat noise down.

Also, I attached a cool photo of the fire nestled in the rocks that kept us warm.
-Danny Boemermann

Winner - Moonlight Tan

So I live in Puerto Rico, where there is beach everywhere. I was at a friends house and i explained the challenge to them they liked it so bad that we all went to the beach to take some pics, I Had my Canon T2i, with a 24-70 F2.8, and a Slik Tripod, the settings were Iso 400, F 8, Shutter 302 secs. and at 24mm. I did several pictures of 8 guys playing soccer, standing there for 5 mins!! but this one was the more sharp! It was really Fun.
-Juan Lizarzaburo

There were so many surreal, haunting and beautiful shots. This challenge was a whole lot of fun, no? Granted, some of you stood out in zero-degree weather, but for the rest of us, SO MUCH FUN! As always, full-size shots are at flickr, and we have the entire collection of galleries below.

Gallery One

Gallery Two

Gallery Three

Join me at Philanthroper, my new site that promotes a $1 donation to a new nonprofit every day. A little helps a lot.

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