Happy holidays, everyone!

Here's an update on my earlier post about the Austin teacher who confiscated her students' linux distros: Character-Assasinations-Ain't-Us. The author here seems to want to mend the damage and soften up the rhetoric from the Linux community towards this ignorant teacher. Here's a snip:

Here's a truly bizarre site I found today via Google: Pub Games Rings. It appears to be a site generated for the sole purpose of boosting its own Google rank (or at least the rank of the many sites it links to), but what's interesting here is the almost pastiche-like quality to the thing. Isn't this poetry?

reindeer old fashioned glasses buffalo wings and onion rings dining rooms

It's at least as good as a Captain Beefheart album. :)

Here's one that's bound to get your blood boiling: Teacher confiscates Linux CDs, claims no software is free. I'd hate to be on the receiving end of this middle school teacher's email queue today. I love this quote from her email:

At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful. These children look up to adults for guidance and discipline.

Drum roll please....Wiki Writing: Collaborative Learning in the College Classroom has arrived! I just got my advance copy today and couldn't be more pleased with the production. U of Mich Press did a fantastic job putting this thing together, and of course all the chapters are must-reads for any teacher interested in wikis, if I do so say myself.

If you do get a copy please let us know what you think!

Is anybody else having fun with the new gmail themes? I am really impressed with some of them, especially the retro "Terminal." On a related note, is anyone using the gmail video or voice chat? How does it compare to Skype?

I just found a link to Between, an interesting-sounding game published by Esquire. Here's the snip:

My friend Bill sent me a link this morning to Writeroom:

WriteRoom is designed for distraction free writing. If you are looking for a programmer's text editor or tool to help you manage large writing projects then there are better choices. If you need syntax highlighting and command line integration try TextMate. If you need to manage large writing projects try Scrivener. If you just need to block out distractions and write then I think WriteRoom is a great choice.

With the holiday break coming up, I thought ya'll might appreciate some tips on some fun, non-violent adventure games to wile away those lonely wintry hours.

One of my students this semester has hair longer than mine. Maybe that's why he's been writing such great blog posts! Anyway, I thought you might enjoy or profit from his review of free alternatives to Microsoft Word. It's fairly comprehensive and even has screenshots. Check it out!