knisely.org

Last year I recieved the following e-mail, asking for permission to use one of my photos in a French school book.

:: Your picture of children at the farm

Hello,

I’m a French editor, working for a French Educational
publisher’s branch specialized in school publications
(Hachette Education). I am currently preparing a method for
teaching English in French secondary schools.
Title: NEW SPRING 4
Authors: F. LEMARCHAND & K. JULIE
Date of issue: April 2008
This method is intended for pupils aged 14/15.

One of the chapters my authors have written is called “Trip
to New England”. And in this chapter is a lesson about a
Farm Bed & Breakfast in Maine. In order to illustrate this
lesson in an attractive way, I’m looking for realistic
pictures of children visiting a farm. And this one of yours
seemed very nice to me:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sh0tzy/72603957/

Would you allow us to reproduce this picture? What would be
your conditions?
And would you be able to provide me with a high res version
(300 dpi) of this material?
Thank you in advance for letting me know.

Regards,
Olivier

I replied that they I’d be happy to let him use my photo. The only thing I asked for in return was a copy of the book when it was published. I had forgotten all about the book until today when a packaged arrived in the mail. Sure enough, the man was good to his word and sent me a copy of the book!

The boys were excited that their picture was in a school book that would be used by students in France!

Popularity: 18% [?]

After all this blogging, and assuming no one reads any of it, I got a reciprocal link request today from Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee. Sure thing, maybe I’ll get a few readers sent my way, although I’m not dedicated to writing about coffee for food.!

Their site states they are;

“The premiere source for genuine Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffees from a variety of sources including Mavis BankÕs JABLUM brand Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffees, Wallenford Estate Blue Mountain Coffee, Wallenford Blue Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee and smaller farms offering Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffees of exceptional quality such as RSW (Resource, Sherwood Forest, and Whitfield Hall) and Country Traders Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee.”

Now, with a nice little sample I could write up a proper review of their site and what they have to offer the coffee lover who enjoys the finer aspects of coffee.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Check out these amazing Flight Patterns from outerspace! Designer Aaron Koblin took data from FAA and made awesome animations with all of the flight patterns. Every time I see something like this it amazes me the things that smart people will find to do with raw data!

Powered by ScribeFire.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Just thought I’d post a quick follow up to my first ever Ohio Linux Fest. I had a great time, met a lot of really cool people and really enjoyed being around a whole lot of other Linux geeks! Made me feel good to meet face to face with others who are passionate about Linux and Open Source software!

I especially enjoyed the talk by John “Maddog” Hall, he is someone I have admired for a long time and it was an honor to hear him speak and to briefly get to speak to him!

The Fark Party on Friday was a blast, had a lot of good beer (a few too many) and met more interesting people. I’ll have some photos posted soon!

Can’t wait until next year, I’ll be there for sure!

Popularity: 13% [?]

Check out this awesome, hand drawn dungeon map, apparently created for the original Zork. Ahh, brings back the good old days of playing D&D when I was a kid. Probably should never have given it up, no on line game could ever take the place of a bunch of pre-geeks sitting around playing D&D on a Friday night. I still rememeber my dungeon master, kid named Bobby.

Funny thing, I ran into him at the hospital about 3 years ago. Did not look all that much different than the way I remember him from the early 1980’s!
As a matter of fact I think I still have the original manuals for Dungeon&Dragons around here some place. And see mom; despite your fears, I did not turn out to be a Satan worshipping murder!

Popularity: 19% [?]

Want to save that great “White and Nerdy” video from youtube.com? Me too, but until now, I did not know how. However, this morning I found KeepVid.com, that let you give the link to the video and it will convert it to and let you save the movie as a .flv file. It would be better to have it converted to a .mpg or .avi file, but at least you can now hoard all those great videos to show your future self.

Popularity: 28% [?]

I am constantly on the look out for web apps that can make me more productive, or somehow make my life easier. I found a great one the other day. I signed up for a Jott account and have tried it out a few times. The basic concept is this; jott.com gives you a voice mail box, you call the voice mail box and leave yourself, or anyone you have set up as a contact. It then uses voice recognition to convert your speech to text and sends you an e-mail of your message.

First real use was yesterday; I walk in to drop my son off at day care and see the notice posted that class photos are coming up on May 7th. I am always terrible about that kind of stuff, I always forget until the last moment. Too time consuming to get out the PDA right then and make a note. Instead I hit the speed dial for jott and left myelf a note. By the time I got to my office there was the e-mail, all correct with the exception of the spelling of my son’s name. I then grabbed it and stuck it on my Google calendar, and presto, no forgetting to dress the little man for picture day!

I can see a lot of great uses for the service and plan to take advantage of it.

Popularity: 25% [?]