Email safety for kids is a HUGE concern, and for years I’ve
been disappointed with the existing products. The good news
is that there is a crop of new solutions just coming to market.
I’ll be writing a more detailed review in the coming weeks, but
so far I like what I see at Family Connect’s FILTEReMAIL.
This week Printables Club Members also:
1) learn how to read a pop-up window that is too small to display all its contents
2) learn about a fun thesaurus that shows how words are related
3) learn about do-at-your-desk exercises to break up your computing sessions
4) get a two-page Internet enrichment printable of today’s topic
5) get access to an archive of +100 Surfnetkids Internet
enrichment printables and word searches
Today’s newsletter is brought to you by the following sponsors. Please take a look at their offers; without their support, this newsletter wouldn’t be possible.
Computer games do NOT have to be violent to be fun. FreeCDSoftware has CD-ROM versions of family favorites such
as Scrabble, Monopoly, Boggle, Sorry and Battleship. Play
these games at home or over the Internet with friends and
family anywhere in the world.These great titles, along with
a 1000 others, are f*ree when you pay shipping/handling of
just $7.50 per disk.
BONUS OFFER: Order five CD-ROMs, and only pay shipping/
handling for four! This means you can get ALL five of my
favorites (Scrabble, Monopoly, Boggle, Sorry and Battleship)
for a grand total of $30.
Christmas and Hanukkah are just around the corner. Won’t these
make great gifts?
Many radio stations can be heard over the Internet through a process called streaming. Streaming allows you to listen to a program while it is being downloaded, instead of waiting for the download to finish. Without streaming, you would need to download the entire audio file, save it to your computer, and then open it. There is still a confusing array of streaming formats and players, but here’s a selection of sites to get you started.
Ever dreamed of hosting your own radio show? Not only is Live 365 is a directory of thousands of Internet-only radio stations, it also includes tools for and tutorials on producing your own streaming radio station. Other excellent tutorials found in the Help section include an introduction to streaming players (“How to Listen”) and a great streaming audio glossary (“Bitrate: For audio broadcasts, a higher bitrate typically means better audio quality.”)
Radio-Locator is the place to find radio stations you listen to in the car, or to search for international stations. It is a comprehensive database of 10,000 radio stations, a quarter of which offer Internet audio streams. You can search by call letters, zip code, city, format (such as jazz or K-12) or country. I was surprised to learn my favorite local station offers an online stream, because they don’t promote it on air (and I’ve listened for hundreds and hundreds of carpool hours.) Internet-only stations are not included in the Radio-Locator directory.
America Online’s Spinner has merged with Netscape Music to form Radio@ Netscape. They produce 175 free Internet-only music channels that stream 90 million songs per month. With such a large selection of musical styles, you are sure to find a station (or two or three) that you like. And because all the channels are programmed by professional DJs, their quality and interface are consistently good. You can listen with any RealPlayer software, but if you download the Radio@Netscape Plus, you can rate songs, influence song play, and save favorite channels.
The very first step toward enjoying online radio is installing a few audio players. This short article from Tech TV’s Call for Help gives you links for downloading three must-have players: Apple’s QuickTime, Microsoft’s Windows Media, and Real’s RealOne (formerly known as RealPlayer.) The article also provides download links for three useful (but optional) players to consider.
Yahoo!’s LAUNCHcast not only hosts three dozen pre-programmed radio stations, but also lets you create a custom radio station with songs and genres you select and rate. Because of licensing considerations, you can’t completely control how often individual songs are played , but your ratings do contribute to the overall mix of songs. To create your station, login using your existing Yahoo! username (or register a new one), and follow the on-screen instructions titled “Make Your Own Radio Station.”
