Thunder

It’s the final month of Microsoft’s collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on the ninemillion.org campaign.

You can support the Click4theCause campaign whereby each time a user conducts an online search through the special http://click4thecause.live.com/ page, Microsoft will donate money to ninemillion.org to help the estimated 9 million refugee children and youth around the world.

Blogs could help spread the word about raising as much money as possible before the final date of March 31st 2007 by posting about the ‘Click4theCause’ scheme. One suggestion is that some blogs are designating ‘Click4theCause’ days where they encourage readers to search for an entire day with Click4theCause to boost donations. However it’s up to you, if you’d like to participate, how you’d try and get people doing it.

To drive donations to the ninemillion campaign you would need to direct people to search at the specially set-up http://click4thecause.live.com/

If you want to find out more about the ninemillion.org campaign please go to http://www.ninemillion.org/

Individuals can also donate money by going to http://nine-million.spaces.live.com/

If you require any further information or would like images then please contact me:

Best Wishes

Darika Ahrens
Shiny Red
darika@shinymedia.com
www.shinyred.tv

While at BETT07 yesterday the photograph on the left hand side of their stage was pointed out to
me:

Is the laptop that the boy working on an Apple Mac with the apple airbrushed out?

So what do you think? It certainly looks like a Mac to me.

Having successfully installed Bootcamp onto my mac, I have now installed GameMaker and MissionMaker and they are working well.  Now I can get rid of my laptop.  There appears to be no issues at present with this installation but I will keep you informed if anything untoward happens.

MSN Messenger will soon display a ‘report abuse’ button on their software making it a lot easier for users to report inappropriate sexual contact. Further details can be found on the BBC News site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5279164.stm

Maybe the introduction of the icon might allay some teachers fears and concerns about using messenger in the classroom.

I have just read on the BBC News site that:

Microsoft is to offer a consumer version of professional tools used to develop videogames for the Xbox 360.

The tools will be available in trial form from 20 August and there is a £55 annual subscription.

How cool is that, it will be very interested to see how it compares to the software we are using in Shropshire schools (GameMaker and MissionMaker).  I will download it on August 20th and keep you informed of my progress.

Micro$oft have just released Windows Live Writer that allows you to write your blog posts offline and then upload them to your blog.

Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using Windows Live Spaces or your current blog service.

Its main features include:

• WYSIWYG Authoring
• Photo Publishing
• Map Publishing
• Writer SDK

You can find out more details and download the application from: http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/

At present I have been unable to get the application to post to this blog, even though it created a draft posting but it was blank The application is still in beta and I am not sure if it has been configured yet to work with wordpress mu. If anyone else has given it a go on a wordpress mu account it would be great to discuss how you did it

This add-in enables you to embed a Creative Commons license into a document that you create using the popular applications: Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office PowerPoint, or Microsoft Office Excel. With a Creative Commons license, authors can express their intentions regarding how their works may be used by others.
The add-in downloads the Creative Commons license you designate from the Creative Commons Web site and inserts it directly into your creative work. Creative Commons supports a number of languages.

Download it from here.