Wikipedia versus the National Portrait Gallery
Well-known and commonly used information site Wikipedia has been a quick source for information for users worldwide. It has also been the bane of teachers and professors; they claim that no one can be sure where, exactly, the information is coming from. Well, now we have a good idea where some of the provided media was found!
Wikipedia may find itself trapped under the weight of a lawsuit with the internationally renowned National Portrait Gallery located in London. The UK gallery made the decision to sue a user of the popular wiki in mid-July. One Wikipedia user uploaded pictures from the gallery?s website of over 3,000 featured pieces of art; all painting were created before the 19th century and are in the public domain.
The National Portrait Gallery is a tax-payer funded museum in London; part of their mission statement is ?to promote the appreciation and understanding of portraiture in all media ? to as wide a range of visitors as possible.? So why be concerned that the photos from their site have made their way to Wikipedia, a site used by millions of visitors? The National Portrait Gallery claims that the photos are the product of difficult work by the photographer, and that downloading them directly from the www.npg.org/uk is ?an unlawful circumvention of technical measures.?
Now, EFF staff attorney Fred von Lohmann has agreed to take up the case for this Wikipedia user pro bono. Wikimedia Foundation Deputy Director, Eric Moeller, has also responded to the NPG?s threats and allegations via the Wikimedia blog [http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/16/protecting-the-public-domain-and-sharing-our-cultural-heritage/]; not surprisingly, Moeller takes side with the wiki user, and exposes the London galleries ?threatening messages? to Wikimedia. Of course, not everyone is against the NPG in this battle of wills. The British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies has also weighed in on the struggle in favor of the National Portrait Gallery?s claims.
Using Your TV as a Computer Screen
Sometimes you want a little more viewing space than what a computer screen can provide. Most people these days have a TV screen that's significantly larger than their computer screen, so using their TV as a makeshift computer screen is an easier and more economical solution than buying a larger computer screen. Fortunately, it's pretty simple getting it set up. First, however, you'll need to make sure your TV and computer cables are compatible with each other. Check and see that both have a port for a VGA cable. As long as they both do, it should work.
Connect the VGA cable with the input slot on your computer and the output slot on your TV. Next, connect the audio cable from the headphone jack on your computer to the audio input jack on your TV. After you have the VGA and audio cables connected, adjust the settings on your TV so that they accept the output signal from the cables.
Once you've connected the cables and adjusted the settings on your TV, set your computer to projection mode. Read your owner's manual to know how to adjust the settings for your specific computer, but it's usually a hot key combination like "function and F5 or F8."
You'll know you have everything set up correctly when your computer screen projects onto the TV screen. Using your TV to project your computer screen can really come in handy if you're teaching a class and want more people to be able to see your screen, or if you're playing a computer game. It can also be useful if the DVD player connected to your TV dies; most computers now allow you to play DVDs, so you can play the movie on your computer but project it onto your TV.
Have Bored Kids? Send Them On An Internet Scavenger Hunt
A viral email message circulated for a while that was a screenshot of a message reading, "Congratulations... you've reached the end of the Internet! Thanks for searching!" For those of us who make our living on the Internet or spend much of our free time watching viral videos, researching random bits of information, or armchair traveling and dreaming of future vacations, reaching the end of the Internet is, thankfully, impossible. However, if it's a lazy day, your kids are bored, and you don't mind them spending a few hours on the Internet, consider keeping them occupied with an Internet scavenger hunt.
A simple Internet search for ?Internet scavenger hunt? yields thousands of results, so choose one based on your children's interests, or maybe a subject you might want them to learn about. An Internet scavenger hunt about trees, for example, will send your little explorers searching for how many species of trees there are in the world, what the outer most layer of a tree is called and what it does, and what the name of a scientist who studies trees is called. Curious by nature anyway, children welcome opportunities to learn information in a fun way, so you may even make it a competition. If you have multiple computers in the house, for example, you may send your kids on the same hunt and reward the one who finishes first with correct answers with a prize.
Without even realizing it, children will learn about a subject and also learn how to research on the web quickly but effectively, a valuable skill in today?s ever more web-based world. You?ll be happy knowing your children are productively occupied and having fun, and that you?re doing more than just parking them in front of a computer to play a mindless computer game. So the next time your kids are crying boredom and you?re at a loss for a new activity, send them Internet scavenging!