While I was creating a presentation today and using Gimp to crop my screen shots is seemed really slow when I was pasting in the images. So I adventured into the preferences and discovered that there was an option to increase the number of processors. I haven't done any test yet but this should at least help some of the filters work faster.

It's been a while since I've posted here. Mostly because life has been really busy. I've been working on a couple of new projects in my spare time that doesn't exist. One of them is Worksheet Share a new website where teachers can post and share their worksheets with each other and earn a little compensation for their work. Check it out and let me know what you think.

I just purchased a great external hard drive enclosure and SATA 3.0 drive and love it. The case is a Rosewill RX-358-S it has a 80mm fan and both USB 2.0 and eSATA. The fan is really quite and keeps the 500GB Seagate drive nice and cool. I had a previous IDE enclosure made by Ultra and was less than impress with its quality and performance. It was always disappearing and didn't seem to have all that great of performance. The new drive even seems to perform well on my old USB 1.0 system. The case seems to be a nice solid construction. The only thing that is different about it is the way that the had drive connect to the board in the computer but it doesn't seem to be a problem. I got the silver case but it is also available in black from newegg.com

Random Student Selector

I my Algebra I class the other day I was using the Quizdom pick option to select my students to answer questions, during the class period 2 of my 11 students were selected 3 times while 2 others were not selected at all. Out of about 10 questions this wasn't very even percentages. One of the students Nathan J., who is also one of my computer programming students, and I were discussion this. We came up with a way to decrease the likelihood that someone would be selected once they have been selected. We chose this because if you eliminate the student until all have been selected the student will then mentally check out. With our solution the student can still be selected but the likelihood of them being selected twice in a row is reduced. Given enough time the Quizdom solution would be fine but if you are only asking 10 questions it is important that the student selection should be random and balanced. You can check out our free implementation of the student selector at http://www.aschool.us/moodle-scripts/

This flash graphing application was created because I needed a program where I could quickly create point and line graphs while lecturing my Algebra I class.