Week #56: To Tweet or Not To Tweet...Twitter

I didn't like Twitter (Yet)... That a big yet...
It kind of reminds me of a chatroom and a blog. But with the most recent stuff on top.. I will continue using it...
I rather have websites and reading about topics on with full details and then short brief words ....
But I sure it will grow on me....
Happy New Year ....2010...!!!!!

Week #70: Genealogy: Genealogy 2.0

MyHeritage: Celebrity Morph - Family history - Geneology

The top portion is the first part of the exercise.
The next portion is about the footnote.com and how it uses images and documents for the social networking websites. As for any personal use, I probably won't be using these anytime soon. But any idea, is a good a idea.... So the internet is still growing with every idea...

Week #69: Genealogy: Database Researching

The only option that I do have right now is to use HeritageQuest on the library website. I was not able to use Ancestry.com because I was not within the library.
Because of this I was not able to search information within HeritageQuest.com. I would have loved to try out Ancestry.com because it has international database. My family came to the United States in the early 80s, so most of my family roots are in Mexico. But I will try to continue my research for my family was I get back to work. One positive thing was that I noticed that my surname has existed in Texas as early as 1930s. Some are Mexicans and others are Chinese.

Week #68: Genealogy: Detective Work

I realize that detective work is not easy or fast. Sometimes it takes a long time, but I did hear Aaron Alejandro's story from the website Tejano Voices. His position in his career when he told his story was Executive Director of the Gateway Council on Substance Abuse. The interview was on 8/22/1997. The website tells about Mexican American Stories and multiple interviewees. It was cool, but the interview is about two hours. You get to hear there stories and their mistakes and varied experiences.

As for the second part of this exercise, I wasn't able to located the cemetery where my niece was buried, but did find an interesting person name Myra Murphy Baxter. Her information is...

Birth: Sep. 18, 1899
Newton County
Texas, USA

Death: Feb. 11, 1985
Harris County
Texas, USA

Family links:
Parents:
James Martin Murphy (1875 - 1955)
Cynthia Jane Harvill Murphy (1878 - 1958)

Children:
Ruby Lee Roberds Barrett (1924 - 1996)*

Spouses:
Luther Lewis Roberds (1894 - 1959)
Edmond Odell Baxter (1909 - 2001)

Burial:
Brookshire Cemetery
Harris County
Texas, USA

It even comes with a tombstone picture....

Week #67: Genealogy: Genealogy Genesis

This week topic is Genealogy, and my first time doing Geneaology. I wanted to learn about my family and this is really something that I wanted to learn for a long time. As for the three things that I would do are take lots of notes, make sure to use the library's resources, and make sure that you have a software that useful, fun, and makes senses(cents).

Week #55: Getting the Most Out of Facebook

I went ahead an created a fake Facebook account and found it easy to look for family and friends. I don't like people looking for me, but I could see that these would come very useful if you like people to easy find you. I was able to find friends from High School and pictures and family members. And yes, it was very easy to add them as a friend and send them messages. And some of the apps make it very useful to find pictures of them. Even though this is not for me, I do like the website.

Week #34: Maps: Geocoding and Geocaching

What interest was the Geothermal Well Earthcache near the North Channel Branch library. I didn't know that there was a Sheldon Lake State Park near here. I didn't know that there was an geothermal well near this area. The plus part about it was that the users of this website it gave me a whole bunch of information about the the sight that I didn't know. It was cool and mostly likely it would be something I wouldn't mind doing for fun.

By the way, this was the website.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=689799ab-9837-4662-be5e-359126ff23c0
As for the GPS coordinates, unless you are a Premium Members, than all other accounts are grey out or just have some portion of the information.
But I was able to get the GPS coordinates from this website http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/geocode.

29.8673292, -95.1692752
29.8673292 -95.1692752

N29° 52.0398', W095° 10.1565'

Week #33: Maps: Relocating with Online Maps

Activity 1: Houses
I did find some forclosure with the www.har.com, and did enjoy the virtual tours that were available for most houses. As with most forclosure, you can see ahead of time that some of the houses are fixer uppers. It was cool that you were able to search based on multiple variables such as zip code, amount your willing to spend, the amount of bedrooms or bathrooms, or area that you want.

Activity 2:
I did a search with www.har.com and www.google.com on potential houses in my area, and was surprise about the banks that where in my area. I didn't know that my church had it own credit union. With most house it did come with a list of surrounding schools, resturants, gas stations, parks, school, etc. At least now I able to see the area before I move.

Week #32: Maps: Current Events

ACTIVITY 1: I always wanted to know where I would end up if I fell straight down throught and to the other side of the world.
The Google Mashup tell you where your at http://www.zefrank.com/sandwich/tool.html

ACTIVITY 2:
I used the globalincidentmap.com and surprised by the activity, but then again, I am the type who doesn't like seeing the new. Here is the Image of the Incident in the United States....Scary, isn't it? Lucky for me, there isn't any activity happening in Houston....At least not yet.

Week #31: Maps: Have Map, Will Travel

I did try several of the map websites, and all of them seem to have their advantage. Google Map seems to be great for updated screen shots of directions and places. Mapquest seems to be better for showing you business for a direction. I used mapquest to create the map showing all the resturant surrounding the North Channel Library. As for the some of the new features, such as choosing an alternative route is cool.

Week #60: Recession Busters: Food, Fun & Frugality

I'm the Mad-Mexican, so of course I known about eating rice, beans, potatoes, and flour. I was raised with these staple foods and I'm still using these items every day. As for fun, well sometimes we have to make certain sacrifices. For example to watch a movie, we would wait until the movie came out on Television. We didn't have VHS or DVDs that we rented for 5 or even a 1 dollar. As for my wife, she had to watch the next door neighbor's television. But I learned one thing; you are only as poor as you make yourself to be. I remember those times as the best time of my life. Just remember, it all a mind game. Always use free resource like the park and the library. The library even has a great book that recently read call the “Ultimate Cheapskate”.

Week #26: Sound: Making (or listening to) Music Together

What I do like about this music list is that you can share your music taste and play these songs in "MySpace". I also like the fact that you can see other people playlist (if they don't mind sharing the playlist). This allows you to step out of mundane music taste and explorer other people's taste that may me similar to your taste. As for jamstudio.com, I am not a composer of music, but I do love listening to this playlist websites. I also not a fanatic for sharing my computer contents with a website, so I didn't like phling.com. I just simple upload the music to the MicroSD card whenever I want to listen to my music. It just a question of which one is more important to me, privacy to easy access. Privacy wins!!!!

Week #25: Sound: Am I a music pirate? It's hard to know...

I have created multiple audio CD and also created MP3 audio CD.
Windows Media Player only allows you to create audio CD, but Nero and other programs also allow you to create MP3 CD or DVD. Audio CD allow you to create a CD with 80 minutes, but a MP3 CD allow you to create a CD that has a least 300 songs. Not a hard difficult process. I don't create audio CD anymore. Mostly, I am now using MP3 Players. They are more practical.

Today, people want to get free stuff. I really feel sorry for the artist, singers, movie producers, and bands. It is very difficult for record companies to squeeze any more from them after they have tons of money on their IPOD, ITouch, Zune. Parents just don't want to spend any more money. So these kids (and adults) want to get their music for free (or the least amount of money as possible). I don't think that music is benefiting from online sharing or DRM. But I do believe that the record companies could benefit if they were to think outside the box and start collecting money from different sources such as money from websites playing their songs.

Week #24: The sound of music!

As I said, this won't be done in order, but I didn't say I wasn't going to enjoy them. The reason I got interested in computers was because of music. Even before the internet, I was already ripping all my cd to the computer as wav files or just midis. As for the pay websites like napster and yahoo, I use them every once in while to listen to some of things that seem to be more popular and/or related songs. As for radio websites like pandora, the top of my list are pandora.com and playlist.com. This websites can be helpful if you just want to tune in to the same type of songs. And the good thing is that you can skip it if you don't like it. And all my favorite radio stations are online.....

Week #59: Money & Finance- Credit, Money Management, and Saving

Credit Card Information....
I seem to know a lot about Credit Cards and Credit Score...
But doesn't alway mean that you listen and do the right things...
But I have done better ...
As for the test... I did get 9 out of 10 correct....
I have read that there are two ways of spending money to reduce your debt, one is with a budget and without a budget. Most people know about the budget, but the other way of reducing your debt is creating a life or environment where money is scarce. With all the money you save (or not spend) goes towards your debts.

I also have gone to the TCDRS website and have seen expected retirement fund.... It all looks good....and have also decided which option I want for my golden years.....

Week #58 - Money & Finance:Banking, Budgeting, and Spending

Sorry that these modules would not be in any specific order... but I just need to catch up on training hours.....

I do enjoy my free online banking and all of my credit cards do offer online services to make it easier to do online banking. Bank will offer multiple ways to secure your account by verify your email account to adding cookies on your computer or a new computer, but I must admit, it is not for everyone. There are so many people that are afraid of online banking because of the risk that may be involved. The banks and internet companies have done a great deal with removing alot of the risk that may be involved, but the problem may not alway be them. Most of the time, the problem is not the banks, but the home users not actively protecting themselves. The parents use the same computer that the kids use, and kids activities can cause a lot of virus and spyware that can steal people information. If your planning on doing some online banking, then make sure you also have a lot of protection such as a good antivirus, antimalware, and a good firewall.

The bank companies do give you an idea as to where you spend your money. This way you can cut spending in eating out or in spending too much money on clothing. Without visually looking at your spending, some people don't know where to even start.

As for a website that has all my information about the banks, nope I don't think so. I would not place all my all information in the same website, but that is just me. I don't know... Call me crazy or old fashion.