BrianGriggs.com

Alan F. Horn - Be careful with Wikipedia

Brian — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:06:46 +0000

Wikipedia sometimes has entries edited by people who want a joke/revenge:

I don’t know Alan F. Horn, president of Warner Brothers, but I’m pretty sure people would notice his eating habits. This might be someone angry about Horn’s ideas for the Man of Steel movie.

Creating a Newspaper in Word

Brian — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:52:08 +0000

Here are some simple graphic design tricks I learned from my friend in New York:

Make sure that your Formatting Palette is available. If you can’t see it, click on View->Formatting Palette
Click on the Insert Table button. (The blue grid.)
Select the 2X3 table
For your banner/newspaper name, highlight the top three cells
Hold down Control and then click on the highlighted cells (it’s like a right-click on a PC)
Choose Merge Cells
Type in your headline.
In the bottom-left cell, start typing your first article.
You can copy and paste pictures into your articles. (Remember the Control + Shift + Apple + 4 screenshot trick.)
To change a picture’s wrapping (how the words flow around it) click on Wrapping->Square
Once your article is completely typed, you can turn off the lines of your table/cells. Highlight your table. From the top menu, click on Table->Table Properties
Click on the Borders and Shading button. Select “None”.

High School Science Projects Busts Fish Fraud

Brian — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 18:56:42 +0000

Check out how two young women at a New York high school helped prove that you may not be eating what you think you’re eating.

Alternative to a Dukane Digital Presenter

Brian — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 02:28:18 +0000

As a librarian I get asked by teachers how to implement different technologies. One of those is a digital presenter, but they’re way too expensive for our budget (who gets it? for how long? how many books can we get instead?).

How about this: hook up the videocamera that your library already has to a TV. Instead of switching the camera to VCR, take out the videotape and switch the videocamera to the record mode. (Taking out the tape should prevent the camera from going into sleep mode/standby.)

For extra snazziness: attach the camera to a tripod, hook the camera up to an LCD projector.

AZLA 2008-09

Brian — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:52:43 +0000

Librarians - if you haven’t checked out the schedule for this year’s state librarian conference, Pam and I are going to be following the opening ceremonies on Tuesday, December 9 at 11:30am with “Set your Library on Fire II”.

Here’s the flyer. Expect more booktalks on the new books this school year (Hunger Games, eh?) as well as ways to incorporate technology into the library.

Here’s the address:
Renaissance Glendale Hotel & Spa
9495 W. Coyotes Boulevard
Glendale, AZ 85305

And here’s where to register by October 31.

Quantum Prophecy: The Gathering

Brian — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:29:37 +0000

I have an advanced reading copy of The Gathering by Michael Carroll and at first I didn’t realize that it was book two in a series (yes, I see the giant “2″ on the cover. Whatever.). I’ll definitely go back to read book 1, but I was able to follow along alright.

10 years ago the superheroes were the rescuers of the human race. The supervillain Ragnarok created a device to strip the heroes of their powers. Now, the children of the heroes are finding out that they inherited some powers.

If you like shows like Heroes or enjoyed the giant list of superhero movies this summer, you’ll like this book. Just like in TIM where I needed a part of the city stepped on by page 30, in The Gathering I needed to see a super brawl. Expectations met.

This book definitely feels like X-Men or Hancock, where it’s a little grittier, so I don’t recommend it for elementary grades (but that’s not its target audience). Lots of action, lots of comic book necessities: a hero’s reputation being tainted, a superforce targeting the superhero headquarters, government conspiracies.

This book is Alex Rider if Alex Rider could shoot lightning out of his hands.

TIM: Defender of the Earth

Brian — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:17:03 +0000

Sometimes you just want to read about a giant dinosaur fighting a robot.

TIM: Defender of the Earth by Sam Enthoven is that book.

This is a fun read, especially if you liked Cloverfield or any Godzilla movie. The story focuses on mainly the mad scientist and the giant dinosaur’s perspectives. (Yep. You get to jump into the mind of a rampaging reptile as it swats helicopters and jets.)

It reads like a movie. I made a new rule. If you promise to be a monster book, some part of the city needs to get stepped on by page 30. By page 30, that hope was fulfilled.