Looking for ideas to jump-start your festivities? Thanksgiving Day and Veteran's Day are among the additional holidays included in FableVision's Stationery Studio Fall Add-On Pack.

With the Add-On Spring and Fall Bundle Pack, the number of activities supporting math, science, social studies, and language arts jumps by 30% from 39 to 51, and the quantity of designs and borders increases by 35% from 226 to 306.

We've heard from several teachers who use Stationery Studio for more than great stories at holiday time. Their students use the fun art in Stationery Studio to create laminated place mats, notes of thanksgiving, and dinner place cards.

Imagine you’re working away at your PC when suddenly a message pops up. Using menacing language, it claims that hackers have taken control of your computer and are currently holding all of your files – photographs, personal documents, financial information, everything – hostage. You can access nothing. The message may even threaten to make your information publicly available. To have your data safely returned, you must pay several hundred dollars to a specified account.

Just as thieves kidnap people and then demand payment for their safe return, ransomware is an extortion scheme in which hackers take control of the victim's computer files and then demand a sum of money for the restoration of the data.

According to a July 2006 report by IT security experts Kaspersky Labs, “holding user data hostage is one of the most dangerous and rapidly evolving types of cyber crime.” And Secure Science Corp. estimates that in the past eight months, 152,000 victims have been infected with ransomware.

But how is it possible for someone to remotely hijack your PC?
Here’s how it works: malicious code is used to seize control of the victim's computer and its files, and the files are then encrypted by this code – thereby rendering them unreadable and unusable. There are several variations on this basic premise.

The good news is you don't need special ransomware products to protect yourself or your company. You may already be employing all the measures you need to stay safe: basic IT security procedures like using firewalls, having up-to-date anti-virus and anti-spyware software, keeping your browser and system software up-to-date with the latest patches, and not opening/downloading unknown files, software or attachments.

If you or your business receive a threat of data encryption or destruction, remember that most hackers have no way of truly hijacking or encrypting your files, and are simply trying to extort money from you.

However, if a Trojan horse has already encrypted your files, you may have a more serious problem. Never pay the ransom, as you have no way of knowing if the hacker will actually restore your data. The most critical defensive tactic you can employ is one you’ve likely heard dozens of times: regularly back up your data. Store secure backups of critical files somewhere that isn’t exposed to the Internet. If you’ve not taken this defensive step, you’ll need to contact a security specialist who may be able to help you recover your encrypted data.

Trend Micro Academic Anti-Virus and Security Software.

This week GAMCO, a division of Siboney Learning Group, announced the release of an updated version of its top-selling software title, Worksheet Magic Plus, the company's unique tool for building quick and creative supplemental classroom materials.

Easy to use and intuitive, Worksheet Magic Plus provides 15 different types of tests, worksheets, and puzzles a teacher can use to customize exercises for his or her classroom strategy. Worksheets are generated from a database of words and sample sentences that the teacher creates in the Worksheet Magic Plus text editor. The teacher can also import vocabulary terms from other applications such as GAMCO's bestselling Vocabulary Builders and Spelling Buzz.

Additional highlights of the new Worksheet Magic Plus include a contemporary look and feel, a constantly visible, zoomable worksheet preview, an integrated spell checker, and the ability to print answer keys.

"Worksheet Magic Plus's variety and convenience have made it an enduring favorite with teachers," said Robin Tinker, Vice President of Marketing for Siboney Learning Group. "GAMCO provides the tools teachers trust for their classroom needs--from whole class learning to individualized instruction. Teachers know that a GAMCO product delivers sound content, motivates students, and affords optimum control and qualitative data reporting."

Worksheet Magic Plus is now available for installation on Mac OS X-native computers as well as on Windows systems--and is the first in the GAMCO product line to run on Vista. "We are committed to providing fresh and updated products that meet current educational trends and that are also compatible with the latest operating systems being used in schools today," Tinker explained.

Most backup software can be categorized as either a “drive imager,” a “file archiver,” or a “snapshot taker.” Very rarely does a single product fall into all three of these categories while still doing each job well, but FarStone Technology's DriveClone 3 Pro is one of those products. It isn’t without a hiccup or two, but it has all the bases covered to ensure good backups of your whole system, your setup and configuration, and all your data files.

DriveClone 3 Pro works in three modes and adds some useful utilities. The first mode is System Backup, which basically takes a whole image of a drive or boot partition and copies it elsewhere. Almost magically, it manages to successfully copy Windows from within Windows while Windows is running, if you follow me, but other programs need to be shut down. The File Archiver copies sets of files and folders, either manually or on a schedule. The Snapshot Taker works in place of Windows’ own System Restore, recording snapshots to a hidden partition on your main hard drive. All three modes also allow for incremental updates, so backups only record changes.

DriveClone 3 Pro can write system back-ups and file backups to second internal drives, external USB devices, burnable CDs/DVDs, and even over a LAN to a network drive, and it does it all very quickly with compression set to Medium. A Linux-based boot disc allows for restoring from all modes and from all sources, even if Windows won’t boot.

DriveClone 3 Pro ESD Academic Pricing

Children’s Technology Review

Ease of Use 8
Educational 10
Entertaining 6
Design Features 7
Good Value 10

Overall Score 82%

Rich in content, Travels with Music Series One is a collection of facts, videos and quizzes on 57 lesser known musical instruments from 15 countries. (Travels with Music Series One disk is not about typical US band instruments.) An in-depth look at each instrument is presented through print and video. For example, the Nigeria Shekere (a type of drum) features footage of a master Design Features percussionist named Baba Ken Okulol, who proudly shows how the instrument is constructed and played via nine short demonstrations. The videos are well-done, and the central part of this program features live concert footage and first-person narration from original sources.

After learning about the instrument, you can take a 10-question multiple-choice quiz. If you get a perfect score, you "earn" the instrument. The idea is to eventually earn all the instruments in Travels with Music Series One. Extra content includes a very useful game of musical concentration (with three levels) that lets children match sounds with the instruments.

All in all, Travels with Music Series One is a very useful addition to any music education library.

 

At hundreds of colleges nationwide, professors use personal response systems technology, or “clickers,” to gauge whether students understand important concepts before moving on.

During a recent morning lecture in Colorado’s General Chemistry 1131, Professor Robert Parson spoke for a few minutes, then posed a multiple-choice question to the class of about 250. The question, like others he used, was designed by a team of science-learning experts with trick choices that signal if students are falling for common misconceptions.

The results of the “vote” popped up on an overhead screen. Then, before revealing the answer, Parson had students break into small groups to discuss the answer and vote again. The group did well, and he moved on. If it had performed poorly, he would have reviewed the material.

Perhaps the biggest challenge in college teaching is bridging the gap between an often brilliant expert and students new to the subject. Clickers help remind teachers how a novice sees their material.

2Know! Renaissance Classroom Response System Package

2Know! Renaissance Classroom Response Receiver Package

2Know! Renaissance Classroom Response Handheld Unit

 

Boris RED 4.2 is now available! Boris RED 4.2 adds support for new operating systems, enhanced Adobe CS3 integration, and optimized effects workflows.

What's New in Boris RED 4.2
* Macintosh OS X 10.5 (Leopard) support
* Windows Vista support
* Extended Adobe CS3 integration, new support for After Effects CS3
* Extended Sony Vegas 8 integration
* Optimized Preview to Monitor capabilities
* Title Container controls now allow enhanced subtitle manipulation

More Boris FX academic pricing:

Boris Composite Suite

Boris Continuum Complete 5

Boris Motion Graphics Pack for Adobe

Boris Motion Graphics Pack for Apple Final Cut Pro

Boris Motion Graphics Pack for Avid XPress Pro

Many animators have a dream of one day starring in their own movies. With Toon Boom Studio, animating a picture of yourself or any other bitmap image is now possible.

Preparing the pictures
It all starts with that single click when you take a picture that you want to animate. The process is simple, as you take you picture try to figure out what kind of movements you’ll perform in your story. Take as many photos as you need. For example, if you wish to have a talking character, you can create different head expressions.
 
Once your pictures are taken, you have two choices:
1.  Importing the images directly to Toon Boom Studio
2.  Retouching them first. If you retouch them, remember to add an Alpha channel around the shapes before saving the files. When vectorized in Toon Boom Studio, the alpha channel will be cropped and your picture will be wrapped around a vector shape automatically for easy animation with the transform tool.

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• Visions Technology Introduces Weaving Web 2.0
• Now Available! Microsoft Office 2007 Professional with Trend Micro Internet Security 2008
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• Nova Development among the Top 5 productivity software publishers in the United States - familiar characters to help children get the most out of learning
• Golden Globe-winner Dario Marianelli offers his thoughts on winning Oscar and Bafta-Nominations for Atonement score using Sibelius 5

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