Question: Ellen asks, "I put a CD in my computer the other day and MusicMatch Jukebox came up to play it. It said I needed to be connected to the Internet first. Why?"
Answer: Great question Ellen. I don't really use MusicMatch Jukebox, but if this behavior isn't OK, then switch to another program like Windows Media Player. You can set it to play most every type of media file and also CDs and DVDs. To do that, just open Windows Media Player and then on the Tools Menu, choose Options. Click the File Types tab, then click the Select All button to choose all media types. When you click OK, that will switch your default media player to Windows Media Player. After that, you should uninstall MusicMatch, which may not deactivate completely. We'll have a link in the show notes to a step-by-step type article to uninstalling and deactivating the MusicMatch Jukebox.
Cool Site: Zooniverse.org: Last week, we had GalaxyZoo:Hubble. Two weeks ago, we had MoonZoo. This week's cool site is Zooniverse.org. This is the third in the Zoo series of sites, and the site itself is three years old. "The Zooniverse’s aim is to provide a home for a whole suite of projects which will enable anyone with a web browser to contribute to science." The Zooniverse is your portal to all these projects: GalaxyZoo:The Hunt for Supernovae, GalaxyZoo:Understanding Cosmic Mergers, Solar Stormwatch, GalaxyZoo:Hubble, and MoonZoo. The site's activities are on Twitter, and the site features an online store, the ZooShop. You'll also find a blog and a forum at the site, which has over 315,000 volunteers. You can sign up and take part in any or all of the projects going on at the site. It's run by the Citizen Science Alliance, and as a result, many education resources have been made available. By the way, if you want to go to the site and participate in making good science better, just sign up for an account. It's free.
Cool Gadget: Zoll PocketCPR: This week's gadget is a lifesaver - literally. Zoll's PocketCPR device is intended to be used by someone who's already trained in CPR. During an emergency where CPR might be called for, it's easy to get flustered and forget what to do, even if you know. This device reminds you what to do with visual and audio instructions. You put this on the victim's chest before you get started, and you'll be given feedback as to whether you're doing it right. While the PocketCPR is FDA approved, Zoll also makes an iPhone app that isn't and should be used for training and practice only. The PocketCPR runs $149 and the iPhone app is $3.99 at iTunes. It runs on batteries that will last about 12 hours and the batteries have a 5 year shelf life. If they're low, the unit will say "change batteries", but you'll have about a half hour of battery left. You can use it with both CPR techniques: with and without mouth-to-mouth. Pretty cool.
It's All "Geek" To Me: Portal: A bit ago, I said that the Zooniverse site is a portal to their projects. But what in the world is a portal? Besides a door, I mean. A portal is really nothing more than a good page to start browsing the web from. The more general-purpose a portal is, the more it will resemble a search engine, but the search engine will be a feature of the site, not its whole reason for being. You'll also find some more limited scope portals out there, like the Zooniverse, that are dedicated to one or a few topics. So, a portal is really just a good jumping off point.
