Grooveshark: Easy To Use Music Search Engine

Frequently, I find myself trying to hunt down a particular song that I'm in the mood to listen to, only to find that I do not own the song. So my next step is to do a Google search, go through tons of results, and find the one song to which I want to listen. Thanks to Grooveshark, I won't have to do this anymore.

Grooveshark is a new website that makes finding and listening to songs simple and straightforward. Looking for "The Wonder of You" by Elvis? Go ahead and enter the title into the search box on Grooveshark's homepage, and you will quickly be presented with a list of all the results of your search.

The best part is that instead of giving you a straight list like you would get with Google, you are able to instead organize the list by artist, title, album, and genre. After you select the song you want to hear, you can instantly listen to the song through the iTunes-like, easy-to-use interface.

On top of just listening to songs, you are also able to create an account which allows you to create playlists, and to mark a track as a Favorite. Grooveshark will remember all your Favorites, and create a playlist, for you to listen to at your leisure.

I encourage all music fans to checkout Grooveshark. I have already found it to be an indispensable tool.

Setting a Password to Open an Excel Workbook

One of the students in my Intermediate Excel class this week asked me how to set an Excel workbook so a password is required to open or modify it. This is fairly easy.

When you have finished creating your Excel workbook, click on the Office Button in the upper left hand corner, then click on Save As. On the Save As dialog box, click on the Tools button on the bottom left side of the screen. Then click on General Options.

On the General Options box, you can set a password to open or modify the workbook. It is critical that you remember your password. If you forget your password, Microsoft cannot retrieve it. You can also set a recommendation that the file be opened as Read Only.

Top 10 Web Sites for Students

It is back to school time, and the Internet can be a great place to help your children succeed with their research projects and homework assignments. But, learning where to go and how to appropriately use information on the Internet can be challenging to both parents and students.

Marc Saltzman, a freelance journalist, author, and radio and TV host, has a great article, giving a list of the most comprehensive and reliable educational websites a student can use.

Woofer vs. Twitter

Recently Twitter, the popular microblogging site, has amassed a great deal of hype. After being promoted by celebrities and featured on numerous talk shows, including the Oprah Winfrey Show, Twitter has become a household name.

But in spite of the publicity, there are still many people who dislike Twitter both for its limitations and the connotation that all Twitter posts are as inane as what I had for breakfast this morning.

If you are a Twitter Doubter, or just prone to long-windedness, you might enjoy Woofer -- the macroblogging site that requires users to post a minimum of 1,400 characters.

So far nearly eight thousand people have joined Woofer and have made over nine thousand woofs. However, the woof content is not what you might expect of bloggers. Some of the more popular woofs are copied from works such as The Gettysburg Address, A Tale of Two Cities, and Moby Dick. Unfortunately from what I've seen so far the average woof is random words and characters akin to the dreaded spam email.

Clearly, Woofer is not a tool that will replace or even rival Twitter, but it should make for some interesting reading. And even I, a strong microblogging advocate, can enjoy this homage to Twitter.

You can follow The Tech Desk on Twitter @tpltechnology and follow the Troy Public Library @troylib.

And there you have it: 1,400 characters (punctuation and spaces included, of course).

Apple Releases Snow Leopard, Newest Operating System

Apple has just released its newest operating system, Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6).

According to this video review at freep.com, Snow Leopard is a “Web browsing speed demon…Hitting the streets with very little fanfare, [the] operating system is a refined, slimmer version of an already great computing system.”

And here is an equally positive review from The New York Times.

Snow Leopard is a $30 upgrade for Mac users running Leopard (10.5).

Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows 7, is due out in October.

Fun Friday: Do You Suffer from IOS?

Do you suffer from information overload?

Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon to Oppose Google Book Scanning Settlement

Not surprisingly, some of Google’s chief competitors – Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon – have joined the Open Book Alliance, opposing the October 2008 legal settlement which would allow Google to digitize and sell millions of books.

The Alliance, headed by the non-profit Internet Archive, has expressed concern about “serious legal, competitive, and policy issues” surrounding Google's book scanning project.

Google reached a settlement last year with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers over a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against the Internet search giant in 2005. Under the settlement, Google will pay publishers and authors $125 million. In exchange, the company will resume scanning copyrighted, out-of-print books, and provide up to 20% of the text on-line at no charge, under its Google Book Search program.

In addition, the settlement creates a method for how Google, publishers and authors will share the profits of digitized versions of printed books. The company will take 37% of the revenue, leaving 63% for publishers and authors.

In a statement, Google responded to the latest news saying: "This sounds like the Sour Grapes Alliance. The Google Books settlement is injecting more competition into the digital books space, so it’s understandable why our competitors might fight hard to prevent more competition."

Microsoft, which entered into a 10-year Web search partnership with Yahoo! last month that set the stage for a joint offensive against Google, also had a project to create a vast digital library but shut it down recently. Online retail giant Amazon is a major player in the electronic book sector through its popular e-reader, the Kindle.

The settlement still needs the approval of a US District Court judge, who is to hold a "fairness hearing" on the deal in New York on October 7.

For more background, read Learn More about the Google Book Search Settlement.

[via Yahoo! Tech]

Helping Hand Helps Michigan Residents

The State of Michigan has launched Helping Hand, a new website for people who are dealing with economic hardship. This site contains information about jobs and training; unemployment; health care; family support; and housing. It will allow Michigan residents to find out whether they qualify for state help and, in many cases, let them apply online.