A thank you message from the Google in Edu team at the end of 2014

 This is a great message from the Google in Edu group from South Africa. I love all the useful links.

"The Google  for Education​ Team would like to thank you for your involvement this year in the workshop and for using Google for Education Tools in your learning environment.

2014 has been a great year - We launched great tools like Google Classroom, Google Apps School Directory Sync, Android 5.0 has great APIs for Work and Education,  90+ open source server software (Tomcat, Wordpress, Moodle, Drupal, LAMP etc) became click-to-run on Google Cloud Platform​, and we introduced the Hangouts Chrome App for Chrome OS and Windows.
Chromebooks became available in South Africa and got Photoshop and its first set of Android Apps.​ 
The new Google  for Education​ website has all the information you may need about teaching resources and training.

Existing tools got greater features - you can now 'store everything' on Google Drive free of charge as Drive for Education supports individual files up to 5TB and unlimited storage, and Google Apps Vault, our solution for search​/archive​ and e-​discovery for compliance needs, ​is now free to all Apps for Education users.​

Google introduced CS First  a program to increase school learner exposure to Computer Science through after school or in school programmes or even as clubs, the resources are interactive and fun!
You can subscribe to our Education Blog and/or Google Africa Blog for live updates​.

​We have been thinking of more ways to support Faculty and enable ICT growth, and in 2015 we would be looking at ways to enrich curriculum in the areas of Digital Marketing and Android/Java development. Please contact ​obumekeke@google.com if your university / college has an interest in teaching these courses locally ​your area.

Join the South African Google Educator Groups on Google+. G+ communities: GEG South Africa, join the chapter in the area you live in! We would love to see your comments and updates on the G+ pages, and join the events in 2015!

Our twitter handle is @googleforeducation
Thank you, have a great Festive season and Happy Holidays !​
Thanking you
The Google Edu Team"

How to rip a CD to iTunes on a PC and save it on a flashdrive or an SD card

I have just purchased a lovely new CD of songs by one of my favourite song writers and singers, and I want to listen to this on my upcoming holiday without taking the CD along.  In fact I want to listen to it on my little portable player. Apple’s iTunes is a free download, and is one of the best ways to rip, organize and enjoy the music you have purchased.

When you rip CDs to iTunes to create digital songs the default files are known as AAC files but you CAN change the kind of files that iTunes creates when you rip CDs and add them to your music library. I have iTunes on my PC and I have set that to convert songs that are imported to Mp3s.  I did this after reading this blogpost ‘How to Change iTunes CD Import Settings’.  So, as a result, my Windows laptop now automatically rips songs as MP3s into iTunes.

Step 1: Open iTunes on your PC and insert a CD into your PC’s CD player
iTunes will immediately pick up the CD and try to locate it on the Internet. It will ask you which CD this is.

Step 2: Follow the prompts
The songs with their titles will show up in your Itunes interface if you have the Internet turned on, and iTunes will ask you if you wish to import the songs to your iTunes library. Answer Ýes’.  Note that if your Internet is turned off the songs will show up unnamed.  Check the boxes next to the songs you would like to import.

iTunes chimes when it has finished importing your checked list of songs.

Step 3: Create a new playlist for your CD
Go to File/New/Playlist and give your playlist a name.

Step 4: Open Playlists

Step 5: Add the recently imported songs to your newly created playlist

Click on the name of the Playlist and then click on ‘Add to’
Find the imported songs folder and click on it to open it.

Drag the songs into the playlist and select Done

You’ll see that your songs will now be added to the playlist.

Step 6: Add your playlist to your SD card or flashdrive

• Go to your default Music library on your PC and look for iTunes

• From there I select Itunes Media/Music/Compilations and find the name of the playlist. 
• Right click on the playlist to open a window.
• Select Send to/SD card (or it could be Removable Disk should you choose the flashdrive option)

Your music is now ready to list to via your chosen media which, in my case, is on a removable disk that plays on my audio player.

How to move Android Apps to an SDMicro card #1

I am trying to work out how to move Android Apps to a microSD card and have gleaned this part shown below so far. So, here’s how to move apps to the microSD card using Android’s application manager.

1. Navigate to settings on your phone. You can find the settings menu in the app drawer
2. Tap Application Manager.
3. Select an app you want to move to the microSD card.
4. Tap the Move to SD Card button. If you don’t see a Move to SD Card button, the app cannot be moved. Most preloaded apps cannot be moved to an SD card. If you don’t see Move to SD Card buttons on any apps, your device may not support this feature at all.

If you wish to move an app back to the internal memory, hit the “Move to device storage” button.

Problem to solve
OK. I have done that and it shows the Apps saved on the microSD card when I open my Galaxy tablet. However when I connect the Galaxy tab to the computer and look to see what is on the microSD card I don’t see those apps! Oh dear! So this becomes the next problem to solve...

Further reading
http://blog.laptopmag.com/move-apps-sd-card-android
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoUgSl9R7WI