The Activity Room Learns How to Celebrate

For the past few months, we've been playing all different kinds of hockey in the Activity Room, from knee-hockey to street hockey outside at the park.

When we first started playing, for most of the kids hockey was a foreign game to them, one that they'd heard of but didn't know much about. After just a couple of days of playing, however, many of them were hooked.

However, we'd never really practiced one of the most important things (kidding, but it is important) about hockey: how to properly celebrate scoring a goal.

After most goals, the players come together in a pile and tap each other on the helmet; nothing major. But we wanted the kids to get some practice having fun after scoring a goal, so we went on to YouTube to find audio clips of NHL goal horns, the extremely loud (and sometimes obnoxious) sounds and songs played after every home-team goal.

We chose the horns of the hometown Boston Bruins and the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks, cued them up to play when Adem, Ibrahim or Nebil scored, and then just let the kids go nuts.

Below are two videos of the goals and the subsequent joyous celebrations.

Needless to say, these youngsters are well on their way to NHL stardom.

Georges Island!

This past Tuesday, JRyan Solutions took the kids of 808-812 Memorial Drive on what has become an annual tradition: the yearly summer field trip!

This year, we decided to go to Georges Island, just one of the many Boston Harbor Islands. After taking the Red Line from Central Square to Downtown Crossing, we walked to the waterfront where we boarded the Harbor Islands Ferry (not before spending some time playing in the fountains on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, of course). For many of the 20 or so kids who took the trip, it was the first time they had ever been on a boat of any kind.

After a 20-minute boat ride across Boston Harbor, during which we saw planes landing at LoganAirport, people fishing off of Castle Island and numerous lobster pots, we arrived at Georges Island, arguably the most famous of the Boston Harbor Islands.

We ate a quick lunch at the island's snack stand, and then used the rest of the afternoon to explore the island, which is dominated by a Civil War-era fort, Fort Warren. The kids were able to walk to beaches, explore every nook and cranny of the fort and even go on top of the ramparts, from which the views of the city of Boston and the harbor were spectacular.

We also scoured the beaches for nice pieces of sea glass, sea creatures and perfect flat rocks for skipping. By the time our return boat arrived a few hours later, most of the kids were wiped out from an afternoon full of fun and exploring.

As the boat made the return trip across the harbor, one of the kids, Ayoub, declared that afternoon's trip to have been "the best field trip ever!"

Here are some of the other kids' answers to the question "what was your favorite part about the whole field trip?"

"The boat ride, because it was mad fun, speeding and driving crazy."
-Adem

"Going to the beach, it was better than everything."
-Nebil

"The dark caves [in Fort Warren]."
-Doodie

"Going inside in the dark and hearing the people scream [from others trying to scare them]."
-Shahir

"Getting scared in the dark places...I like getting scared."
-Sirak

Below are some photos of the field trip, but these are just a few. A YouTube slideshow featuring tons more pictures can be seen at the very end of this post as well.

All-in-all, it was a great trip, one that the kids will hopefully remember for a long time.

Above: The kids playing on the beach and in the water.
Below: A view of the harbor and of Boston from the outer edge of the island.

Above: Ayoub posing for a picture inside of Fort Warren's jail.
Below: The Boston skyline from the back of the boat as we headed to Georges Island.

Connect With People Across the World, All Without Leaving Memorial Drive!

At its best, the Internet serves as a means of connecting people with different ideas, cultures and people from all over the world.

We had a perfect example of that here in the Computer Lab last week. An adult was trying to talk to her brother through Microsoft's Live Messenger, but wasn't having any luck because her brother didn't have an "@live.com" or "@hotmail.com" email address.

A CLC staff member suggested using Skype, an internet-based chat and phone call service. Skype charges money to makes calls from a computer to a landline or cellphone, but doesn't charge for internet-to-internet chats or "phone" calls.

Using a microphone available in the CLC, this adult was able to speak to and hear the voice of her brother, who was literally thousands of miles away. Skype is wonderful technology (and free to download), and allowed her to have a real-time conversation with a family member that, according to her, she hadn't seen in over seven years!

That's just the magic of the Internet, huh?

Image Editing Tips

Recently, we had a patron in the Computer Learning Center who was interested in learning how to edit pictures so that she could make them a custom size, add text to them, etc. and post them to a new website or message board.

While image editing is a handy tool, it's often hard to learn how to do due to the complexities involved in changing a picture.

The preferred image editing program here in the Computer Learning Center is GIMP, a free program designed to be an alternative to the expensive Adobe PhotoShop. However, GIMP is a confusing program to start out with, and can be tough to use if one doesn't know what he or she is doing.

Surprisingly enough, simply using the image editing program that comes standard on almost all personal computers, MSPaint, will usually suffice.

There are a variety of websites out there that offer tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your MSPaint experience, but here are a few favorites:

• MSPaint Tricks
• Neat Tricks in MSPaint
• Tips & Tricks for using paint

By following the above tips and getting lots of practice, one can become very skilled with MSPaint, and he or she can be creating fascinating works of computer art in no time.

Don't believe it? Check out the video below to see what MSPaint can do.

NBA Street Tournament

Due to increasing popularity, our Wednesday night "PlayStation2 Battles" have continued throughout the summer. After a couple of weeks of soccer and music games, we decided to switch it up this week and play NBA Street.

Strangely enough, this edition of NBA Street is older than some of the kids, but they enjoyed it nevertheless. After it was explained to them that players like Rajon Rondo and LeBron James weren't around back in 2001, they asked where some of their favorite players were, like Kevin Garnett (Timberwolves), Ray Allen (Bucks) and Allen Iverson (76ers).

The tournament featured eight teams, one for each of the kids who wanted to play. Our tournament featured the Celtics, Lakers, Suns, Spurs, Heat, 76ers, Magic and Bucks, meaning that the kids were controlling current players like Kobe Bryant and Paul Pierce as well as legends like Dikembe Mutombo and David Robinson.

After about an hour and a half of playing, we had our finals set: Abdullah, playing as the Milwaukee Bucks, was going up against Adonay, playing as the Orlando Magic.

Above: The Activity Room looks on during one of the games of the tournament.

The final game was a back-and-forth affair, as Adonay jumped out to an early lead before falling behind. The Magic, led by Grant Hill, stormed back and took a late lead. But Abdullah's squad wasn't deterred, and, led by current Celtic Ray Allen, the Bucks stormed back and won the game by just two points, 24-22. (Games in NBA Street go up to 21, but you must win by 2 points...so technically this one went to a sort of "overtime.")

Congratulations to Abdullah, Adonay and the rest of the kids who participated. Chances are that even the ones who weren't champs this time will get their shot at revenge in the near future.

Below: Activity Room footage of tense moments during the end of the championship game.

Tech Tip: Install Your Software

Nowadays, nearly everyone prefers MP3 players to CD or tape players. Most of these MP3 players are really cool little pieces of technology, designed to be easy to fill with music and even easier to operate.

Most MP3 players use simple "Drag and Drop" technology, meaning once the player is connected to a computer (usually through a USB port), all the user has to do is drag a file (music, pictures, video, etc.) from the computer to the player file.

This makes transferring music and other files extremely simple and fast.

However, not all players support this technology. Most notably, Apple's iPod doesn't use "Drag and Drop," instead requiring that users install iTunes and sync their content that way.

We ran into a similar problem here in the CLC the other day. A teen had a new MP4 (music and video) player that he couldn't seem to get to work. We connected it to the computer, converted the video files to multiple formats and dragged them to the player, but nothing seemed to work.

Finally, he mentioned that the player can with a boot CD. After installing the software, we realized that the videos had to be converted and downloaded by that CD in order to work with that player.

A silly way of doing things, but a necessary step.

The moral of the story? Always install the software that comes with your hardware, whether it's an MP3 player, a printer or another device.

A Toolbar Tip

Here's a tip for all websites and programs that offer toolbars: don't download or install them.

While it's true that some of the toolbars from Microsoft's Bing or from Google and Yahoo can make searching easier, they often come with unmentioned side affects.

Installing Yahoo's toolbar, for instance, made the Firefox "Menu Bar" disappear for some reason, making it extremely difficult to remove. Nearly all of these toolbars change computer or Internet settings, usually without the user's knowledge.

Bing, Yahoo and Google will usually just change your default search setting, which isn't really a big deal.

However, during a "computer cleaning period" today, it became clear that some of these other toolbars can be pretty malicious.

Some of the kids download and install free game demos they find online, unaware that they are also installing the toolbars that come along with them. Some of the toolbars, like the Free Lunch Design one that comes along with the popular game Icy Tower, are harmless, can be removed quite easily and don't change your settings.

However, one toolbar called "MyWebSearch" is nothing more than a cover for tons and tons of Adware. In fact, three of the computers had this toolbar installed on them, and a MalwareBytes scan found over 250 infected Adware files on EACH computer.

"MyWebSearch" also changed browser homepages and settings, including default search settings.

The moral of the story remains: make sure you read the dialog box for everything you download, and don't download anything that doesn't come from a trusted source or company.