Even my 5 & 7 year old grandsons enjoy playing it. They really like to use it as an air guitar – one hand playing the Beamz ( picture their hand where the neck of the guitar should be, only playing with the lasers in the Beamz ), the other strumming the air guitar. I gotta tell you it’s great fun to watch them having fun with it!

I’ve also upgraded my system now so that it includes the Beamz Studio and making your own unique music ( that can then be played in 100′s of different ways ) is pretty easy and amazing! I hope to have a separate article about that some time later.

What I’m excited about right now is that  I’ve been talking with the company, and they have arranged for me to have a coupon that can save you shipping costs ( if you are shipping outside the US you will probably still have duty and taxes to pay depending upon where you live ) AND also give you 10 free extra songs when you register your Beamz with them!Just go to their website www.thebeamz.com, click on shop ( at the very top ), add the system that you want and then go to the checkout where you will see the spot where you can enter the coupon/promotion code. It’s really that simple.

The Coupon code is BEETH and I’ve included below an image of the coupon if you wish to print it off.  If you are considering getting the Beamz why not save a few dollars when you do – I wish I had had this opportunity but I’ve made sure that others will.

Enjoy!

As there seems to be a lot of interest, and I’m getting a lot of hits, because of the Beamz, I’ve now made a category called My Beamz. Where you can find any and all articles that I’ve written about this great little device.

Give a man a fish you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

I actually went searching for a slightly modified version of this, which many of todays great teachers use in their training.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to teach a man how to fish and you change the world.

This is absolutely true, and while I have been picked up by a few anal types thinking that there should be yet another “teach a man to teach a man” portion in there, but the bottom line is This Will Work!

I have been following a story of late, of an amazing team led by Nicholas Negroponte, and their goal to change the world. This man is no dummy. He is an Chairman Emeritus of MIT’s (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Media Lab.

He took leave from MIT so that he could create an organization whose goal can very well change the world. The organization’s mission is wrapped up in it’s name OLPC or One Laptop Per Child …

“Most of the nearly two–billion children in the developing world are inadequately educated, or receive no education at all. One in three does not complete the fifth grade … Any nation’s most precious natural resource is its children. We believe the emerging world must leverage this resource by tapping into the children’s innate capacities to learn, share, and create on their own. Our answer to that challenge is the XO laptop, a children’s machine designed for “learning learning.”
(Click Here for the complete mission statement)

This is an amazing piece of technology, designed specifically with children in mind usable in any location and even comes with it’s own hand cranked power for those areas where no power is available.

This isn’t something that was decided on a whim. It has been proposed and studied since before 1980, before most people reading this article even had a computer themselves! You can follow its entire history here – but here is just an excerpt…

1982 – In a French government-sponsored pilot project, Papert and Negroponte distribute Apple II microcomputers to school children in a suburb of Dakar, Senegal. The experience confirms one of Papert’s central assumptions: children in remote, rural, and poor regions of the world take to computers as easily and naturally as children anywhere.

OLPCs’ goal is to develop a rugged, durable and child friendly machine (usable by even small children). The organization brought on some of the largest IT organizations and brightest technical minds of our era. The result was the XO laptop computer. It’s an amazing and affordable laptop that ANY child can use.

Unfortunately, according to what I have been reading in ZDnet’s news blogs about the XO, even though the computer is now ready it isn’t being adopted quickly, if at all, by the governments of those countries who can benefit most.

So OLPC did one better, they started a Give 1 Get 1 plan.

Between November 12 and November 26, OLPC is offering a Give One Get One program in the United States and Canada. This is the first time the revolutionary XO laptop has been made available to the general public. For a donation of $399, one XO laptop will be sent to empower a child in a developing nation and one will be sent to the child in your life in recognition of your contribution. $200 of your donation is tax-deductible (your $399 donation minus the fair market value of the XO laptop you will be receiving).

What you just read is correct – TWO Laptops for under $400. One for a child you know, and one for a child in need. Once again the charity of North America is being called on to help those countries less in need and if you have young children of your own, or just want to keep the kids off your own computer this is the best time ever to help those who need it!

I also need to add or rant a bit here, because unfortunately there is a bit of negative press being published about this deal. Complaints about how there isn’t a help desk available to call, how it doesn’t run Microsoft Windows, there is no support for it, etc, etc, etc. I guess some people are just never happy. Remember – this computer is a child’s laptop. To be used in remote places where there would be no help anyway! For childtren to use as a tool and to explore with. It is made to be intuitive and need little in advanced training or support and no it isn’t designed to run the latest mega graphic video game out there. It is designed for children to learn on, with and about.

Check out the XO Laptop website at www.laptopgiving.org if you can afford it and have kids or grandkids get one or two and help the world and your kids at the same time. If you want to just buy a laptop for a third world country (and not get one sent to anyone here in North America) then they will do that too and your donation will then be 100% tax deductible.

Since man first walked upright, he has always depended upon learning and improving his mind. Since he first started living in communities he has used education to improve the lives of both himself and others.

Our planet is rapidly getting smaller and smaller and wouldn’t it be great if we could erase and eradicate the phrase “The 3rd world” and make it just “Our world”. This really could be one of the great leaps of mankind. All it needs is a little help from us…

Click on the XO Computer to Find out MoreWant to keep abreast of the latest news on OLPC and the XO Laptop? Click Here.

While I learned quickly, and found the tools and resources to help me identify what may or may not be for real, there have been a host of people out there who just can’t seem to tell the real from the unreal.

I’m not really concerned about all those chain-emails that are out there. They are a nuisance I admit, but they are a “normal” extension of the old chain-mail letters that used to exist and some people seem to be addicted to them!

Yes, I agree that if one person sends out an email to a group of your friends that promises; luck, or bad luck, or better relationships, or, or, or…. that you will shortly be inundated by the same email coming from several friends in the group. The best way you can fight these is three fold:

1. Don’t participate!
2. If you have to participate delete all the email addresses listed within the email all ready AND put all the addresses that you are sending to in the BCC: window of your email editor and not the To:
3. Tell your friends to do the same!

My bigger concern is with the “other scams” the ones that promise false aid or succor to someone who may, or may have needed it, to quick riches, or worse, phishing attacks. I am constantly advising others when they accidentally become involved with either propagating, or worse participating in these activities.

One of the biggest problems for anyone who wishes to do this on their own, is to find a reliable, authoritative source that you can depend upon to give you honest and straightforward answers with no particular ax to grind. To see what I mean just try this:

1. Go to www.google.ca
2. Type in the word scam space and
3. Then add one of the reputable Network Marketing companies names (like Amway, Nikken or Melaleuca)
4. Hit return

It’s amazing to see how many thousands of axes are grinding away out there! To help you navigate out of the quagmire, here are my top 5 reputable sites, with two honorable mentions, that I use to investigate whether something is true, or too good to be true.

1. www.Snopes.com has to be, as I write this, my favorite site, its focus is on Urban Legends. Covering both the Internet, rumor and in some cases even news reports. It gives great detail on the legend in question and identifies it as true or false or unknown. It also comes with a search engine which can make your investigating quick and painless. One warning I do have to give is that you can easily waste away hours investigating trivia and true stories that you never knew existed!
2. www.mcafee.com/us/threat_center/ – While I have moved away from Mcaffee’s computer scanning software, due mainly to it’s high load and overhead required to run on a busy computer, I still think that they have one of the best advisory sites for Internet threats. It lists such things as the top ten programs you don’t want to install and the current top ten subject lines used for email scams. It too comes with a search capability based on the area.
3. www.scambusters.org – is an excellent site and one of the ones that I use now that the RCMP no longer maintains an updated scam warning site. As I mentioned previously, I’ve found that most anti-scam sites are actually anti-(pick a network marketing company) sites, so it is hard to get an unbiased opinion. Scambusters comes close, but unfortunately it is heavily supported by Google ads. The effect being that if one searches for a Network Marketing company or MLM company that may exist, you will also get a list of ads pertaining to that company which may or may not be negative. To the unwary this can be confusing. One advantage with this site, if you are so inclined, is that you can subscribe to email updates on new scams as they occur.
4. phishregistry.org – has been up and running since May 2007 and already has an extensive list of companies and organizations that phishing expeditions have happened with or are a concern. Phishing is growing at an alarming rate. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRUCUMSTANCES click on a link or reply to any email that “appears” to have come from a company with whom you deal financially. Contact them directly, either by phone or by your trusted bookmarks.
5. www.castlecops.com – is supported by an organization set up to help people find, identify and report phishing incidents. The problem is that this site is very technically orientated and can overwhelm easily. Finding information can be difficult. It does however contain lots of really good information, articles, links and even recommended software. Here is a great article that describes just how a phishing could occur, in this case with malicious intent against castlecops themselves!
6. www.crimes-of-persuasion.com – this particular website rated next to last on my list. Not because it lacked information, but rather because it almost had too much. It’s a little unwieldy and sometimes difficult to find the particular bit of information that you might be looking for. It unfortunately also suffered from the same sort of search and advertising problem as scambusters. Lastly, it also gave several borderline reports on a list of MLM companies that I tested (see above).
7. RCMP Scam and Frauds Website – this used to be a great site, with all sorts of up to date information on what was and wasn’t a scam. Unfortunately they seem to have dramatically changed it into just an overview site. It has excellent guidelines on how to avoid a scam and what to do if you should be approached or get involved. It just doesn’t have an “is this” or “is this not” feature any more. If it ever returns to what it once was, it would again be my favorite site.

Lastly, if you are looking for statistical information on fraud and Internet crime, the government of Australia has a website which contains or points to many reports and statistics that are available on the subject. It can be found at www.aic.gov.au/research/fraud/surveys.html