SURPRISE! Last week I said we'd be off this week for Thanksgiving, but apparently my calendar was out of sync with the standard US calendar.

I Khan Do It and You Khan Too!

Send Your Kids (or Yourself) to the Khan Academy. Maybe you've heard of the Khan Academy. If not, I'm going to fix that right now. Salaman Khan is a smart guy. He's a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Harvard Business School. As I said, he's a smart guy. But he's also an excellent teacher. In 2006, he created Khan Academy ("Completely free, forever"). The stated mission is to provide "a free world-class education for anyone anywhere".

Khan explained the idea in a TED Talk in 2011. Take a few minutes to watch the video.

Khan was born in New Orleans. His father was from Bangladesh and his mother from India. He earned a BS in mathematics, a BS in electrical engineering and computer science, and an MEng in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT and then an MBA from Harvard Business School. I may have mentioned this previously, but he's a really smart guy.

In 2004, Khan began tutoring a cousin in mathematics via the Internet. Other relatives asked for similar help and he started posting videos to YouTube. The videos were popular and in 2009 Khan resigned as a hedge fund analyst at Connective Capital Management to focus on the tutorials.

At some point Bill Gates noticed Khan Academy and provided some financing for it. Today the website features hundreds of lectures on subjects ranging from mathematics and history to healthcare, physics, chemistry, and astronomy.

Creating an account is easy. All you need to provide is your name, an e-mail address, and your birth date.

Napoleon reputedly said "A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon" and whether he said it or not, recognition is one of the most powerful motivating factors for humans. Intelligent educators and managers understand this and use it to their advantage.

Khan misses no opportunity to congratulate students on their successes ...

... and to offer options to earn more recognitions.

Earning those recognitions involves learning more about the subject at hand, of course, and illustrating mastery of the subject by answering questions.

The presentation is well done. In this case, the student is shown a number line ranging from about -11 to 11 and is asked to place -8 (negative 8) on the line. Do it right and you earn recognition and the right to move on to the next question.

At any time, the student can click "I haven't learned this yet" or request a hint. Sometimes learning involves extrapolating the answer from what you already know combined with a hint.

The student and the student's mentor can easily see which topics still need some work in addition to those in which the student is proficient.

Lots of Subjects

Students can choose from various topics. From biology and physics to astronomy and programming.

I decided to review algebra and found the introduction, which discussed the history of algebra and reasons why abstracting data can be useful, as well as explaining why letters are used in place of numbers, to be both useful and entertaining.

Many students ask "how will I use this information in the real world" and this kind of introduction goes a long way toward explaining that. In addition, Sal's excitement about the subject is clear.

The "classroom" has blackboards and Khan's method of presentation is relaxed. He repeats key information without seeming repetitive.

Khan Academy is funded by donations. In addition to receiving funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it also receives money from Google. Several wealthy individuals have given donations ranging from $10 thousand to $150 thousand.

Khan's alma mater, MIT provides all of its classes for free online as part of the OpenCourseWare (OCW) project, but Khan Academy has served more videos than MIT's and has far more subscribers. This is probably due in no small part to Khan's emphasis on topics for primary and secondary school subjects.

Take 10 minutes and watch as Salman Khan describes the beauty of algebra and you'll understand why these talks are popular.

POP Goes the IMAP Weasel

E-mail users can choose between two options (protocols) when setting up an e-mail program: POP3 (Post Office Protocol) or IMAP (Internet Mail Application Protocol). IMAP is the newer of the two, but most people are still using POP3. Newer isn't always better though and deciding which to use involves analyzing how you use e-mail.

POP3, which I'll just call "POP" from now on, was designed at a time when users could be assumed to have a single desktop computer, so all messages are downloaded to the desktop computer and then deleted from the mail server.

IMAP was designed for situations involving the need to work with e-mail on multiple computers -- a workstation at the office, a desktop system at home, and a laptop computer when you're traveling.

Although an IMAP client displays messages on your computer, they are stored on the server so that you have access to all messages from any computer.

Most modern e-mail clients allow you to choose which delivery method you would like to use. Even G-mail allows you to choose. There's the Web interface, but you can also set G-mail up to communicate with a POP or IMAP client on your computer.

POP is the traditional method of dealing with e-mail, but we are now more than a dozen years into the 21st Century and most of us have good, if not yet ubiquitous, access to the Internet. That is often the argument made in favor of dropping POP and switching to IMAP. The primary benefit IMAP offers is the ability to read messages, old and new, on any device with an e-mail application.

But because all messages are stored on the server, they're inaccessible whenever you have no Internet access.

The good news is that you're able to mix and match these protocols, IMAP on some devices and POP on others.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Both POP3 and IMAP offer advantages and both have disadvantages. The one you choose for any given device will depend on how you use that device to collect and read your e-mail. And, yes, this is a per-device setting. You might choose POP for home use and IMAP on a notebook computer or a tablet. If you use a smart phone to read and respond to mail, it will almost certainly use IMAP.

IMAP allows you to view just the header information without downloading the entire message, so you can ignore large messages until later. And, unlike the default for POP, IMAP leaves all messages on the server until you delete them, so you can read the same message on many devices. (POP can be set up to allow this, too.)

If something serious happens to your computer, your IMAP messages will still be on the server. IMAP is also a good choice for portable computers with limited disk space.

POP downloads all messages from the server to your computer and that makes it possible for you to read messages at your convenience, whether you're connected to the Internet or not.

In most cases, an e-mail client set up to use POP will delete messages from the server. If your e-mail provider charges for storage, this could be a consideration.

It's possible to set a POP client to leave messages on the server and that's what some people do if they have one or more portable devices but they want to retain all messages on a central system. For example, a notebook computer and a tablet might be set to use POP but to leave messages on the server, while the home-based desktop system also uses POP but deletes messages after downloading them.

So the decision between POP and IMAP isn't really an either-or decision. Think about how you use e-mail, where you want the full message base to be stored, and how you want to be able to access messages. You may find that the best choice involves IMAP on some devices and POP on others.

Goodbye IGoogle, Hello IGHome

In 2005, Google launched its Personalized Homepage service. Later renamed IGoogle (or, as Google styled it, "iGoogle") and then discontinued on the first of November. Google had announced plans to terminate the service a year in advance so developers who wanted to create an application to replace it would have time to do so. IGHome (or, as they style it, "igHome") became available and it's proving to be an excellent replacement.

Google announced the termination on its blog in July 2012. The terminations of IGoogle and several other services we blamed on "the unforeseen evolution of Web and mobile apps and the erosion of the need for the site."

Shortly after the announcement in mid 2012, IGHome promoted itself as the successor and the feature set made it an appealing choice.

The tabbed interface makes it easy to organize the information by category. Here I've established a Home tab, a Technology tab, and a News tab.

The main tab includes a date and time display and weather information in for several cities.

This illustrates the point that it's possible to create more than one copy of any given widget, such as the weather widget that has been repeated 5 times.

Switching to one of the other views is accomplished by clicking the tab.

On any given tab, you may want to change the order of the widgets. Just click and hold on the title bar of the widget you want to move and slide it into its new position. The widget will take the place of any widget that's already in the space and the existing widget will slide down.

To change a widget's settings, click the small "e" in the upper right corner of the widget. From here you can specify the words that appear on the header, the color of the header and the text in the header, and the height of the widget. The width cannot be controlled.

For some widgets, other settings may be modified, such as the number of items to be shown, the size and color of the text, and whether you see just the headline or a headline and the first bit of text from the report.

You can also specify which tab a widget will appear on in the settings pane. When you save the settings, the widget will move to the new tab.

To remove a widget, click the "X" in the upper right corner.

When you want to read the full text of a headline that appears in one of the IGHome widgets, click the link and a new browser tab will open.

Short Circuits

Will the FCC Allow Cell Phone in the Air?

Between the people who think it is their god-given right to talk loudly on cell phones anywhere and everywhere and those who wish the previously mentioned folks would just shut the **** UP, it's not going to be a happy time in the skies. I suspect that flight attendants are not in favor of this.

The Federal Communications Commission decided this week to consider changing rules on the use of cell phones during airline flights. Some people want to talk all the time and others just want silence (such as it is) above 10,000 feet. Flight attendants are already pushing back.

The FCC will discuss it at their meeting on December 12th. The use of phones during flight is opposed by flight attendants and many passengers, but some airlines in Asia and Europe already allow the use of cell phones.

Phone use would not be allowed during takeoff or landing, or when the airplane is below 10,000 feet. Additionally, airlines would need to install equipment that would provide cellular service and the installation of the equipment would not be required.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler says that current technology can provide mobile services in the air safely and reliably. That's why the FCC will review what Wheeler calls the agnecy's "outdated and restrictive" rules.

Amazon Wants to Out-Netflix Netflix

A new streaming deal gives Amazon an advantage in its battle with Netflix. Amazon announced a deal this week to add releases from independent film company A24 to its Prime service. Prime is the service that allows customers to receive free 2-day shipping on most orders and also to view some streaming video.

Motion pictures from A24 will become available on Amazon Prime soon after they become available on disc.

A24 is about a year old and has only a few films in its reperoire at the moment -- "Spring Breakers" and "The Bling Ring", for example Upcoming releases include "Enemy" with Jake Gyllenhaal and "Under the Skin" with Scarlett Johansson".

Amazon is becoming a significtant threat to Netflix, although Netflix is develping some popular original programming.

Next Week is a Bye Week (Really)

I mean it this time! Happy Thanksgiving a few days early. There will be no program next week, but TechByter Worldwide will return on December 8.