If you are like some software but would like something that has different features and/or is cheaper, check out Alternative To at http://alternativeto.net/

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SharedCopy is a free Web-based service that allows you place annotations and various other markups (highlight, lines, box, arrow) to a Web page and then share it with others. Go to http://sharedcopy.com/

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Suppose you want to provide your students with an article from the Web but you don’t want all the extra things on the Web page such as advertisements and other blocks of text. The Web site Readability (http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/) allows you to generate printable text and vary three things: the text style, text size, and margin width.

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The Pulse SmartPen created by Livescribe may be *the* thing for students to consider, especially if they take a lot of notes or if they can’t write very fast (or at least can’t keep up with the teacher). I recently purchased one and will give students turns in using it during a course. With this pen, files which contain the corresponding audio can be uploaded and viewed by others at the Community site.

Some interesting scenarios in the form of videos, including the ability of the SmartPen to translate words to other languages can be seen on this page called Sneekpeek.

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I learned today about a Web service called Drop Box (found at www.getdropbox.com), which has a number of features that will be beneficial to both individuals and groups. The Tour explains the features or you can watch the video.

For individuals who have more than one computer and they need to keep file synchronized, Drop Box allows you to easily keep the files in synch.

If you work with others, you can create a Shared folder, which will allow others to access the files. They can be shared with either Drop Box members or non-members. See this Web page for more details.

Free accounts come with 2MB of storage.

One of the things to think about is that if you put a file in the Drop Box that will be on your computer, you will have moved it from its original location so it would be best to put the original in the Drop Box and then put an alias in the folder where it was originally.

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