Design:

Sketchup – Free, 3D drawing software

Tux Paint – Free, Great for doing a quick sketches

VectorWorks – Drafting

Photoshop – Image Editing

Illustrator – Drawing software

Project Management

Gantt Project – Free, Wonderful for creating quick schedules

Microsoft Project – Use to create more detailed schedules

Presentations

Open Office – Free and Open Source office suite, use when can’t open a document in Microsoft Word or Excel

Pages – Better for writing documents than Microsoft Word

Keynote – The best for making presentations

iMovie – Creating movies

Inspiration – Use to create bubble diagrams

Microsoft Office – Microsoft Word and Excel

iphoto – Organizing photos

Office

Firefox – Free, Web Browser

Daylite – Customer Relationship Management, I have tried others keep coming back

Palm Desktop – Free, Contact Database

itunes – Listening to music while I work

Skype – International calling and chat

XStreamRipper – Free, Use to record my favorite Internet radio programs

Apple Mail – Email

Quickbooks – Use for accounting

Parallels – Use so I can run Microsoft Project on a Mac

Plaxo – Free, Use to remember birthdays

Whatsize – Gives you an idea of how your hard drive is being used

Super Dupper! – Great program makes a copy of your hard drive as a back up

Backblaze – Online back up of all files

Disk Inventory – Free, A visual of your hard drive use

I have been been traveling in Asia for almost six months now. The last two months I have been volunteer teaching English and Art here in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia.

Here in Bali everyone belongs to a Banjar, the Bajar is your local village and the Banjar is the local form of government. Each Banjar has at least one temple and also governs the schools. I asked to be introduced to the Kepala Dusan the “Mayor” of the Banjar and expressed an interest in teaching English and Art to the local kids.

The Kepala Dusan was very excited and set a meeting for the next day to introduce me to the Principal of the local school, Sekolah Dasar Negeri 1. The Keala Dusan expressed that the local kids don’t have much to do in the afternoon and would I be interested in teaching in the Banjar? So two days a week I teach in the public school and two days a week I teach in the Banjar. In the public school I teach grades 4, 5 and 6, and at the Banjar I teach ages 6 to 12. The classes are an hour long and have between 30 and 40 students per class.

Wishing you all of the best in 2010!

-Mark

Sunset at the beach at Tanah Lot, Bali, Indonesia

Snowy owl’s beautiful white plumage helps to hide it in its Arctic habitat. Only the males are completely white. Chicks are dark and spotted, while the females are white with spots on their wings.

National Geographic

Photograph by Norbert Rosing