I’m a middle of the road Twitter user (please don’t call me a Tweep, Twit or other cutesie-pie name). I post pictures of food and coffee and the places I go. I make observations about things in the media or in my fields of interest or I share links about the stuff I read. I retweet comments and links that are interesting or make me think. I talk to a few people, ask a few questions, respond to a few others. Somedays I am prolific; at other times I’m quiet. I read a lot more than I write.

I love Twitter because it’s about choice. I can dip in and out, engage or disengage. If I find someone who is really interesting or who posts stuff that makes me think, I can follow that person. If I find that someone that I already follow doesn’t interest me or posts too much rubbish then I can un-follow them. During an event I can follow a hashtag (#eqnz for the Christchurch earthquakes) or a specific user (eg, @acarvin who has been described as the man who tweets revolutions).

Some people mourn the days when it was just them and their friends on Twitter. This makes me laugh. You can choose who is on Twitter by carefully choosing who you follow. If that’s not enough then restrict who follows you – which I tend to think misses the point. It’s no different to blogs. If you engage only with people on the same wavelength then you will never be challenged to think in different or new ways.

I don’t like excessive retweeting. Some people go a bit crazy on the retweet button and copy everything a person says. This annoys me. If I find a retweet interesting I can go and look at the original stream and follow that person if I want to. I also don’t see the point of Kiwis retweeting archane news items from overseas. A lot of  BREAKING NEWS isn’t breaking for everyone. And just because it says PLEASE RT a lost or found  dog / cat / child … you don’t have to – especially if most of the people you interact with are on a different continent to the mislaid creature.

Sometimes I’ve discovered that my Twitter stream gets a bit unbalanced. I find that there are too many self-promoting journalists, politicians or celebrities pointlessly jabbering away at each other. Or like right now, I’m finding too much negativity in my stream. It’s easy to fix with a few judicious clicks of the delete button. After all if I wouldn’t enjoy it in real life, I don’t need to see it on my screen.

So, in order to finish on a positive note what do I like? New ideas, links and angles. Photos, music and videos that I’d never find on my own. The serendipity of making and meeting new friends (on and offline). And fun – good fun like the stuff in this collection of Kiwi gems. That’s what I love about Twitter.

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ReadWriteWeb reports a French study that says that people scan newspaper articles more quickly than iPad articles. Apparently newspaper readers retain more information than electronic readers. What are the implications of this research? Should we be thinking about what skills are required to read from a screen? Are students disadvantaged when they complete tests using a computer? Food for thought.

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Three Basic Rules for Online Safety from Krebs on Security. In a nutshell …

• “If you didn’t go looking for it, don’t install it!”
• “If you installed it, update it.”
• “If you no longer need it, remove it.”

Simple really!

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Instructions for removing Mac Defender if you have been infected with the little beastie. I saw a case of this earlier this month and while it’s not difficult to remove it does give people a fright. It’s easy to stop this kind of thing in its tracks by opening up Safari’s preferences and removing the tick that allows “safe” files to open automatically.

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Here goes!
Kevin Kelly on Wired Magazine‘s early predictions …

… it is clear that all predictions of the future are really just predictions of the present.

Read the post, it’s an insight to what was imagined in the mid-nineties. Some great sound text-bytes for a journey in your head.

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The Oatmeal on why it’s better to pretend that you don’t know anything about computers …

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ZScreen – an open-source screen capture program for Microsoft Windows. Really simple to use!

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And … check out @Astro_Soichi’s Twitpic stream for the most out of this world photos around at the moment.

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QR (Quick Response) Codes have been around for about 15 years (Wikipedia). They are a black and white image that can be found on all sorts of things. When I thought about it I realised I had seen them on posters and packaging for quite some time. Apparently they are very popular in Japan – while the rest of us have been slow to catch on.

Like any barcode, you need a scanner to capture and decode the information. My Nokia E71 has a barcode scanner and I wondered why it didn’t work on ‘normal’ barcodes. It’s because it’s a QR Code Reader. There are lots of QR Code scanners out there! i-nigma make applications for lots of phones. Their Symbian Series 60 application is a lot faster than the one that came with my E71.

So what can you embed in a QR Code? Quite a bit of information!  Many companies simply embed a website address so that a consumer can use their mobile phone to scan the barcode and see extra product information immediately. Someone like me could add a QR Code to a business card. Some one who sees my card could scan the code, go to the website and see an up to date resume or contact details. The embedded data could contain competition information or treasure hunt clues.

Download a QR Code scanner for your phone and scan one of the codes on this page – better yet make your own!

Note: The two codes on this page were made with two different generators. I used http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ for the top one (which links to a page about my work) and I used http://www.mobile-barcodes.com/qr-code-generator/ for the second code (which is a message about my Twitter accounts).

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My catch of the day at the Huka Falls Prawn Park

A new decade – a new start?

It would be nice to be able to resurrect this space and do some “fun” writing again. The pressures of the last eighteen months have meant that, apart from tiny Twitter-bytes, I haven’t done any real writing about the things that I care about. These holidays have been tagged for a bit of R&R&R – Rest and Recuperation and Resurrection.

It’s not that I haven’t been doing the things that I love. We’ve done a lot of travelling around the place recenttly and I have uploaded a ton of photos to my Flickr account. Visits to Wairoa, Hastings and Wellington have been photographed, tagged and put online. I’m uploading some shots that I took around the lower Kaipara Harbour after an amazing cruise we did on Thursday. There are family photos too.

I’ve been geeking around too. Dropped 500GB hard drives into my laptop and netbook and upgraded them both to Windows 7. I’ve been playing with some Linux and Windows PE live CDs and looking at how these environments can be used in my world. This week I finally got around to setting up some extra network stuff so that our whole house has the right kind of internet access. Benn and I have taken on the task of stripping down all of our old junked computers and sorting out which parts go to TradeMe, which we can use and what just needs to go to someone else to recycle. Our home network is pretty shoddy at the moment – I need to think about placing our equipment more efficiently so that it serves us rather than we serve it.

We bought ourselves a Wii for Christmas and have really enjoyed playing some of the games and activities. The Wii Fit is getting a daily workout too! I’m planning to have a play with the ideas behind the Wiimote Project.

Porthole to history at the Museum of Wellington City & Sea

This year sees a bit of a change in direction for me. I’m going to start my post graduate studies. After several years heavily immersed in the educational ICT arena it’s time to step back and take another look at the world of silicon, ones and zeroes. I’ll still be doing my schools’ tech support work, my websites and looking after my business clients, however, it’s time to get thinking again and to think more widely.

The world of educational ICT is a great place to visit but it’s not the world that I want to stay. There are a lot of amazing thinkers in that world but unfortunately there are also a lot of people who can’t see beyond their own sphere. I think that it’s time for me at least to break out and to see if I can get a wider perspective on things. So that’s what I hope to do this year. I’ll still be on the fringe of the education world but by being outside of the ICT PD network, hopefully I’ll be able to see things with more clarity.

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When I tried to run the upgrade script my blog reverted to a brand new fresh WordPress install. If I tried to run that script it appeared that I was still logged in to my administration panel but gave me password errors before returning to the installation script.

In order to fix the problem, I logged into phpMyAdmin and repaired the database tables for that particular blog. As I did that I got a confirmation message that there had been a problem in the wp-options table and that some records had been fixed.

After upgrading that particular blog I was in the middle of a post when the editting page froze and  reverted back to the installation page. I applied the same fix only to have it happen again. At the moment things are stable. I found this page (and this one) which describe how others have had the same problem and details some steps for a restoration.

If it happens again I will need to look further.

Related posts:

1. Ink Blog
2. Promise

Reading and writing on the computer hurt my head so I decided to complete a couple of unfinished tasks. Manual labour (or as close as I ever get).

A few months ago my favourite Air Force Engineer / T-shirt business owner replaced the front speakers in my little car with nice new Sony Xplods. At the same time he put in some fancy Sony Xplod 6X9s in my parcel shelf. As he was off on one of his regular Air Force trips he left the wiring to me. And of course I didn’t get around to it until today.

Being unable to focus on a computer screen but feeling strangely (very strangely) energised I decided to tackle the job today. First of all I attacked the original speaker grill with a table knife. I often use table knives to fix things. The grills came off easily so and I was able to use a real Philips screw driver to get at the speakers. They were easy to dislodge and I cut the wires with my pliers (I have been known to use my teeth before). Then I fed the new speaker wire through the entry for the wheel spring mount thingies and twisted it on to the existing wire. I thought about soldering it but decided against that because I’ve only just recovered from the burns I got from my last soldering endevour. Then I clipped the speaker while onto the speakers and voila! it all worked.

The next task that I had to complete was to put my radio head unit back into its place. A month or so ago the radio stopped working and so I pulled it out to have a look at all of the connections and make sure they were still connected. Sadly they were and the problem (since confirmed by a real auto electrician) is that the tuner inside the radio has died. It’s not an uncommon event in elderly radios apparently. So, after driving around with my radio head unit hanging off into the passenger seat well for a few weeks I decided to put it all back together again.  I fiddled my way through that job – even tidying up the cassette wiring so that I can hide my iPod in the glove box. I was a little worse for wear at the end of it …

The set up I have now has served us well for a few years. My father gave us the head unit and a 10CD stacker several years ago and I initially had them installed in our Suzuki 4WD. When I bought the Subaru it had an incredible sound system although I missed the CD unit. I moved the set up to the Mitsubishi when I bought it last year and apart from the woeful factoiry speakers I’ve been really happy with it. Now I’m on the lookout for a radio with an iPod and USB interface but being as I have a working 10CD stacker under my seat and the iPod through the cassette link it’s not an urgent need – probably quite good to be away from the news occasionally.

The finished job (just a bit of clipping back of the wiring to be completed):

The only place to get car audio help: The Crutchfield Community

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Of interest I can’t play any Muxtapes in Firefox on either my laptop (Vista) or the eee PC. I think it might be something to do with the extensions that I have installed. I need to rouse myself and troubleshoot it further.

I realised that it probably wasn’t my extensions that were causing the problem when I discovered that YouTube videos weren’t playing in FireFox. I’ve had this problem before – only in Vista – that the video appears to load, plays for two seconds and then stops. If I drag the slder along it starts briefly but without sound. It’s an issue with Macromedia Flash.

Fortunately I found the answer a couple of weeks ago (it happens regularly) in the Mozilla Forums. Sure enough, navigating through to My C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\Macromed\Flash folder finds two files with “FlashUtil” as part of the name, FlashUtil9e.exe and NPSWF32_FlashUtil.exe. I clicked on the second file, ran the installer, rebooted and YouTube works again. Even better, my new Muxtape works too!

Of course I still want to sort out the eee PC’s Muxtape problem as well. In this case YouTubes are playing?

EDIT: It was a Flash problem as well. Thanks to the friendly guys at the Eee PC forum at http://wiki.eeeuser.com I was directed to upgrade my Flash Player to the latest version…

Related posts:

1. Living Inside My Technology

• I upgraded the eee PC by adding a 2GB memory stick. Although the stock standard installation of Xandros only recognises the first gigabite of that memory, I think it was a worthwhile upgrade in anticipation of further “upgrades” to come. I have been able to simultaneously open a couple of documents in Open Office, several tabs in a couple of Firefox windows and play some MP3s without too much difficultly. I’m interested in going further though and looking at putting Ubuntu on the machine to have a look at how it handles things.

• I applied Vista SP1 to my laptop (HP 6710). I have 4GB of ram in there and finally it all shows up in the Syem Properties. Whether it’s being used is a different matter of course! This is the best installation of Vista that I have done (out of about 25) and I was a bit aprehensive about applying all of the “updates” but in the end it has all worked out OK. And yes, again I did backup first.

• Last night I gave in and upgraded this site to WordPress 2.5 RC1. I backed up first – I have an automatic backup of all the sites that I look after happen every weekend – and uploaded the files. The upgrade was smooth and, so far, everything appears to be cooperating. I like the look of the new dashboard, and am particularly happy with the new addition of the full screen button – less clutter! I am looking forward to testing the new “Add Media” component of the “Write” page. More about that at the end of this post.

• This afternoon I got a tad side-tracked by the latest fad. Muxtape is a 21st century way of sharing your favourite music with your friends aka the old fashioned mixtape. It’s super simple – upload 12 MP3s, sort out the order and share the URL. My Muxtape is here – today it’s a mellow late afternoon playlist taken from the first twelve songs from my favourite iPod playlist. I could change things tomorrow by uploading some different songs. It’s simplicity is its strength – although I’d love to see a few stats. Who else likes Cordova from the Indigo Girls? And how many other people have played my Muxtape? I’m sure it will all come. Of interest I can’t play any Muxtapes in Firefox on either my laptop (Vista) or the eee PC. I think it might be something to do with the extensions that I have installed. I need to rouse myself and troubleshoot it further.

• The other job that I’ve been doing over the last few days is putting together a P4 2.8GHz machine for my daughter and her family. Their old Celery is dreadfully slow so I have put together some old parts and got a nice machine for them to use. It’s a nice solid P4, 1.5GB ram, DVD RW and has 180GB of hard drive space for them to collect photos of my grandchildren. It’s running Xp but after that I loaded Open Office and a whole lot of other free and open source programmes. Hopefully it will suit them for a little while.

And so to “Add Media”. Firstly an image:

Easy. The options are really clear and easy to follow. And, incidentally, checkout a whole gallery of Last Supper pictures (I know – Easter is over …).

And a link to a YouTube (make sure that you have your headphones on):

The Virtual Barber

or via the embed media button in the advanced options:

Which may or may not be something that Artichoke mentioned to me a couple of weeks ago? It’s definitely worth the five minutes it takes to watch / listen / think about.

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I have to be really careful here. During my work week I exchange hats on a regular basis. Some of the time I am teacher who wants access now … and then I am technician with lofty views about security … and then I am subverter – I want to get to XXX.co.nz because … I want to …

So who does own your school network? I thought about this question last week when a cluster school couldn’t access a Wikispace or a Zoho Creator database. Their inability to access these sites was only half of the problem though. They had to contact an external technican to have the sites removed from the filtering list.

The network is more than just the internet connection though. It’s also the school’s intranet and it’s also the individual computers and other gear. So who “owns” all of this? And what about the school’s website? Who does it all belong to?

I found this page of Ten Commandments from the Rotorua Education Centre and thought about the networks that I own / manage / work in / attempt to work in. It’s a fairly decent look at what expections a school IT person might have. It also looks at the expectations that a teacher might have about their school laptop. The problem is that the page misses out the other side of the issue. If you are going to use the network you need to be aware of the importance of looking after it. That means being sensitive about passwords and shared network spaces. It means being thoughtful about where you put your 13Gb video file (it’s true – I saw one on a server last week) and it means understanding about quotas (I saw a whole school network brought to a standstill last year when someone tried to synchronise 4Gb of photos and movies over a wireless connection because her son said she should!).

So what’s the answer? I think we need to stop thinking about school laptops and computers in terms of home machines. While they are similar beasts their function puts them in a different cage altogether. I think we need to look at using technicians with an educational background (easier said than done) and we need to think about giving more information to the very people who the network matters most to – the end user.

With this in mind, here’s a brilliant site to download a movie that could just help older kids and teachers understand a little bit more about the connected part of the network. Warriors of the Net is a few years old now (1999) but it does explain a bit about networks and how information is transported around the building and around the world.

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