Last post

I'm closing this blogspot down now too.

For all new blog posts, which will hopefully be more thought out and categorised, go to:

http://guffaboutstuff.blogspot.com

This will be my new blog.

Enjoy!

It's time... to say goodbye.

Yep, it's that time...

It's time for me to kill off some old and dusty blogs and other e-paraphernalia. So this blog (now it's personal) as well as A user's view, i don't like apples, and ipt: not just nerds are all being deleted.

If you did follow them (but didn't let me know) then all I can say is - why? They really weren't that good!

Whether I resurrect my online presence with a new blog, it's too early to say, but there's always my
twitter: http://twitter.com/richardschwarz
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/richardschwarz.oz,
Google+: https://plus.google.com/109197698882856062602

...

Anyway - it was fun. It was educational. It was... too hard to keep posting well crafted and thought out posts.

See ya.
Richard

Steve Jobs has resigned. I'll miss him... and why.

Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO of Apple Inc.

The official statement: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/08/24Steve-Jobs-Resigns-as-CEO-of-Apple.html

While, as most of you know, I have never been the biggest fan of the iOS (on iPhones and iPads) what you may not know is that I have always admired his tenacity and belief in his company and product. There is a very good reason Simon Sinek [TEDtalk | Start With Why ] spoke about Apple in his Golden Circles talk – Steve was a believer in pushing the boundaries of IT use and his desire for IT to not only be useful, but easy to use and good looking, has quite obviously come through in their products.

There are many, many lessons we can learn about innovation in education from the way he has lead innovation in the IT industry. I aspire to have the same belief in and dedication to my products, young, Christian leaders who will influence their community for God and good, so that they may achieve their potential. Anyone who has seen Steve talk, either via vodcast or in real life, will know that he has always meant what he said.

Steve, you’ve done a great job and you will be missed.

My favourite windows cleaner is now there for macs!

Just like the idea that macs can't get malware has turned out to be false, the idea that you don't need to clean up after a mac is also not true. Thankfully CCleaner the best free cleaner is now out for macs.

New beta version of CCleaner for Mac is limited but shows signs of promise - News - PC & Tech Authority Mobile Edition

An easy English lesson

If you're in my English class, fill in the form below and I'll use your responses to create an awesome wordle.

Back to Deezer, thanks Grooveshark

I've headed back to Deezer after spending quite some time at Grooveshark. For those of you who don't know, they're both streaming music websites (i.e. you can listen to the music for free, online, and LEGALLY!).
Why Deezer (I'm sure I hear at least one person ask... )? Well, in my opinion/onion, they have better 'radio' stations, like:

Discover the Radio Dancefloor

this dance station (Dancefloor).

I still use Grooveshark for all my particular track needs, but if I don't want to pick the music myself, then it's Deezer.

Links: Grooveshark     Deezer

IPT revision sheet answers

Here are the rest of the answers...

Follow the link to find them on Google Docs: IIS Revision sheet answers

Garage Sale - Sat 17 April

We're holding a garage sale this Saturday, 17th April, from 7:30am to 3:00pm at 26 Hinchliffe Dr, Kearney's Spring.

Stuff being sold includes:

• Baby clothes
• Baby items (toys, bath etc)
• N64 and a couple of N64 games
• A wooden TV unit
• Lots of books (and I mean lots)
• A treadmill
• plus more!

So, if you've got some spare time on Saturday, pop on over and take a browse. We're more than happy for you to buy some of our things.

Enjoy!

My Ubuntu Lucid Beta play

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Beta 2 Technical Overview | Ubuntu

I've installed Ubuntu 10.04 Beta 2 (Lucid) on my Toshiba Portege (ie. old, old laptop) because XP was running a tad sluggish. So far, I'm loving it! Yes, they've put the window buttons on the wrong - I mean the Apple (left) - side, but then I've been using a Macbook Pro as my home laptop for a while.

User experience:

It's fast - snappy even - which is saying something considering that the laptop it's on might be best described as antique. The new interface/themes which they have put under the banner of 'light' - Ambiance and Radiance. I currently use Ambience - and I have to admit, it's a lot nicer to look at compared to the 'woodsiness' of the old Ubuntu colours.

Installing:

The install (I used the Wubi installer which installs as a separate virtual disk so there's no risk) was easy and relatively pain free - didn't even have to answer much in the way of questions.

Problems?

I say relatively because the one issue I had with the install was that Ubuntu didn't recognise my ancient video card - a Trident CyberXP - and the default screen size was 800x600... positively tiny. Not much of an issue if I could easily fix it up. Of course, I couldn't, at least not easily. This led to a couple of hours of searching forums until I found that I needed to create (because Ubuntu doesn't use it by default) a blank xorg.conf file with some basic settings (below). Once that was done, restarted the x-server and voila! Had a 1024x768 resolution again! And then, after heaps of searching, I find out that Trident CyberXP cards can't do 3D under X-Server (though it can in XP). Just have to suck that up and move on.

In terminal, run sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf , enter your password when asked, and then add the following:



Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
HorizSync 60-60
VertRefresh 43-117
EndSection


Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection 

My Customisations:

On the other hand, I've customised it a bit - added a dock because I like the icons - added Google Desktop and Chrome (because I'm a fan boy) which was all really easy using the Ubuntu Software Center. Screen:

Ubuntu Software Center

This is a really great addition to the distro. It makes finding the software out of all the mess which is Linux Packages simple. Nice. It's basically an application for easily finding, installing and removing programs. It's a 1-click type of interface and categorises the types of applications you might be looking for. Screens below.

Final Comments:

If you're looking for an alternative to Windows, Ubuntu 10.04 is already a great OS, with some final tweaking (I guess) before the final. Worth a play at least using the Live CD.

MS Courier - not the font, just an overlooked not-quite tablet.

In all the hype that built up over the impending announcement of (in my opinion) the next to useless (for me anyway) iPad (I'll talk about that some other time...), somehow I missed this little gem that's been bubbling away in Microsoft's hush-hush research labs. I don't know how I missed it, there's bits of info. all over the place, and MS was even hyped to unveil it at the 2010 CES... but they didn't.

Anyway - I'm actually quite excited about the Courier Project and its implications... if it ever happens.

Here's a video of one of the ways it could work:



So, pretty nifty yeah?

If it actually ends up coming out, it will probably do more for education (at least) than Apple's iPad.

As can be seen, one of its main features is that it is hinged... that's right - it's got a great, big (well not that big actually) hinge right in the middle. For those of use who use books etc, this is great. It also appears to do something that the iPad does not - multitasking. For the end user, this is BIG news. Whereas on the iPad you can only really do one thing at a time, the dual screen layout means that on one page, I can have my favourite tech blog (yay for Gizmodo today) open on one side and do up my notes on the other! I can drag and drop my cut text from the left and put in my journal on the right. And I can still watch my movies if I want... just like the iPad. So, the iPad is built on a mobile phone OS (yep-  it's the same as the iPhone and iPod Touch, just bigger) and the Courier, being built by MS, will probably run on some version of Windows.
Why is this important? Because, now I can run what I want (ie. the same office applications that I have at work) on my tablet and I'll probably even be able to watch movies at Hulu or Vimeo, because Microsoft don't discriminate against Adobe and they need Flash, which the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch doesn't and will never support. (one caveat: I can't actually watch at Hulu.com as it's only available to people in the US and Canada, and definitely not in Australia).

Unfortunately, Microsoft didn't take the time to unveil it at CES 2010 - instead they introduced a 'nameless' HP tablet. .  >8-(

Anyway, here's hoping that it arrives sometime soon. Unlike the iPad - if this one is compatible with my Windows boxes at school, I'll buy one!

Finally!! Made it Number 1 on Google!!!

Yay!!! I've finally made it to number 1 on google!!! You've got to love searching for yourself, it sometimes makes you feel better.
Here's a screenshot to prove it:

... and the search link: http://www.google.com.au/search?q=richard+schwarz

In related news (sort of) version 1.1 of the Woot! Public License will soon be released. Written to be understood by the lay IT person, it aims to maintain all the freedoms of the first license while more closely adhering to the Open Source Initiative's [link] definition of Open Source. Oh - and I've already created some software using the Woot! 1.1 Public License (a simple search and delete app in VB.Net).

That will probably be posted on Teaching IPT with a reference in this blog.

Enjoy!

Page 1 of Google Search Results (YAY!)

Yay - I've made page 1 of Google's search results page - twice! How cool is that. I'm number 8 and 10... see image below (not edited, just cropped):

Finally after all these years, I've made it. Aaaaaaah. Now if only I can be number 1 (like my wife). Sigh.

More Google news

Google Phone? In more google news (seems to be all I'm typing about these days), it looks like there's going to be a google phone. Will I use it? Hmmm. After some somewhat disturbing remarks by CEO Schmidt about Google and privacy (see quote below), I'm in two minds. I still use their products though- it seems that people (myself included) are willing to hand over our personal lives for a really useful (or somewhat useful) app. Case in point - I'm writing this blog using Google's Chrome browser for Mac (which really is a step back from the Win version) in Blogger (another google product) and I use Google seach religiously. Seriously - Bing? Nah.

Quote from Schmidt on PCWorld (http://www.pcworld.com/article/184446/googles_schmidt_roasted_for_privacy_comments.html) :
66

Lest anything be taken out of context, here's the full quote from Schmidt, uttered in an interview with CNBC:
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place, but if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time, and it's important, for example that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities."
       99


Thanks Schmidt for making me feel safer using your products - really (italics is used to show sarcasm).

Five Years of Firefox

Wow! Five years already!!! Who knew that time could go so fast.

Five years ago, Microsoft had killed off their major web browsing competitors and looked set to keep the throne for decades (mumble, grumble) to come. Then, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Netscape reborn, rebadged and completely (pretty much) recoded, comes back on the scene as Mozilla Firefox.
With features that MS could only dream of and a user base which rapidly grew (and still is), Firefox reignited the Browser wars of yesteryear and warmed the hearts of so many who had been enslaved in the net pits of IE.
Now, after paving the way, and wounding the dragon, Firefox has allowed other browsers to also take up the fight to reclaim the Internet - welcome Chrome, hello on Win Safari, and Opera: just keep on singing.
So to say happy birthday, I've linked to the celebration page. Go there and rejoice for the reign of 'good enough' is almost at an end.

Five Years of Firefox

Posted using ShareThis

Why I trim my goatee

http://dilbert.com/fast/2009-11-28/

Ahh! Scott Adams, you've done it again. This is why I trim my goatee... so that I can move freely throughout this wonderful democracy where you don't have to feel threatened if you have facial hair... or something.

Well done Year 12s!

Last night I had the honour and pleasure of saying goodbye to the latest batch of Year 12 students from my school. I think this bunch of kids have done a great job of growing up - they're confident, driven and have rock-solid character.

To all those people who worry for the future when they look at Gen Y, don't. The future is in good hands - probably better than yours.

Do these guys want to have fun? Absolutely. But why not? Life is meant to be experienced (within boundaries) and these young adults (at least the ones from my school) are doing a great job of balancing fun and responsibility.

Thanks 2009 - I'll miss you ... a little :)
Have fun, take care, and stand firm in the faith God has given you.

Hang on - what is Google Operating System?

If you have no idea what it was that I was talking about in the last post, lucky for you that google has released a video for you:

Chrome Operating System - It's here!

Google has just released Chrome OS as Open Source and they've got bucketloads of videos out there.

I thought I'd post a very recent demo video (from Google's youtube channel) here - it's a live, working version.




What I find interesting is the absolute reliance upon the cloud. All documents etc are based "in the cloud" - or on a google server.

What I love is that it's not due for release for another year, but it's working and Google is mroe than willing to show it off.

There are more videos on the channel, but I thought I'd start with this one.

An IPT blog - finally.

I've finally bitten the bullet and created Teaching IPT - a blog of all things IPT related. Unlike one of my earlier blogs, this will actually be updated fairly regularly. I'm aiming to use it as an additional resource for my kiddies at school.
I'll have links to interesting things (like BumpTop OS, or GoogleOS) and extra lesson stuff for my classes (like revision sheets). In short, it will be a one stop shop. Plus - one day I might be able to update it and embed a Wave in it... Amanda, Michael et. al.

Sorry my peeps from Year 12. This is a little too late for you, but I hope you'll help contribute as time goes on. Please?

Speaking of Year 12s, there's only 1 week to go. I'm already tearing up and that's not from the stress of trying to make it an enjoyable and memorable last week for them. Hmmm. Maybe I need to drink more coffee. Yep. The answer to all ills. :)

IPT - revision available

Sorry - was at the SU support dinner. Great night!

Anyway, the pdf of the revision sheet is here: http://www.christlife.org.au/images/stories/IPT/2009_IPT OT2 Revision with asnwers.pdf