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.