There's been a bit of fuss recently about games affecting learning. I for one am in favour of "interactive" learning, although I think arguments about online clans for games like Halo encouraging Team Building are taking it a bit too far.
I started reminiscing about the "good old days" of the BBC Micro in schools and some of the games I used to play. Younger readers may well scoff, at the 8bit power of the BBC Micro, but some of the classic games like Yellow Brick Road, Transylvanian Terror, Martello Tower....and Granny's Garden really left an impression. Mainly because you could never have enough time to finish them and the teacher dragging you off because it was end of break or something equally as annoying.
All this started me thinking, despite crap graphics, the soul of those games - and their purpose - as learning tool must still be alive somewhere. So I set out on a quest to see if they still existed and to see if they were still useful.
After hunting for literally minutes I had acquired a BBC Emulator. For the uninitiated this lets you run old images (also called ROMS) of BBC Micro software on your PC or MAC. After a lot more searching - over the next three days I managed to find ROMS of all the old games I wanted to play again. Let me tell you folks, they are all out there, and they are as good as ever.
After getting too excited about having found Transylvanian terror, I decided to try the games out on my 3 year old son, he was a good test as he hasn't learnt to be put off by crap graphics on games yet. We started with Granny's Garden and he is really into it now and wants to play it all the time (and is learning lots!).
So for any parents out there, or those who need a brush up on their basic skills, or even a Retro enthusiast, this is where to go. I'm sure there are newer equally exciting things out there but the teletext graphics and lack of mouse really absorb you into the games.
Have Fun!
Wednesday, 19 December 2007
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
MAC vs Ebay
Fair play to Ebay, if you have a surplus of anything, you can whack it on there for a fee and hopefully it will sell. If you have a lot to sell, Ebay provides you with a Turbo Lister tool for free, not the greatest piece of software ever written, but once you get used to it, it works. Or at least it does if you use Windows. Ebay refuses to provide a version of the software for MAC users. Hope however is not lost as there are two commercial solutions - GarageSale and iSale - I tried iSale and it is awesome, they link with iPhoto, iSale tells you the cost before you upload the auction, you can even schedule the upload. It doesn't cost too much either, not as good as free but miles better than Ebays Turbo Lister. If you have a MAC and you don't know what to use, try this, it is worth it. If someone knows of a free alternative however, let me know.
Sunday, 21 October 2007
Windows v MAC (Part 2)
My honeymoon period with the MAC is officially over as I have used it extensively enough to find out it's ins and outs.
What do I think of it for the everyday?
It's better than Windows in one key area - productivity. Since owning the MAC, all work I have done at home has been infinitely more productive than it ever was using a PC. My MACBook hasn't crashed, frozen, stopped when loading an application. It just works, it's quicker booting and shutting down and applications seem to be more intuitive.
I have used Office 2004 for most of my work and it is - in my opinion - better and easier to use than any version of Office on the PC prior to 2007. My company uses and trains people in Microsoft Office rather than any other solution as it really is a standard - admittedly OpenOffice and NEOOffice it's MAC equivalent are mighty close, and iWork 08 is also very good (Keynote thrashes Powerpoint for effectiveness of presentations - and porting files from one system to another was effortless.
The MACBook keyboard also deserves a special mention, this is outstanding, there are less keys than a Windows keyboard and there are gaps between them, at first sight you think WTF, yet it is actually easier to use and nowhere near as cramped as a PC keyboard.
Managing multiple Windows is also better as hitting F9 expands your desktop and shows you all the windows at once and you can click the one you are after. Again this is far superior to Windows.
I think the biggest thing about using the MAC for me though is that it is like a holiday, I can still go home and be enthusiastic about using the computer. I thought at first it was just because it was different from Windows, yet it turned out to be that I was actually enjoying it because it was better, everything about the MAC is better, except perhaps two things: Games and quantity of applications, the first one I realised I didn't miss at all as since having kids I have been playing consoles more, and liking them more, HALO on XBOX is far better for me on the console than on the PC, same with Half-Life 2 and if I was that desperate I would use Parallels or Crossover and run the PC version. Quantity of applications also isn't an issue really either, no there isn't as much available as with Windows and certainly not as much as Linux, yet the quality is better, so you don't need as much, for example Adium the instant messenger works with every messaging system out there including MSN and AOL. Additionally you can run a lot of Linux applications using Apples X11 interface.
The downsides to the MAC if there are any, are really issues I have with Apple. Just as with Microsoft, Apple links some of it's system in with paid content, this is truthfully less evident with Microsoft but Apple flagrantly try and make you pay roughly $80 a year to have a .Mac account, the reason for this is to allow the iLife applications to publish content seamlessly, however, and perhaps I'm just British and tight, but $80 is just too much, especially when it used to be offered free and without it, it renders iChat inoperable. The other thing is that iTunes, which I personally find a bit weird won't let you convert downloaded music to any other format that the proprietry MP4 format, on Windows and Linux there are ways around this but the MAC is short of free options and I'm not buying an iPod.
Outside of this though the MAC is great even my better half likes them now, can't say much more than that!
What do I think of it for the everyday?
It's better than Windows in one key area - productivity. Since owning the MAC, all work I have done at home has been infinitely more productive than it ever was using a PC. My MACBook hasn't crashed, frozen, stopped when loading an application. It just works, it's quicker booting and shutting down and applications seem to be more intuitive.
I have used Office 2004 for most of my work and it is - in my opinion - better and easier to use than any version of Office on the PC prior to 2007. My company uses and trains people in Microsoft Office rather than any other solution as it really is a standard - admittedly OpenOffice and NEOOffice it's MAC equivalent are mighty close, and iWork 08 is also very good (Keynote thrashes Powerpoint for effectiveness of presentations - and porting files from one system to another was effortless.
The MACBook keyboard also deserves a special mention, this is outstanding, there are less keys than a Windows keyboard and there are gaps between them, at first sight you think WTF, yet it is actually easier to use and nowhere near as cramped as a PC keyboard.
Managing multiple Windows is also better as hitting F9 expands your desktop and shows you all the windows at once and you can click the one you are after. Again this is far superior to Windows.
I think the biggest thing about using the MAC for me though is that it is like a holiday, I can still go home and be enthusiastic about using the computer. I thought at first it was just because it was different from Windows, yet it turned out to be that I was actually enjoying it because it was better, everything about the MAC is better, except perhaps two things: Games and quantity of applications, the first one I realised I didn't miss at all as since having kids I have been playing consoles more, and liking them more, HALO on XBOX is far better for me on the console than on the PC, same with Half-Life 2 and if I was that desperate I would use Parallels or Crossover and run the PC version. Quantity of applications also isn't an issue really either, no there isn't as much available as with Windows and certainly not as much as Linux, yet the quality is better, so you don't need as much, for example Adium the instant messenger works with every messaging system out there including MSN and AOL. Additionally you can run a lot of Linux applications using Apples X11 interface.
The downsides to the MAC if there are any, are really issues I have with Apple. Just as with Microsoft, Apple links some of it's system in with paid content, this is truthfully less evident with Microsoft but Apple flagrantly try and make you pay roughly $80 a year to have a .Mac account, the reason for this is to allow the iLife applications to publish content seamlessly, however, and perhaps I'm just British and tight, but $80 is just too much, especially when it used to be offered free and without it, it renders iChat inoperable. The other thing is that iTunes, which I personally find a bit weird won't let you convert downloaded music to any other format that the proprietry MP4 format, on Windows and Linux there are ways around this but the MAC is short of free options and I'm not buying an iPod.
Outside of this though the MAC is great even my better half likes them now, can't say much more than that!
Monday, 8 October 2007
Linux,Windows and Setting them up as Mailservers
Recently I have been trying to set up a mail server for my organisations trainees, being a fan of OpenSource software I had to try to do it in Linux. For the uninitiated, this is probably one of the hardest things you can do, only because of the different software and dependencies required and getting each element to integrate. N.B: This whole scenario is much easier if you set up the users on Linux, I - fool that I am - decided on a virtual style setup which makes things immeasurably harder, If you do set them up as per the latter (or run LDAP) you can install Dovecot and away to go.
I decided that for the benefit of our trainees, to use one of the groupware solutions available rather than just Webmail, I settled on E-Groupware after testing several (which I will post about soon).
Ingredients:
One stable machine capable of running the Linux distribution of your choice (more on this later)
Cyrus Imap
MySQL
PHP 5
Postfix
Webmail client
Apache
Webmin
Sharp Stick to repeatedly poke in eye (optional)
How To:
Begin by installing your Linux software on your server, I used Ubuntu just for ease of use and installed the packages as above using apt-get.
N.B: When installing PHP 5 make sure you get the additional PEAR package as this is essential for accessing MySQL using PHP.
If you've ever set up a MailServer on Windows it is usually a one application deal, run setup, follow the prompts and Bingo! your done. Not Linux though - oh no, in Linux land everything has to be infinitely configurable and therefore infinitely harder than is strictly necessary. In Windows you are sheltered from a lot of the things that Linux exposes you to. For example, to send SMTP mail, you at the very base level need a mail transport agent (MTA) - of your choice - in Windows you don't really see this in the same way so it spares you the pain.
I chose Postfix as my MTA as it is powerful and yet easy to configure. Sendmail is set up as default but isn't really as easy as Postfix. Postfix works pretty much straight out of the box, as does MySQL, although you do have to create an administrator user first. PHP was just as straightforward as was Apache.
I know most people probably know this already but Apache makes Linux boxes the best webservers, no, really, IIS is nothing more than a bloated piece of inflexible shite compared to Apache, I used the Virtualhost options and this allowed me to have a subdomain accessible for the mail server (mail.mycompany.com) rather than using www.mywebsite.com/mywebmail, this Apache does effortlessly and is something that is barely implemented in IIS.
I decided that for the benefit of our trainees, to use one of the groupware solutions available rather than just Webmail, I settled on E-Groupware after testing several (which I will post about soon).
Ingredients:
One stable machine capable of running the Linux distribution of your choice (more on this later)
Cyrus Imap
MySQL
PHP 5
Postfix
Webmail client
Apache
Webmin
Sharp Stick to repeatedly poke in eye (optional)
How To:
Begin by installing your Linux software on your server, I used Ubuntu just for ease of use and installed the packages as above using apt-get.
N.B: When installing PHP 5 make sure you get the additional PEAR package as this is essential for accessing MySQL using PHP.
If you've ever set up a MailServer on Windows it is usually a one application deal, run setup, follow the prompts and Bingo! your done. Not Linux though - oh no, in Linux land everything has to be infinitely configurable and therefore infinitely harder than is strictly necessary. In Windows you are sheltered from a lot of the things that Linux exposes you to. For example, to send SMTP mail, you at the very base level need a mail transport agent (MTA) - of your choice - in Windows you don't really see this in the same way so it spares you the pain.
I chose Postfix as my MTA as it is powerful and yet easy to configure. Sendmail is set up as default but isn't really as easy as Postfix. Postfix works pretty much straight out of the box, as does MySQL, although you do have to create an administrator user first. PHP was just as straightforward as was Apache.
I know most people probably know this already but Apache makes Linux boxes the best webservers, no, really, IIS is nothing more than a bloated piece of inflexible shite compared to Apache, I used the Virtualhost options and this allowed me to have a subdomain accessible for the mail server (mail.mycompany.com) rather than using www.mywebsite.com/mywebmail, this Apache does effortlessly and is something that is barely implemented in IIS.
After installing the groundwork I then installed Cyrus, as with all the other packages I used either the Synaptic package manager or apt-get, which is why I prefer Debian based distributions as it takes some of the hassle out of installing software in Linux. I configured Cyrus according to the guidelines on the Ubuntu website and soldiered onward.
After setting up the remaining features (MySQL, PHP5) I then installed Webmin. This really is an important feature as it lets you remotely administer your server over an http ssl link, it is extremely comprehensive and via their website you can install an additional plug-in to manage cyrus.
Finally I installed egroupware - I say installed, more unpacked into a suitable folder within Apache - The setup is handled entirely via the setup script and is very nice and polished and ensures any required modules e.g. PHP PEAR are installed. This done it was job complete, then it ran for a few hours and suddenly Cyrus wouldn't add users, no amount of fiddling would work. Tried various troubleshooting techniques, until finally the server started showing signs of a hardware problem, this is still outstanding as due to deadlines the only spare server I could find was a Windows one and I had to install on that. At this point if this happens to you grab the aforementioned sharp stick and repeatedly poke into the eye of your choice.
Setting up a similar setup on Windows is a little easier as you don't have to worry about the MTA, I do recommend however, stay away from the various pre-packed WAMP systems and install each application yourself as this makes it easier in the long run especially installing PEAR on Windows which lacks instructions. I also used hmailserver which is a great freeware mailserver.
So what did I learn from this? Linux is great, and the free software is extremely powerful, no client access licences as with Windows servers, however, it is more complicated than Windows to integrate the various elements, especially Cyrus which can only be described as massive, perhaps others would recommend Courier IMAP.
What it also made me wonder was that given the talent of those in the open source community that no-one has come up with anything to rival Active Directory and Exchange, LDAP is close to Active Directory but lacks simplicity and there is nothing close to Exchange, the web based groupware solutions are generally excellent, but still feel marginally unfinished in certain areas.
If Linux had these features, implemented easily with a group policy style feature it could beat Windows hands down. Which makes it more amazing that no-one from the commercial distributions has done this yet either! Red Hat and SUSE, this means you.
After setting up the remaining features (MySQL, PHP5) I then installed Webmin. This really is an important feature as it lets you remotely administer your server over an http ssl link, it is extremely comprehensive and via their website you can install an additional plug-in to manage cyrus.
Finally I installed egroupware - I say installed, more unpacked into a suitable folder within Apache - The setup is handled entirely via the setup script and is very nice and polished and ensures any required modules e.g. PHP PEAR are installed. This done it was job complete, then it ran for a few hours and suddenly Cyrus wouldn't add users, no amount of fiddling would work. Tried various troubleshooting techniques, until finally the server started showing signs of a hardware problem, this is still outstanding as due to deadlines the only spare server I could find was a Windows one and I had to install on that. At this point if this happens to you grab the aforementioned sharp stick and repeatedly poke into the eye of your choice.
Setting up a similar setup on Windows is a little easier as you don't have to worry about the MTA, I do recommend however, stay away from the various pre-packed WAMP systems and install each application yourself as this makes it easier in the long run especially installing PEAR on Windows which lacks instructions. I also used hmailserver which is a great freeware mailserver.
So what did I learn from this? Linux is great, and the free software is extremely powerful, no client access licences as with Windows servers, however, it is more complicated than Windows to integrate the various elements, especially Cyrus which can only be described as massive, perhaps others would recommend Courier IMAP.
What it also made me wonder was that given the talent of those in the open source community that no-one has come up with anything to rival Active Directory and Exchange, LDAP is close to Active Directory but lacks simplicity and there is nothing close to Exchange, the web based groupware solutions are generally excellent, but still feel marginally unfinished in certain areas.
If Linux had these features, implemented easily with a group policy style feature it could beat Windows hands down. Which makes it more amazing that no-one from the commercial distributions has done this yet either! Red Hat and SUSE, this means you.
Thursday, 13 September 2007
Knoppix - An essential tool
A colleague of mine has a Dell laptop that she uses for her other job as a security manager. On trying it one day recently it started the Windows XP loading screen and then went straight to the blue screen of death with an "Unmountable_Boot_Manager" Message. Nothing was working not even safe mode.
To double the stress, none of the important files had been backed up either. In an attempt to recover files before trying any kind of troubleshooting I plugged in a USB Hard Disk and searched my Linux Library to see if I had any suitable tools....Thus I saw Knoppix....and it was good.........
Knoppix, for those not familiar, is a Live Linux distribution that runs entirely from CD (or DVD) and comes chock full of Applications and tools and most importantly is FREE. I was expecting to have to use a little known tool (included in Knoppix) called PhotoRec that recovers files from damaged drives by piecing them back together at byte level (and from previous experience, works incredibly well).
However, on attempting to mount the dodgy drive the Linux system flashed up a message that the drive was damaged and then attempted to mount the "dirty" drive (Knoppix's words....). Konqueror then popped up displaying all the files on the disk and I was able to copy and paste them to the USB Hard Disk.
If you have an internet connection just go to www.knoppix.org and download a copy, it really is an essential tool. I know I could probably have used other distributions (Ultimate Boot CD, System Rescue CD, MEPIS, Ubuntu) but Knoppix seems to do it all.
To double the stress, none of the important files had been backed up either. In an attempt to recover files before trying any kind of troubleshooting I plugged in a USB Hard Disk and searched my Linux Library to see if I had any suitable tools....Thus I saw Knoppix....and it was good.........
Knoppix, for those not familiar, is a Live Linux distribution that runs entirely from CD (or DVD) and comes chock full of Applications and tools and most importantly is FREE. I was expecting to have to use a little known tool (included in Knoppix) called PhotoRec that recovers files from damaged drives by piecing them back together at byte level (and from previous experience, works incredibly well).
However, on attempting to mount the dodgy drive the Linux system flashed up a message that the drive was damaged and then attempted to mount the "dirty" drive (Knoppix's words....). Konqueror then popped up displaying all the files on the disk and I was able to copy and paste them to the USB Hard Disk.
If you have an internet connection just go to www.knoppix.org and download a copy, it really is an essential tool. I know I could probably have used other distributions (Ultimate Boot CD, System Rescue CD, MEPIS, Ubuntu) but Knoppix seems to do it all.
Sunday, 9 September 2007
Macbook Wireless issue resolved
Having tried several workarounds, it transpired that the main problem was my router. About a day after the problems mentioned in the previous post, both my laptop and desktop windows machines refused to connect. I borrowed a Linksys router and this seemed to solve the problem (My original one was a 2Wire).
I had noticed the Windows machines were taking ages to authenticate prior to the Macbook arriving but thought this was just the Wireless PCMCIA card failing and the distance to my desktop.
A lesson well learnt.
I had noticed the Windows machines were taking ages to authenticate prior to the Macbook arriving but thought this was just the Wireless PCMCIA card failing and the distance to my desktop.
A lesson well learnt.
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
1st MAC problem
After working without issue for 3 days, I went to use the Macbook on Monday night and there was no wireless. Both my PC's were working fine with my router. The Mac just wouldn't connect, I tried rebooting the router, the Macbook, reinstalling MAC OS - after reading about the issues with update 2007-004 - nothing. Tried a different router, tried removing encryption on my router, still nothing. Came home last night armed with some troubleshooting techniques ready to go and et voila it worked straight away.
Really, Really strange.
I hate it when problems resolve themselves before you find out what's wrong. Seems from forum posts that Airport Wireless has it's issues although I only read two that were similar to mine where it wouldn't even connect when the router was unencrypted. It could see Wireless networks fine, but absolutely refused to connect, almost like it wasn't passing the WPA key. I'm hoping this is a one off as so far the Macbook has been excellent.
Really, Really strange.
I hate it when problems resolve themselves before you find out what's wrong. Seems from forum posts that Airport Wireless has it's issues although I only read two that were similar to mine where it wouldn't even connect when the router was unencrypted. It could see Wireless networks fine, but absolutely refused to connect, almost like it wasn't passing the WPA key. I'm hoping this is a one off as so far the Macbook has been excellent.
Sunday, 2 September 2007
Windows v MAC OS (Part 1)
Well, it arrived. I'm still in the honeymoon period at the moment so I will write a Part 2 when I have used it regularly day to day, but I have to say that first impressons are amazing!
The interface remnds me a lot of Ubuntu or more specifically the Gnome desktop environment. However it is incredibly polished. If Vista Looks better than XP, this makes Vista look and behave like like a poor imitator the dashboard and single clcik make navigating the desktop effortless.
However this is secondry to the initial set up. as with the physical hardware, the set up has been so well thought through it is phenomenal, for current windows users it works so much better, looks so much better and doesn't expect you to know anything about your setup to work. I let my wife do this bit (and she knows quite a bit about windows after being married to me) and she was amazed at how effortless it was, in fact the ease of setting up our wireless literally illicited a revered "wow". Now my wife is not easy to please (is any woman!) so this is quite something.
I took over at this point and started navigating around the system. Everything is incredibly easy to find and use, every application seems designed to "just work" no fiddling or extra updates (.NET anyone) required to run it is ingenious.
I'm reserving my final verdict until I have used it day to day for work. But for a home user, especially if your not technologically savvy, this is the one to get, forget PC's this has everything you want and it's easier than Windows. I'm convinced at the moment that If the world used Mac's, 90% of IT Support issues people have day to day would dissapear, my user training would also be easier, due in part to the more logical and predictable outcome of choosing options. I miss right clicking, but I also recognise that without it, it makes things a bit easier too....once you get used to it.
"Once you go MAC you never go back" might be true after all.
The interface remnds me a lot of Ubuntu or more specifically the Gnome desktop environment. However it is incredibly polished. If Vista Looks better than XP, this makes Vista look and behave like like a poor imitator the dashboard and single clcik make navigating the desktop effortless.
However this is secondry to the initial set up. as with the physical hardware, the set up has been so well thought through it is phenomenal, for current windows users it works so much better, looks so much better and doesn't expect you to know anything about your setup to work. I let my wife do this bit (and she knows quite a bit about windows after being married to me) and she was amazed at how effortless it was, in fact the ease of setting up our wireless literally illicited a revered "wow". Now my wife is not easy to please (is any woman!) so this is quite something.
I took over at this point and started navigating around the system. Everything is incredibly easy to find and use, every application seems designed to "just work" no fiddling or extra updates (.NET anyone) required to run it is ingenious.
I'm reserving my final verdict until I have used it day to day for work. But for a home user, especially if your not technologically savvy, this is the one to get, forget PC's this has everything you want and it's easier than Windows. I'm convinced at the moment that If the world used Mac's, 90% of IT Support issues people have day to day would dissapear, my user training would also be easier, due in part to the more logical and predictable outcome of choosing options. I miss right clicking, but I also recognise that without it, it makes things a bit easier too....once you get used to it.
"Once you go MAC you never go back" might be true after all.
Monday, 27 August 2007
Windows vs MAC OS (prologue)
Later this week, I should be the proud owner of a Macbook. I've never touched a MAC properly before, but decided as my PC laptop had decided to die a death, to set foot on the other side of the river and give it a shot. Interestingly, everyone I have spoken to who has used one thinks they are the best thing since sliced bread. Every PC owner I speak to running a Windows variant, and have never touched a MAC, think that a MAC is limited.
Once it arrives and I have given it ample use I will post a comparison, I suspect though that MAC OS could be the closest thing for home users (non-gaming) to the holy grail of Operating Systems (basing this purely on intuition at the moment) where the system is stable, fast and intuitive. I have good exprience with Linux and some distributions are superb (Ubuntu, Mepis, Knoppix) but there was always something intangible that felt like it was missing. Windows is still the best for daily use in my experience although never feels like a solid stable product (unlike Linux) although later versions like XP are miles better than the 9x variants.
Apple, don't let me down..............
Once it arrives and I have given it ample use I will post a comparison, I suspect though that MAC OS could be the closest thing for home users (non-gaming) to the holy grail of Operating Systems (basing this purely on intuition at the moment) where the system is stable, fast and intuitive. I have good exprience with Linux and some distributions are superb (Ubuntu, Mepis, Knoppix) but there was always something intangible that felt like it was missing. Windows is still the best for daily use in my experience although never feels like a solid stable product (unlike Linux) although later versions like XP are miles better than the 9x variants.
Apple, don't let me down..............
Welcome to my Blog
After more years than I care to remember working with Technology and reading everyone else's blog on the subject. I've finally decided to take the plunge and write my own.
Expect enthusiasm for new (perhaps just to me!) technology, gadgets and tools, rants on the same and musings on life in general.
As I also work as a Trainer as well as IT Consultant, expect some grumbling about Education as well.
Expect enthusiasm for new (perhaps just to me!) technology, gadgets and tools, rants on the same and musings on life in general.
As I also work as a Trainer as well as IT Consultant, expect some grumbling about Education as well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
