Eee PC – gadget of the year
September 20, 2008 by Cath · 2 Comments
The Stuff Gadget Awards was held on wednesday night in London at the Dorchester Hotel, and the big winner of the night was Asus winning the gadget of the year award for the Eee PC 901.
This great little laptop has helped to kick off the netbook craze and has offered a really affordable way to be online and mobile, as well as offering people the Linux operating system, which we here at superuser.com applaud. Well done Asus.
Need help with your new Eee PC? Checkout Superusers Computer Repairs Brisbane.
Lenovo ditches Linux
September 15, 2008 by Cath · Leave a Comment
I was reading desktoplinux.com and found this interesting article:
Lenovo, which years ago purchased IBMs personal computer business, appears to have quietly stopped offering Linux as a pre-installation option. None of the company’s 49 ThinkPad and IdeaPad notebook models — nor its many ThinkCenter and IdeaCenter desktops — can currently be ordered with Linux.
Lenovo does offer four high-end ThinkStation workstation models without any commercial operating system software, but all of its other systems now carry the “Microsoft Tax,” it appears. That is, in order to purchase one of the systems, you have to pay for a Microsoft Windows operating system license.
Lenovo’s executive director of external communications, Ray Gorman, denied in vague terms that the current situation marks a strategic shift, though he did admit the company is “refining its Linux strategy.” He added, “Lenovo is not abandoning its commitment to choice of operating system, and actually is increasing the role of the Linux operating system in Lenovo’s product portfolio.”
All evidence to the contrary.
Gorman continued, “In 2008, Lenovo offered preloaded Novell SLED 10 Linux on some of its ThinkPad notebooks, targeting business users. We are now seeing greater demand for Linux from consumers and those in education, and are bringing Linux preloaded on soon-to-be announced Lenovo netbooks targeted to education.”
Actually, Lenovo already announced its Linux-based S9 netbook models, when it launched its netbook line about a month ago. However, the company provided pricing and availability information only for the Windows XP-based “S10″ model, saying that the Linux-based “S9″ model would be limited to overseas education markets.
In other words, if the government of some large country wants to order a few hundred thousand of them, they’ll build some, and not before.
Anyway, interesting news, wanted to share it with you. Very tired, off to bed. Peace out…
Cyberpsychology
September 12, 2008 by Cath · Leave a Comment
Nottingham Trent University have introduced a Cyberpsychology masters degree, the first of its kind in the UK. The course is open to postgraduates and will look at online gaming and gambling, social networking as well as online dating.
Dr Monica Whitty, who’s running the course said that:
“As well as being academically challenging, with the possibility of students going on to do a PhD, the course has been designed with the needs of industry firmly in mind.”
The course has been designed to be academically challenging but also attuned to the needs of the industry. As a result the academic team have incorporated a work-based module in the curriculum.
This module will allow students to experience an intensive period of work over a three week period. The work will be within industry (e.g., online dating and online gaming companies) and will:
- enable students to display a comprehensive understanding of key theoretical, philosophical, and methodological issues, debates and initiatives that lie at the forefront of research in cyberpsychology
- develop students’ understanding and skills in a range of research methods and techniques applicable to advanced scholarship in cyberpsychology
- enable students to conduct ethically sensitive research in the area of cyberpsychology
- enable students to apply theory and research in the field of cyberpsychology to practical contexts.
This sounds like a really interesting course, I am tempted to apply. I think one MA degree is enough to be going on with though!
Informal and Lifelong Learning
August 12, 2008 by Cath · 3 Comments
In recent years, there has been a growing surge of appreciation which supports the notion that learning in non-formal and informal settings is seen as crucial for the realisation of lifelong learning.
Informal learning generally results from daily activities related to work, family life or leisure. It is not structured and usually does not lead to certification and in most cases it is unintentional on the part of the learner.
Take a look at schome.ac.uk for a good overview.
Lifelong Learning has been called a variety of names including liberal education, adult education, and continuing education and continuing professional development. It can be interpreted ideologically in different ways. On one hand lie the central tenets of personal development, inclusion, equality of opportunity in society. Seen this way informal and lifelong learning may be personally rewarding for the participants but have no direct economic benefit to wider society. Alternatively there is a more instrumental and internationalist approach that seeks to make explicit the links between learning and the economic health of the nation by focusing on outcomes such as employability and productivity and efficiency.
In the UK we have a few developing strategies and initiatives designed to encourage lifelong learning, one of which is Sure Start it is aimed at early years development.
Whilst on the subject of learning and education, a quick mention about MobilizeThis 2008 it is a yearly held, free event.
MobilizeThis 2008 provides a snapshot of a cross-sectorial range of contributions to discussion involving the practical and constructive use of ICT’s in the education and related industries.
This is a free event with limited spaces for participants no matter where you are located.
MobilizeThis 2008 is about getting connected, exploring and resolving challenges facing organisations as they seek practical means to realising social dividends with clients, creatively engaging in real learning experiences that embrace the horizons and enable others to access what we would otherwise take for granted.
I am pleased to announce that Chris Harvey will be presenting at this years event, his subject matter being – User Freedom and Autonomy As They Relate To Network Communication Technologies In Education. Alex Hayes will also be presenting. The event will be held on the 22nd – 24th October 2008, check out the webpage for further details.
BadVista campaign
August 6, 2008 by Cath · Leave a Comment
In January the Green Party and Greenpeace issued warnings about the tremendous threat posed to the environment by the disposable computer mentality promoted in Microsoft’s $500-million Windows Vista marketing campaign. Vista has steep hardware requirements which in turn means that to use it, most people will have to throw their current computer into a landfill and buy a new one.
Vista is essentially designed to monitor what people do, and in particular to limit what they can do with digital media files. These limits obstruct common and legally protected uses like sharing news story clips and copying text from government documents. Vista has been engineered from the ground up as a DRM and Treacherous Computing platform.
Vista has also been designed for easy updating from a central authority, so that new restrictions can always be imposed, disabling certain features or programs.
Fortunately, people do not have to accept these restrictions on their freedom. Instead, they can reject Microsoft Windows Vista in favour of a free software distribution of GNU/Linux.
The FSF has a petition for anyone who wishes to join them in speaking out against these restrictions, as organizations or individuals.
Chip may speed up internet 100 times
July 11, 2008 by Cath · 5 Comments
I have just read an exciting article posted in the The Sydney Morning Herald about a technological breakthrough by University of Sydney scientists. It could potentially lead to people downloading the latest movie in a few seconds or chatting with small, cheap, video systems. The physicists have developed a revolutionary optical chip that could improve internet speeds to up to 100 times faster than Australia’s networks
“The most exciting thing is that it is just a piece of scratched glass. It is very simple, so it is potentially cheap,” said Ben Eggleton, the director of the university’s Centre for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems, CUDOS.
However the article goes on to say that consumers in Australia would have to wait longer for any commercial product. Mr Eggleton has said “It won’t be deployed in Australia first”. The thumbnail-sized device could be commercialised within five years and used in countries such as Japan, which is “way ahead of Australia” in installing high speed fibre networks.