Windows provided that experience by creating a platform that pretty much worked on whatever hardware you wanted to, so you could slum it out a bit.  Yet Windows is still for the most part expensive software and is often bloated so you still need expensive hardware to get around efficiently, so no, still not a viable solution.  So now here comes Sun with OpenSolaris, and critics seem to think that Sun should have gotten behind Linux, like everyone else has, but no, uh uh.

The smartest thing Sun ever could have done was to avoid getting behind the Open Source product, like everyone else in information technology had digressed towards doing, and offer their own product.

Who cares if big corporations are behind an open source product.  When I run Ubuntu or Fedora yeah I know large corporations are behind them and I may or may not have to pay for support.  I definitely have to pay for support for Red Hat's enterprise product, and that is okay, because I would much rather an IT department actually pay for someone well trained on how to help them than to be searching and pecking around Google looking for help.

Sun is doing everything for free on the surface, taking a loss here or there and redeveloping their flagship product into a free OS for x86 architecture, and it is a beautiful thing.  Who really cares that it has a fraction of the packages that Ubuntu has; most of those packages you will never use, never have a need for and offer no real added value to the OS!  Yeah Microsoft offers a lot of added features to, well all of their products, as well so who really cares.  Give me what I want, what I really need and nothing else!  Yet before you think I'm working for Sun or are just a fanboy I still have a few concerns though.

Where is the marketing of this product!  Are hobbysts going to be the guinea pigs here or is this product simply not ready for prime time.  People found out about Open Office the hard way but I can tell you this; it does what I need for it to do effectively without a lot of hassle.  I'm not out looking for something off of the new interface ribbon and it does the job done simply without a lot of hassle or configuration.

Can we expect the same from OpenSolaris?  Will it load up without a lot of configuration will it get it's own interface, rather than ripping the look and feel of Ubuntu and will Sun integrate a two tiered support approach?  If I want to have a go at it I can check around in the forums, as I often do with Ubuntu, but if I need that extra level of support I can actually pick up the phone and call someone?  If Sun can offer a comprehensive offering and build on what they are doing with OpenSolaris there may finally be a viable answer to Microsoft on the desktop.

Again, Linux requires people to endure the abuse, narcissism, and straight up misanthropic view of geeks when it comes to support on-line.  Linux often needs to be configured, in which the best way is often through cutting and pasting code but people may want to actually click on some buttons here or there to get it work.  Finally, Linux is fragmented and there aren't any clear answers on which distribution is better than the next, which interface to go with (KDU or Gnome), which kernel, and so on and so forth.  These are the known obstacles and the inaccessibility that stands between people who know absolutely nothing about computers and Linux.

IBM is behind Linux, as are a bunch of other companies, but for serious use in the enterprise not for playing solitaire at home.  So will Sun finally offer the olive branch to laymen at home who just want to turn the computer on and do something simple without paying for something?  The opportunity is there, but can Sun actually find a way to monetize OpenSolaris to some degree?  People still think that if you aren't paying something that the technology is worthless.   So far Linux hasn't done that great of a job of changing anyone's opinion, doesn't have any real incentive to do so financial or otherwise and doesn't appear to be doing so at the end of the day.  But the bottom line remains; consumers need an efficient OS without a lot of the bloat that works that they do not have to maintain through antivirus software that doesn't get even slower as time passes by.  They need something that is straight and to the point; here's hoping that Sun finally gives that to them.

In the past, my stats were just numbers. They represented page views. Now, my stats are giving those numbers new meaning. My stats now give me information about the actual people who visit my blog.

This morning, half my blog visitors came from the States. They arrived from all Four Directions, from cities all across the country. There were also visitors from Slovakia, United Kingdom, India, Israel, and Ireland. Imagine that.

My readers are becoming much more real to me. I like that. I also like that with Stat Counter I can see all my posts on a list ranked by popularity. On one page, I can see which posts have attracted interest, and how long posts are staying on the charts.

The Stat Counter full-page world maps, and visitor location displays are First Class. Lenka, made an important comment on yesterdays post about these programs. She noted that Stat Counter, may be free, but with limits.

Checking this out, I find Stat Counter provides free stats to one and a half million websites. They state that each of your projects can include multiple pages, but all views count toward that projects' “free” limit of 500 entries.

When you reach that limit, your oldest record is replaced by your newest entry. Your project remains active when you reach the free limit. You just have old entries disappearing.

If you wish to maintain active records for a longer period, you can pay $9 a month to raise your limit to 1500 per project. Stat Counter is still free, but free has limits.

Site Meter appears less fancy, but it clearly lays out the direction your traffic, past and future. I enjoy their Traffic Projection page, because I no longer need to attempt to do this math myself.

With the Site Meter feature “Who's On,” you can see all your blogs activity over the past twenty minutes. When things are active, this can be great entertainment. Simple pleasures for simple people.

With Site Meter you can have additiional features for some more money. You can raise your monthly page views above the 100,000 free limit, by paying $6.95 more per month. For most folks, using this program will not not cost money.

It has been a wonderful morning drinking delicious Guatemala coffee, while meeting the new people who are visiting my blog. Who could ask for anything more?

Hope your day is grand as well.

Smiles. ET

I've always enjoyed teaching people what I know and the rewards of teaching are... well... rewarding... to me at least.

Seeing someone improve upon their confidence, their skills base and to take the knowledge I give them to advance to the next level has always been a creative process for me.

Not everyone learns in the same way, not everyone uses certain skills in the same way and that to me is the creative challenge that I miss while I haven't been teaching.

I've been privileged to have taught people from all walks of life from the age of about 17 to over 60 years of age.

I've taught people who were getting ready to start work, to people who were retired, to people with disabilities; physical and mental. I've taught people who were "big shots" in the city, to people who had never worked yet. I've taught people of all colours and creeds and it's the teaching and learning which I found to be a great leveller. I've learned so much about people while teaching... and I've learned a lot about myself.

I also know that while I teach, I love learning new skills myself in order to keep a freshness in my own teaching abilities and techniques. I love reading through the blogs I'm subscribed to... and as you can imagine I'm subscribed to more than just a few techie and gadget blogs on in addition to the non-techie blogs I follow. I'm a avid podcast junky and once again, as well as non geeky and non techie podcasts, I listen to quite a few techie and gadget podcasts.

While I was in teaching, I'd have a ferocious appetite for keeping up with the latest developments in new and social media and all manner of techie stuff. The more I'd teach, the more I'd want to learn and stay fresh. I had the impetus, the momentum.

The more I'd learn, the more I'd want to give my knowledge away and share my own passion with others. I’d be a conduit for all the learning I myself would devour.

I’d also always be aware that to be a good teacher you have to be a good listener>

Ask anyone... I'm a great listener... and that's why I'm a good teacher.

I'd rather teach than work in technical support, which I've done alongside my teaching in many of my roles.

I suppose if you're in IT people assume that anything to do with computers is right up your street.

Nope, not always.

All of my teaching gigs have also seen me as the tech support person too. Often times this would be on an unofficial basis as it would be easier to “call upon Alex” than contact the IT department... it figures, I suppose.

People don't realise that IT, just like art, covers such a wide range of skills and subjects.

You can be an artist... specialising in bronze sculpture and never having used watercolours...

You could be an artist... specialising in pop art and never having held a lump of clay in your hands...

You could be a 3D computer artist and wouldn't know French Ultramarine from a Raw Sienna...

You could be a programmer. You could be a graphic designer. You could be a database supervisor. You could be on the hardware side and specialise in disk drives... and so on.

Ask David Beckham what tyres are needed on a Formula 1 car driving a certain track on certain weather and you wouldn't expect him to know just because soccer and Formula 1 are both sports, would you?

No, I'm lucky to have a good general knowledge of IT which can be a blessing or a curse at times.

I've lost count of the number of barbeques I've missed outside because of the host cajoling me in to "take a look at their computer which as been acting 'funny'" and they assumed that I'd do it...

I've lost count of the times I've missed the dessert course because once again the host would want me to check out their pc because “it's been playing up..."

I prefer teaching; the rewards feel better to me and the skills I pass on can last a lifetime... I can fix my own pc and that's good enough for me. Sure, at a push, I can be persuaded to slip the cover off a pc and get involved in the "robot entrails" inside... but you've really got to push me and if I say "yes", then you're very lucky indeed. Surprisingly enough I spent 3 years as a computer field service engineer fixing customers' computers... and I enjoyed it immensely... but for me, teaching is where it's at.

I've always been lucky to have taught in an environment where my students have all been working on different subjects in IT and have usually been on different levels. That would mean for example that one moment I could be sitting with someone helping them to get to grips with queries in a database and then next moment be helping someone sort out their layers in Photoshop.

One moment I could be helping someone fairly new to computers to get to grips with copy and pasting from one directory to another, while the next moment I could be showing someone new to Quark Express how to select different boxes for either text of pictures.

I've always enjoyed this type of teaching; it's always kept my brain alive and effervescing quite nicely. I haven't yet had the challenge of teaching in an environment where I've had to stand in front of a bunch of people and teach the same thing... to people of different abilities, each with a different way of learning...

... but soon that's going to change.

I've gone ahead and applied for some adult teaching posts which I can do in the evenings and weekends at some local colleges. Starting this September I’ll be teaching social media type skills to people wanting to get into blogging as a hobby and for business.

Doesn't that sound great? I'm going to be teaching something which I'm passionate about myself.

So far I've got a couple of these gigs lined up and they'll run for a few weeks at a time... and I'm really, really looking forward to them... I'm hoping that these gigs will lead to something permanent...then I'd be really happy and life would be sweet.

New media, social media, podcasting, blogging... I love ' em all...

There's no denying that in recent years the common availably of broadband has given social media and social network sites a welcome boost; where people can share their interests, passions and ideas... which has in turn given IT a more lighter tinge as opposed to the techie white shirt and dozen pens in top pocket image :-) Now it's cool to be geeky.

... and to get the opportunity to start teaching these subjects... what a privilege :-)

Visit my Tumblelog at
http://solentdreams.tumblr.com

Subscribe Free To This Blog By Clicking Here

For those unaware, there is an eBay auction going on that JackDaddy pointed out where the price is going into the thousands. First, it's your money, if you choose to spend thousands on a Red CAR, hey, that's your business - and if business is good, great.

This is a photo supplied by Mattel for the CAAF auction last October.

The story is that 50 or 51 were created/made.

Either 49 or 50 were given away at the brainstorming meeting earlier last autumn (2007) and ONE was included in the auction - it's unclear if 50 were made and 1 was included in the auction or if 50 were given away and 1 was included in the auction (click on the link above for all the details) but regardless, it is by the far the rarest CAR of all.

The next closest is either the Blu Ray version (also with the chrome Ransberg process) with only 15,000 made* ... or it could be Boost :-) (er, just kidding, BTW).

*Though Mattel/Disney is giving away additional Blu Ray McQueen through an Italian promotion so who knows what that real number is.

Now, if the story ends here - that would be an easy decision for you to make ...

What is a Pixar CAR that is made in the low 50-ish range in the entire world worth to you?

Maybe several thousand - again, your call.

BUT

And there is a big BUT ... there have been many/dozens/hundreds Red Ransberg that have left out the back door of the factory in China.

No one except those selling them off know the exact number (the couple in Hong Kong - many of you know who I refer to). I don't know them and honestly, I don't care either way. I'm not so naive (or pure) to think if I wasn't in that position, I would do exactly the same thing so I neither condone nor condemn what they do ... my guess is they have sold less than 200 bringing the total number of Red Ransberg's to less than 200 ...

BUT

What are you buying? Is it like those "art lithographs" where they say it's 1 of 100 but in reality, it's 1 in 10,000?

Again, the sole determinate of value is you but be careful you are not assigning greater value to this CAR without knowing its paper trail.

This is just my opinion but I think the most valuable CAR would be one of the 50 CARS from the brainstorming session - does this auction provide proof that this guy was there? Are there notes, memos or perhaps even a badge that he was an attendee?

It seems odd that many of the photos he shows on his auction were and ARE still part of the Hong Kong's couple's FLIKR site - if you want a Red Ransberg regardless of its providence and paper trail - why not just pay $30-$50 and buy a "legitimate" fake and not spend thousands presuming this is one of the Mattel CAAF Red Ransberg?

Do you value the Red Ransberg the same whether it's from the Mattel meeting or from a second batch slipped out the back door of the factory?

Does it even match the above photo supplied by Mattel?

Are they the same design & look AND accorded or should be accorded the same value?

Again, if you want a Red Ransberg - even an questionable one - nothing wrong with that - it's cute and fun and amusing ... but when you cross the threshold of a few thousand dollars, is cute, fun & amusing enough value? (Eliot Spitzer, don't answer that).

I'm not listing/linking the auction nor the other sites as I'm sure you can find them easily enough - just be sure you know what you're buying. For a few thousand dollars, you better be sure the answer is what you want to hear.

One other point to note - while there has been no legitimate Red Ransberg that seem to have surfaced from the meeting that we know of so far - the first press release said both red & blue Ransberg were "exclusives" but two weeks later, we were all offered the buy a Blu-Ray DVD, get a Blu-Ray McQueen so who's to say the Red Ransberg won't be part of the special 2-disc CARS DVD re-release for this Christmas?

On my prototype computer I attempting the installation and got an error which only goes to show that being systematic, or not, can have an impact on the installation.

Some things I learned/did:

1. If you have more than one user account log on as the computer administrator!
2. Turn off you anti-virus software before the installation.
3. If you have an Nvidia or ATI video card update the drivers. Nvidia has a new driver posted just this week and ATI has one for the Radeon series that was posted in April.

I attempted on first install by shutting down AVG but I got an error which delayed the install by some 30 minutes as Windows XP booted up again and in a two stage process reverted my OS to its former installation. An error was created because it recognized that a new driver was available for my Nvidia video card. I downloaded and installed it and started the install process again.

The install looks like it is going to be clean with no problems and the total time, if I had taken the precaution to upate my Nvidia drivers, to install the service pack would be just over an hour. I am just in the process as I write this of rebooting and the result is you will see a DOS (cmd) window open and some files being applied. Once that is complete you should be done.

Once you have a good install go to Windows Update and check the computer once more and apply any further updates listed. For this computer I had to install the latest version of Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool and a driver for my wireless network adapter.

All told, it went OK. Now lets see how it works for the next week or so before I trust the service pack.

PS: There is more than one version of the Malicious Software Removal Tool.

Note  The version of the tool delivered by Microsoft Update and Windows Update runs in the background and then reports if an infection is found. If you would like to run this tool more than once a month, use the version on this Web page or install the version that is available in the Download Center.

The 1st group are “The Trainees / Students” – A rich fertile ground ready to be planted with skills, knowledge and ready for me to find their interest or hobby with which we can aim their computer skills towards.

The 2nd are “The Users” – These are the people who routinely use computers during the course of their work. They noodle along quite happily in their roles and require the usual techie support. It’s interesting to see these “users” develop and build upon their existing computer skills without them realising it.

When they do require your tech support, their queries get more challenging as they themselves become more proficient and it’s always a great touch to remind them that you've noticed how their computer skills have developed over time.

They may not realise it, but you as a techie support trainer will.

Then you have the 3rd group… yes… the 3rd group… these people are who I call the “Eternal Newbies”.

You can spot an Eternal Newbie from miles off by their body language as they sit in front of “The Computer”.

You’ll never see an Eternal Newbie slouching nonchalantly back in their chair surfing the web, with a telephone receiver clamped between their shoulder and ear, eating pizza slices while idly flipping through a magazine and supping from a can of coke… all at the same time.

You can also tell an Eternal Newbie from what they say…

“I hate computers….”

“Computers don’t get on with me…” (!)

“I’m not very technical so I don’t like using computers…”

“We have a computer at home but we don’t use it much…”

The best give-away that someone is an Eternal Newbie is by the fact that they’ve been in their role for years and years… and years… and years… have used a computer most of that time… and still wonder where they saved their last file to…

Eternal Newbies are often afflicted with the "Flashing Zero" syndrome... where various electronic items in their homes flash zero... as they haven't been set or programmed to the correct setting...

If you recognise yourself as an Eternal Newbie, then fear not... help is at hand.

It's my goal to free everyone from the Eternal Newbie trap...

Stick with this post and see if you can pick up some tips...

So, here are my "Top 10 Tips For Eternal Newbies" which could save you a lifetime of angst from that pile of plastic, metal and sand that sits on your desk in front of you...

... and will help you a lot with your confidence in using "the computer"...

Right... let's get started...

Tip 1: Don't Expect To Learn It All...

... you never will... trust me... never... ever... and neither will I… and neither will anyone else.

You see, when you say to me that you don’t “do” computers, you need to realise that it’s the program that you’re really… er… “doing”…

There are thousands and thousands of programs out there and nobody is ever going to know about all of them let alone learn them…

So when you wonder if you’re ever going to learn it all… the answer is “no”… However, it would be in your interest to learn what is relevant and useful for the work that you’re doing.

That takes us nicely on to...

Tip 2: Learn Something New Regularly.

If you’re using a word processor every day, then try to learn something new about it regularly… maybe a new key combination, a new shortcut... something… anything…

Keep a small pocket notebook handy where you can jot down new things that you learn.

Tip 3: You Don’t Have To Be Technical To Use A Computer.

Just how technical do you have to be to use a DVD player? Or a food processor? Or to drive your car to work? Or to record a video?

I don’t have to be a mechanic to drive my car… I have no idea what happens when I turn the key to start her up… as far as I’m concerned it’s magic… but I still manage to drive… and even drive different combinations of routes each time…

Tip 4: Don't Be Intimidated.

You know the manager who plonks down that pile of printed papers in front of you with figures, graphs and charts from an Excel spreadsheet together with a floppy disk... and wants this and that done..? You know the one...

Well, he may be bit of a computer whiz and may know more than you, but there was a time when he was starting out too.

Like I say, don’t be intimidated…

Tip 5: Relax.

This is so important. Yes, relax.

If difficult to learn something when you’re anxious and stressed out.

For goodness sakes it’s only a computer…

It's not a tsunami, it's not an earthquake, it's not famine... it's just a calculator processor thing...

Think of it as a tool…

... a bit like a food processor in a kitchen.

You can use a food processor to make an omelette, or a twelve-course cordon bleu meal...

Seriously, do relax, as sitting at a desk, stressed out can have a detrimental effect on your shoulders, neck, back, spine... it just ain’t good for you.

Tip 6: File / Directory Structure.

I would advise you to learn about the file / directory structure. Yep I know it sounds as interesting as watching black paint dry in the dark, but you’ll save yourself hours of heartache.

Trust me…

You know all those countless times you’ve wondered where you saved your file to?

Well, by learning a little about file / folder structure and management you’ll really learn a very useful part of using a computer… and believe me, when you do, your confidence will increase proportionally.

If you can, ask a techie or a trainer to sit down with you for about an hour or so to explain about folder / file management, or even invest in a short course where you learn the fundamentals.

Learn how to sort your files... that way you won't just save everything into one heap of a folder... I know someone who likes to make a new folder every month for their documents... or pehaps you'd prefer an Excel folder for your spreadsheets... a Word folder for all your Word documents... whatever...

If there’s one main thing I always encourage newbies, especially “Eternal Newbies” to learn, then it's got to be folder / directory structure and moving / copying files from folders to folders.

Tip 7: Learn These 3 Commands:

If you really can't face learning about file / directory structure, the do me a favour and learn the following 3 commands:

1: "Save"…
2: "Save As"…
&
3: "Undo"

That’s a start… and a good start.

Tip 8: A Computer is Just A Tool.

It can’t think… it can’t even daydream… it can’t form an opinion… it has no feelings… and it certainly isn’t out to “get you”.

It’s simply a food processor for information…

Make it your friend...

In fact it's better than some "friends"...

… it has an “Off” button :-)

Tip 9: Be Honest About What You Don't Know... And About What You Do.

Don’t say you know how to do something or understand something when you don’t.

If your Techie Support person asks you whether you understand what they showed you… you say that you do… and the next time you have the same problem… and again you say that you understand what you did wrong… the same thing… again… and again…

Get the picture?

There’s nothing wrong with not understanding something… in fact it’s a great help when you tell the Techie Support person when you don’t understand something… as then they know what you don't know and… hey… get this… they can help you.

Soon, without you knowing how and why, you’ll strangely find yourself, maybe not necessarily understanding, but remembering and learning how to do things….

While we're on about "Honesty..." go on... be honest... when was the last time you carried out an RTFM? That’s “Read The Flippin’ Manual”… or RTHF – “Read The Help File”?

Reason it's called the "flippin' manual? That's because when a techie needs to refer to it, it usually means that they're in deep technical doo doo when they need it. :-)

Okay, granted, I totally agree that some help manuals or help files can leave a lot to be desired when it comes to them being actually helpful... but they're worth a go...

When you click on something, make sure you know what you’re clicking on… actually read it... or at least... see it...

All Techie Support people will know of Eternal Newbies who say, “I don’t know what I clicked on…”

The Techie will most probably ask, “Why did you click on it..?”

To which the reply is usually… “I don’t know…”

If you’re not used to taking a couple of seconds and read and see what it is that you’re clicking on…then get into the habit now.

Just taking an extra couple of seconds to read what's on the screen could save you a lot of time later...

Tip 10: Change Your Attitude.

There’s nothing awe-inspiring or magical about computers these days.

They’re everywhere whether we like it or not.

Like I keep saying over and over again… it’s just a tool… whether you want to make your own programs… or design aircrafts… or compose music… or just surf the web… or play Spider Solitaire… or whatever… it’s just a tool.

If you can play a game or click on a command in a program, then you can “use” a computer.

If you’re going to go around saying things like, “I’m hopeless when it comes to computers… Computers have it in for me… Computers don’t get on with me… “, and so on… guess what? You’re right.

However, if you make the effort to start to get to grips with "that computer" and start learning bit by bit... not only will your confidence grow, but so will your skills.

Think about it…

If you're really committed to your job and here’s a piece of equipment that can help you, wouldn’t it make sense to learn a little about it?

We’re back to where we started… learning.

Nobody will learn it for you, but your Techie Support person or your IT Trainer can help you to learn… learn and remember...

Go on… break those chains that hold you back as an Eternal Newbie…

... get rid of that anxiety about "the computer" that you really find uncomfortable...

Don't let that fear of "the computer" make your job more difficult than it should be...

... Build your skills and knowledge base with regards to getting to grips with "that computer" and see how your confidence will grow...

... others have done it…

… and so can you...

Trust me.

And you know that computer you have at home? The one you don't use much?

Well, it's just waiting for you to fire it up and show it what you can do.

Enjoy!

Subscribe Free To This Blog By Clicking Here

Defraggler 1.01.073 Beta - Defragmentation tool from the makers of CCleaner and Recuva

NVIDIA Forceware 175.16 WHQL Vista - Unleashes the full power and features of NVIDIA's desktop,gaming,platform,workstation,laptop,multimedia and mobile products.

NVIDIA Forceware WHQL 175.16 - Same as above,but for Windows 2000,XP and Server 2003

FeedDemon 2.7.0.0 - The most popular Windows RSS reader

Filezilla 3.0.10 RC1 - Powerful FTP client for Windows NT4,2000 and XP

Blender 2.46 RC5 - 3D modelling tool

Digsby Beta (Build 29) - Digsby,IM,Email and Social Networks in one easy to use application

Autoruns 9.21 - Shows you what programs are configured to run during system login and shows you the order in which Windows processes them.

UltraVNC 1.0.4 RC16 - Powerful,easy to use VNC client,that can display the screen of another computer on your own screen

a-squared Free 3.5.0.15 - Freeware malware scanner

Avast! Home Edition 4.8.1195 - Full featured anti-virus package for home users

MySQL 5.0.516 - Multithreaded,multi-user SQL database management system

Foobar2000 0.9.5.3 Beta1- Advanced audio player for Windows

Notepad++ 4.9.2 - Free source code editor

CPU-Z 1.45 - Gathers information on some of the main devices on your system

Flock 1.1.4 - The web browser for the social networker

DivX Play 6.8.2.9 - Gives you everything you need to start to watch DivX videos

MediaMonkey 3.0.3.1173 RC7 - Music manager and jukebox for the serious music collector and iPod user

Maxthon 2.1.0.2082 - Powerful tabbed browser with highly customisable interface

AxCrypt 1.6.4.4 - Free and easy to use,open source,strong file encryption for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2K and XP,integrated with Windows Explorer

AIM 6.8.5.17 Beta - Next generation release of AOL Instant messenger

Virtual PC 2007 SP1 - Create and run one or more virtual machines,each with its own operating system,on a single computer

Firefox 3.0 RC1 - New version of the award winning web browser

Alfred Hermida reports that Canada’s broadcast watchdog, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is undertaking a public consultation exercise on how it should deal with the internet, in particular whether it should extend regulatory oversight to the medium.

As part of its public consultation, the CRTC released a 75-page report (.pdf) on research and attitudes to the Internet that provides some insight into how the media landscape is changing in Canada.

The report frames the debate in terms of preserving and promoting “Canadian content in a global new media broadcasting environment”. The CRTC is approaching the Internet as a broadcast medium, much like television or radio. This reveals a fundamental misconception of the net, as it is not less of a one-to-many and more of a many-to-many medium. But the public consultation is framed within the notion of the net as another form of broadcast...

However, Canadian media organisations would do well to take notice of how audiences are changing. The CRTC report found that high-speed residential Internet access is now available to 93% of households across the country and has been adopted by more than 60% of Canadian households.

It will come as no surprise that youngsters lead the way. According to the CRTC report:

* In 2006, 91% of Canadians aged 18 to 34 accessed the Internet, compared to only 69% of Canadians aged 55 or older.
* In December 2006, approximately 30% of Canadian adults online connected for more than 10 hours per week. This compares to 52% for young Canadian adults aged 18 to 24.
* Canadians under 18 now spend roughly the same amount of time online as they do watching TV - between 15 and 17 hours).

Clearly a shift is taking place in media consumption, so a debate on Canada’s approach to new media is timely. People have until July 11 to file comments, and the CRTC plans to hold public hearings in early 2009.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports on a curious use of virtual worlds in the educational context:

Even as some panic about the possibility of terrorist exploitation of Second Life, a program in Canada is using the virtual world to catch people at the border.

Loyalist College in Ontario has created a virtual simulation of a US-Canada border crossing, enabling students to practice quizzing travelers about their backgrounds. The program is one of several at the school that uses virtual worlds technology, including sims that teach prison guards and journalists. Almost ten percent of the student body has used Second Life in the course of their schoolwork.

One big draw for Loyalist is the low cost of building in a virtual world — no consultants were hired to build the simulations. “We figured out early the way to make it efficient is to do everything ourselves,” said Ken Hudson of the school’s Virtual World Design Centre. Hudson works with five part-time designers to build and maintain the simulations, all of whom are graduates of the school’s animation program.

Here's some footage from the 'virtual border guard training':

In my recent posts, there has been a lot of grumbling about the short comings of WordPress stats. I had difficulty finding the programs that were compatible with my WordPress.com hosted blog. I have now found some excellent solutions.

In my search for better stats, I found the programs I was seeking were located under the search term “site counters,” in the WordPress FAQ section.

Two of these stats services are now running on my blog, and they are free.

The first service I installed was Site Meter. The amount of detailed information they provide is astounding. I especially like the colored world map that shows were each reader came from.Knowing two thirds of WordPress visitors are from countries other than the US, this is a great feature.

Site Meter has a guided tour and you can get there from this page by clicking on the Site Meter icon in the right column.

Next, I installed Stat Counter. It calls you blog a Project and provides colored charts and a huge amount of varied data on visitor history. Site Counter seem to focus more on Search Engines and Keyword results as well.

Both Site Meter and Stat Counter provide extensive stats. They are both Internet based stat services that do not slow your blog down. Remember, just install straight HTML code for each. WordPress does not allow the Java Scripts.

The FAQ pages on WordPress are constantly being updated, though some have outdated information. Outdated information can throw you. Forget everything else you read. Just use the widget solution below.

Remember, these instructions work to install the proper HTML code for either of these new WordPress stats services:

1. You will get the HTML code for your blog once you have set up your account. Copy these few lines of HTML code.

2. Now go to your Design page, then hit the Widget link for your theme.

3. Add a new Text Widget to your list of widgets.

4. Open the new Text Widget.

5. Put “Site Meter” or “Site Counter,” in the top box of the widget information. In the lower section, paste in your HTML code. Save your changes!

6. Each service gets its' own text widget. You can now have more than nine widgets on your WP blog. Nine's an old rule.

Visit your account, at either website, and it will already be recording site visits. Even yours! Set the cookies they provide for blocking hits from your personal browsers. That way, you don't throw off your results with your own page views.

There you have it. That is all you have to do to have great stats for your WordPress blog. Just install the widgets, and use both services at the same time. Now, you have mucho information to work with.

All this, while you still have your regular WordPress stats numbers too!

Many Smiles. ET

VMmark came out of beta with version 1.0 in July 2007. To date, Dell, HP, IBM, and Sun have submitted results that have been published by VMware. The results cover the AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon server platforms, which all four server vendors now provide to varying degrees. It's been a useful resource for me, since the competition between AMD and Intel the last few years has resulted in each vendor taking turns leading in virtualization performance in the 2-socket and 4-socket x86 server spaces. Regardless of which vendor submits a VMmark result for a particular processor/memory/chipset combination, the result can usually be inferred to be similar to what would be obtained on another vendor's implementation of that combination. Based on a recent conversation I had with HP, they expect that customers will make that inference. I had approached them twice about HP's lack of up-to-date VMmark results for their flagship virtualization platforms, and was told that they hadn't submitted recent benchmarks due to their reluctance to publish results with non-production VMware ESX builds and/or hardware that wasn't yet available to customers. Because other vendors were publishing results on current or upcoming platforms sooner, HP apparently didn't see much return on going though the trouble and cost of performing and documenting VMmarks on their implemenation of similar platforms.

Note that when I described VMmark, I mentioned compatible, not supported, hardware configurations; that's because VMware has published results from vendors that used pre-release, unsupported software and/or hardware. I think this is the most likely reason Dell was the first to release a quad-core-Opteron-based VMmark. If you look at the disclosure for that submission, you'll see that it was run on a PowerEdge R905 with 2.5GHz quad-core Opterons (model 8360 SE), a processor model that isn't available for purchase in that server today. The fastest available R905 today has model 8356 (2.3GHz) processors. Dell's submitted results for their PowerEdge R900 with Xeon 7350 processors used a beta version of VMware ESX Server v3.5, build 62773, and was tested on November 16, 2007: a few weeks before the production release of ESX 3.5, build 64607, on December 10th. In fact, of the 16 total VMmark results published as of today, the only vendor who submitted results with hardware or software unavailable at the time of publishing is Dell.

To better reflect the version and status of hardware and software used to obtain the published results, I think VMware should:

• refuse to publish results that use pre-release hardware and/or software
• clearly state the availability and/or versions of the tested hardware and software in the system descriptions on the results page

That would allow customers like me to better determine the veracity of a published score without having to be a detective. As VMmark evolves and future SPEC-sanctioned virtualization benchmarks come to market, it would be nice to be able to see more, relevant benchmarks from more vendors rather than gamed, dubious benchmarks from a few.

HOWEVER, i dont have the time at the moment,with a History essay for tomorrow and 2 computing exams as well tomorrow to revise for.

Developed by Jean-Paul Benzérci more than 30 years ago, correspondence analysis as a framework for analyzing data quickly found widespread popularity in Europe. The topicality and importance of correspondence analysis continue, and with the tremendous computing power now available and new fields of application emerging, its significance is greater than ever. Correspondence Analysis and Data Coding with Java and R clearly demonstrates why this technique remains important and in the eyes of many, unsurpassed as an analysis framework. After presenting some historical background, the author presents a theoretical overview of the mathematics and underlying algorithms of correspondence analysis and hierarchical clustering. The focus then shifts to data coding, with a survey of the widely varied possibilities correspondence analysis offers and introduction of the Java software for correspondence analysis, clustering, and interpretation tools. A chapter of case studies follows, wherein the author explores applications to areas such as shape analysis and time-evolving data. The final chapter reviews the wealth of studies on textual content as well as textual form, carried out by Benzécri and his research lab. These discussions show the importance of correspondence analysis to artificial intelligence as well as to stylometry and other fields. This book not only shows why correspondence analysis is important, but with a clear presentation replete with advice and guidance, also shows how to put this technique into practice. Downloadable software and data sets allow quick, hands-on exploration of innovative correspondence analysis applications.

http://depositfiles.com/files/2898909

The next generation of the Flash Player is here. Adobe has released a beta version of Flash Player 10, which promises better performance, improved text handling, custom photo effects filters and native 3D animations. It's available as a free download at the Adobe Labs website.

Zen, check out the rest here.

Have a good weekend everyone!

One of the things I was wondering about, and had never really done in linux, was backing up my files. Working as a Programmer and Web Developer, I have issues arising all of the time with bits of code that have gone missing as a result of accidents. I decided I needed a better backup system, and what better way than to make one which simply backs everything up without your input!

I decided that I would back my sourcecode files "/home/ajc/src" and my documents "/home/ajc/doc" every week. That way a loss could not be too catastrophic.

The tool which I chose to use was rsync. Many modern distributions come with this built in (I use ubuntu) and if they don't this will certainly be in the repositories.

First things first. Set up the destination folder for your files:

#mkdir /media/vince/data_Backup in my case.

Once that is done you are ready to learn rsync.

The command which I use for my backups is as follows (it has a few extra options which I will explain)

#sudo rsync -av --progress --delete --log-file=/home/ajc/doc/$(date +%Y%m%d)_rsync.log /home/ajc/src /media/vince/data_Backup

As you can see this line of code deals with my source folder. The options are: "-a" for archive "v" means verbose so you will see detailed output "--progress" gives a progress update in terminal "--delete" will delete any items in the destination which you have removed from the source "--log-file" specifies the location for a log file to be kept. Other than that for those of you unfamiliar with bash script "$(date +%Y%m%d)" is used to inject the current date. So the filename for today would be 20080515_rsync.log

Go ahead and change the source file and destination file (last two sections of the command) and run it on your system. You will see that for a reasonable amount of data this is a quick process!

Now you know the command thats all well and good, it means that you can backup things when you want. However, we all know that this is easy to forget! So how about scheduling this task through a cron job?

You must begin by converting this command into a bash script. This is easier than it may sound. Just create the following (with your paths) in a text editor and save it to your home directory.


#! /bin/bash
sudo rsync -av --progress --delete --log-file=/home/ajc/doc/$(date +%Y%m%d)_rsync.log /home/ajc/src /media/vince/data_Backup


Next we must make the file executable

#sudo chmod +x /home/ajc/rsync-demo.sh

And then you have a file which you can click to run. However, we want automation, so here comes the cron bit

move the file to the root directory. (So that cron doesn't ask you for a password when it runs)

#sudo mv /home/ajc/rsync-demo.sh /root/rsync-demo.sh

Then we want to open the crontab so we can schedule a job

#sudo crontab -e

here you should have several headings: m (minute of the hour) h (hour) dom (date of month) mon (month) dow (day of week) command. Now as you can see from this we have quite a wide range of choice as to when this script will be run. I chose 10pm every friday as the one I wanted. So the sequence was:

0 22 * * 5 /root/rsync-demo.sh

So 0 minutes, 22 hours, any date of the month, any month of the year, day 5 (friday) and the path to my script.

Simple. Now crontab will have opened in your default text editor so issue the command to save and exit (mines nano so Ctl + O then Ctl + X) and you will see a line confirming that the job has been added.

Done. Next time I will show you how to automate a backup to dvd!

Assuming this had to be in options I opened Tools | Options and sure enough there is a check box for "Create all new pages with rule lines". At last, no more rule lines.

On a separate note it does appear that you can do some amount of template customization without creating your own templates. This is not very intuitive but if you create a new page and then switch to Font,  Page setup, etc in the right side pane and make a change it appears to save back to the template (you may also have to change back to the templates section to get it to save, I did not test this extensively). I am not sure to what depth you can customize but you can make some basic changes.

What I DO NOT like are the advertisements that sonically announce to me that I won a free iPhone or iPod or laptop or whatever the hot good of the day is. It's even worse when 2 of them show up on one site at the same time and they're out of sync in their announcement. These ads are not only annoying, they are intrusive. I don't think I'm alone in this dislike of these disruptive blubbering blurbs. They rank up there with the "pop-under" advertisement.

Being that I'm a self-described OS Agnostic, I often have to deal with different browsers on different computer platforms. It's not always easy to have Firefox available to you for your internet browsing needs. Recently, I was using an Apple with Safari installed and I had to suffer through pop-under and "you won a free iPhone" ads that were just distracting. That's when I stumbled on "Safari AdBlock."

http://safariadblock.sourceforge.net/

So, I've installed and we'll see how it goes. I'll provide updates as I test it out.

I tested it this morning, and at 7:30 I got 390 kbytes/s from www.speedtest.net and 3961 kilobits/s from http://resources.zdnet.co.uk/speedtest/.  Viewed through the t-mobile transfer window, it is clear that it is running at full throttle - shown is a chart that has two peaks (scale looks out on the graph as an aside). The first was a BBC i-player session that ran at full speed - there is caching going on, then I think it is throttled from the BBC end whic seems smart bandwidth management by them. Second is a 25Mb file download, and it can be seen that it goers high and stays there until the file is downloaded.

Now, compare this with the performance at 11:30 in the evening :-

In the first graph the reported speed was just under 2 Mb/s.  In the second, it wavered around, but was basically around 150kb/s - more than 10 times slower. The same speed tests show 186 kb/s from the first test site, and 498 kb/s from the second. The first was very fast and looks like an anomoly at only half the speed - the second was a bigger test and showed about a tenth of the speed that I had in the morning.

So, my perception seems right - it's an order of magnitude slower in the evening, and doesn't even really qualify as broadband.  I'll pick this up with T-mobile to see if they have a credible excuse, or want to comment on how this.

PC/Computing (later Ziff-Davis Smart Computing) was a monthly Ziff Davis publication that for most of its run focused on publishing reviews of IBM-compatible (or "Wintel") hardware and software and tips and reference information for users of such software and hardware. Established under the guidance of founding publisher and columnist Michael Kolowich, the magazine was known for its irreverent style and annual "Windows Superguide" and "Notebook Torture Test" features. The latter feature involved baking, freezing, shaking, dropping, and splashing notebook computers from various manufacturers and then rating the machines based on which ones survived the "torture" and which ones failed. It also featured columns by editor-in-chief Paul Somerson (formerly of PC Magazine, another Ziff-Davis publication), John C. Dvorak, and, for a time in the 1990s, Penn Jillette. For some years, the magazine ran a regular column featuring an often-silly "debate" between Dvorak and Somerson.

DOWNLOAD NOW:

http://rapidshare.com/files/113911482/Smart_Computing_062008.pdf

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8G98MIGG