Yawn 6am get up for trip from Mandurah to Perth on a Saturday and first day of my holidays was hard to take but it proved well worth the hassle. After much trepidation about attending a new event where I only would know a couple of people I walked in the doors of Central TAFE to attend the 1st BarCampPerth on Saturday. I had recently become a Twitter convert or maybe addict just days before the BarCamp so was good to get the f2f experience with these people.

I Googled most of the names that kept appearing on the Wiki as presenters and read through their blogs to find who what etc about them, what I found before I went was that they all had far more experience in web than I did. Other than when I attended the MEDC in Melbourne this would have to be the best event I have attended, cant really call it a conference as it is classed as an unconference. It was well organised and thanks must go to Myles for all the great work and of course to Jordan for the constant supply of coffee. I have never met such a relaxed group of people willing to share and listen to others, no cliques here and because of all the wonderful sponsors it was free and Bronwen handed out free PerthNorg t-shirts.

    
mmmmm Coffee                           TShirts

 
   Food

Sue Waters started off with a session on MLearning and roped me in to do it with her but I just added a few side comments. As usual she did a excellent  presentation  and we had lots of group discussion about the issues that we are all faced with when trying to “engage not enrage” with these new technologies and ways of teaching.

 
Sue                                                                 Sue Presenting Me with PDA

Web 2 for n00bs (which is defiantly includes me) was presented by Constance and Kate and made the mud a little clearer for me.

I have had a small introduction to Second Life when I watch the SBS series on Future Focus and was interested to hear what Kathryn Greenhill had to say about its place in education.What’s the use of Second life in Education ? It is certainly a very controversial topic as to whether education has a place in the virtual world and the debate on this is sure to continue for a while. Kathryn summed it up well with her opening statement “I am really into Second Life, and I am going to explain why but I don’t necessarily expect you to share my excitement.”

Problems with the Mobile Web was presented by Nick Cowie and he had some interesting facts about the number of these devices being sold, in the classroom situation most students will own a mobile phone but some may still not have access to a computer at home. Developing web apps for mobile devices is a virtual minefield with so many different devices and OS and mobile browsers that are available and the speed that these devices are being released to the market is mind blowing. I have also come up against these issues developing applications for PDA’s but not to the same degree, think I will stick on my side of the fence and leave web development to these guys.

Then we had lunch…. Pizza Subs, Coke, Coffee and Redbull gave us all a chance to chat and spring back into action for the afternoon sessions. Me right down the back pizza and a chat with Nick Cowie.

All ready to go again and I went off to the presentation on Running successful industry projects with Software Engineering Students. by Tiang Cheng It was interesting to hear the Uni way of handling industry projects with their students. Our TAFE diploma students also have industry projects for their major assessment in the last semester of their study. Our industry clients end up with a finished product while the Uni seems to head towards proof of concept outcomes. Uni and TAFE both have different ways of operating but they are both engaging the students with industry in “real world” projects before they have finished their study. This is an essential part of their study as it brings home to them that this is where they have been heading all these years, there is a “real world” out there and if they think we are tough as lecturers wait until they are in the workplace. It also gives many of them a boost as they realise that they are capable of completing the projects and have come a long way since they walked through the doors to start their study.

The last presentation I attended was by Ruby On Rails by Matt Didcoe and Myles Eftos. Excellent presentation that outlined the strong and week point of using ROR. Before reading the Barcamp Wiki I had heard of ROR but not taken much interest, well that has definitely changed now. I have three weeks holidays now so this is something I will be getting into. Great job guys!!!

So summing in up one sentence says it all for me “When is the Next BarCamp guys?” Well Done by all

There are lots more photos from the day on Flickr

I even got my son Harri to come along for the day.

Backs of the Geek’s Harri Me and Sue

Well I have done it now, I have registered to be part of BarCamp Perth

I am going along to the BarCamp in Perth on Saturday June 30th and will meet up with my friend Sue, who sort of “suggested” we go, and then we dobbed ourselves in for a couple of presentations. A BarCamp is described as an unconference where  you can share and learn in an open environment with lots of demos, discussions, presentations and interaction. Among some of the rules of a BarCamp are:

That you do talk about the BarCamp -( the reason for this post)

You do blog about BarCamp – ditto

That if it is your first time at a bar camp you are supposed to present…So I will be involved in the presentations on

Podcasting 101 & Learning Systems / Design for eLearning / Education and web apps

I think Sue and Kate who are also part of these presentations are more expert on these particular topic but I will tag along and put in my two cents worth. I have even talked my teenage son who is studying Computer Science at Murdoch Uni to come along for the day. he can decipher some of the Open Source stuff that I am not up on.

so if you are free on Sat June 30 between 9am and 5pm, interested in web development, web 2, elearning, Open source and more have a look at the Barcamp wiki and register and come and join us in what looks like a great day of interaction for all

I have just read a post on Probable Distractions blog about an really cool workplace that is fitted out to look like the Nautilus from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Just imagine how inspiring it would be to work in a place like that.

This got me thinking about what other great workplaces there must be. I remembered seeing a  documentary on The Googleplex  that showed bright colours fun  games and  staff moving around on scooters

so I decided to “Google” fun workplaces and I found some really cool places to work and some fun ways to organise your office space. I also found some cool desktops at nownow.com.au , I did note that they seem to be predominantly macs!

Red Bull in London has a 29 foot slide that staff can use to go between floors

 We mere mortals can but dream

Cartoon by Dave Walker.

Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

The release date of the iPhone in the US has been announced – June 29.

Photo from Apple

I have read a lot of articles complaining about the user interface but I think it looks pretty cool, and defiantly aimed at the young phone user market. The large icons on the screen would make it easy to navigate through the device but I haven’t seen any pics to show what sort of keyboard screen it has for text messaging. It has storage of 4GB or 8GB and also includes a 2 megapixel camera. It is a shame that it won’t be on the 3G network with its specs saying it is only 2.5G. Battery life is supposed to be about 5 hours with 16 hours standby and has Bluetooth and WiFi. As usual Apple have some neat ads and a gallery of images that can be viewed on their site. Looking at some of the images in their gallery you have to wonder if this will bite into their ipod market? Images show Album covers and songs playing on the iPhone. It looks like it will be about $600US. So if you want one device that plays music, takes photo’s and makes phone calls then this may be what you are after. Don’t know when it will be in Australia but I have no doubt it will soon be the new cool thing to have among teenagers.

Photo from Apple

]]> http://knowledgeflow.wordpress.com/2007/06/13/iphone-cool-or-not/feed/ 3 knowledgeflow http://knowledgeflow.wordpress.com/2007/06/13/57/ http://knowledgeflow.wordpress.com/2007/06/13/57/#comments Wed, 13 Jun 2007 03:32:23 +0000 Frances http://wordpress.com/2007/06/13/57/ ]]>

Updated links on using blogs now on Resources page

Yes I took the challenge to Go Without Google For a Day and survived to tell the tale. This is definitely a task to only undertake if you are not under pressure, meeting deadlines or very busy. You need time to learn your way around using the different search engines. I took the easy option and downloaded Alt Search Engines list of 100 alternative search engines and used their top recommendations.

First I tried Kartoo this was quiet fun as it displays your results as graphical pages on a map. You can move your cursor over the results and see where and how they may link to other pages. It also gives you a list of keywords that you can use to define your search. You can Select the language of your search but not specifically your country – No Australian specific search.

Next I tried Quintura well I must be thick or needed coffee but I got thoroughly confused and gave up. 50matches is a Social Powered Search and they “only crawl web sites that were bookmarked or voted for by people, in sites like del.icio.us, digg and reddit.” Well I hope they don’t crawl my del.icio.us account as I know how unorganised and very badly tagged my things. No hope from my account of finding what you may be looking for – enough said. I also gave BlogDigger a go but when the results show Adds by Google and the results are presented looking very much like Google I wonder what their search engine is powered by?

I found a PC Magazine article called 11 Ways to Search without Google and tried a couple of their suggestions. One was Cha Cha where my searches for things like “Compact Framework Programming”, “VB.Net PPC” and “Mobile Developers” turned up some different results to what I get from Google. They also suggested StumbleUpon but this required a download of their toolbar and that was a hassle. When I want to use a search engine I want it to be a quick and painless activity,I want information and I want it now. I don’t want the hassle of downloading something before I can even start!

So I tried several different search engines and found sites like downloadsquad that I hadn’t found before when using the same phrases on Google. I found it interesting to try different search engine and did find the information I was looking for in my searches, but also had to make a conscious effort not to use Google for finding information. I think that we have been using Google for so long now it has just become a way of life. I do find myself talking about “googling things” and have even said this to my students.

I may continue to use some of these alternatives if Google doesn’t return what I want and when helping my daughter with school projects, they may help to return different results to what her class mates or teachers will get!

BUT I use Google for so much more than just searches.

• It is my customised home page
• At a glance I can read my horoscope
• It tells me the latest news
• I can time my work
• I can place sticky notes and reminders.
• I love the fact that I can read the latest feeds from blogs I have subscribed to without going to another page
• I can get my gmail easily
• I can search my del.icio.us account
• I can easily add new feeds
• I can search Wikipedia

And if I get sick of seeing all those things I can get rid of them or not sign in and then have a clean white fresh page that I can just use as a search engine.

So I have to now stand up and admit

I am a Googleholic and I don’t care

Today I visited my friend Sue’s blog and found her post Can you go without Google for a day? well someone had to take up the challenge so on Tuesday June 12th I will be Gooogleless. The idea behind this is to try using some of the many other search engines that are available. Alt Search Engines have a list of 100 alternative search engines that you can try.

So if I am still sane I will report back how it went

I couldn’t resist adding some more comics from Dave Walker. These comics reflect the way I feel and make me smile.

Feeds

Gadget

Cartoon by Dave Walker.

Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

I started this post to create a set of links for How To’s and interesting articles about Blogs, Wiki’s and all things related. I had a list of links that I have emailed to others when asked and thought I would add to this and that is when the trouble started. The more I looked the more I found. So I just kept adding and adding links. Sometimes I would stop and read articles and even found a comic that certainly rings true with me and I was very restrained and only added one comic. This post was getting very large so I decided to add a Resources page and have placed all the information there.

So go have a look, any additions welcome.

Cartoon by Dave Walker.

Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

I can’t believe that it is a month since I posted. I have been pretty busy with attending the WA Training Forum on the 14th and 15th of May at the Burswood Entertainment Complex, Perth WA. I was all organised for this event and had arranged to stay in Perth for the whole week. No work, no kids, no hubby. This meant that I could attend other workshops on the Wednesday and Thursday and go technical book shopping with my friend Sue on the Friday. Well that got blown out of the water when I came down with the flu on the Saturday before the conference. I felt pretty unwell until a trip to the pharmacy helped on the Monday afternoon. Still didn’t really get past about 60% for the whole week though and it is still dragging on now. The Training Forum was a good opportunity to catch up with colleagues that I hadn’t seen for 12 months and hear what everyone has been up to. The session that I was really interested in was on day one called “Emerging Technologies” by Marcus Ragus and Daniel Dacey

Marcus Ragus from Institute of TAFE Tasmania	Daniel Dacey from New England Computer Solutions
RFID reader attached to a PDA

It is all about using RFID enabled devices in education. Sue has an article with more detail if you are interested.(Radio Frequency Identification) I also went to the Nerd School session that Sue attended and in her post about Nerd School it is me she is referring to snoring in the room. I don’t see anything wrong with that really seeing I was so ill, but she was up at 4.30am writing that post!! Well I made it through the rest of the week and I think I heard Marcus and Daniel’s presentations about 3 times over all and managed to get a handle on what they have been doing by the third session On Thursday I managed to catch up with Daniel for a geek talk about what we have both been up to with mobile development and that was great. It is good being able to have a semi technical chat with someone who understands what you are talking about. Sue just sighs and walks off when we start, especially if we are all on a Skype conference call together.

Photo’s courtesy of Sue Waters flickr account. Thanks Sue