OLPC XO testdrive

This post is created on an OLPC XO. The keyboard is far too small for an adult touch typist though, so the rest of this post will be done from a standard PC.

Now editing from the 'safety' of my normal PC.
I have borrowed this XO from the OLPC Club Gold Coast to check it out, and see what if anything I might do with them, especialy to support development of software for them, or support their adoption in general. Findings so far ...

0. The XO found our local wifi router, and accepted the WPA passphrase. On reboot it's automatically reconnecting - nice.
1. My PC here has a normal keyboard, so I can touch-type. One downside of the XO is that it might give rise to a generation of kids that type via "hunt 'n peck".
2. The XO has just been tested in sunlight, where ...
2.1 ... I downloaded the vnc server "Activity" (ie software package) from the OLPC support wiki. This should allow me to control the XO from a vnc client on my desktop PC.
3. It's not fast, and its not hard to have it appear to freeze while its beavering away in the background trying to play catchup. This must be a plan by the OLPC folk to teach kids patience.
4. There is no point 4, mate. :-)
5. The camera tool (Activity) is nice. I took the pic shown onscreen, and shared it. I guess the other 3 or 4 nodes that I see in the 'mesh' view might be able to see it.

Gary Hamel on Managing Generation Y - the Facebook Generation - Gary Hamel’s Management 2.0 - WSJ

Gary Hamel on The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500: an interesting article on where progressive ideals embodied in the Web 2 world contrast with traditional concepts embodied in the traditional commercial world. The big unknown of the current age is what does one do that could be called 'productive' or 'valued' work, and if value is not recognised, why would you get paid anything? So then what do all the people do who are not needed in the workforce - ie there is no work of value for them to do. Is the next age to be one of a new type of communism: from a select few rather than from each according to their ability, yet still to each according to their need?

Making the Future Happen In Linux - Linux Today Blog

Making the Future Happen In Linux - Linux Today Blog seems to be a nicely written piece on why many people could find Linux better than Windows on their PC. What i like especially is the sentiment "joining the 'wah, Linux isn't 100% ready for me yet, and dangit someone needs to do something about it' chorus isn't the best way to get there". In this day and age too many people are mindless passive consumers. Consumerism is at the root of today's economic mess, and needs to be countered. People need to educate themselves to not be mindless consumers. The Open Source approach implies an anti-consumer approach which is not implied in commercial systems. The Open Source and anti-consumer approach is what we need in order to slow the cycle of mining, manufacture, consume, destroy that is now failing badly on this planet from both a commercial and an environmental perspective.

Exetel ADSL - Whats the best way to get naked

We are now running naked ADSL here :-), and I have also helped a friend via the Exetel User Help Forum - Whats the best way to get Naked ADSL from nothing.

So phone calls here are all working nicely via VOIP. The VOIP service providers I am using are Exetel, & Gizmos5, and the for client VOIP apps I use Ekiga, and Gizmo5.

Inside A Google Data Center

Your data and much of your software need not reside on any specific PC anymore. Just leave as much as you can up in "the cloud", eg up here somewhere, where its free, secure, and accessible from wherever you might be.

Twouble with Twitters

Just what I have been since about 10 days after I started using it. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2HAroA12w)

Wheels in danger of falling off the hub!

(As 'borrowed' :-) from the article with a very similar name at a soon to be shelved website. (Cut 'n paste is your friend :-) ))

In a shock announcement that reverberated around the planet today, David Tangye, CEO of the imminently defunct Systemeta Pty Ltd, parent company of the Systemeta Business Hub, announced; "Bloody hell, business is slow today. We might as well shut up shop and head off down to the beach ... again." Which was an odd thing to suggest, because he then wandered off over to the nearby Gold Coast showgrounds racetrack to join the 2009 Interdominion Carnival 'Breakfast with the Stars' and get into a few photo-opportunities with Auckland Reactor.

Industry pundits are kept guessing, but it appears that the Systemeta Business Hub is headed very quickly down a track that leads to an enormous brick wall. "The fallout for this could be catastrophic. It could get very ugly indeed." one expert analyst was reported as suggesting. It is thought that the subscription for the Hub's domain name is due in early April, and for the hosting service in early May, and some analysts doubt that Tangye will be interested in pursuing this business direction at this time. Tangye was quoted as declaring "I am not really interested in pursuing this business direction at this time. Since the main sponsors have taken it upon themselves to up-sticks and swan off to Europe, its a question of needing to secure a replacement smartly or call it a day for now at least as far as the Hub is concerned." It is unsure whether this is a tactical marketing move to foil competition, or a genuine change in strategic direction. Opinion seems mixed. Certainly the entire environment is thought to be captured offsite, and is likely to be recoverable in a similar guise with minimal effort in the future, should it be worthwhile to do so when global market conditions change.

Whatever the outcome, most agree that anything could happen where Tangye gets involved. At the time of compiling this report he was unavailable for further comment. "I am not available for further comment." he reportedly said. He then commented that the Hub had served a useful purpose for the past 12 months, and when he found out what it was, he would make the information available to the public for a seven digit fee.

Update: 9/4/9. As forshadowed above, an order to "nuke the hub" was released recently. Japan insisted that strategic warfare planning was involved, but the statements deny this and apparently insist that this was part of a program to refine and improve communications although paradoxically no clear and unambiguous statement was actually released.

Now podcasting: Audio blogging

For the record, I am now set up to broadcast in any of three formats:

1. Text and pictures: right here. Some of these are also indexed on my base website.
2. Moving pictures: eg captured via webcam, or computer desktop capture: posted to Youtube and indexed on my base website.
3. Audio only: posted and indexed on another page of my base website.

Police Look To Hack Citizens Home PC's

This probably affects only PCs running Microsoft Windows. This is yet another good reason to run Linux (or Mac?), so YOU are master of your PC, rather than Microsoft, virus writers or the police.

Christmas New Year stuff #2

More stuff that has kept me busy over Christmas. In this case a client site that I had performed some consulting at and continue to support systems for had trouble with a new hotspot. In summary, I arranged to take over provision of this facility. The new hotspot was installed after three or four days investigation of the technology, assembly of hardware, software and support services, and configuration of the hotspot for this location.
This service is now added as an offering under the umbrella of the Systemeta Business Hub, and will be especially targetted at the tourism industry in Queensland.

Christmas New Year stuff #1

I try to make Christmas a fairly interesting time for me. I remember feasting and saying hullo to plonk back in Christmas 1970-something, then spending the night returning it to the environment. Since then, I have usually eaten little heavy and drunk nothing, especially during the heat of December, and felt a LOT better for it. Besides, for several years, there was an offshore race to prepare for on Boxing Day, or relocation and travel some years. Some years I have been alone, though lately this involved being very much in touch with people via the internet. Many years I had some sort of project on the go. This year I have two. Here is the start of one: repainting the first of three cars that are on my todo list. This pic was taken on the second day of work. Today, after a couple more days of filling sanding and spraying, she is ready for the final coat. Tomorrow I hope to receive a filter (Ebay: $26) to add to my compressor (Ebay $25), so I can apply a good final coat on Tuesday.

Hello Grails

Well now, this Grails development framework seems to have a lot of promise. After 15 years, and several steps backwards towards hackland, its nice to see a framework that leverages the power of Java while providing a layer that heads towards a RAD / agile development model. This product is not the ultimate though, but might be a key part of the mix. I still want to see an IDE that includes something like,

• a smart screen painter, that is productive in ways similar to 4GL desktop IDEs of the 1990's, such as Oracle Forms, Powerbuilder or Delphi, and / or
• a GUI and logic generator, with equivalent power to Oracle Generator for Forms and for Reports
  

Oh and of course they should be open-source and free.

I am about to plug Grails into Eclipse. Let's see how much more this will give. I might need to try a few IDEs yet. It also seems that there might be a few good plugins that will provide GUI painters, as web pages and screens for mobile devices. Then next I want to export or recreate a data model that I had in Oracle Designer2000 into Grails as a domain model. So much to do ... so little time.

Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004 - part 2

Time to re-read all of  this opinion, and get my thoughts in order.

"The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths."

This is probably right. But does that matter? It depends on why you are blogging in the first place. its a personal thing...

"It's almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers."

Um, Ok so you are blogging to get noticed. I understand that many artists and authors do what they do because they feel happy, driven, compelled to do so, and many have not the remotest thoughts about nor wish to to noticed. They produce because they can, and want to, irrespective of who might or might not notice. Personally, I might not consider myself to be an artist, but I am happy to write stuff from time to time, ie get thoughts on paper so to speak. So I do. Hecklers; yup, you get them. I problem with the internet, and especially if you produce anything to do with software or internet technology etc, is that you are likely to attract young juvenile nerdy guys who have low social skills and no interest in relating positively to others. So you will get rude, arrogant (often very badly written, and misspelt) responses. My advice about this: accept it, and ignore it.

"And why bother?"

See above.

"The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter."

Twitter is designed for 160 character max thoughts. In this day and age of sound-bytes I can see its appeal for many. I am on Twitter, and see its use. However a blog is a different animal. Its a vehicle for writing anything from an opinion piece to an essay to an opus magnus. You don't usually go hooning round the beach in an offshore yacht, nor do you usually sail a sailboard offshore (well not very far anyway). Its all about horses for courses.

(This is partly an opinion piece, and partly done to test writing a quick post via linking on an email hyperlink/email client (See "How do I post via email?")

Home ‎(David Tangye, Gold Coast, Australia‎)

Home ‎(David Tangye, Gold Coast, Australia‎): "Welcome! to my base website featuring the following areas of expertise and interest ..."

Amazing! Web 2.0 at its best!

This blog shows how utterly cool it is to post articles to the internet, and blog and share them. This post is a great guinea pig. What I have done is:

1. Set up the "Blog This!" link in my browser's links toolbar (see this Blogger help page). Now I can simply select any text on any web page and click that "Blog This!" link to initate a popup whereby I flesh out a quick blog. The popup editor to do this is a little basic but is adequate. For instance I had to switch it to html-mode to add code to make this list. Also I am not sure about how or whether I could add an image in. I think I would need to do that from the main editor at the blogsite. It would not be hard to add one later,eg a snapshot of me creating this now. However the editor has a standard button to add a link, eg to the "BlogThis!" help page, and also handles text Bolding, Italics, color, quoting via buttons. So this will be posted to whichever of my Blogger blogs I select.
   
2. My Blogger blogs appear in my Google Reader, and from there, I normally Share the post, so it also appears in my "Google Shared Stuff"...
3. which itself has a link on my Base Website ...
4. which itself is the subject of this post.
   

Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004

Oh dear, just when I felt good about starting to write the odd blog, an expert tells me how old hat I am, and that it is time to give it all away.