Posts by wolfetone

No Great Loss

I had installed JoliOS on two netbooks previously, and wasn't convinced it was any good. The first netbook I installed it on decided to stop booting up in to the desktop after a week of light use (at which point my girlfriend who owned it ordered me to put Windows XP back on it). The second netbook, one I owned, faired better. But I still found it a bit sluggish to use compared to the netbook running Ubuntu and then eventually LinuxMint.

It was a nice idea, but as with everything French, you couldn't rely on it.

While I am 26, and the whole BBC Micro/ZX Spectrum wars were completely missed on me, I am in agreement in regards to the education of IT in this country. To get an A* in GCSE IT (or a Distinction in your GNVQ - as it were back in t'day for me) you had to produce a very well designed PowerPoint presentation, as well as other graphical crap that meant absolutely nothing. I received a pass in my IT GNVQ, not for my lack of skills but for my lack of enthuisasim on the subject being taught.

At this time, maybe a little bit before, I became interested in the Internet and websites. So struggling with a 56k dial up modem which I had to get special permission to use, I learnt how t build websites. Only HTML things, not doing much. But to test it I had to go on to the dialup internet, upload it, test it. It was brilliant. The pressure of trying to fix a broken hard coded link (be aware I was still learning with no idea about Google or online resources!) while still connected to the internet, before my Dad would shout up the stairs "are you still on that bloody internet? get off it!". So even though I'm talking about my secondary school IT education back in 2001-2004, I'm surprised that in 20 years of computers being available in schools, the education hasn't changed. It seems the schools either didn't know what to do with it (1980's) or they feel a computer in use today will only require knowledge of Microsoft Office (2000's+).

In my opinion, the reason kids today won't code isn't down to an educational point. It's down to their lack of craving for the knowledge to program anything. Children today (like society) don't want to work for something good. They want the good thing there and now with little effort. So while in the 1980's you coded to create games you could play on your Spectrum that were better than the shop bought titles, there is no reason for a child to sit at his computer and code a version of FIFA when they have a good version on their Xbox.

Give a child a reason, a need to program, and they will do it.

About time, I've been with them for over 3 years now and their Internet banking is awful. I won't even get on to their mobile banking system. To be quite honest, I thought it was all fine, but then the girlfriend started banking with Lloyds TSB and showed me their Internet/Mobile offerings which are far superior.

Chen, don't let me down.

There are a lot of people, either here or elsewhere, waiting or even wanting BlackBerry's demise. God know's why, but they do. It's not as if the company have done anything to them, such as change their Maps application and stick Dublin Airport in some farmers field 100 miles away.

Not quoted in this article, but quoted on Reuters was John Chen who stated the following: "I'm doing this for the long term. I'm going to rebuild this company," said Chen, who said it would take six quarters to turn BlackBerry around. "I know we have enough ingredients to build a long-term sustainable business. I've done this before and seen the same movie before."

John is completely correct. They do indeed have the ingredients to build a sustainable long term business, and because of the way the company has been run before him coming on board, they need stability before they can grow. The BB10 OS is a brilliant operating system, and only the feckless and the people who haven't used it will label it useless.

Chen has a track record regarding the turn around of businesses, having done the same with Sybase. If I had some spare cash, I'd be buying shares in BlackBerry. Sometimes, as with everything in life, you sometimes have to reach the bottom before you can start to climb back up the ladder again.

Thankfully I don't keep my kettle in the bedroom.

Phillips monitor

I can sort of see why some people would find it benefical, but being nagged to sit 10cm closer to the screen all the time would just drive me to throwing the monitor out of the window.

Good advice, 5 years ago

Simply saying "move the computer to the living room" now isn't good enough unfortuntely. Children are now using mobile devices more so than a normal desktop PC. Parents need to be firm with their children and tell them to use the devices around their parents only, and the usual "people on the internet aren't who they say they are".

However, parents don't do this for a few reasons. They won't admit it, but its simply that the technology they give their children is there to be used as a virtual nanny. Something to keep the children quiet while they watch Emmerdale or something else. The parent, really, doesn't want to have their child on the iPad in the living room because of the usual "Mom Mom look what I've drawn/done", which is inevitable with a child that uses something and creates something they are proud of. But when the parent wants some down time, this is a problem for them.

However, if the child gets in to trouble about stuff they view on the same device (either they are bullying someone or they are arranging a meeting with someone off the internet), the parents then say that they don't "understand" the technology and that more should be done to protect their children. These same parents would NEVER (if they're any good at least) let their children buy pornography, watch violent films, let them stick a metal knife with their wet hands in to power sockets.

I've experienced it twice with my "mother-in-law" and the girlfriends 10 year old sister. First time (and I've mentioned it here before) I caught the then 8/9 year old sister watching Miranda in her bedroom, and to me Miranda isn't acceptable for someone that young. Because of certain subjects, jokes, and the fact it just isn't funny. I told the mother, the sister denied she had, the mother let her off and didn't challenge her about it.

The second time about 3 months ago I was babysitting the sister and she was on Facetime to her "friend". I knew some of her friends and thought nothing more of it. However, I was in the same room as her at all times and I became interested when the voice was a boy. So I evesdropped just to make sure he wasnt' older than her or wasn't totally local. Anyway, while doing the ironing the conversation turned to sex and I told her there and then to hang up and to not talk to him until I spoke to my girlfriend about it. I told my girlfriend, she didn't really know who the guy was, so she spoke to her mother. Turns out he's a boy in her class, but my girlfriend told her the conversation the sister had had with him. A big conversation followed with the younger sister and my girlfriend and mother in law, I wasn't there for it. But the girlfriend told me then was that her mother didn't understand how the iPad worked etc so it's difficult to police her daughters use of it.

I hit the roof, I'm not a parent but judging by how my parents brought me up, if they didn't understand what it was I was doing or wanted to do, I wouldn't be allowed to do it/use it until they understood it and the risks involved. Call it overkill, I don't care. But that's what being a parent is all about. Protecting your youth yourself, not relying on a 3rd party to do it (bar teachers, obviously).