Once more unto the beach...

It has been rather a long gap between drinks, but something new should be written here, being a new year, which is well over halfway through.  It took a while to remember the address, let alone the username and password.

I have just bought a brand new laptop, a MacBook Pro, and it's great.  Very fast, excellent graphics and looks really cool.  Given the wireless broadband service at home, I can write this in front of the fire, which is a huge advantage in Melbourne's freezing weather.  Hey, I know this isn't a spellbinding, riveting post, but it's something and might inspire better work later.

So what's new (apart from the laptop)?  Well, I am taking a bit of leave from the library; only a week and a half, but it is a new experience.  In the past, taking leave was not something that really happened.  As a musician, you work and practise, and 'take leave' when there there is no work.  As a teacher, breaks come at the end of term or semester.  So now, having organised people to take over for me, I have a week and a half to play with, for which I am actually paid.  Amazing!  So Robin and I head down to Tassie for a brief change of scene.  It will be even more bracing than Melbourne, but a change is as good as, etc.  And Bruny Island should have lots of beaches, being an island and all.  Hence the post title.

Must go and warm up some leftovers, Doctor Who is on tonight, excellent fare for a mindless Sunday evening.

Cheers

The Farmster

#23 The end? The beginning? The end of the beginning?

This whole process has caused a considerable amount of stress and hassle. Yes, I realise that this was not the intention. Yes, I have accepted comments and even apologies for the additional pressure in my life when I really needed less, not more. And the idea that it could be covered in short soundbite moments was a fantasy. Irrespective of one's technical skill, the actual concepts involved a lot of lateral thinking. In order to learn something, it really is necessary most of the time to return to the subject over and over, which was not possible here.

So I have tended to view this all as 'Learning 2.0 Lite'. Having spoken with staff members to ask what they remember of the processes, terms, acronyms, etc., most could not recall much of what they had done without going over notes in some detail. That all being said, and putting aside degrees of success or failure in the various exercises, it has really been a terrific introduction into Web 2.0 technologies. It has inspired me to continue the process, and I must return to my blog on a regular basis, just to make sure I revisit at least some of those technologies...

...But I have actually finished.

Back soon...

#22 Audiobooks

More good stuff, I really like this podcast thing. So much 'freeware' out in cyberspace; I listened to a short podcast of Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress' (love it when he mentions the lady's "quaint honour"...) on the PC, but will return when I have more time (how often have I written this during these exercises!) and podcast tons more. Classic and contemporary books and stories, talks, discussions and more and more...

Because of the above, I latched onto some free audio books at

• http://literalsystems.org/abooks/index.php.

This appears to be a 'not for profit' site where people lend their skills and talent to put books on the web. So far the list is fairly contained, but enough to promote interest. I thought about offering to do some reading, because I have always wanted to do that...but I digress.

The Project Gutenberg is also fascinating with many additional works available for download at

• The World eBook Fair

I am making a note of this in my blog to act as a reminder that I have to get back into this.

21 Podcasts

Podcasts have interested me for some time. This year (last year? 2007) I had to do a great deal of driving, and the radio doesn't always cut the mustard. A friend had sent me a bunch of podcasts, including a number from the BBC with Melvyn Bragg and various guests pontification on an eclectic range of subjects, from string theory and quantam physics to the growth of newspapers before the French Revolution. I listened to all of these on my MP3 player, and also a talk from the SLV about the future of libraries.

I hope to use this technology much more once I have found a podcast feed that does NOT open as soon as I turn on the computer and take over the desktop. Here is one podcast I added by RSS feed to my Bloglines account.

• Jimmy Pardo's Never Not Funny

I tried to do the same for Stephen Fry whose blog is already one of my RSS feeds. But he doesn't appear to podcast any of his posts, which is a pity since he has an excellent speaking voice.

#20 YouTube

This is great, I love YouTube. Mind you, there is an awful lot of bollocks to wade through before you find things worth watching. Earlier this year, I was teaching a VCE student in Melbourne, and I wanted an audio example of one of the pieces he was learning. I searched YouTube and there were a dozen or more videos of people playing this piece. Generally, they played it quite badly, but my student recognised this. He found the process useful, because he could get a basic idea of what the piece sounded like, but with a number of faults which I had already warned him to be wary of.

While zapping around, I found a number of videos that I thought were amusing and/or instructive. Here are a couple;

• Monster Hunter lives in mobile library

This bloke spends his days - and life - living in a disused mobile library (is there such a vehicle?)
at the northern end of Loch Ness. He sounds remarkably sane for someone who might not be.

• Medieval IT Help Desk

Very witty, all the right questions and responses. I love the bit about "Do you want a cup of hot water?"

YouTube is an excellent repository for all sorts of artistic endeavours, such as Weird Al Yankovic's excellent Star Wars spoof to the tune of Don Maclean's American Pie;

• Star Wars spoof

So that's it. I think there is a gerat deal more bu this is all I have time for...

#19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools

One thing is that while the web technology available has huge potential, we (humans) are still lacking a huge amount of content!! I looked at several of these Web 2.0 sites, such as the following:

• http://www.onesentence.org/ and
• http://www.pandora.com/restricted

They are subject specific, and are useful/fun/encouraging to those who want to use them...? Which I suppose is the intent of most APIs.

#18 Web-based Apps

I looked at Zoho Writer and thought and wrote the following;

• This looks interesting, though I will not have the time to mess around with it and discover its value to me. So, I am creating a test text document. It appears to function just the way normal text-based software operates, with an excellent range of formatting and diagnostic tools. Except of course, it's online and does not need software updates and the like.
  
  I will attempt to save it to my blog.

Hopefully there will be time in the New World, after the Revolution has come, to return to some of these applications, and really get into them. This will certainly be on the list.