flite blog

flying quotes

2009-06-23T22:50:00.001+09:30

Quotations about Flying

I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn't it be? - it is the same the angels breathe. ~Mark Twain, "Roughing It"

You haven't seen a tree until you've seen its shadow from the sky. ~Amelia Earhart

How strange is this combination of proximity and separation. That ground - seconds away - thousands of miles away. ~Charles A. Lindbergh

There is an art, or rather a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. ~Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror. ~Orson Welles

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute. ~Gil Stern

Flight is the only truly new sensation than men have achieved in modern history. ~James Dickey

O! for a horse with wings! ~William Shakespeare, Cymbeline

The butterfly is a flying flower... ~Ponce Denis Écouchard Lebrun

More than anything else the sensation is one of perfect peace mingled with an excitement that strains every nerve to the utmost, if you can conceive of such a combination. ~Wilbur Wright

The modern airplane creates a new geographical dimension. A navigable ocean of air blankets the whole surface of the globe. There are no distant places any longer: the world is small and the world is one. ~Wendell Willkie

Once you have learned to fly your plane, it is far less fatiguing to fly than it is to drive a car. You don't have to watch every second for cats, dogs, children, lights, road signs, ladies with baby carriages and citizens who drive out in the middle of the block against the lights.... Nobody who has not been up in the sky on a glorious morning can possibly imagine the way a pilot feels in free heaven. ~William T. Piper

Lovers of air travel find it exhilarating to hang poised between the illusion of immortality and the fact of death. ~Alexander Chase, "Perspectives," 1966

Flying without feathers is not easy; my wings have no feathers. ~Titus Maccius Plautus

Within all of us is a varying amount of space lint and star dust, the residue from our creation. Most are too busy to notice it, and it is stronger in some than others. It is strongest in those of us who fly and is responsible for an unconscious, subtle desire to slip into some wings and try for the elusive boundaries of our origin. ~K.O. Eckland, "Footprints On Clouds"

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

The bluebird carries the sky on his back. ~Henry David Thoreau

If God had really intended men to fly, he'd make it easier to get to the airport. ~George Winters

The engine is the heart of an airplane, but the pilot is its soul. ~Walter Raleigh

Angels can fly because they carry no burdens. ~Quoted in The Angels' Little Instruction Book by Eileen Elias Freeman, 1994

Whenever we safely land in a plane, we promise God a little something. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

Pilots are a rare kind of human. They leave the ordinary surface of the word, to purify their soul in the sky, and they come down to earth, only after receiving the communion of the infinite. ~Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth. ~Henry David Thoreau

The desire to reach for the sky runs deep in our human psyche. ~Cesar Pelli

Why fly? Simple. I'm not happy unless there's some room between me and the ground. ~Richard Bach

I never liked riding in helicopters because there's a fair probability that the bottom part will get going around as fast as the top part. ~John Wittenborn

In the space age, man will be able to go around the world in two hours - one hour for flying and one hour to get to the airport. ~Neil McElroy

When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return. ~Leonardo Da Vinci (Thanks, Tommy)

The Wright Brothers created the single greatest cultural force since the invention of writing. The airplane became the first World Wide Web, bringing people, languages, ideas, and values together. ~Bill Gates

Given angel's wings, where might you fly?
In what sweet heaven might you find your love?
Unwilling to be bound, where might you move,
Lost between the wonder and the why?...
~Nicholas Gordon, poemsforfree.com

Bicycling is the nearest approximation I know to the flight of birds. The airplane simply carries a man on its back like an obedient Pegasus; it gives him no wings of his own. ~Louis J. Helle, Jr., Spring in Washington

When you think about flying, it's nuts really. Here you are at about 40,000 feet, screaming along at 700 miles an hour and you're sitting there drinking Diet Pepsi and eating peanuts. It just doesn't make any sense. ~David Letterman

I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me that they are wonderful things for other people to go on. ~Jean Kerr, "Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall," The Snake Has All the Lines, 1958

I pick the prettiest part of the sky and I melt into the wing and then into the air, till I'm just soul on a sunbeam. ~Richard Bach

If black boxes survive air crashes, why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff? ~George Carlin

Those who gave away their wings are sad not to see them fly. ~Antonio Porchia,Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

I think it is a pity to lose the romantic side of flying and simply to accept it as a common means of transport.... ~Amy Johnson

My soul is in the sky. ~William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

I always thought that my airplane conveyed a silent sermon. To the earthbound observer, its silhouette was the shape of the cross on which Jesus was crucified. ~E.R. Trimble

The reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly. ~G.K. Chesterton, "Orthodoxy"

Now I know why they tell you to put your head between your knees on crash landings. You think you're going to kiss your ass good-bye. ~Terry Hanson

There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program - your tax-dollar will go further. ~Werner von Braun

Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway. ~Mary Kay Ash

Spread your wings and let the fairy in you fly! ~Author Unknown

If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why oh why can't I? ~E.Y. Harburg

The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space, at full speed, above all obstacles, on the infinite highway of the air. ~Wilbur Wright

November green

2009-06-20T19:48:00.001+09:30

November green, originally uploaded by Kym Fielke.

that's me under the yellow wing :) - thanks kym fielke!

Cobra

2009-05-21T23:56:00.000+09:30

OH YEAH...............................

back again

2009-04-22T23:48:00.002+09:30

Well maybe I wont delete this blog. - The reason I'm back from Wordpress? Google.

Google are doing amazing things with Documents and Spreadsheets. google sites and a range of other useful online tools form the Google labs. ....and..... blogger just happens to be owned by Google.

Google is starting to integrate some of these tools and services together. so it makes sense to use the blog tool that seemlessly integrates into the tools that I already use everyday.

That's why.

But Blogger does have its downsides - its full of rubbish blogs, porn, and is usually banned in company firewalls. So its a double edged sword. For the moment I'll post infrequenstly to both this blog and the wordpress one.

seeya on my new blog

2007-10-09T17:19:00.000+09:30

This blog has gradually fallen into disuse - by me - and so to try something new i have shifted to : -

pgpete.wordpress.com

i hope you flow me there.

thanks!

Pete

i told you so.

2007-04-19T16:55:00.000+09:30

In Nov 10 2005, I blogged that I believed that global waming was real ( here )

my belief has been supported by the UN etc. but its a hollow victory. I wish I was wrong.

Its interesting that it was one of the few posts on this blog that caused comment and replies.

The other part of that posting was about the vitriol I found in blogs - and now that the cathy sierra debacle is topical it reminds me that hate mail/ blog phenomenon was going on long before .......

cyber-bullying - what to do?

2007-04-18T10:10:00.000+09:30

In the wake of the Cathy Sierra cyber-bullying errrr... event. A lesser, but pertinent situation arose in the EDNA forums.

These forums are for people interested in online education ( the bit I'm referrring to is for vocational education and training. )

Unofrtunately while many were feeling quite sensitive to the issue of cyber -bullying a heated email exchange on the forum wnet nasty - which drew comments from many people in Australia about what can an online facilitator do when something like this happens.

Here is an excerpt from an email discussion I sent about the issue. : -

I had a look at the "web2.0 resources links" thread. From what I
could see the damage being done was from one guy
mouthing off.

I've seen his type before - (forgive me for pigeon-holing) but he's just a guy with poor people skills who's managed to wrap himself up into the technology and he now thinks the technology is more important than the people using it.

W3C compliance is a standard to make things easier for people , but he is using the guilt of non compliance to make people feel small and unthinking.

His verbal attacks reveal more about him - he drops a list of his credentials - indicating that he feels that he is not taken seriously - or that he is not given the prestige that he thinks he deserves.

He uses a form of discourse that looks like an attack to the gentle folk of EDNA forums - yet it is probably an acceptable discourse on some forums ( eg linux
) which are a mecca to nerdophiles who communicate in this manner.

I wonder why a clash of cultures like this hasnt happened sooner - I've come accross sites that push qualifications in "online learning" - but they almost wholly focus on the technical aspects of creating the online tools rather than the human aspect of teaching and learning online.

I applaud that jacinta tried to get him to modify his discourse - but it will take a whole lot more than a couple of posts to "educate" this guy - his verbal attacks
are really about his insecurities.

Getting back to EDNA - I think that EDNA has to have stronger moderation if they wish to promote a sharing-and-caring culture, but considering this type of problem occurs when you get any bunch of people together, it would be better to use it as a learning experience for all the budding online facilitators that are on EDNA.

Lastly -
we havent seen the offline emails that might have been sent to the victims of this abuse - the moderators of EDNA may have sent emails of support to the people that were targets of the abuse and hopefully these supportive emails would have helped them put this guy's rant into perspective.

We areall probably a little over-sensitive about cyber-bullying at the
moment. it only happens rarely lets make sure online facilitators have strategies in place to deal with it when it happens.

audio training.

2006-06-26T14:52:00.000+09:30

an interesting site where an audio engineer has put forward a curriculum that addressess the shortcommings of current industry training

education for audio

2006-06-26T14:21:00.000+09:30

"There are still cities (identifiable hubs) that specialize in predictable areas of audio activity, servicing the film, broadcast, entertainment, manufacture, and scientific industries. However with recent advances in low-cost, high-quality technology, these centers are becoming unnecessary to produce a professional product. The technology of music production is increasingly in the hands of the artist who creates it. It is no longer mandatory to contract all levels of record production from the proprietary chain of a major label and its producers, engineers, and studios. It is no longer necessary to send audio forensic materials to a central national laboratory for processing or to contract real-time audio analysis from a select number of providers who can afford the equipment and are trained to operate it. These are, therefore, no longer the only sources of predictable employment for aspiring audio engineers. Continual change is the only predictable element in the audio industry, and those who fail to prepare and adapt to change will be left behind."

from http://www.aes.org/education/pritts4.html

windows media enhanced podcasts

2006-06-13T16:57:00.000+09:30

well Ive been waiting and waiting for Apple to release their podcast chapter tool for PC so that I could make enhanced podcasts. unfortunately it hasnt happened and i suspect never will happen.

but not to be outdone, someone from the dark side has created a "how to" on creating enhanced podcasts using windows media.

now I hate having to use microsoft stuff, as it only encourages them, but considering there;'s no alternative.........

I see enhanced podcasts a way of getting digital story telling online with a minimum of bandwidth usage.

so check out the site.

http://www.jakeludington.com/project_studio/20051004_windows_media_enhanced_podcast.html

howto podcast

2006-06-02T17:18:00.000+09:30

a very good tutorial site on how to podcast

http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com

iRiver recording

2006-06-02T10:43:00.000+09:30

Previously I've discussed the idea of using the iRiver line of Mp3 players to do portable podcasting.

here's alink to some instructions on how. the only proviso is that now the IFP 790 series of iRiver MP3 have now been superceded by the T-10, T-20, T-30.

These iRiver's are available in Dick Smith Electronincs here in Austrlia.

i feel good.

2006-05-24T23:03:00.000+09:30

i had never heard of dictionaroke until i heard this....

http://ia300109.us.archive.org/3/items/dictionaraoke/James_Brown-I_feel_good.mp3

screengrab utility

2006-05-19T11:24:00.000+09:30

OK I suppose everyone here has created lecture-notes( ! ) by doing "screen grabs" - ie pressing the print screen button which takes a snapshot of the screen and copies it to the clipboard ( PC ) Alternatively pressing Alt-Printscreen takes a snapshot of the active window on the screen.

The next part of the task is to paste it into "Paint" - crop the image and then save it as a Jpeg.

I found a freeware utility that sits in the system tray, and when you press print screen it becomes active.

You then select the area of the screen you want to capture ( including the mouse pointer ) - press enter and the utility captures the selected part of the screen and automatically copies it (to a folder you have specified ) as a jpeg.

I know its not earth shattering, but it makes putting tutorials together just that little bit easier.

http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/

list of web 2.0 links

2006-05-12T12:41:00.000+09:30

I just discovered this list of links off of TALO.

http://www.sacredcowdung.com/archives/2006/03/all_things_web.html - the list is quite exhaustive and I now realize that keeping on top of all things Web 2.0 is just going to be impossible.

There are probably 200 links there of interesting Web 2.0 initiatives.... at least they have been categorized.

One has cuaght me eye... ie one wortyh investigating right now.... more on this later.

origami portal

2006-03-16T11:15:00.000+10:30

There's a few websites around dedicated to the UMPc concept

http://www.origamiportal.com/modules/news/

will the UNPC re energize the tablet PC market? will we all go out an buy one?

samsung hard disk phone

2006-03-10T17:06:00.000+10:30

I've only just seen this page. - Last week I dropped my phone. - and now its a bit broken ( held together with sticky tape) I started looking around at the phones that wer available and noticed a bit of a convergence - phone, camera, mp3 player, video ipod. funnily enough despite all these functions availble on phones , they did not have enough storage on the device . enter in the samsung i310 - worlds first phone with a hard disk inside.

read about it here.

It appeals to me that I would no longer have to carry a separate phone, camera, mp3 player, USB flash drive.......

UMPG and origami

2006-03-10T16:55:00.000+10:30

Ok for me it started as a teaser at the project origami site

But finally we have some real pictures and specifications about the UMPS (Ultra Mobile PC)

I found two videos that sell the concept of the UMPC well :-

video 1

video 2

and already there are sites popping up supporting this new "form factor" for the PC

http://umpc.com/

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/umpc/default.mspx

http://www.paperbackpc.com/

I'm personally am interested..... I've held off getting apocket PC because I wanted the power and flexibility of using a machine running XP. tablets were still a bit too big.

I was really interested in a Sony TX17

but couldnt stomach the $3800 price tag.

I 'll be watching these with interest.

podcasting tute

2006-03-01T00:16:00.000+10:30

Here's a nice tutorial about podcastingf for windows users.

nicely done!

http://superuser.com.au/documents/podcast_on_windows/book1.html

testing bubbleshare

2006-02-26T12:19:00.000+10:30

hi. for some reason Flickr didnt resonate with me - i cant explain why... but bubbleshare is a nice quick way to share photos and create a "photostory" with a minimum of technical fiddling around. Below is my first test posting using bubbleshare.

This album is powered by
BubbleShare - Add to my blog

vlog - videoblogging

2006-02-23T15:16:00.000+10:30

These links come from a Vlog called Ripplecast - its a good list to use to explore vlogging.

______________________________

www.freevlog.org - a great tutorial site which shows you ( using quicktime) how to create a video blog.

Definition of Vlog in wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlog

Vlogmap.org - a combination of googlemaps and vlogging - click on a pin and watch the Vlog from the person at that location.

Mefeedia.com - a vlog directory that includes tagging like del.icio.us

www.vlogdir.com - another directory -

www.getfireant.com - to download a nice vlog aggregator / player.

____________________________________________________________

bill kerr: School censorship legalities

2006-01-15T13:16:00.000+10:30

bill kerr: School censorship legalities

Bill is a fellow south australian, and i must agree that internet filtering is an issue that has to be dealt with.....

I would prefer the approach that Bill advocates - censorship managed by the teacher.

robot dog has own blog - roblog!

2005-12-14T10:14:00.000+10:30

Who said the Internet is full of rubbish?

Sony Corp has a robot dog called the Aibo ( its frightfully expensive) but it does have the ability to take photos of what it sees.

some enterprising owners have written software so that their Aibo can take photos of what it sees and post it to their very own blog.

dont believe me?

check out : -

Aibo Roblog #1 - An AIBO named Pedro
Aibo Roblog #2 - An AIBO named Brenda
Aibo Roblog #3 - An AIBO named Racker

maybe of i bought a necklace cam for my dog............

article on Wikis

2005-12-07T11:03:00.000+10:30

http://informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=167600331

nice article explaining wikis

flite blog

2005-12-07T00:47:00.000+10:30

http://www.thatcloudgame.com

wow........ i wanted to share with you all this game developed by sudents at a californian unitversity.

be warned the download is 43meg and you need a decent system to run it, but its just so nice.......

butalso try out this one... its a lot smaller - needs shockwave player....http://www.ertdfgcvb.ch/p1/sky.html

Tiddly Wiki - a small self contained Wiki ideal for education.

2005-11-30T22:28:00.000+10:30

Tiddly Wiki - a small self contained Wiki ideal for education.

For those of you in Australia you’ve probably heard of the ANTA toolboxes – they are web based learning resources written around training packages and are authored so that they can be used in many different ways and can be delivered online, on CD-Rom or a network share – they can even be printed out and delivered on paper ( heaven forbid!)

For those who haven’t heard of them you can preview all the flexible elearning toolboxes at http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/toolboxes

As I was exploring what now has been labeled “ Web 2.0” I began thinking that perhaps future toolboxes ( and even existing toolboxes) might benefit from some of the advantages that the Web 2.0 paradigm brings. : -

One of the problems with the toolbox material is that it can go out of date – training packages get updated or the industry it services shifts focused or the local industry is different than what the National toolbox is authored for.

Or, as is the case with any pre-made teaching resource the lecturer/facilitator/teacher is happy with a good part of the toolbox but would like to add, or change or modify in some way the toolbox resources.

I could see that if toolbox resources were authored into a Wiki type format, then modification of the toolbox for updating or customization would be easy.

A shining example of the potential for a Wiki type resource is Wikipedia ( www.wikipedia.org ). - and its sister project Wikibooks. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page

I could see the potential for Toolboxes in this format with a community of interested practitioners actively involved in the creation and maintenance of such a resource.

One immediate problem I saw was that toolboxes inside a wiki would not have the portability of the html formatted toolboxes as most wikis are designed using a webserver and a database.

So how could a toolbox ( or any teaching resource for that matter) be authored in a Wiki format but still retain the portability and flexibility of a html based resource like a Toolbox.

Some web-surfing research provided some promising results. - In Wikipedia there is a page on the Wiki-on-a-stick project. (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_on_a_stick)

The page is quite comprehensive and provides how to install a true Wiki on a USB flash drive using only about 7Mb of space.

This was OK, but it was a little too technical for most people, I was looking for a simpler solution.

I found a solution in Tiddly Wiki

Tiddly wiki ( www.tiddlywiki.com) is an amazing piece of software – it takes the concept of a Wiki and encloses it into a single HTML file that can be carried around on a USB flash drive.
Instead of the usual Wiki practice of each topic on a new page - Tiddly Wiki breaks information down into smaller chunks (dare I say Learning Objects???) called Tiddlers.

I immediately saw an educational application for TiddlyWiki –

For the face-to-face computer class I teach I could place all of the learning guides, lecture notes links to websites in fact any useful information in a Tiddly Wiki for that subject and the students could then annotate and add their own notes to the existing Wiki notes.

Instead of paper based learning guides I knew that you can get low cost USB flash drives - with software ( ie Tiddly Wiki ) pre installed.

And the great thing is that Tiddly Wiki will keep all of this information together in a single file – making file management and backup relatively easy.

Tiddly Wiki seems to inspire anyone that I show it to. Applications seem to spring to mind as soon as people see it.

It also seems that Tiddly Wiki has huge potential - according to this programmer (http://davidmercer.nfshost.com/article/7/TheHolyGrailofProgrammers) - he sees Tiddly Wiki as an ideal web applications development platform – with open standards such as Javascript and CSS its open to anyone to develop their own applications using the Tiddly Wiki framework.
This means you aren’t boxing yourself into a corner if you spend time and effort using Tiddly Wiki – in fact the macro plug ins that have already been developed already add to the scope of what this little program – err webpage can do.

To try out Tiddly Wiki you can see what a basic Tiddly Wiki looks like at www.tiddlywiki.com

To see a Tiddly Wiki where the author has modified the style sheet have a look at www.tiddlywikitips.com

To see a very nice Tiddly Wiki complete with background images, have a look at
http://www.elsdesign.com/tiddlywiki/

Once the page has loaded click on the options link on the right hand side of the page and work your way through the 6 or so stylesheets that this developer has developed .. and these style sheets are dynamically loaded .

Lastly have a look at http://www.tiddlyforge.net/ - this site lists all of the plug ins and macros that have been developed for Tiddly Wiki.

Tiddly wiki is Free and open source software. – that means that the software is free to use and the developments for it are also free. You can use it and develop your own implementation of Tiddly Wiki – you don’t have to pay anybody to use the software - but you must attribute the authorship of the software to the original author.

I intend to use Tiddly Wiki next year in class so I’m in the process of transferring a lot of my lecture notes in to Tiddly Wiki. - Of course when I have a more complete copy , I can then publish this Wiki on a website and then it can be downloaded. I also notice quite a few people are using Tiddly Wiki as a way to create a website quickly – after all it provides a complete framework for a website – all you have to do is flow in the content.

Tiddly Wiki does require some web authoring expertise at times, but I think in time many people will skill up to use it – its worth the effort in my opinion.

a list of the types of blogs avilable

2005-11-30T10:06:00.000+10:30

A while ago I did a list of the types of podcasts that are avilable here.

but to compliment that list this blogger has made a list of the types of blogs available.
for the sake of completeness here's my list again....

Podcasting models.

One thing I do like about podcasting is that it’s new and experimental and people are trying different things. Here are some of the teaching models I've experienced so far.

1 - Traditional radio show format. - These shows have opening music, voiceovers, sponsor messages, and ending music and credits. In other words a slick radio format.

2 - One on one tutorial - this podcast was a discussion about a particular website. As you listened to the podcast you were supposed to type in the web address of the site he was looking at, and follow him as he led you around the site. (An interesting educational tool idea!)

3 - The Interview. - A one on one interview done by the host and the other participant - usually an expert in the field. Not only do podcasters do face to face interviews, but also podcasters have also done virtual interviews using Skype. So the interviewee might be half way around the world. I must admit this would be a great way to enhance a course by talking to the expert in the field.

4. The digital story. - One podcast I found was a bit experimental but interesting, it was a recording of a physicist talking about the trouble he had with his doctoral thesis. now, usually this would be too heavy, to listen to for very long, and the producer realized that, so after 5 - 10 minutes of dialogue and particularly after the physicist made a salient point, the podcast mixed in a couple of minutes of ambient music, so you could reflect on what was said, and then be ready for the next bit of heavy listening.

5. The audio book. - I downloaded a podcast that was in essence an audio book, with each chapter being a single podcast. It was designed to be entertainment, but I wonder if this could be used in a digital story-telling model for education...

6. The commentary - one podcast I found was similar to the commentary tracks you find on some DVD's - where the stars or producers discuss the movie as you watch it. The idea was you watch a recording of a show and listen to the podcast at the same time, allowing the podcaster to comment on various aspects of the show...I could definitely see this idea being used in an educational context. (click here for artcle on it)

7. The self guided field trip. - I didn’t find an example of this type of podcast, but the idea is that you download a podcast into your MP3 player and listen to it as you wander around a place of interest. I can see this being a great educational model.

---
I can see so many opportunities here to create engaging media content without having to invest large amounts of time or dollars. I think this could be a great way to enhance elearning, so, I'm going to give it a go. In my next blog entry I'm going to discuss just what bits and pieces you need to get this to work.

$100 laptop

2005-11-30T09:57:00.000+10:30

I've been watching this project with interest for some time. Although the focus of this project is children in 3rd world countries, I am pleased to hear that a commercial version will be avilable for other prople interested in this design/ project.

I could see tafe and ACE students using something like this - perhaps even university students as well.

diggdot

2005-11-24T18:03:00.000+10:30

This site is a culmination of what's hot on digg, slashdot and delicious. and you dont have to fiddle around with RSS feeds clunky software... its a plain old webpage....

http://www.diggdot.us/

web 2.0 is?

2005-11-21T11:35:00.000+10:30

it seems that Web 2.0 has got to the point where it can now be lampooned....

check out http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/11/web_two_point_naught_answers/

What is web 2.0 ?????
Web 2.0 is the wet dream of wicky fidlers everywhere
Web 2.0 is made of ... a lot of thin but very hot air blown at you by those who are convinced that having nothing to say is by no means a good reason to shut up.
Web 2.0 is made of ... millions upon millions of bandwagons, circled into one giant investor cluster

wireless broadband

2005-11-18T16:17:00.000+10:30

because of the guys from ACMNET I can get broadband in a broadband free suburb.

the technolgies used to do this are described here : -

http://www.wimo.de/cgi-bin/verteiler.pl?url=wlanboost_e.htm
http://nocat.net/
http://bengross.com/wireless.html
http://www.microtekelectronics.com/products/minilink-accessories.html -- some antennas and their transmit distance.
http://metrix.net/metrix/products/radios/ -- Linux compatible wifi stuff (b/g)
http://www.fab-corp.com/ -- Cheap but quality antennas
http://martybugs.net/wireless/ -- Wirelss info page (DIY antennas)

more on GTD tiddlywiki

2005-11-18T16:00:00.000+10:30

I was thinking that GTD tiddlywiki is a great learning resource development platform.... create your stuff on the go anywhere.... save bits and pieces, get it home and sort it out... and then when complete just rename the file and start with a new blank GTD tiddlywiki... do this a few times then load them up to a webserver, add an index page to navigate to the appropriate wiki for the subject.....

I think I 'll go home tonight ( with my flash drive in my pocket ) and try this out!

Wiki on a stick / Calendars and ANTA toolboxes

2005-11-18T15:43:00.000+10:30

Ive been thinking about ANTA Toolboxes ( actually.... learning resources in general) and WEB 2.0.

The obvious benefits of using a wiki as a container for your learning resources instead of a static webpage is : -

the ability to quickly update information
add notes
add links
ie all the benefits of web 2.0

The downside was that I couldnt see how a wiki could replace learning resources ( or a toolbox) if the user was not connected to the net...

Toolboxes are used on CD-Rom, and on network shares. So I needed to find out if you can get a wiki to run on a floppy or a flash drive.

Well, the answer is Yes YEs YESSS!!!!

I first found a wikipedia entry - Wiki on a stick

so it definitely is possible but it was a bit "clunky"

a bit more searching found tiddlywiki and GTD tiddlywiki

This is an amazing but of coding - it is a fully functioning wiki embedded inside a HTML webpage - and works fine from a floppy or flash drive.

I dare you to go and look at this software and not come away impressed. This is great!

Full wiki functionality on a USB flash drive.

Here's just one thing to try. go to this page http://33ad.org/tools/gtdtwcal.php

It auto-magically generates wiki code for a calandar month. cut it from that page and then edit a page in your wiki on a stick - paste the calandar wiki code and close the entry and voila! - an (editable!!!!) calendar month in your personal wiki.....

Is that cool bananas or what.

I can see student using something like this with learning resources embedded in the wiki on a stick, and them being able to annotate, add extra links... it opens up a world of possibilities - even in a non internet connected classroom.

Of course, the wiki could be just one component of a learning environment.....
here's a list of other applications that can run from within a flash drive.

Didnt I say that the flash drive is an amazing technology enabler? - that its importance , its significance is not well understood???.....

Well maybe not in my blog but I said it in my classroom!

The amazing blue ball machine!!!!!

2005-11-14T13:48:00.000+10:30

Man, i love this thing! -

http://blueballfixed.ytmnd.com/

freeware image editor

2005-11-11T16:30:00.000+10:30

Pixia is a freeware image editor that supports layers and other stuff.. after looking at about 6 freeware image editors (including Gimp) I found that this one has a nice user interface and seems to do the job nicely.

Try it you'll like it!

Otherwise for simple image editing the Mcrosoft Photo Manager that comes with Office 2003 is quite nice. Does image resizing very nicely.

Rainbow warrior II and the reef - and the blogs that commented on it.

2005-11-10T13:45:00.000+10:30

I was playing with the next blog button in blogger (its up in the right hand corner of this blog - if you click it your are randomly taken from this blog to another one.)

and I happened upon a blog where the author was commenting on the Rainbow warrior II accidently damaging a coral reef in an accident.

The author was trying to make a wry observation that Greenpeace was damaging the very thing it was trying to protect. ( Greenpeace was there to observe the damage to the reef due to global warming.) I commented on his blog saying that his argument was weak etc etc.

Anyway, the story in the newsmedia unfolds further - Greenpeace apologises for the error and will pay a $7000 fine for reef damage. I wanted to see if the blogger I berated the day before had more to say on the subject. So I used google's blogsearch to try and find that blog again.

I typed "rainbow warrior reef" and to my surprise i got hundreds of blogs referencing this news story and most of them where taking a similar view ie " frikken tree huggin Greenpeace are inept, stupid and destroying more reef than global warming ever will ...."

I was surprised at the negativity expressed in these blogs and that this "redneck" ( yeah I know thats an emotive and negative term) view was extremely common in the blogosphere.

And I suppose that is the downside of blogs - I thought blogs were a place for reflective practice and sharing of ideas, but it seems blogging can be used for negative purposes too.

It seems that I am in the minority when I consider the accidental damage that Greenpeace did to the reef as inconsequential, and that global warming poses a far begger threat to our future on the planet.

but why is Greenpeace the focus of such ire from these people? my guess is that Greenpeace is an icon - a focus for their displeasure - and the message that Greenpeace is promoting doesnt sit well with a lot of these bloggers.

These bloggers want to believe a lie - and they are not alone - the Australian public let john howard perpetuate a lie - we like to believe in the nuclear family - mum dad and 2.2 kids - despite the fact that family demographic is now a minority. - [but I digress]

The Greenpeace message is that our current lifestyle that we enjoy in the western world is unsustainable - witha bit of soul searching and looking out the window at city life I can concede that - but i think to many - including the bloggers I mentioned earlier - this is a bitter pill to swallow.

It would be nice to find out that global warming is a aberration - and that the mounting anecdotal evidence is something we can discount.

I dont believe it. I think the planet is under stress.

Unfortuately the idea that the wilderness is out there and infinite and is there for mankind to tame and shape it into his/her liking is a mindset from the 19th century.

I am surprised that my support for Greenpeace ( and I know the organisation is far from perfect) is a minority view in the blogosphere. But the issue of global warming is more important than greenpeace damaging 100 square metres of reef in a boating accident.

Recording sound ... how's it being done.?

2005-11-09T15:06:00.000+10:30

ok...recording sound......when it comes to multimedia - sound it important. Bad sound can ruin an otherwise good quality product. But many consumer-level products claim impressive specifications, and claim that they are pro level and "broadcast quality".

Indeed broadcast quality is a slippery [non] standard. So here's the problem i face - in our multimedia class we are using a borrowed Sony DAT machine with sony stereo mic's. We transfer audio using this unit into Audition using the line input on the standard soundcard.

Some elements of this provcess are dodgy - the DAT unit IS broadcast quality, the microhones are close to broadcast quality - ie good enough for news and speech, but wouldnt cut it for music, and the transfer process is dodgy to say the least.

Most soundcards to a terrible job of digitizing... although according to this report you have to listen hard to hear the difference.

The main problems with cheap soundcards is the noisy analogue to digital (AtoD) converters used. - ify ou want a nice sounding recording try to use a quality soundcard see this site for some more info note the article is from 1999....

Anyway back to the problem..... it seems that the audio professionals after using bulky battery powered mixers went to DAT tape units, - after that they went to mini disk - after that they went to high density minidisk - and now the industry is moving towards solid-state units that record straight to CF cards.

The Microtrack and the PDM 660 and the Edirol R1 are the first examples of this technology - with quality connectors and low noise Ato D's . Right now these units are a bit flaky... givie it a year or two and there will be better units to choose from... right now the Microtrack shows a lot of promise but has a few faults to that have to be ironed out....

If you can afford to wait 6 months - do so.... because i am sure by then one of the major manufacturers will have a product out that is "sorted"

portable audio recorders

2005-11-09T11:58:00.000+10:30

links I've been reading about portable audio recorders......

http://www.auditory.org/recorders.html

http://www.auditory.org/recorders.html

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MicroTrack-main.html

http://www.intsi.org/tsm.htm

http://www.officetechnology.com.au/zs-olympus-voice-recorder-microphone-2598.asp

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000840051727/#comments

http://leblog.exuberance.com/2005/10/review_of_the_m.html

http://gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php3?t=44381

http://noisetheatre.blogspot.com

Dust in the computer

2005-11-07T12:33:00.000+10:30

Too much dust in the computer makes the fans and heatsinks inefficient and can lead to overheating problems .

Those familiar with computing hardware wont find the above statement too surprising. but I leads me to a personal story.

My computer is less than 12 months old. It's a standard Pentiium 4 3Ghz machine and its been fairly reliable. but lately I've been getting crashes.

And most recently it was happening right in the middle of the video rendering jobs I've been doing.

I went the the usual process of isolating the probelem - I thought it might be virus or spyware related, then i thought it might be Hytherthreading related ( thats been causing me problems too, but thats a different story. )

I finally tracked the problem down to .... dust.

In the 12 months that I've owned the computer and operated it in a a carpetted room ,the CPU heatsink had become clogged with dust. - The computer ran fine while doing non CPU intensive things like email or surfing. But when I did something CPU intensive like video rendering the CPU would overheat and the BIOS would shut the machine down.

I was very surprised by two things.... the amount of dust that had accumulated in 12 months , and, that it caused the computer to fail.

In my computer servicing experience I have seen computers with far more dust and fluff on the inside than what my machine had. So it shows that todays Pentium IV computers are running a lot hotter than previous CPU's and airflow through the system unit is now more critical than ever....

Preventative maintenance - ie getting the dust out of your computer is now a critical task that needs to be done at least every 12 months.

I'm sure the service companies that do this sort of work for clueless Noob's are very happy about that!

this web 2.0 thingy.

2005-11-04T16:12:00.000+10:30

Ive been doing some reading today... trying to see how toolboxes should fit into web 2.0 -

So my bookmark list on this subject looks like this: - [ yeah I know i should be using bloglines or delicious or something like that but ... what the hell]

http://flexiblelearning.net.au/knowledgetree/edition07/html/editorial.html

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2005/09/05/why_web20_matte.html

http://www.det.act.gov.au/publicat/pdf/emergingtechnologies.pdf

http://networkedlearning.wikispaces.com/digital+literacy+and+how+it+affects+teaching+and+learning+practices

http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

http://c2.com/w4/wikibase/

http://thewireless.blogspot.com/2005/10/how-to-cope-with-web-20.html

technology in education site - portal - whatever....

2005-10-19T15:49:00.000+09:30

When researching Quicktime I had a look around this site . Now, Of course it is a "soft sell" for apple products, but even so there is some nice stuff here, and some good teaching and learning ideas. I think its worth a browse. - there is a heavy emphasis on k-12 teaching and learning, but I got an idea or two from what I saw.... hope you can benefit too!

One Codec to rule them all

2005-10-19T15:27:00.000+09:30

Recently, I had to render some video for web delivery.

I have had to do this a few times over the years, but before I did the job this time I decided to do some research into the best codec and format to use. - as a number of new technologies have emerged and so it was worth looking at my options.

My video source material was 30 minute video clips of a presenters presenting at an education conference. The source material was on mini DV tape and captured to computer in DV format. I wanted to put these presentations on the web in a compressed form that would allow users with broadband connections to download the videos and watch them.

I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time doing production, but I wanted to keep file sizes within reason. I was hoping to keep the files down to 1 meg a minute. Ie 30Mb per presenter.

I accepted that this would preclude dial up users but my client group were TAFE lecturer’s viewing the videos at TAFE.

I also had little control over the server that the finished video files would reside on, so therefore I couldnt choose a streaming solution, because I couldn’t guarantee that the webserver would have streaming file support.

My client group may also have little control over their machines – many TAFE computers are locked down very tight security wise and don’t allow the loading of plug-ins.

I researched the current state of video encoding and found the following formats might do the job: -

Apple Quicktime – using the h.264 codec.
Apple Quicktime - using mpeg4
Real video
Sorenson squeeze - creating a flash file
Flash MX 2004
Flash 8
Microsoft media 9

Some history – I have been following the development of desktop video for sometime, and have created a few educational products using different techniques starting with the Sorenson codec that was included in Quicktime 5 , I found that it was possible to get reasonable video down to sizes suitable for CDrom or broadband delivery.

The results: -

I initially started with Flash - I was attracted to the idea of using a format of video that did not require webserver or plug-in support (Flash 6 and 7) are embedded as part of Internet Explorer. And the compression and quality seems to be quite good.

Products like Sorenson Squeeze also made the creation of flash video files (.swf) quite easy.

I had an evaluation copy of Sorenson squeeze and a legitimate copy of Flash MX2004. I did some test runs of rendering my source material and found the following : -

Flash MX 2004 did a reasonable job of compressing their video and audio – with acceptable file sizes and good mono audio, but the pixelization and artifacts were irritating to watch after a period of time.

I did the same job on Sorenson squeeze and got far better quality video for the same file sizes but I was up for $150 for a proper copy of Sorenson Squeeze.

I found a site on the net that did a side by side comparison of flash MX2004 Sorenson Squeeze and flash 8 and found that flash 8 output was somewhere in between the other two when it came to image quality. : -

“…if you compress it with Squeeze it will be much better. File size as well as image quality. I have ran tests comparing the new flash 8 (on2 vp6) codec versus the Sorenson Spark codec, and you will see even more of a difference there. You can compare these two codecs at http://www.how2dance.com/vidcomp/ With the new on2 vp6 plugin you will see a huge difference.

BUT, don't get flix from on2.com, their compression is terrible compared oven to the old sorenson spark codec (see http://www.how2dance.com/vidcomp/index2.htm).

Here is what I suggest. Get sorenson squeeze 4.2 for flash (http://www.sorensonstore.com/produc...s/sq4mfwin.html)
$119

and then get the on2 vp6 plugin from them
http://www.sorensonstore.com/produc.../on2vp6pro.html
$179

You will definately get the best results using that. You can compare the flash 8 video export versus the older sorenson spark codec (http://how2dance.com/vidcomp/index2.htm). Sorenson performs a bit better, and smaller file sizes. And the new on2 codec does much better IF you compress Dual Pass VBR (http://how2dance.com/vidcomp/index.htm), I got about less than 5/8ths the size and better quality.”

Note: The solution above still requires and outlay of US$300 !

About this time I decided to look at Quicktime again. My reasoning was that if I went the Flash 8 route I was going to force my target clients to download a plug-in, and if I was going to do that I may as well look at Quicktime 7 and the opportunities it presents.

At this point in time, Apple are bundling Itunes and QT7 together in one 32 MB download, which is a bit of a pain if you are on dial –up but hey – my target clients are broadband users. Anway, if you download from here : http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/standalone.html .you download an install file that is Quicktime 7 only without Itunes - the size of the download is 20 Mb.

The H.264 codec that is included with Quicktime pro is amazing. This codec is an open standard - it forms part of the Mpeg4 standard ( its called Mpeg 4 part 10) and outperforms Mpeg 2 and Mpeg 4 in terms of file sizes and image quality and is capable of doing so at the HD ( High definition video) and the 3G ( video for mobile phones) end of the video scale.

H.264 is also used in the new Ipod video - which might be the “killer app” that makes this standard gain wide acceptance.

Lastly H.264 is also going to be used on the DVD-HD and Blu-ray disks.

I believe the open-ness of the H,264 standard, the fact that it has been implemented widely and its technical superiority make it a standard that is well worth evaluating.

Lastly…..cost…Quicktime 7 Pro gives me the tools to translate all my video assets to the H.264 standard and the price is AU$44.

I’ve done some initial tests and found that H.264 will create video that is the same quality as Mpeg4 at half the file size. - I think this suits my application .

A 320 x 240 movie - 15 frames per second with 16Khz AAC audio - length 2:13 minutes came out at 1.60 megs and it was really good quality – quite watchable!.

I’m impressed enough that I bought a QT7 pro license for my own use.

I will upload some test videos soon to show the differences.

Addendum:

Looking at the doom9 forums, the dvd ripping fanatics weren’t too impressed with H.264 and Apple’s implementation of it. But I think it’s a case of different people with different needs.

Quicktime provides an adequate implementation with a user interface that normal people can use. – coupled with an easy way to transcode for the Apple Ipod video means that most people will be happy.

Being at the cutting edge is risky and nothing will be perfect. But I think there is enough here to make most people happy.

flite blog

2005-10-18T11:03:00.000+09:30

Here's an article that offers some sage advice... from 1999 with a 2004 update... although thangs might have moved a lot in 5 years some basic tenets ( when it comes to putting video on the web) still hold true.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990808.html

putting a picture in my blog

2005-09-26T11:08:00.000+09:30

RSS in teaching and learning

2005-09-13T10:00:00.000+09:30

i'm so busy these days my blog has degenerated into an online bookmarks holder.

Yesterday, I watched a online presentation on RSS etc. the accomanying website is here

DTV - the next big thing in podcasting?

2005-08-30T16:21:00.000+09:30

I just found this link today. and... I have a mac to work with...:)

so watch this space.

pc version of sub etha edit?

2005-08-30T11:56:00.000+09:30

flite blog

when I read this artcicle from http://insanecats.com/cgi-bin/single.py?month=apr05&msg=26

i was amazed I was walking around in a daze. at the impact this could have on teaching and learning. The only problem... it was Mac based....

but maybe this is a PC equivalent??

http://networkimprov.net/airwrx/

osx on Intel.

2005-08-30T11:40:00.000+09:30

wow! Osx on Intel is coming to a PC near you soon......

flite blog

2005-08-24T10:03:00.000+09:30

Too much time on your hands?

how about this?

http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/spearhead/mini-itx/case-mods.jsp

more podcasting hardware

2005-08-22T13:04:00.000+09:30

The site podcasting rigs , lists suitable hardware for entry level podcasting setups...
I think they start at a level that is still a bit too high. - but it is a useful reference.

edcucation webloging tools

2005-08-19T15:56:00.000+09:30

Here is a link to explore......

http://educational.blogs.com/instructional_technology_/podcasting_tools_and_services/

links to blogs about podcasting chapter tool.

2005-08-19T15:46:00.000+09:30

Enhanced podcasts - How to make them is covered in these links below. Unfortunately no Windows PC tool yet. ( damn damn DAMN!)

http://www.voxmedia.org/wiki/PodcastChapterTool

http://www.celerityfm.com/podcastchaptermaker/

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/07/how_to_make_enh.html

copy...right?

2005-08-19T15:43:00.000+09:30

an interesting presentation.... from Lawrence Lessig. here. I must thank Leigh for putting me onto this one......

oh... you've probably need broadband for this one.

podcasting microphone

2005-08-19T15:37:00.000+09:30

Here's a nice little gadget. instead of buying mixers and stuff to do your podcasts, here is a studio microphone that plugs straight into your PC's USB port. - quick, easy, simple. It comes with some software to emulate the stuff you've be doing with a mixer anyway. nice!

You can read all about the microphone here

And find out where you can get one in Australia from here. ( maybe)

Enhanced Podcasts.

2005-08-19T14:52:00.000+09:30

One of my pet projects at the moment has been to explore Podacasting - especially for use in education.

I believe that mp3's can provide an enagaging format that easy to produce, distribute and use as an educational platform.

One of the new things to happen in the podcasting world is enhanced podcasts. now, although screencasting has been worked on by a few people with varying degrees of success ( Leigh Blackhall is one practitioner that comes to mind )

but with enhanced podcasts in iTunes 4.9 we have something that works really well.

with iTunes: -

You have a single free application that will allow you to find, sample and subscribe to a podcast with a single click.
Enhanced podcasts can pop up a diagram or a JPG picture complete with a weblink to open a browser to a certain webpage.
The pictures can be changed during the podcast so that they are revealed at a critical point in the audio presentation.

so, using iTunes, you have a free delivery platform that can be used on Mac or PC is multimedia ( well, mostly) and will work nicely over a dial up connection.

I see great potential in using this for education.

So what is the downside? - the podcast chapter tool, ( the software used to create enanced podcasts) is only available on Mac. - But i will bet dollars to do-nuts that a windows version will be out soon.

I am very keen to try it out.

If you would like to see an enhanced podcast, download I tunes 4.9 (www.apple.com) in the "music store" you can select podcasts and some of the podcast titles are annotated ( enhanced)

podcasting application

2005-08-19T14:47:00.000+09:30

Jeez. a whole month has gone by without a blog entry! it goes to show that there is whole lot of stuff going on in my life at the moment, and I'm not that sure i want to blog it. but anyway, I have a couple of things that I want to blog about. The first is this: -

Castblaster is a windows application designed to make creating a podcast easy. - if you have a highspeed or broadband connection, watch the video from the site. It seems nifty.

podcasting hardware to drool over

2005-07-12T22:27:00.000+09:30

I found this company's website and I was impressed that they gave podcasting equipment such a high profile. It's encouraging that people are supporting podcasting in this way.

Of course, this is an American company, but most of what is nicely advertised on this site would be available from dealers here in Australia.

so, checkout http://www.soundprofessionals.com its a nice site, and confirms that even my humble setup (iRiver IFP790) is quite capable.

next blog button.

2005-07-10T13:11:00.000+09:30

flite blog

Well, i was aimlessly surfing. and I explored the "next blog" button that you can find on most blogspot blogs ( including mine) just to see what would pop up.

It seems to go to blogs randomly rather than sequentially. - here's what I found.

A blog that was run by a guy from some church in virginia. - he was sermonising about people who leave their marriage to find "freedom and liberty" - he was pointing out that this phrase was misused and in american socity used to excuse questionable actions.. I can at least agree with him on this point.

A blog from a teenager who hated everything about his/her school. - I dont know why but I got he feeling this rebelious teenager was probably asked to blog his/her feelings and it was a compulsory part of an assessment. - though that there was an object lesson here for teachers who want to include blogging in their teaching practice... in that blogging - if forced is not that beneicial.

I also came across many machine generated blogs that used keywords and linked to porno pay sites or click through ads and other useless parts on fht einternet. - I assume that these pages are used to artificially raise the profile of some sites in google listings, as a major part of google listings relies on the analysis of how many sites have links going to them, as well as content on the page.

The problem is that blogspot is full of blogs that are complete rubbish. - I hope that they can come up with a way of weeding out these sites. as it makes blogger and google less effective.

Power tools for power users.

2005-07-03T22:28:00.000+09:30

To get truly powerful cool tools for use in Elearning, a certain level of computing power is required to support some of the tasks / challenges that Elearnng presents.

Some tasks require the use of a Database, or the functionality of a webserver, or the ability to capture information through a webserver gateway.

Previously this has been difficult because it required full access to a high speed connection, a dedicated server, and the expertise to install and maintain it.

Another alternative was to buy hosting space at an ISP, and then pay for an IT specialist /technician to install databases and applications etc on a server.

The current situation

The USA has an abundance of high speed network pipes and very cheap server diskspace, and, with the increasing popularity of open source software a convergence of these factors has produced a remarkable situation.

Webhosting services can now offer a large amount of diskspace, a large amount of bandwidth , and a collection of easy to install server based applications for a very low price.

A popular webhosting add-on are two “configuration applications” called CPanel and Fantastico Deluxe. These to application installers allow a web-host client to install powerful open source applications with just a few mouse clicks on a browser interface.

For example a small private RTO may wish to purchase website hosting at AUS$10.00 per month and install in a few minutes the following applications : -

A CMS /portal website complete with frames and menu system which can be customized easily yet still look highly professional.

A copy of Moodle to provide a Leaning Management System (LMS) for their students.

A Blog site for their students use, or for use as a newsfeed to their clients.

A Mail handling program to manage a contact or client database.

And many more .

Fantastico Deluxe has been used by many hosting companies ( the Fantastico website boasts a user base of over 10,000 installations.) and is open source. It supports the installation of the following applications : -

Blogs:
b2 (Disabled) (website)
b2evolution (0.9.0.10) (website)
Nucleus (3.2) (website)
pMachine Free (2.3) (website)
WordPress (1.5) (website)

Portals/CMS:
Drupal (4.6.0) (website)
Geeklog (1.3.11) (website)
Mambo Open Source (4.5.2.1) (website)
PHP-Nuke (7.6) (visit site)
phpWCMS (1.1-RC4 Rev. A) (website)
phpWebSite (0.10.0 english) (website)
Post-Nuke (0.750-Gold [Security-Patched-1]) (visit site)
Siteframe (3.1.9) (website)
Typo3 (3.8.0) (website)
Xoops (2.0.10) (website)

Customer Support:
Crafty Syntax Live Help (2.11.7) (website)
Help Center Live (1.2.7) (website)
osTicket (1.2.7) (website)
PHP Support Tickets (1.9) (website)
Support Logic Helpdesk (1.2) (website)
Support Services Manager (1.0b) (website)

Discussion Boards:
Invision Board (Disabled) (website)
phpBB2 (2.0.15) (website)
SMF (1.0.3) (website)
YaBBSE (Disabled) (website)

E-Commerce:
CubeCart (2.0.6) (website)
OS Commerce (2.2 MS2) (website)
Zen Cart (1.2.5d) (website)

FAQ:
FAQMasterFlex (1.0) (website)

Guestbooks:
ViPER Guestbook (1.29) (website)

Image Galleries:
4images Gallery (1.7.1) (website)
Coppermine Photo Gallery (1.3.2) (website)
Gallery (1.5) (website)

Mailing List:
PHPlist (2.8.12) (website)

Polls and Surveys:
Advanced Poll (2.03) (website)
phpESP (1.7.2) (website)
PHPSurveyor (0.98rc9) (website)

Project Management:
PHProjekt (4.2.3) (website)
dotProject (2.0) (website)

Site Builders:
Soholaunch Pro Edition (4.81 Build 05) (website)
Templates Express (website)

Wiki:
PhpWiki (1.2.9) (website)
TikiWiki (1.8.5) (website)

Other Scripts:
Dew-NewPHPLinks (2.0.1.0b SEF) (website)
Moodle (1.4.4) (website)
Noah’s Classifieds (1.3) (website)
Open-Realty (2.0.1) (website)
phpAdsNew (2.0.3) (website)
PHPauction (2.1) (website)
phpCOIN (1.2.2) (website)
phpFormGenerator (2.09c) (website)
phpLinks (Disabled) (website)
WebCalendar (1.0RC2) (website)

I believe that webhosting with Fantastico provides an Elearning practitioner an unprecedented amount of control and freedom to create and explore these powerful solutions. Even practitioners that are part of large organizations may prefer to use external webhosting rather than deal with the issues that in-house provision of these services entails.

Using a Webhosting service with applications that are under the practitioners full control provides better access, Quality and reliability compared to using free tools available on the internet.

What should be done.

I believe this development in web-hosting should be explored further. I think that it provides an amazing cost effective solution to both private RTO’s and Public Vet providers.

The ability for practitioners to be able to install and use powerful, secure, web-based applications and utilities in minutes is empowering and of benefit to all.

I think that awareness of these tools in the Elearning community should be fostered.

I think that the ability to host a LMS and other tools in conjunction with ANTA tool boxes should be developed so that Toolboxes can offer a complete solution.

I believe that web-hosting and Fantastico provide the tools and the environment for Elearning practitioners to fully develop their skills and abilities and allow them to offer their services independently, and not be tied to their employing organisation’s IT infrastructure.

Some websites you might like to visit to see Fantastico. : -

http://www.netenberg.com/fantastico.php
http://www.hostrocket.com/
http://www.mdwebhosting.com.au/hosting/

10 tips for flexible learning

2005-06-30T09:28:00.000+09:30

I'm going to commit heresy here and state THAT YOU DONT NEED A LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM TO DO FLEXIBLE LEARNING!!!

All you need is the willingness to do things differently.

Here's 10 tips that people can use to add a little bit of flexible learning to a teacher-led classroom based delivery model.

1. Do you hand out or produce lecture notes or create Powerpoints? Why dont you make them available to students in "softcopy" as word files or .ppt files. burn them to CD, or put them up on a intranet or internet website.

2. Do your students have email addresses? - collect their email addresses and produce an email newsletter on the subject - include extension studies or late breaking news.

3. Your students dont have email addresses? show them how to get one for free using Hotmail.

4. Create a mailing list, using www.googlegroups.com add your students to it.

5. Create a bulletin board for you students. there's free ones available on the 'net www.quicktopic.com

6. Use an ANTA toolbox!

7. Learn how to facilitate online - read Gilly Salmon's book.

8. Use a webquest to engage your students and direct them to where you want to go - http://webquest.sdsu.edu/

9. Get a headset/mic ($20) and record audio presentations of your lectures, or use screencam software to show your students how to do stuff on the PC

10. Use a digital camera. insert pics into presentations, Powerpoints, handout material. even websites!

Have fun!

Beginner's Guide to Vid Blogs

2005-06-30T09:22:00.000+09:30

VBlogs and VidBlogs – the next wave.

I think we have all seen the hackneyed statistic that our children watch 7 hours of television a day. And there is no doubt that we live in a digital world, yet we still persist in using the written word to convey thoughts and ideas, when sometimes a moving picture would be so much more expressive and engaging.

Since 1990 the standard business computer has been multimedia compatible, but its only been with the convergence of entertainment technology, communications technology and computer technology have we been able to capture and use video information easily. The internet has moved from text only, to text with pictures to text with full multimedia in a relatively short time.

With this evolution has come new ways of doing familiar tasks. We have seen Blogs, wikis, shared workspaces, and a raft of other collaboration and communication tools, and the latest I have stumbled across is the VBLOG.

Vblog, Vidblog or Video Blog is (as you guessed) an evolution of the Web-Log (blog) only the medium is video instead of text and pictures.

And just like Blogs they are used by people in a myriad of ways.

Some uses are:

Vblogs as a personal diary or journal, (www.vidblogs.com )

Vlblogs for digital story telling, (http://za.creativecommons.org/movies/ccsa.swf )

Vblogs for community activism, (http://exposed.org/unamerican/unamerican56.swf )

Vblogs for filmmaker exposure, (http://www.tropisms.org/ )

And surely Vblogs for education and training.

As with a lot of new ideas on the internet, Vblogs are riding the crest of a new wave of technology capability.

Editing video, and creating a video-based presentation is now quite achievable on a standard PC. And with software such as Video Communicator, (http://www.seriousmagic.com/newvcdemo.cfm ) - creating engaging video suitable for web delivery is a simple task.

Nor do you need to spend $2000 on a digital video camera. Solid state video cameras are available (http://www.aiptek.com/ ) or consumer digital still cameras now usually have a video mode allowing you to record VGA quality or “email” quality video complete with sound. (http://www.digitalcameras.com.au/product.asp?productid=2827 )

Indeed even mobile phones are becoming video capable – I’m sure you’ve seen the advertisements for mobile phones that can take still photos, - it seems now that the cutting edge of mobile phone technology can capture video and store it on a 256MB SD RAM card (http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news.php?id=27871 )

The access to (very portable) video recording devices means that this is a medium that could be used in an educational setting quite effectively. - Instead of trying to cram meaningful information into a TEXT message, video can be captured on a mobile phone downloaded into a standard computer, edited and then sent to a recipient or uploaded onto a website for all to see.

So what are the educational implications and opportunities that come with easier access to video resources on the Internet?

There are users in the USA that are complaining that they cant get the fastest broadband connections, while here in Australia we have people that can only get 56K dial up connections in the suburbs. And some rural and remote users would love to be able to get connections that went as fast as 56K.

Yet high compression techniques allow us to get 6 minute video snippets down to 1.4mb – ie the storage capacity of a floppy disk. A blank CDR which costs less than 50cents can hold 2 hours of highly compressed video. And a DVD-R can hold at least 4.3 GB of data. So although we might have trouble moving large amounts of data we can certainly store it.

Video and vidblogs can be made accessible using high compression techniques, so that even users that are limited to a 56 K connection can participate in this exciting medium, and as wireless broadband becomes available, people denied access to broadband will be able to participate.

See ( http://www.unwired.com.au/index.php ) ( www.iburst.com.au), (http://www.linkinnovations.com/ )

The use of Vidblogs in the classroom (virtual and physical) is something that flexible and Elearning advocates must consider. For those that are trying to build more reflection into their teaching strategies, VBlogs will be easy to adapt to.

Other innovative uses of Vblogs to teach skills or techniques, are also achievable. And certainly if we wish to engage students such as the Nintendo generation or generation WWW, - we need to be thinking of the digital lifestyle that our students now work, play and study in.

Oh.. and yes, I am well aware that to prove my point this article should have been presented as a Vidblog. 8^)

Further reading : -

An article from time magazine :

http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901040809-670850,00.html

An article from The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1278164,00.html

mobile podcasting - which mike?

2005-06-05T17:24:00.000+09:30

I stumbled upon a podcast the other day that I quite like. Its just these two guys who are Bloggers/podcasters and they work in the same multimedia faculty of a university.

They create a podcast on the bus on the way home, they talk about all sorts of things, from beer to multimedia and anything in between.

What interests me is that they are using an iRiver-790 to record the podcasts, but instead of a a couple of headset/mikes they are using a simple stereo lapel mike.

I E-mailed them and asked them specifically which model mike and its this one : -

You can get one of these in australia here.

If you want to hear the podcast that usin this mic in a relatively noisy environment - have a listen to "Dubber and spoons take the bus" here.

I find the buscast quite entertaining to listen to, and it has a number of digital storytelling components that are worth noting.

Because its a conversation between two people I thik its easier to create an interesting podcast using this arrangement. its GOT to be easier than just blabbing away to yourself.

It takes the listener on a journey both aurally and metaphorically, it just seem to have an inhewrent structure because of its location.

It has a finite time, the podcast finishes when they reach their busstop - I listenewd to some podcasts that go too long.

Anyway have a listen to the buscast, for the technical evaluation of the sound quality, the evaluation of the "teaching model" ( vicarious learning?) and the content!

internet password security

2005-05-24T17:35:00.000+09:30

Here's something a little scary.

Download this little utility : - http://www.forensicideas.com/tools.html called PSE explorer. (dont worry its ok) . its only small, so it won't take long to download. Unpack it and run it.

Now, scroll down and click on the internet explorer sites that arear in the left column. When you do you should see the username and sometimes the passwords you used on that site.

Now do you do internet banking? or Ebay? - then those username and passwords might be stored on your PC.

The scary thing is, - that if this little utility can ferret out these usernames and passwords for these sites, an email worm or Virus could do exactly the same thing, and then send that info over the internet to a hacker.

That means a hacker could get into your bank account (for example) and take your money.

my advice? - dont allow internet explorer to save your internet passwords on any site .... EVER!

speech synthesis in audio blogging

2005-05-20T13:44:00.000+09:30

So, perhaps you would like to create a podcast and add it to your blog but you don't own a microphone? Well here is an alternative that you might like to try.

If you are listening to this you have probably realized that I have fed the text to this blog entry into a web based speech synthesizer. the site will take your text and output an mp3 file that is a speech synsthesis of the text you entered into the text box on the website.

I'm unsure just how long it will take this tool to move from hey thats cool and nifty, to really irritating! But, I could see that it gives you the option to create an audio file of your blog entry without having to go through the normal production process, and I think that if someone had a speech disability , then this would be one way to be inclusive if you were using podcasting in the classroom.

I can also see how the use of a speech synthesizer could be used to convert RSS feeds of text based blogs to an audio format that can then be listened to on an mp3 player. It means you could catch up on your newsreading while on the train.

I am sure that interesting applications could be applied using this tool.

paragliding article

2005-05-20T01:25:00.000+09:30

a great little article here

2005-05-12T21:15:00.000+09:30

This is a test file showing the quality I'm getting using the Iriver and the Sennheiser headset mike.

- I'm quite pleased with the results!

MP3 File

recording using the Iriver.

2005-05-12T20:44:00.000+09:30

a couple of posts ago. I mentioned that I was going to get an Iriver to record lectures. Well, I managed to score an almost new one through Ebay and ordered the sennheiser headset mike from an ecommerce site.

I mentioned that I was worried that they might not plug together easily, and that i might have to get the soldering iron out to make an adaptor box, - I'm very pleased to say that the headset mike plugs in and works without modification.

I am very pleased with the results. the recording is clean and quiet and surprisingly the signal from the mike is routed back to the headphones so that you can monitor the input. I didnt expect that at all!

I am confident that I should get good quality recordings out of this setup.

I will make a couple of test recordings. and post them up soon.

2005-05-11T22:11:00.000+09:30

hi,

One of the things I wanted to focus on in this blog was Flexible Learning. So, one of the things I went looking for is the blogs of other Flexible Learning Leaders. - The last edition of the Knowledge tree had a concept map that linked all the blogs of the 2004 FLL's. and so recently vie been working my way through the list of blogs , and apart from a few notable exceptions most of these blogs stop at the end of 2004.

That seems a great pity because... ( and I could be wrong here) that blogs + ablogs + vblogs and pods have combined and created a critical mass - there's all sorts of additional technology and interests and support happening in the blogosphere and the whole blog scene is exploding.

I originally thought that blogs were simply online diaries or journals, - i.e. a tool for self reflection, I saw not much scope for community, I saw a few links going here and there to other bloggers. quite honestly I just didn't see much potential here.

But since I've got into it, I've realized these points.

A Blog is the easiest way to get a web presence. - you just type it in and hit the publish button.

Audio blogging and Video blogging can be achieved just as easily (well almost!)

But the combination of a Blog and Podcasting and sharing content using RSS is what makes blogging exciting, plus new search tools and tools such as Bloglines make the blogosphere and exciting and vibrant place. - full of new opportunities and ways to connect and share and .... educate.

I'm convinced that we are witnessing something fantastic happen here ( oh watch out with my wacky predictions - I once predicted that the USB interface would never become popular) .... There are some incredible writings and experiences to get from blogs and podcasts...

I'm just kicking myself for not recognizing the potential earlier

2005-05-08T23:49:00.000+09:30

I decided to try out Audacity, I recorded a minute of audio and then created an mp3 of it, I have uploaded it to audioblog.com .

I'm interested to see if they resample it to save space or they leave it at the original settings.

MP3 File

"Seriouser" Podcasting

2005-05-08T20:23:00.000+09:30

Ok lets say that you want to get "Seriouser" with your Podcasting and you want to create audio with some panache. - what gear would you need?

Ah well I've been reaserching that as well - and here's the shopping list: -

first of all, your on board sound card isnt going to cut it - not only is it unshielded and in a very electrically-noisy environment, it has technical limitations as well - something to do with the way it internally converts all recordings and samples to the one sampling rate and down-converts to the desired sample rate.... this approach causes noise, harmonic distortion etc... if you use a sound card and you think it sounds fine - then more power to you!

So you need a way to get sound into your computer. Enter the Edirol UA1x - for $169 you can have a USB powered audio interface that will plug into any late model PC (includung laptops.) It looks something like this : -

Next thing you will need is a mixer - and these days they are amazingly cheap - here is a mixer that will do the job for two microphones and a number of other devices. The Behringer UBB802 will set you back $100.00 and it looks like this : -

You will also need some studio microphones - now dont listen to your musician mate - studio mikes are different to what is used on stage. An old Shure SM57 isnt going to cut it here, we need a phantom powered condenser mike like this one. In fact this is quite cheap for a condenser mike at $179 ea. The Behringer Studio Condenser looks like this : -

There is one company that supplies all this gear and has an online presence - check out www.videoguys.com.au

ok so apart from some miscellaneous cables and some software you are ready to go!

You might want to check out this site for a heads up on some of the software you might want to try, but Audacity (mentioned in an earlier blog posting) will do fine.

good luck!

Portable Podcasting

2005-05-08T18:08:00.000+09:30

Portable Podcasting.

OK the first type of podcast I wanted to create is a recording of my lectures. The idea being that if a student missed one of my lectures they could get the mp3 of my lecture and listen to it when it suits them.

I researched the typical equipment used to create podcasting and I realized my first problem. The equipment was bulky, slightly complicated and not suitable for what I wanted to do. – I needed something portable discreet and easy to use.

When I’m presenting a lecture to a class that’s what I want to concentrate on – not fiddling with soundcards, mixer knobs, and wires going everywhere, I also didn’t want to walk around with a big microphone.

Eventually after a couple of days of Google searching I’ve come up with the following solution. : -

.

The Iriver IFP 790 is an MP3 player that can also record to flash memory. It has a built in microphone, but it also has a line in jack, so you can also hook up the mp3recorder to other devices to record. The other feature the Iriver has is that the line-in can also double as a Mic-in allowing me to plug in a headset microphone.

.

I wanted a discreet headset microphone that was small, and didn’t get in the way. I have settled for the Sennheiser PC 110 headset, which will also double as a headset Mic for Skyping on the PC.

Will these two plug together and do what I need to them to do? - well as per usual its not that simple, different microphones are powered differently and there is no guarantee that the Mic will just plug in and work, so I might have to build an adaptor if it doesn’t work straight away.

there is a website here that explains why it might not plug in and work....

Podcasting and Blogs. - use in education?

2005-05-08T15:58:00.000+09:30

Hello again,

well, my blog started out as an experimental "sandpit" as you can see if you scroll back. I wanted to find out just how easy (or hard) it was to use the opportunities that the blogging technology provides.

My next step however is exploring the application of blogs, audio blogs (and now podcasting) in a teaching context.

Michael Coghlan (http://mikecogh.blogspot.com/) has certainly inspired a lot of flexible learning practitioners with elluminate (and rightly so, it’s great!) but there is a couple of things I don’t like about it.

1. its pricey -
2. it’s a proprietary technology, I've been caught before - locked into a certain brand)
3. Its forte is synchronous communication.

Its the last point that I wanted to touch on here. Although "synch-comm" is a vital tool in elearning, I think that to be truly flexible, you need to provide a lot of your ateaching resources asynchronously. So that learning can happen anywhere and at anytime. Why? - well we all lead busy lives and learning sometimes has to be fit around family, job, etc etc .

I suggested the idea about 3 years ago (i.e. before it was a reality) that perhaps Pocket PC's could be a learning platform, and indeed some people have made in roads in that area. But as a teacher in TAFE, I must face the reality that the Institute isn’t going to buy Pocket PC's for the students and although some students might buy a pocket PC the majority are not, and in terms of equity it’s not reasonable to enforce the purchase of an experimental learning platform.

Now fast forward 3 years later and things are slightly different. The major thing being that mp3 players are cheap and most students already have them.
and, the combination of blogs and podcasts could provide a flexible, easy, and cheap Virtual Learning Environment that costs little to the student *AND* the institute.

So let’s look at this in detail. -

A blog is an easy platform to place text, images, video and audio. It’s free - to anyone and it doesn’t require high level IT skills to use one. Students can be directed to a blog and they will find the resources they want in the chronological order that it was placed there. It cheap and convenient to the student, the lecturer, and the institution.

The blog can handle text, pictures, and audio and even video. - but one of my criticisms is that you are still tied to a PC to access this information.

Podcasting - Value adds to a multimedia blog by automatically feeding the audio, to the learners, pc and/or their mp3 player, meaning that for that part of the learning resources at least they have anytime anywhere learning resources in their MP3 player.

Now traditionally the creation of learning resources is slow, and expensive, - but I think that by starting with something like the audio recording of lecture part of a TAFE course would cost little and be relatively easy to produce. - Critics would say that mp3’s of lectures are hardly a great flexible learning resource, but hell, why not! - Its better than nothing.

------

It occurred to me that although I was well versed in mp3 training materials and the concept of podcasting, I actually hadn’t installed the software and downloaded a podcast. So, that’s what I did this weekend.

I went for Ipodder for my podcasting "aggregator" - a fancy term for the bit of software that goes and gets podcasts for you, and because I had downloaded the latest version of QuickTime recently Ipodder decided to make Itunes my default podcast player.

Itunes is Apple's competition to Microsoft’s media player, and after using it a bit all I can say is that I like it! - I find the user interface quite pleasing.

Next thing to do was to find some podcasts to download. - I used the podcast network which although it doesn’t say so, it’s an Australian site. I downloaded a couple of different examples including a "radio play”, a gadget show, and a talk radio show on technology.

I also downloaded some other podcasts from podcast alley.

So what did I find?

The quality varied enormously. - I found material that was obviously created in a professional studio, but I also found other stuff that was of very poor quality.

So lesson number one to me was, that if *I* was going to create a podcast rule number one is to make sure that your content is intelligible. - I learnt this from a podcast where the host's voice was all muffled and hard to understand... obviously a technology glitch there.

Podcasting models.

One thing I do like about podcasting is that it’s new and experimental and people are trying different things. Here are some of the teaching models I've experienced so far.

1 - Traditional radio show format. - These shows have opening music, voiceovers, sponsor messages, and ending music and credits. In other words a slick radio format.

2 - One on one tutorial - this podcast was a discussion about a particular website. As you listened to the podcast you were supposed to type in the web address of the site he was looking at, and follow him as he led you around the site. (An interesting educational tool idea!)

3 - The Interview. - A one on one interview done by the host and the other participant - usually an expert in the field. Not only do podcasters do face to face interviews, but also podcasters have also done virtual interviews using Skype. So the interviewee might be half way around the world. I must admit this would be a great way to enhance a course by talking to the expert in the field.

4. The digital story. - One podcast I found was a bit experimental but interesting, it was a recording of a physicist talking about the trouble he had with his doctoral thesis. now, usually this would be too heavy, to listen to for very long, and the producer realized that, so after 5 - 10 minutes of dialogue and particularly after the physicist made a salient point, the podcast mixed in a couple of minutes of ambient music, so you could reflect on what was said, and then be ready for the next bit of heavy listening.

5. The audio book. - I downloaded a podcast that was in essence an audio book, with each chapter being a single podcast. It was designed to be entertainment, but I wonder if this could be used in a digital story-telling model for education...

6. The commentary - one podcast I found was similar to the commentary tracks you find on some DVD's - where the stars or producers discuss the movie as you watch it. The idea was you watch a recording of a show and listen to the podcast at the same time, allowing the podcaster to comment on various aspects of the show...I could definitely see this idea being used in an educational context. (click here for artcle on it)

7. The self guided field trip. - I didn’t find an example of this type of podcast, but the idea is that you download a podcast into your MP3 player and listen to it as you wander around a place of interest. I can see this being a great educational model.

---
I can see so many opportunities here to create engaging media content without having to invest large amounts of time or dollars. I think this could be a great way to enhance elearning, so, I'm going to give it a go. In my next blog entry I'm going to discuss just what bits and pieces you need to get this to work.

Paragliding

2005-05-07T15:09:00.000+09:30

...

DSC00137
Originally uploaded by pallen1.

a fellow blogger pointed out that there were no pictures on my Blog. she was right of course, - I hadn't tried that. So without any further ado, may I present my first photo entry into my blog.

This is a photo of a paraglider, and it is this sport that keeps me poor, and puts a smile on my face.

new media.

2005-05-01T23:37:00.000+09:30

I've been casually researching the "cutting edge" (?) of blogging - as you can see by my previous posts, I've gone straight from a conventional blog to one that includes multimedia - namely some audio and video . Ok , Ok some webheads would say I'm hardly breaking really new ground here, but its something at least.

a few years ago i put forward the idea that PDA's like the compaq IPAQ could be used as a platform to deliver educational "stuff" anytime-anywhere. At the time it was a radical idea and no-one took me seriously - of course these days the idea is almost "old hat". but the PDA idea didnt quite have the infrastructure required to make doing something like that easy.

Now that audio blogging uses a combination of two technologies - Mp3 - a almost universal audio format that delivers high data comprtession and RSS that enables easy distribution and delivery to a portable device - i now can see that we have a workable system for media content delivery and consumption.

Of course, one of the things missing from the usual RSS feeds of Audio blogs and on demand talk-shows is pictures.

RSS and blogs could be hugely enhanced by the ability to display diagrams, or slides or ( heaven forbid) video . and of course PDA's could do this all along. so it seems that we might see the cutting edge - at least in the blogosphere move in this direction.

I was thinking in this direction when i stumbled across this blog - Phillip hodgetts - provides a great analysis of this idea (and articulates better than I can) and points to this artcle in wired that explains it all .

of course its still early days yet, but with sites like ANT - it'll get easier - oh BTW the ANT site is useless unless you have a Macintosh.

i stil think there is still lots to do an achieve using low cost solutions that use low bandwidth - I know that i am stuck with dial-up speeds at home for a few years yet, and so is a lot of other net users in Oz.

Audio Editing

2005-04-22T22:18:00.000+09:30

I've been playing around with an open source editor that is not too bad. Audacity is an open source editor - cross platform, and has a clean attractive user interface. It can do multi track, has a number of built in effects and can use VST effects if you so desire.

If you cant get hold of a commercial editing package like Adobe Audition , or you want an editing package that is a little more straight-forward to use than Audition, then Audacity might be just what you are looking for.

it can output to MP3 format with the addition of the LAME.DLL and it already imports OGG vorbis. (I'll let you google that yourself!)

'Cant ask for better considering the price!

flite blog

2005-04-22T21:34:00.000+09:30

flite blog

A quick note. check out out this picture here. apparently its somehwere near Las Vegas, I'm not really worried that there is a spooky "Chariots of the Gods" diagram inscribed into the hillside, its the fact that the whole planet seems to have been watermarked "(C)2005 Google" every half mile........

manipulating video.

2005-04-22T11:22:00.000+09:30

As you can see with my previous posts, Ive been experimenting with audio and video. The ability to add audio and video to a blog is important, from an educational point of view - multi-sense learning is better.

but Ive already run into one hiccough - my digital still camera (Sony DSC -P8) can create small "email quality" videos - the resolution is about 160 x 112, 15 frames per second, and the file format is Mpeg1.

The size of a 30 second video is about 780k - so its ideal for posting onto a blog, but the file format (mpeg1) isnt supported by www.audioblog.com , so I had to convert it to an AVI file.

Video format conversion is one area that I've put some time in, so here's a rundown of what Ive found.

There are lots of commercial packages that will convert from one format to another, if you are editing video you probably have heard of packages like Ulead Video studio 8 and Pinnacle Studio 9 - but these packages are expensive and not ideally suited to a format conversion job - like using and anvil to crack a walnut.

One great open source utility Ive found is Virtualdubmod - very useful for changing format, resizing video, changing frame rate. Its a fantastic utility for free! - just a little hard to drive -thats all.
I recommend that if you are looking for a small swiss-army-knife type video utility that this is worth putting in some effort learning how to drive it.

As a postscript - I have asked the support guys at www.audioblog.com to consider supporting Mpeg1 as a video format. as most sony digital-still cameras support it, and Mpeg1 files are small and its a standard Codec that most players will support. thay asked me for a 10 second mpeg file from my camera, so hopefully they are working on it.

One thing I would like to see is that mpeg4 gains more popularity. its a very sophisticated Codec. to be truly Mpeg4 compliant the video file is supposed to be in a quicktime wrapper. quicktime is such an amazing player I wish it was more popular. perhaps Mpeg4 is the killer application that will make Quicktime a popular player again.

2005-04-21T04:10:00.000+09:30

2005-04-21T03:39:00.000+09:30

ok audio blog seems to have the ability to add video blogs as well. it doesnt seem to take too long to download either!

2005-04-21T01:58:00.000+09:30

I wonder if this will work. I'm posting this from www.audioblog.com

MP3 File

Hey! - What happened to my Beta video recorder?

2005-04-19T15:46:00.000+09:30

Quite often in computer magazzines or even in the sunday papers we read an article about how some amazing bit of technology is going to transform our lives. We wait expectantly for our lives to suddenlty become "21st century", yet when I think about it, technology that transforms our everyday lives doesnt get delivered from "on-high" like a buch of rules on some clay tablets, it seems to creep up on us until we cant remember doing these everyday things any differently.

Lets have a look at some of the "technology stuff" that's crept in.

I was looking through my mum's kitchen drawers a while ago ( looking for some string or something) and i found this cookbook - it was from the 50's or maybe even the 40's and it's title was "Cooking the Electric way" .... it was obviously a book designed to cash in on the wave of electric powered stoves that were being installed in homes that people were unsure about because they were new and different.

Looking in a different draw I found a book from the early eighties that explained how to do cooking with your Microwave oven.

Noticing a bit of a trend here I wonder if there has been a well entrenched industry that creates a market by making something seem a whole lot more complex than it really is?

Or is it that technology when first introduced is a bit "rough around the edges" and only taken on by early adopters ( bless 'em) and the technology becomes easier to use as it becomes more mainstream.?

Video Recorders. My first one was a Beta. and althogh technologically superior it was VHS that the punters went for. mainly because the VHS section in the video shops had a bigger and better range. - and thats the strange thing. the Video recorders
we bought were used as video players mostly , and most people ( myself included) found the whole process of setting the damn thing to record a show tedious and often subject to error.

20 years later. - DVD players are $59 dollars from Tandy's or Dick Smiths ( I ended up paying $1400 for my first video recorder) and hard disk recording units like TIVO are now on the cusp of becoming mainstream.

Foxtel have integrated their pay TV receiver box and a hard disk recorder into one box.

So I predict that in few years from now We will all be using this technology. because it is more convenient , its cheap and it will be easy to use.

And thats the holy trinity that pervasive (?) technology needs to achieve. Cheap, easy, now!

another example of technolgy change that "snuck in" - USB flash drives. they are easier to use than floppies, or CDrecordables, they are cheap and they are available right here- right now. Dell have started shipping computers that no longer have floppy drives. so the floppy disk - once a symbol of geeks - is now landfill.

digital cameras replacing film camera is a well documented example of the same thing.

so I think it is possible to look at technologies that at the moment are either too flaky, too expensive or too esiteric for the general public, we might see the seeds of technologies that will be part of our everyday lives .

I'll go on record with some predictions ( you people reading this article 10 years from now can laugh all you want!!!)

Wide screen televisions - the 16:9 wide screen ratio will become the standard format. we are already seeing it on laptop screens, camcorders are starting to record in 16:9 and the convergance of digital television, DVD recorders, etc that will make this happen - along the way LCD or plasma TV's will come down to a price we can afford.

Wireless Broadband - given time this technology will become ubiq.. you-biick... Everywhere.

Electric Cars - Petrol is still too cheap to make this viable.

7 pin and 5 pin plugs on trailers.....nahh thats never going to be sorted out. ... sorry!

so far so good.

2005-04-19T12:03:00.000+09:30

hey! - so far so good. I've managed to add a post and update my profile. next I think i might edit those links. .....

hello world!

2005-04-19T11:22:00.000+09:30

have you seen "hello world" before? .

For some unknown reason, every "C" ( a programming language) textbook would have as its very first C program that you copy and type into your computer would simply print onto the screen "hello world".

I guess it has some sort of link with birth... and even programmers see something special in that.

oh by the way, - I'm a terrible programmer. after struggling with syntax for hours on end I would always be disappointed with the fruits of my labours....( ugh! another birthing pun! )

any way more to see and do , to try and view...