Sunday, September 02, 2018
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Monday, January 17, 2011
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Moodle 2.0 Theme Competition
I'm having a bash at designing a theme for this competition. Should be a great way to learn how to do so after tweeking Moodle 1.9 themes for work and an extra branch on my Course Format's of Topcoll and Weekcoll tree.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Odd food
Odd food combinations I have eaten / created over the years:
Chicken tika lasagne.
Bree, strawberry jam and rich tea buscuits.
Toasted apricot and salami sandwich.
Peanut butter and marmite on toast.
More to follow?
Chicken tika lasagne.
Bree, strawberry jam and rich tea buscuits.
Toasted apricot and salami sandwich.
Peanut butter and marmite on toast.
More to follow?
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Wow
Last Friday I said goodbye to my form as they have been for the last five years. Very emotional for both parties as I have been like a surrogate father to them. I have cared, understood their worries and solved their problems.
I have been overwhelmed by the gifts they bought me and more so by the words they wrote - it has made all of the stress worth while. I have never felt this way before, so proud of what they have achieved and pleased that I was able to be a part of their journey - I will miss them.
I have been overwhelmed by the gifts they bought me and more so by the words they wrote - it has made all of the stress worth while. I have never felt this way before, so proud of what they have achieved and pleased that I was able to be a part of their journey - I will miss them.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Wonderful Wubi
I've been messing around with Ubuntu and discovered the Wubi way of installing it on Windows. So, after using Fixmbr to restore the Windows Boot Loader I downloaded the Ubuntu iso and Wubi and went for it. I have never been overly happy with Grub on a Windows System as if you wanted to remove and replace your Linux distribution you could not simply delete your Linux partition and start again.
I have been running it for a week or so on a Laptop and a PC. And it is starting to drag me back to using a proper operating system after years away from Sun Solaris and OpenVMS.
I have been running it for a week or so on a Laptop and a PC. And it is starting to drag me back to using a proper operating system after years away from Sun Solaris and OpenVMS.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Monday, October 06, 2008
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Options
If in doubt, choose Option 'C'. If you can't think of Option 'C' its best to make a Cup of Tea to help.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Regaining some of the faith
The other day, well umm, yesterday, I bought the book 'Code' by Charles Petzold. In glancing through most of it, I realised that I knew off by heart most of the content. That is not to say that I am disappointed that I bought it, but rather to admire such a formation of knowledge put in such a way. I am sure that I will learn some things that I did not already know in the process of digesting its content.
Teaching can be so depressing as it is hampered by constant failure from below as well as above. And sometimes (well quite a bit at the moment) I feel as if the purity of the dream that is to love ICT is beaten down by those who have to learn it as well as those who orchestrate its very position within the system.
Computing like most complex things can be both beautiful and frustrating at the same time. Beautiful because of what you see and what it has the power to do. Frustrating because you may not understand its construction or have the perseverance to pursue the disciplines required to comprehend such entities as Software creation. And yet, if you do not persevere with the frustration, how will you ever understand how beautiful something can actually be?
Teaching can be so depressing as it is hampered by constant failure from below as well as above. And sometimes (well quite a bit at the moment) I feel as if the purity of the dream that is to love ICT is beaten down by those who have to learn it as well as those who orchestrate its very position within the system.
Computing like most complex things can be both beautiful and frustrating at the same time. Beautiful because of what you see and what it has the power to do. Frustrating because you may not understand its construction or have the perseverance to pursue the disciplines required to comprehend such entities as Software creation. And yet, if you do not persevere with the frustration, how will you ever understand how beautiful something can actually be?
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Dreaming of what must come.
I know that going to work is comming back soon (despite planning for the last two weeks) because I was 'planning' in my sleep and realised by simulating the lesson in the room it will happen in that I had missed something, so today I need to make a correction to my plan so that I do not. That 'thing' was the need to create a 'cover sheet' by the students for their work wallets. Ouch - scary - but that is the way the mind works.
Did not manage to get Windows SP3 installed. I have given up, will probably rebuild the laptop from scratch at some point.
Did not manage to get Windows SP3 installed. I have given up, will probably rebuild the laptop from scratch at some point.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Computers Eh!
Today I have attempted to install Windows XP service pack 3, three times on my ageing laptop. And three times it has come up with the error 'could not update file' then proceded to rollback the installation! What 'file' do you speak of? I know not, if you were to tell me then perhaps I could do something about it. But no, you decide there is nothing that can be done and rollback far past beyond where I could have done something about it. You then tell me that the installation was partly installed and I should reboot. Well no s**t sherlock. I never would have worked that one out.
The third time, I downloaded the 300 odd MB offline installation to see if that made a difference - uh arr - would you like to go for quadruple jeapody where the fustration can really increase?
I am now going for that illusive fourth install. I have rebooted, turned off the wireless, then the firewall, the anti virus and anything else I can remove off the process list in order to eliminate as much as possible that could be blocking that 'file' - hopefully it will work and I will not have to be kept being reminded that I have to install Service Pack 3 like a repeating DFS Sale advert.
While I am on a rant, what is it with DFS and their sales? Like British Home Stores changing to BHS, and lesser known 3M being Minessota Minerals and Mining, DFS used to be Discount Furniture Stores. So what! We all know that you offer discounts, by now you must have surely exhausted all of the possible advertising scenarios that can be used to sell furniture? But no, every few weeks or so there is yet another DFS Sale that must 'end soon' - the last one was extended - as if I need to worry another will be along soon. DFS Sales are more reliable than a Bus. There must be a Retirement Home for ex-DFS advertising executives who have burnt out at the age of 33.
There we go. Rant over. Just letting off steam about the things out of my scope of control that can fustrate me.
The third time, I downloaded the 300 odd MB offline installation to see if that made a difference - uh arr - would you like to go for quadruple jeapody where the fustration can really increase?
I am now going for that illusive fourth install. I have rebooted, turned off the wireless, then the firewall, the anti virus and anything else I can remove off the process list in order to eliminate as much as possible that could be blocking that 'file' - hopefully it will work and I will not have to be kept being reminded that I have to install Service Pack 3 like a repeating DFS Sale advert.
While I am on a rant, what is it with DFS and their sales? Like British Home Stores changing to BHS, and lesser known 3M being Minessota Minerals and Mining, DFS used to be Discount Furniture Stores. So what! We all know that you offer discounts, by now you must have surely exhausted all of the possible advertising scenarios that can be used to sell furniture? But no, every few weeks or so there is yet another DFS Sale that must 'end soon' - the last one was extended - as if I need to worry another will be along soon. DFS Sales are more reliable than a Bus. There must be a Retirement Home for ex-DFS advertising executives who have burnt out at the age of 33.
There we go. Rant over. Just letting off steam about the things out of my scope of control that can fustrate me.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
The Methodology Of Existance
In a quiet moment this afternoon I started to watch The Matrix before I fell asleep. And it got me thinking about existance. That is not to say that I believe that the film is actually true, it is simply a vehicle for expressing concepts and ideas to see what happens.
So, what is life? Life is about 'scope' and the choices we are allowed to make within that scope - essentially 'control'. Scope is what we see, hear, understand, have the mental capacity to manipulate. It is often said 'the scope of ones knowledge', 'knowledge' being a collection of known facts and the ability to manipulate them to suit a given purpose.
There are lots of 'scopes', a Government has a scope of influence over the lives of the people it governs - control, power and rules. If we choose to break those rules then there are consequences, a certain reduction in choice, or at least the reduced probability of a choice option being taken. Our 'control' of our scope is reduced. How we choose to live our lives is up to us, at least to a certain extent. We can believe in the authority and rules of the scopes around us and the entities that define and maintain them. This is why the concept of a 'God' / 'Gods' or 'Godesses' exists - an entity that controls the scope of our existance that we have no control over. This is why there is infinity in mathematics - to expain the unexplainable. Now as time advances and Science progresses our understanding of our existance increases and so does our knowledge of the facts that govern the universe we exist within - that is to say the 'rules' by which the universe governs itself - in this statement the words facts and rules mean the same thing. There, I have just defined a scope of a sentance - something with boundaries.
Now I have learnt a meaning of the word 'scope' from being a Software Engineer where it is a critical component of understanding methods, classes and instantiated objects within an Object Orientated (OO) programming language such as C++ or Java. In these languages scope defines what you can 'see' withing an object or one of its methods (things it can do). If an object cannot 'see' a piece of data, then it cannot manipulate it. Scope in this sence is a very powerful facility. It prevents lots of code changing data at odd times and making the program hard to debug and more likely to crash or at least not do what you thought it would do. In the past this used to be the case. Scope only applied to the whole program or a single function. With the Object Orientated methodology bits of code can only do so much to the program as a whole. This means that they are slightly less likely to fail as an extra degree of data protection has been put in place and once a problem is found, easier to fix as more often than not the impact of the fix is contained within the scope of the method or object requiring attention.
Within OO there is the concept of 'inheritance' where Objects can inherit the behaviour of other Objects and add more abilities (functionality), additionally they can choose not to allow some functionality. This is similar to two things. One, Children, it is always said that Children should surpass their Parents. Two, Delegation, in Government and Management there is deligation of responsibility, the way of allowing other persons to perform a certain function that you can do but do not have the time.
So, what is existance? Ultimately it is our ability to understand our scope, make the right choices for our own progression within the environment utilising the knowledge we have ascimilated to provide a means for successful inheritance of the entities we create. We should not worry or get stressed about the things we cannot control outside of our scope of influence unless we can make a choice that allows that thing to become within our scope. And that choice has to be made within the rules of the larger scopes that govern our lives.
All of this sounded alot better when I was thinking it through in my mind earlier. I should have written it then before I fell asleep.
So, what is life? Life is about 'scope' and the choices we are allowed to make within that scope - essentially 'control'. Scope is what we see, hear, understand, have the mental capacity to manipulate. It is often said 'the scope of ones knowledge', 'knowledge' being a collection of known facts and the ability to manipulate them to suit a given purpose.
There are lots of 'scopes', a Government has a scope of influence over the lives of the people it governs - control, power and rules. If we choose to break those rules then there are consequences, a certain reduction in choice, or at least the reduced probability of a choice option being taken. Our 'control' of our scope is reduced. How we choose to live our lives is up to us, at least to a certain extent. We can believe in the authority and rules of the scopes around us and the entities that define and maintain them. This is why the concept of a 'God' / 'Gods' or 'Godesses' exists - an entity that controls the scope of our existance that we have no control over. This is why there is infinity in mathematics - to expain the unexplainable. Now as time advances and Science progresses our understanding of our existance increases and so does our knowledge of the facts that govern the universe we exist within - that is to say the 'rules' by which the universe governs itself - in this statement the words facts and rules mean the same thing. There, I have just defined a scope of a sentance - something with boundaries.
Now I have learnt a meaning of the word 'scope' from being a Software Engineer where it is a critical component of understanding methods, classes and instantiated objects within an Object Orientated (OO) programming language such as C++ or Java. In these languages scope defines what you can 'see' withing an object or one of its methods (things it can do). If an object cannot 'see' a piece of data, then it cannot manipulate it. Scope in this sence is a very powerful facility. It prevents lots of code changing data at odd times and making the program hard to debug and more likely to crash or at least not do what you thought it would do. In the past this used to be the case. Scope only applied to the whole program or a single function. With the Object Orientated methodology bits of code can only do so much to the program as a whole. This means that they are slightly less likely to fail as an extra degree of data protection has been put in place and once a problem is found, easier to fix as more often than not the impact of the fix is contained within the scope of the method or object requiring attention.
Within OO there is the concept of 'inheritance' where Objects can inherit the behaviour of other Objects and add more abilities (functionality), additionally they can choose not to allow some functionality. This is similar to two things. One, Children, it is always said that Children should surpass their Parents. Two, Delegation, in Government and Management there is deligation of responsibility, the way of allowing other persons to perform a certain function that you can do but do not have the time.
So, what is existance? Ultimately it is our ability to understand our scope, make the right choices for our own progression within the environment utilising the knowledge we have ascimilated to provide a means for successful inheritance of the entities we create. We should not worry or get stressed about the things we cannot control outside of our scope of influence unless we can make a choice that allows that thing to become within our scope. And that choice has to be made within the rules of the larger scopes that govern our lives.
All of this sounded alot better when I was thinking it through in my mind earlier. I should have written it then before I fell asleep.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
A hard day at the office
Ouch, what a day.
Started off with a run to Tesco's to get the weekly shop of stuff, followed by a slight break, then time to clean the car.
Rigged up an extension lead and started to hoover. Fourty five minutes later and progress had been made - I do not normally find time for this job, so it has been a while. Hoovered everything inside. Then soapy water for the plastic surfaces, followed by a complete wash of the outside. Next up T-Cut to sort out the fading red paint - some time later, in fact, more than some with extra elbow grease and superb stuff - the best the car has looked in years.
Next up, the outside Elecy door, has been fading with green growing stuff for ages, so with the brushes and black weather sheild purchased earlier, I set to work. By about 14:45 I was done and a little tired. Time for the salad and a film or two on the Telly.
The other day, I found a Sat Nag, really funny, which got me thinking today whist painting - which for the most part is boring - if you can have a Sat Nav or a Sat Nag, what about a Darth Vader Nav? It could have such sayings as:
Turn left at the next junction Luke.
Use the Force to reach your destination.
You have made a mistake, I will now starve the engine of oxygen.
I am your vehicle's Father.
Be at one with the Motorway.
More to follow?
Started off with a run to Tesco's to get the weekly shop of stuff, followed by a slight break, then time to clean the car.
Rigged up an extension lead and started to hoover. Fourty five minutes later and progress had been made - I do not normally find time for this job, so it has been a while. Hoovered everything inside. Then soapy water for the plastic surfaces, followed by a complete wash of the outside. Next up T-Cut to sort out the fading red paint - some time later, in fact, more than some with extra elbow grease and superb stuff - the best the car has looked in years.
Next up, the outside Elecy door, has been fading with green growing stuff for ages, so with the brushes and black weather sheild purchased earlier, I set to work. By about 14:45 I was done and a little tired. Time for the salad and a film or two on the Telly.
The other day, I found a Sat Nag, really funny, which got me thinking today whist painting - which for the most part is boring - if you can have a Sat Nav or a Sat Nag, what about a Darth Vader Nav? It could have such sayings as:
Turn left at the next junction Luke.
Use the Force to reach your destination.
You have made a mistake, I will now starve the engine of oxygen.
I am your vehicle's Father.
Be at one with the Motorway.
More to follow?
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