Category: technology

The magic & beauty of “RSS feeds” (aka headlines)

Michael ChalkLeave a commenttechnology

This week, Jill & Michael had a conversation about the mysterious things known as RSS feeds. We covered a  fair bit of ground, including:1) What are they?2) Using google reader to follow many different streams in one place3) Alternatives – follow, friend etc ..but we didn’t get onto this topic4) feeds into wikispaces. RSS is a little-understood phenomenon that can be hugely handy to getting things done, and wading gently through the streams of internet information. Here’s a recording of the session. Here’s the famous “Common Craft” introduction to RSS: Read More …

Red Dog, the PageTurner

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, adult literacy, technology

Anne Dunn wrote a story called “Red Dog” a few years ago for the PageTurners series of books for beginning adult readers. I don’t know why she’s not getting any royalties from the movie. Apparently someone else wrote the same story for a different audience. Anyway, both books are based on the true-to-life story of a dog who travelled the highways of Western Australia for many years. This dog would hitch a ride quite regularly. This is one of my favourite PageTurners stories, and i’ve heard the movie is good Read More …

Great walls of fire

Michael ChalkLeave a commenttechnology

i’m currently working in a very large country north of Australia, which is renowned for having a “Great Firewall”. i should begin by acknowledging that this is a tremendous cultural experience, and i’m thoroughly overwhelmed by the sense of opportunity. However, sure enough there is no access to => facebook or twitter, => google docs, => anything on blogspot. (So Dale, if you were thinking of exporting your free ESL club to the good people of Szechuan.. think again. The international blog community only extends so far, ironically blocked by Read More …

Top 3 operating systems – comparing sound & video over a network

Michael ChalkLeave a commenttechnology

Win, Lin and Mac: It’s true that Windows (TM, microsoft corp) occupies nearly all the computers in the known world, but there are other operating systems, and it’s been my side project over the last few years to find out more about all of them. Thanks to the iPod and the iPhone, Apple mac has bounced back from the lean years to become a major player; everyone knows about apple these days. Their reputation says they care about beauty, elegance and simplicity in their design. The iPod comes with no Read More …

How hard is it to set Language (Australian!) ?

Michael ChalkLeave a commenttechnology

Whenever i glance over the shoulders of anyone on a computer in this place, i see red lines where they shouldn’t be. Microsoft word telling people, “You’re wrong!” “Neighbourhood House” gets a big red wiggly line. Which for literacy students is frustrating, and for an anti-imperialist language purist like me is infuriating. How hard is it for a tech department to set the default language to Local, ie Australian English??! Why should the tech department have to do it anyway.. microsoft knows everything about us, and we’ve told windows exactly Read More …

Jumping Ship.. microsoft begone!

Michael ChalkLeave a commenttechnology

Well the organisation may be upgrading to windos7 and ms office ’07.. but i’m jumping ship. Migrate to “The Ribbon“? Send people “docx” files that word’03 can’t open? i say no. (Ironically Open Office can open these word 2007 files, even though microsoft office 2003 cannot.) For operating system, i’ll try Linux and apple. For an office suite, i’ll continue to learn Open Office and google docs. Open Office has a portable version i can run from the USB drive. Every time microsoft upgrades, they try to make life easier Read More …

Double-check different browsers before sending feedback!

Michael Chalk1 Commente-learning, technology

Ha ha. Serves me right for not double-checking in multiple browsers. The screencast channel is working fine on firefox / linux, also in the Opera browser on windows xp. Problem is with java in google chrome browser. Duh. Now i feel silly. On the plus side, now i’ve fixed java on my linux laptop.. that means i can make screencasts and join elluminate from that machine too. Cool. Oh, and AJ from screencast-o was very rapid in supportive response. Thanks AJ. —————————————- So i had discovered something very distressing over Read More …