Oui, Wii

Posted on August 8, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

Yes, we got one.  I waited until the Christmas/Valentines/St Patrick’s/Memorial Day/Fourth of July rush was over.  And then I still couldn’t find one.

Finally, the stars aligned and my local GameStop had one.  They had a dozen.  I was there a few hours after they were delivered.  I got the last one.

If you haven’t seen the latest console from Nintendo, it is a technological marvel.  It’s not much bigger than an external DVD burner.  The remote is wireless so you can play from anywhere in the room.  It comes with Wii Sports which includes: Bowling, Tennis, Baseball, Golf and Boxing.  Best of all, at $250 it is about half the price of a PS3 or XBox 360.

The Wii Remote (Wiimote) creates the additive play.  You literally have to stand up to use it.  This is because the Wiimote has sensors that detect how you move it.  It can tell if you are swinging, twisting or poking.  This means Wii Bowling is pretty much like real bowling.  You want to hook it?  Do a little wrist snap when you release.  If you want to throw the ball harder then speed up your delivery.  Just don’t release the ball too late or you’ll loft it.  A wrist strap prevents you from launching the Wiimote into your TV.

I have never seen a console that is this natural to understand.  All the games play just as you think they would play.

The Wii comes with a wireless NIC that handles WPA.  I connected it to my network and started up the Weather program.  I typed in my zip code and got the local time and temperature with a five day forecast. I can easily do the same on my computer, but then I zoomed out a little so I could see the whole Earth. The pointer looks like a hand. I grabbed the Earth and gave it a spin. As it went around I could see the weather reports from every continent. It was fun to see the weather like this.

There is a web browser (Opera) for the Wii.  I haven’t downloaded it yet, but I’m sure I will.  This might be the easiest way to get YouTube videos onto my TV.

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The Vista Switch

Posted on August 7, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

I have eased into Vista over the last couple of months.  I had too many critical programs on my old system to risk an upgrade.  I had my data backed up, but I could not risk the chance of some of my applications would not be able to handle the upgrade.

I did a fresh install on a machine with 2 GB of RAM.  I moved my good video card over with both of my monitors.  So far I have had very few problems, but there is one thing I can’t solve.  I can’t get VNC to wake my machine up if the screen is locked.  I run VNC and Hamachi on all my computers.  The free version of RealVNC (my favorite flavor) isn’t compatible with Vista.  I tried Ultr@VNC and it worked until my password protected screen saver kicked in.  Once that happens, there is no response from Vista.  I don’t have hibernate turned on, but the screen password seems to kick the machine into a different video mode that cuts the VNC connection.

There are some huge positives in my short Vista experience.  I love the Start menu.  I click the Windows-Key and a letter or two of the program I want to start and Vista finds it.  It does the same with documents.  Actually, it works with anything.

I do a lot of file renaming.  F2 still does the trick, but Vista doesn’t automatically highlight the file extension.  If I rename a file, the OS assumes I still want those last three letters to remain the same.  It takes an extra click to highlight the extension to change it (which I rarely do).  This is more efficient for me about 99.44% of the time.

I use the Sidebar with a few widgets.  I like the quick loading calendar that pops up with Windows-Space Bar.

The snipping tool is great for quick screen captures. 

The user directories are much better.  Everything is in a folder called “users” instead of “documents and settings” (what a dumb name).  All the “my” prefixes are gone too.  Now it’s “Documents”, “Pictures” and “Videos” instead of “My Documents”, “My Pictures” and “My Videos”.  Vista also included a “Downloads” folder.  This is something I have manually created on all my computers for years.  Where else would anyone store downloaded programs?  Finally it is built in and pre-programmed to communicate with applications that download files.

The “User Access Control” isn’t nearly as bad as the Apple commercial would have you believe.  I get beeped once a day at most.  As I get my machine tweaked, I will hardly see it at all.

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Over 200 RemarkableOhio Pictures

Posted on August 6, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

Over the weekend I went to Ottenbein College to pick the kids up from band camp.  Before I left I scanned the OHS site to see if there were any markers on campus.  There were two plus one a few blocks away in downtown Westerville.  On the way home I scared everyone with my best impersonation of “Josh” and slammed on the brakes when I saw a marker beside the road.

blank-marker.JPG

Here’s a strange marker.  It’s the flip side of the  Benjamin R. Hanby memorial marker.  So far this is the only marker I have come across with printing only on one side.  Usually the back side of the marker is the same as the front side unless extra room is needed to finish the story on the front side in which case it is continued on the back.

After posting my last set, I checked the map and we are up to 202 pictures.  Many thanks to Mr. O for posting almost 50 pictures to our Flickr map.  Last week I stumbled upon his blog because he had posted a reference to an Ohio Historical Marker.  It turns out he has a nice collection.  I left a comment about the project we have going on Flickr and he tagged his pictures and added them to the map.

This is one of the great benefits of social networks.  Several people with similar interests can easily find each other and collaborate on a project for the benefit of the children. 

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Efficiency Tip #102 – The List

Posted on August 5, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

I had to rebuild one of my computers this weekend.  I do this from time to time.  Windows has an entropy problem and the OS seems to run best when freshly installed.

Since I like my computer setup in a particular way, certain applications must be installed on a new computer.  I keep a list of all my critical applications.  In addition to the typical programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint, my list includes a lot of little things like my batch programs and all the command line utilities that I use.  Most of what I install is free: WS_FTP, RSS Reader, 7-Zip, Eudora, Firefox, etc.  The list assures I don’t leave anything off.

In case my computer crashes, I keep my list on the server.  I have found that I do re-installs enough that I also store most of the programs from the list on the server.  In fact, the program directory itself is as good as the list.  I start installing from the top of the directory and work my way down.

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Tough Choices or Tough Times

Posted on August 4, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

Last week I read several articles about this paper from  the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce.  A PowerPoint is here.  This reports says that the American standard of living is going to take a nasty dive if we cannot increase the number of people working in “creative” fields.  The chart below shows the three types of work defined by the report.

creativework.png

The areas are routine work done by people.  Routine work done by machines.  And finally, creative work.  Notice the triangle is split near the bottom of the creative diamond.  Only the top portion of the graph will be work done in the United States.  Almost all routine work will be completed in less developed countries.

Education (part of the creative diamond) will need to change drastically.  The commission recommends we begin to recruit teachers from the top third of all graduates.  Create an incentive for these students to go into education by offering a six-digit pay scale for the best teachers.  

We need to train students to solve problems.  One of the key points in the PowerPoint explains that our students must be creative, innovative and able to learn new things quickly.  That last point is a tough one.  It is one I stress in my classes all the time.  Being involved in technology requires me to continually learn new things because I have to teach them.  All educators need to do the same.

There was a time when the first computer course every educator took was programming in BASIC.  The computers we had in our classrooms didn’t do much more than BASIC.  I remember when Hypercard was the topic everyone needed to learn in education.  Now very few of my students have heard of the program.  In the mid-90’s we learned HTML.  At the start of the 21st century video editing was hot.  Now we have to manage web 2.0 applications.  Somewhere in there all our presentations switched to PowerPoint and we started taking all our pictures with digital cameras.

Students graduating from high school last spring had Microsoft Office available to them from kindergarten through twelfth grade.  Most of them will take a course in college that introduces them to this same set of tools.  Change takes time in education.  We need to speed things up if we want to stay ahead.

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