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January 6th, 2009
The next generation Apple
Apple has been running on thin ice for a while, and with false reports that Steve Jobs was on his deathbed, didn’t help things much either. Nevertheless, Steve Jobs is perfectly fine and in good-(ish) health, and the annual Macworld Expo is under way.
I’m not in San Francisco for the event, partly because I can’t afford the plane ticket but mainly because there’s more chance of me getting a free ticket to Hell than a visa to the United States. Still, I’ve been keeping in touch with the Macworld floor and speaking to friends and colleagues, students alike, about what they expect out of the event - and out of Apple.
I spoke to Beau Giles, a friend of mine living studying in Australia. I asked him what he wanted out of the event:
“Web based versions of iWork which sync with MobileMe would be a great advantage. I’d be able to work on things from everywhere, and always have my MacBook in sync with the cloud; I could have local copies of work, sync them with the cloud, then use the cloud based versions of iWork on other computers. What would be even better is not just Macs, but PCs too.”
As both a student and a Mac user, I asked him about other opportunties Apple could jump into, which other companies have already done:
“Well, even mobile versions of iWork for the iPhone and other mobile devices would be really useful. I could tap out some work on the iPhone, and arrive home to have it already synced and ready to go on the Mac.”
Windows 7 beta is only around the corner, expected in the next few days, the next version of Mac OS X, “Snow Leopard” is slated for a mid-summer release. I asked him about “Snow Leopard”:
“Any performance improvements are obviously good improvements, and I’m sure everyone would love to see these. Microsoft Exchange integration will be a big plus - no longer forced to use Microsoft software, with Exchange being integrated into the core apps (the Mail application, iCal, Address Book).”
I thankfully have many friends who use Apple products; mainly the iPod, but for those who use the Mac, I wanted to get a bit of balance. I spoke to my good friend Elliot Harrison, who has written on iGeneration before:
“Just off the top of my head, online storage applications like MobileMe free for students. It would mitigate the costs of expensive backup storage drives and provide students with a ’safe’ place to backup work onto. Instead of paying £60 (around $100) a year, maybe if a person buys a Mac as a student, to throw that in for free.”
In a hilarious twist (for me, anyway), he said afterwards:
Elliot: For f**k’s sake get rid of the Mac mini… it’s well outdated.
Zack: Apparently they’ll be bringing it back.
Elliot: Urgh, well as long as it’s updated I don’t care. 1.8Ghz of processing power can barely run a toaster nowadays.
There is plenty going on, and more sources you can shake a stick at to keep up to date. I’ll write again once the expo is over to see whether students, and those at college and university, have anything to look forward to.
If you had 5 minutes with Steve Jobs, what would you ask for? Share and share alike.
January 5th, 2009
New Year’s resolution: de-crap your desk of (most) technology
My desk is a bloody mess. There’s more crap sitting where I work than Amy Winehouse’s music taste. Productivity is a word most people recoil from in utter horror; the connotation of having to sit down and “be productive” releases gasps of shock amongst the student community.
I make it my New Year’s resolution is to halve, at least, the amount of technology on my desk, to make me a faster, more efficient worker. For example, this is my desk as it is now.
(Click for a larger version of this over-cluttered mess, of which I call a “workspace”…)
As you’ll see, I’ve got myself a laptop, a keyboard and mouse (obviously), a monitor, and a digital frame with a picture of me looking out of my office window. I also have my iPod nano and a dock, a remote control for the dock, desktop speakers, my Nokia E61 in a dock, a LiveSide sticker and a bunch of Windows Live Messenger branded Post-it notes that I stole from the Microsoft UK office.
It’s ridiculous, and it drives me mad. I can barely write essays with the amount of crap I’ve got to handle.
I have watched in the last week a number of my colleagues doing strange and peculiar things as their resolutions tick over. I’ve joined my colleague Jennifer Leggio in trying to curb all emails to “Twitter or less”, but will try and keep away from Jason Perlow’s “prehistoric computing adventure”.
The challenge
Major brownie points go to anyone who can take photos of their desk, upload to ImageShack or their SkyDrive, and post the URL in the comments below. Show your shame people; take heed, de-crap your desk today!
January 5th, 2009
Outsourcing email, opening communications
OK, Christmas is over so put down the mince pie, fatty. It’s time to get down to business, and this time I’m throwing myself in at the deep-end, in the salt-water connected to battery mains, swamped with sharks with lasers on their heads.
At university, email can and usually are absolutely everything. Not having access to it can shun those who involve themselves in societies, miss out on information relating to essays being handed in, as well as all kinds of email of vital importance.
But the inbox size can be little to none, at best. Students at the University of Kent get a measly 20MB, which when I use to try and get in touch with people, soon mounts up. Considering I use it to communicate with people in relation to ZDNet, it mounts up further. But for 20,000 people who have email accounts with the university, This equates to only 400GB used for email. Surely we should be able to get a little more storage, or an extra server, considering we’re one of the main backbones of the web in the UK?
This will run through some of the options you have, the advantages and disadvantages; looking at online email forwarding, taking your email to the desktop or limiting your ability to reply all the time by sending it to your mobile. Trust me, when you have only a number keypad, it makes life difficult when writing long emails.
Windows Live Hotmail
Because I used to work there, for some reason I get the advertisements turned off and the premium services enabled. I presume there’s a connection as I can’t think why else. It shall not, however, make me biased towards the service, but some forwarding/receiving services may require a Hotmail Plus subscription to get full services.
The new wave of Hotmail has always been about simplicity, keeping things refined and to the point, concise if you will. The main beauty of Hotmail is being able to link your accounts, so there’s no more logging in and out; merely switching from one account to the other. If you have, say, a university email and a Hotmail account, switching between the two is a piece of cake.
But that’s not why we’re here. Hotmail provides the forwarding, as well as receiving of email from another service provider. To enable POP access, Hotmail Plus is required, but other than that you can still forward to other Hotmail accounts. It works for some, but for many it won’t be quite enough.
It has “minimal” features for what it looks like; you mainly see white space if you have it on the settings which I have,
Hotmail definitely works well if you use Hotmail to access your university email, provided you can forward from your initial server (usually in the options). Other than that, getting your Hotmail to your university email account will be a little more difficult, and definitely more costly.
Then again, if you can work out how, there should be a way to activate your university email address as a Windows Live ID, but it’ll be restricted by the university, and probably one hell of a pain in the arse to get it sorted anyway.
Google Gmail
Gmail has been a best friend to millions of people worldwide. The slightly complicated interface isn’t necessarily to my taste, but with the vast and ever increasing storage capacity offered, it certainly makes up for.
The Gmail service allows you to be very dynamic in how you handle your email. You can “take control” of another email account by forwarding everything through to Gmail. With the wide variety of themes, it’s very customisable, options and integration it has with other Google services, G-addicts will find this to be a very strong solution.
Some email accounts only allow web access, but most if not all will allow forwarding. With this, you can use Google as a proxy service, by bouncing email from your original client through to Google, and enabling IMAP or POP to allow desktop access. Getting the settings and lines of communications first set can be a pain, but once you have the settings in place, you can use anything from Thunderbird to Nokia Email.
On your mobile device
Most people have a mobile device nowadays, and if you don’t it’ll be most likely down to Megan’s Law. Students aren’t always fixed to their computers, as we’re busy with social lives and binge drinking (or as they called it 20 years ago, “drinking”…), having email on your phone can be vital.
I’ve discussed mobile devices and email before, and will continue to bring you some interesting thoughts in the coming weeks about the Blackberry especially. With Nokia still claiming the mobile marketshare according to Forrester Research, the iPhone still popular and the Blackberry on the rise, email on your mobile device is getting easier and easier.
Many university accounts don’t work with mobile devices properly; this isn’t in detriment to the universities as such, but they can’t always afford Exchange Server. Again with Hotmail and Gmail, as well as other services such as Mail2Web, you can access email as you go. Using the same settings as mentioned above, you can access Hotmail and Gmail from the mobile portals (http://m.live.com for Hotmail; http://m.google.com/mail for Gmail).
You may as well forget BlackBerry Enterprise Services because there’s almost no doubt your university won’t support it. If you can get BlackBerry Internet Services to work, then you deserve a knighthood for your efforts in progressing the human race. I can’t get it working for the life of me.
iPhone’s work by entering in the settings for your desktop client, and for those with Nokia phones can use Nokia Email. Not only does it discover your settings for you automatically, it’s provided free for those using a Series 60 phone, and allows full access to almost any university email account when roaming around.
I guess ultimately, it depends on how productive you are and which best works for you. It’ll be interesting to see how people respond, so feel free to leave a comment.
Loading …January 3rd, 2009
BitLocker for dummies (…students)
Students need security; it’s a paramount element of university life. Without security, our laptops can go missing (or stolen, depending on which university you go to), and a good proportion of your life you can say goodbye to.
This came in the form of BitLocker, a hardware enabled solution which allows only you access to your entire computer. If your computer is stolen, the perpetrator will not be able to decrypt the contents, as the encryption key is just as secure, if not more secure than the SSL sequence.
However, getting the damn thing working has been a nightmare for as many Google searches of people I can find. Whilst I may not be able to give a sound solution to the problem, at least Windows 7 is making headway with a portable encryption solution. For those interested in BitLocker-to-Go, which enables easy encryption of flash and portable drives in Windows 7, skip straight to page 4.
First things first
If you have a new-ish Intel processor, great! You’ve probably got a TPM chip. If you’ve got an AMD processor, the chances are you don’t.
You’re also meant to do this before you get your files, folders, settings and applications sorted. If you haven’t, you will need to re-partition your hard drives and this is hardly user friendly.
Just to screw you over even more, BitLocker is only available on Windows Vista Ultimate and Enterprise editions, the two editions which aren’t on DreamSpark or MSDNAA. However, if you are using Windows Server 2008 like I’ve previously suggested, bingo, you can use BitLocker. It just seems to Microsoft that home users aren’t as important as the rest of us…
In case of a massive boot failure, such as “BOOTMGR is missing” which I unfortunately suffered, these can be fixed with these two handy links. Print them out so you’ve got them offline, and keep your Vista DVD to hand just in case.
And finally, this is at your own risk. Backup everything first, because knowing your luck, if it could go wrong, it absolutely 100% will go wrong.
January 3rd, 2009
A simple sociological experiment
Warning: Gratuitous devastation of a computer. Mac lovers rejoice. Digg it.
January 3rd, 2009
Mind blowing delivery of Identity 2.0
My friend Steve Clayton, long time employee of Microsoft and general geek genius, posted a video which really blew my mind. The delivery of this “presentation” by Dick Hardt, who recently joined the corporation, is unique in style, and will draw you in, like some crack addict being tempted with a chocoloate fudge brownie.
While this video may not directly involve or to do with students, it’s an interesting delivery style which should be noted for those inevitable presentations we’ll have to give. Also, some of the content about the next generation of identity; how we use it, in what forms, online and offline, is certainly for students. After all, we are the next generation of IT users - this is what we need to look out for.
Update: I’m sorry, I misspelt the title and have changed it. A little too late for Google, though.
January 2nd, 2009
Journalism vs. blogging: the present and the future
With the rise of online media, from YouTube to Facebook, WordPress to the New York Times, journalism has expanded over the course of the last decade into a new era. “Journalism” may not be guaranteed work all of the time, but it is most certainly in my eyes one of the main focuses of future careers for students.
Dr. Vince Miller, lecturer in sociology, spoke to me about journalism and blogging. He teaches where I study, at the University of Kent, researching concepts of social networking, blogging and new-age media. Of all the people I could have spoken to, I trust his knowledge as one of the most influential thinkers in his field.
His latest journal article is available online to those with Athens, Shibboleth, SAGE or e-journal access, and for those without, an abstract of the text can be found here.
Citizen journalism hit the news when it was used against China to rebel against the strict regime of government. What is the difference between “blogging activist” and “citizen journalist”?
Well, I think that citizen journalism is a much broader topic of ‘non-professionals’ engaging in information collection, distribution and dissemination. This includes, for example, the Indy media movement and I suppose really could have even included aspects of ‘community’ media or journalism (as long as it was not done by professionals). I guess that ‘blogging activism’ would be one example of citizen journalism, but the two are not synonymous. Use of traditional websites, e-mail, chat rooms and forums could be seen as forms of citizen journalism outside blogging as well.
January 1st, 2009
2009: what to expect (or at least hope for)
Zack Whittaker is still trying to work out where he lives, after one massive new year party last night. This post was written a few days ago.
Since becoming a student, my eyes have been wide-opened to the world. Through my research, learning, understanding and general mayhem, I realised my perspective on the world of “students and technology” isn’t in reality what it should be.
We can “want” all we like, but students need to focus on what they “need”. Super-fast Internet speeds aren’t always needed, but having open access to academia in places where freedom is restricted is a necessity.
Faster broadband speeds
Education nowadays relies on the Internet as a major source of academia, journal articles and research. As I’ve previously shown, broadband is essential to some students. Most academic institutions have at least a 1GB line running into the campus, but with the rise of optic cables, we could be seeing faster broadband in the home.
The rise of ADSL2+ which can enable speeds of up to 24Mbps, depending on line quality and distance to the telephone exchange, could open up the floodgates to new ideas, academic research, and on-campus cloud computing which I shall explain shortly.
Restrictions lifted on Chinese academics
There has been mass controversy in regards to Internet democracy and freedom of speech in China; a discussion I don’t particularly want to dive into too much myself. Whilst I can understand why the Chinese government does this, I condone such behaviour.
The “great firewall of China” doesn’t just have cause-and-effect on citizens, but university students, learners and academics. One of my criminology lecturers left China because the work she wanted to conduct simply couldn’t be undertaken in the environment she lived in.
I feel more needs to be done from democratically-developed countries to lift the restrictions imposed on academics - as a first step towards Internet freedom in the region. I know many will agree with my sentiments on this topic.
Windows 7 and multi-touch
Windows 7 will be the first operating system which fully supports multi-touch features. This could well be the revolution we are looking for; high performance machines, and full human-interaction with models on display. Just take a minute to think; a medical student fully examining a 3D model of a body, an engineering student pushing down on a virtual chassis to see the load bearings, or an architecture student brushing a building as if it was a high wind. I have high hopes for
A new theory as to why we’re here
When I first heard of the Large Hadron Collider, I thought it was a cocktail drink… “larghadron colada”… instead, it could hold the key to the Big Bang, and essentially why we are here. Crikey, that would be a bit strange; a cocktail which could end civilisation as we know it, or as we call it, “an ordinary Friday night in Manchester.”
The LHC, if it works, could literally blow open the world of physics as we know it, and revolutionise the way we think about the universe. After the disappointing breakdown shortly after it was first turned on, we can expect the LHC to power up again in the summer.
Cloud computing reliability and stability
The ability to access your files from anywhere and everywhere is no longer a thing of the past. Using mesh technology, linking and connecting your devices together, working from home and the university library becomes a seamless, lossless experience.
With Windows Azure, a highly scalable platform for developing web applications, cloud computing can be brought to the campus, essentially creating a “cloud campus”. There will no more web browsing directories of files, mapping of network drives, VPN or FTP. The power of the mesh shall be realised in 2009, and I hope, as all students should, that universities jump on the mesh bandwagon and create studying a more meshified experience.
Micro-blogging/emailing to rocket
I’m not a huge fan of Twitter, and still don’t see the point. But after reading an article on micro-emailing by my good friend, Jennifer Leggio, it made me think about the power on how “shorter is power”.
University students are busy, busy people. When we’re not struggling to cope with our caffeine overdoses as we scribble down the final words of our essays, or partying like its 1988, we’re emailing and organising our lives. Shorter essays are always harder to write because of the concise nature of what is being written. Having shorter, more information packed into one short space could take off as being “more efficient and more powerful communications”.
We will just have to wait and see. Let me know what you think.
December 29th, 2008
Some minor criticisms of the Windows 7 beta
After using the finalised Windows 7 beta build (build 7000) for a good few days as my primary operating system, I’m exceptionally happy with it. I’ve tried to find bugs, as it is pre-release software, but so far have found none, which bodes well for the software giant. I do, however, have a few criticisms which for me, are hit me like the shrieking cry of a baby, nails down a blackboard, or even the thought of wet cotton wool for some strange reason. Eurgh.
Cut out the XPS nonsense
Microsoft embarked on the XPS file type in Windows 2000 originally, but only really came to light with the release of Windows Internet Explorer 7, where functionality was integrated into the browser. With a standalone XPS viewer in Windows 7, I cannot foresee many people using it. It may be an open XML specification, but the PDF has a long way before it is knocked off the majority market share.
It has potential, and it works well, with many manufacturers taking the specification and using it in their hardware. But to see the XPS as a “PDF killer” is incredibly unlikely, and personally think Microsoft should drop it. Have you ever seen a document provided in an XPS format over a PDF file? I can’t say that I have.
Search sucks
Of all the operating system search engines I’ve used, I still find Windows XP easiest to use. With some interesting “improvements” in Vista which had barely changed from beta to release, this complicated things for me quite a bit. Now in Windows 7, searching for a file has become increasingly difficult. Often when I search, it’s a specific file type or a file size greater than 30MB or so; to de-clutter my hard drive. The size option is still available, but for the life of me I cannot work out how to search by other parameters. Whether the Start menu search has replaced the main functionality of the F3 key, I am still unsure, but I just want a decent search box with plenty of options, please.
Make BitLocker a little bit easier
I have always found BitLocker to be a right royal pain in the backside. You need a compatible chip on your processor otherwise the setup process won’t even begin, and having the compatibility between Windows and the chip is another problem. In theory, BitLocker is a great idea; locking your entire hard drive if it is stolen or misplaced.
In practice, buying a whole set of laptops for your employees, may not even be compatible with the software because of the lack of a trusted-platform module (TPM) chip. There are hacks out there, but I’ve never seen a solution which actually works. Not only that, for those who have their computers already set up, may have difficulty because an extra hard drive partition is needed. Would you really risk your all set up and configured computer for the sake of an extra bit of security? Tempting, but when time is involved, it’s probably going to be “no”.
“BitLocker to Go” works a treat. If only they had left a BitLocker enabled flash drive on that train instead of a wad of top secret documents, they (probably) would have been fine.
Consider the ergonomics of the taskbar
For decades, Windows users have learned the ways of the taskbar. Think about it; you don’t move your cursor to the Start menu to then click, you simply move your mouse towards the bottom left of your screen. The same with the clock; to access the clock you move your mouse to the bottom left, without even thinking about it. There’s no accuracy involved, there’s even little in terms of thought process.
With the added feature of “Preview Desktop” taking the clock’s place in the bottom-right of the screen, I fear some users may be thrown off guard by it. It’s only a little change, and it can easily be turned off. I cannot see why it can’t be placed to the left of the clock, keeping the taskbar layout the same. Although, with the taskbar changes already in the beta, maybe it is time for a change.
Compatibility woes
Common applications which were not fully supported when Vista first came out was a big step back for Microsoft. While their own brand of products; Windows Live, Office 2007 and the developing applications like Visual Studio worked a treat, many anti-virus companies felt the brunt of the sharp compatibility stick. A few of the programs I use and love do not work in this version of Windows. WLMLite, a portable version of Windows Live Messenger, ideal for those at work who can’t download it, doesn’t work. Nero 9 Essentials won’t even install without spitting the dummy out. Skype works, but only after a handful of warning messages telling me of the incompatibility, and I won’t even start on what iTunes does; suffice to say, “a world-class meltdown”.
Aero Shake and Tourette’s
I have Tourette’s syndrome, as many of you are aware, and it’s the full whack of Tourette’s where you swear, shout, twitch, and generally look a bit of a nutter. When using a computer, my hand twitches and I occasionally smack the mouse onto the table, resulting in a number of mice being destroyed. But when I’m moving windows around my screen, my hand twitches, resulting in all but the active window being minimised; the new feature “Aero Shake”. Now, this is a good feature to have, but at least have an option where we can disable it easily. I’m sick of my windows being minimised without my conscious say-so.
Is there anything I’ve missed?
Update: even with a critical post, I have just discovered something aesthetically brilliant. Holding the shift key as you click on a taskbar icon opens up a new window, but does it in a mini firework show of vibrant colour. I have yet to discover though what this feature is called, or what it is meant to actually do.
December 28th, 2008
The next generation of terrorism
Universities are rife with extremism, rising revolution, dangerous liaisons and society-changing thoughts. This, to some, might be a terrifying thought. But for many, it brings back memories of the 60’s and 70’s, when our parents were fighting for change, especially in their battle to remove troops from Vietnam.
With so many intelligent people all in one place, the ultimate in secondary socialisation takes place; learning from others, sharing ideas, challenging constructs and thinking outside the box. And in the rise of social media, there are new ways to connect with others to report on matters of terrorism. But social media can also be to recruit, considering the numbers: just under half of the population of London have joined Facebook’s “London” network, the biggest on the social networking site.
An interesting point made by “the unofficial Facebook blog” points out the dangers of joining extremist groups on the social networking website:
“Think about it like this: If the British government decides to say that joining a Facebook group is the same as joining an extremist group in the real world, it may cause a great deal of people to take a moment of pause when deciding what Facebook groups they join.”
Of course, when my generation of students heads into jobs that require security clearance and vetting, they’ll certainly get pounded for what they have on their Facebook profile. I did. The spread of terror on Facebook not only reaches the end-user but spreads to even the most “prestigious” of university campuses.
In terms of what we use, with the amount of information available on the Internet and with the amount of data held on us as individuals, it wouldn’t surprise me if these were the next targets for the next advanced generation of terrorism. This can apply also to the “vital core services” of our online live; news, stocks and shares, email and even Google.
Amongst many things, Zack Whittaker is a good-for-nothing, pink-sock wearing, tea drinking, British student at the University of Kent, Canterbury, on the south-east coast of England. Currently in his second year, he decided to change courses to BA (Hons) Criminology and Social Policy, because he got bored with computer science.
Have a look at his public biography and work disclosures of his current and past industry affiliations, or fire off an email if you feel like sharing a story, or just feel a bit lonely and want a chitty chat and a virtual hug.
Recent Entries
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