No user-serviceable parts inside.
Name: The Rt Hon KJP
resistance is useless
today
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[About labels, over generalising, and extrapolating beyond reasonable levels]
MANDY: What star sign is he?
WISE MAN: Uh, Capricorn.
MANDY: Uhh, Capricorn, eh? What are they like?
WISE MAN: Ooh, but... He is the son of God, our Messiah.
OTHER WISE MAN: King of the Jews.
MANDY: And that's Capricorn, is it?
(Life of Brian)
[Key Bored]
Nothing is surer to start a debate amongst teachers than to suggest that typing and keyboarding be made compulsory for students. (Sorry, that's wrong; suggesting it be mandatory for teachers will start a faster debate).
Every year or so we get the "everything relies on keyboarding so kids have to learn it before they touch a computer" argument.
To save the effort of assembling the standard arguments, here is the obligatory link to a set of resources. Half way down this page:
http://www.education.tas.gov.au/itproject/classroom_resources/year_11_12/infoprocessingresources.htm
Quote du Jour:
Attempted murder, now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry? (Sideshow Bob, The Simpsons)
[new users to technology]
People adopt technologies at different times. Manufacturers assume users have been in the game for a long time.
So when a new user buys a bit of equipment, they may have no idea how that genre of equipment works. If the manual is in geekspeak, the situation is a bit grim.
I use the "Ken's Mum Test". I ask my Mum to see if she can work/install/use the thing based on the instructions.
Recently Mum bought a printer. She rang Tasmanian Principal Computers on Sunday. The place was full of customers. But the bloke there managed to give good advice(to a non-technical customer) and she was impressed. So she bought an Epson C65 yesterday. They offered to carry it to her car (she's not young).
She tried to set it up: it didn't like the antivirus software she uses. Althought the TPC people offered to help, the shop was shut (9pm) so she followed the instructions and at 9:30 rang me to tell me it worked.
Conclusion: both the printer and Tasmanian Principal Computers pass the Ken's Mum Test. Well done. Esp to the guys and gals at TPC, who did well with a customer well outside their demographic.
[the secret life of passwords]
Passwords for computer access are always a problem, especially if you have lots of them to manage. Some people blithely use the same password for everything, meaning that some very insecure applications expose the same password that "unlocks the safe", so to speak.
Many of us use layers of passwords; a "who cares" sort for things that don't matter, and a "secure" one that is only used for important purposes (and ones that use encrypted or secure transmission of text). These passwords are changed frequently, often by some secret and obscure algorithm.
And some people just leave their password in full view on StickyNotes on their monitor, or in the top drawer of their desk. These people will probably feel pretty stupid explaining how all their work was deleted or destroyed.
Handling passwords and access codes is all part of being digitally literate, and this literacy is not always being demonstrated. It's our job as IT-savvy teachers to help do this.
But the best story on passwords I have heard is as follows:
"In the darkest days of the Cold War, as the world trembled on the brink of nuclear conflict, one thing above all stood in the way of catastrophe: the secret eight-digit access number required to launch the US's arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles. ....
For the sake of our sanity, then, perhaps it is best that we have had to wait until now to discover that for many years, according to an expert closely involved in the process, the eight digits in question were 00000000"
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/17/1087245047261.html?from=moreStories&oneclick=true
http://www.cdi.org/blair/permissive-action-links.cfm
Might be a good time to check your passwords are safe and well!
(useful password management info can be found at places like http://security.usf.edu/documentation/managing_passwords.pdf )
[whats in a name?]
A while back, my partner and I went to San Francisco. On a sunny day, the Alcatraz Prison sits ugly but harmless in the middle of the harbour, like some old drunk war veteran on a park bench snarling at children. We decided to go on a ferry, but Alcaatraz looked too solemn and boring. Well look here, we found a ferry to a town called Larkspur. And it went right past Alcatraz, across the bay. What a pretty name.... Larkspur. So off we went. Past Alcatraz. Past bridges and small villages. We noticed the people on the ferry were quite unusual: women with large visible tattoos, men in either Sunday best or overalls. Strange, but then San Francisco is a strange and wonderful place.
After an hour or so, we saw a settlement looming into view. There seemed to be a sea-wall..or was it? No, it was a large wall around a town...people all wearing drab colours..razor wire...what??
Straining to read the sign..San Quentin Prison....
Yep, Larkspur was the town for San Quentin. Spouses, friends and accomplices piled off the ferry.We walked off, back in through the turnstile and laughed all the way back.
Larkspur. San Quentin. A name can make something appear what it isn't. Customer Relations Management. Human Resources. Sanitiation Engineering. Innocent Bystander. Friendly Fire. Collateral Damage. Educational "delivery"....
