Interactive ESL Materials: A Video Lesson
Mar 19 at 1:01am by ObverseView
Thought you readers would be very interested in seeing this ESL lesson that is embedded in a regular page and includes a YouTube Movie, language explanation and tips, writing practise and is scored. I’m not exactly sure what Joomla mods can do this, but I think it’s a very interesting way to create interactive learning materials. You can check out the site by clicking on the image. Don’t forget to check out the rest of Chris’ website, too at http://www.nupotato.com/ .
Comments OffContinue Reading
EeeBlogger Review: ASUS Eee PC 1008HA – Slim, fast, and beautiful
Aug 7 at 12:12pm by ObverseView
The ASUS Eee PC 1008HA is the most recent model reviewed. And it shows in a number of ways.
It comes with all of the features you need in a netbook: wireless N, Bluetooth, N280 processor, SDHC card slot, and respectable battery life.
XP runs well with the N280 processor and 1GB. And the addition of Bluetooth 2.1 means you can connect easily to a wide range of devices, including your mobile phone.
The elegant design belies some usability improvements: a 92%-scaled keyboard helping ease keyboard fatigue. The touchpad is now multi-touch allowing additional action and bigger. and the right shift key makes touch-typing comfortable and easier.
Overall, the machine is better designed, but the battery life isn’t as long as the ASUS Eee PC 1000HE at just over 4 hours. Nor is the battery unit replaceable by customers. So you will have to carry that power lead just in case. And the unit is more expensive than either of the other models.
Available since May ’09. Ships quickly with 1-year manufacturer warranty and 30-day flawless display warranty . Current price range: $410.00-430.00. 
Click to find out more about the ASUS Eee PC 1008HA, warranties, pricing and ordering.
Comments OffContinue Reading
How many phones did you buy?
Feb 22 at 1:01am by ObverseView
Our little business has been using the same phone for nearly three years: a base system with two handsets that are wireless. It’s a traditional analogue signal telephone system made by Philips.
Just as we were clearing up for Chinese New Year, the units became less and less functional, and the base unit developed a cable problem: every time someone called, and you grabbed the handset quickly, the cable would fly out. Not good for first impressions.
So, today, I went shopping: I ended up by two separate phone systems for our business: a wireless phone system with an answering service and two handsets for the teachers room, and a small business phone system that could handle two lines. It also contained a ‘hold’ function.
For those three phones, I spent nearly US$200 (or NT$5700) but I’m hoping I’ll get more reliable service from each of them, as I didn’t buy cheap models like before.
For some kinds of consumer goods, especially phones and other items that get a lot of abuse, buying cheap really means buying dear.
Comments OffContinue Reading
Playing Scrabble… Some games can’t be played right now
Aug 17 at 12:12am by ObverseView
Well, it’s difficult to play this game right now… But I’m hoping that they’ll sort out their servers before much longer. I’m one up and one down, with some great but tight games… I’m averaging about 600 points a game. I’ve heard that’s not bad, but I don’t know.
Anyone else enjoy playing Scrabble? Drop me a line!
Comments OffContinue Reading
iPhone or OLPC? Which will have a greater impact?
Jan 14 at 7:07am by ObverseView
This week saw two major technology announcements both of which have potentially large implications for users world wide. The first was the iPhone launched by Apple at MacWorld. The second was the “One Laptop Per Child”, a project that promises to “create(sic) expressly for the world’s poorest children living in its most remote environments.”
and
You can visit the websites to explore the projects yourself. Both of them are INTERESTING!
The iPhone could, in fact, inspire a whole generation of users who would love the convenience and power of the phone in dealing with calls, internet, ipod and pc style functions. There is, however, a serious concern on the kinds of limitations that Steve Jobs is thinking about:
“We define everything that is on the phone,” he said. “You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers.”
As a result, we can consider that this will be a fairly closed system, despite being based on OSX. Now, as a PC user this seems quite a limitation:you won’t be able to run applications that Steve doesn’t want you to. The closed system will, in the long term, limit the expansion of the system.
On the other hand, there is the OLPC. This is potentially a huge development, both for the children in the developing world and, I believe, for the developed world. Its effects will be far reaching for the developing world by empowering a generation of kids who will be able to learn the ins and outs of both computing and the Internet.
However, the OLPC represents a number of positive points for the developed world: it will spur development of a whole new generation of information devices that will bring the Internet world to people and places that have now only been on the fringes. Educationally, the OLPC will allow schools to have units for every child in the school, as well.
In addition, since it’s open architecture, I think that the OLPC will be the device for a generation, if not in its first incarnation, in its second or third. It has very low power consumption, very light and strong construction, open design, USB ports for extensions, and networking facilities, both formal and informal.
Comments OffContinue Reading
HP, Calendars and a brand new camera system!
Jan 3 at 12:12am by ObverseView
Well, Ted from PPP is giving away 5 sets of HP Photo Gear to encourage us Posties to improve our skills in digital photography.
Ted just got a shipment of ten awesome new 6 megapixel digital cameras and photo printers from our friends at HP. These things are SWEET and we want to get them in the hands of our Posties. Ted heard Tamale’s sob story and she found a new camera on her desk the next week.
Now who wouldn’t want one, eh? I ask you… WHO? And I am not going to tell Ted a sob story. I got too much to do right now, and I can’t find my box of tissues. So here are my three reasons why I think a great HP Camera should be finding its way to me, despite the fact that I spurned this offer three times, until I saw my Calendar that I had made, courtesy of Lulu.com, for 2007. You can read about that here.
First reason: I really want to make some great Calendars. I am now planning several themed calendars: including North East Coast of Taiwan (where I live); and Sights of Taipei. I know that they will never be great sellers, but hey, I can dream, can’t I?
Second reason: I’m also planning a book called “Soup, Sandwiches and S**!” My wife has learned the knack of making some great sandwiches including a B(E)LT – the E stands for Egg! I love making great soups, and the last category is up for grabs, it could be Snacks, Sweets or Shakes or Smoothies? I dunno yet. But a great camera would help a great deal to make some mouth-watering, belly rumble causing pictures to entice people to open their wallets for my book!
Third reason: My wife’s school has lots of great cute children all learning English, and it would be just dandy to be able to take photographs of the cutest ones, printout the pictures and give them to the parents as they go home! Now that would be a great advertisement – all those smiling faces, big and small, coming out of our building!
So those are my reasons… I don’t know of any of them being good enough! But if Ted gives me a camera, I’ll be sending him a copy of my book, should it be published in 2007! That’s a promise!
In fact, I’m now posting a series of photographs on a weekly basis, the first one is already up.
“HP sponsored this post.” or “This post was brought to you by HP.”
Comments OffContinue Reading
TESL-L: ghost from the past
Dec 25 at 3:03pm by ObverseView
What was that? I thought it was a TESL-L list. TESL-L was the first tesol mailing list I ever joined online. And it provided a great resource of learned posters and information way back in 1995-6. It was amazing. Fast forward to 2006, though, and one begins to see why it WAS a great mailing list, and, more importantly, is no longer anything but a shadow of itself.
You see, here’s what killed TESL-L
* annoying rules not just about what to post, but about HOW to post
* thousands of new teachers, all regaled by their professors about how wonderful it is, joining and asking the same redundant questions again, and again, and again, in fact EVERY year in the first few months of the semester
* postings being rejected for ‘trivial’ reasons that led to my colleagues and I giving up posting because we were fed up being rejected despite writing good posts, while thousands of “newbies” were posting away daily (see #2);
* long digest posts that included every known weird code you could imagine;
* it’s size, thousands and thousands of lurkers, who wants to post in front of SO many people;
* and lastly, an inane website where there isn’t even a ‘login’ button on the front page. In fact, you have to click through several pages to find the login pages.
Now don’t get me started by saying it’s version 14.5 so it must be good. The L-soft software is from the dinosaur age; why not go with mailman? or with another kind of ‘freeware’? or convert to Yahoo! Groups or any of a dozen user-friendly moves that you could make… but no! pay a wacky license fee to L-soft and make it hard for everyone else.
It’s time now for TESL-L to get with the program and …:
1. adopt a user friendly interface on the web (not the current offering, which is a joke – ugliness isn’t the worst of its crimes, either)
2. tidy up the endless crap that seems to be included in digest postings
including repeated information on how to post
numerous re’s that make it difficult to read what the writer is saying
odd/weird characters that obscure many postings (no, it’s not html or xml code, either)
3. make it easier for people to submit postings that succeed
4. move to a more ‘uptodate’ format that closes the gap between browsing, email, and RSS;
otherwise, TESL-L risks becoming a kind of remote outpost in ESL world, as the people joining the profession seek out easier and more rewarding ways to interact on the Internet. Oh, and saying “Well, that’s TESL-L! That’s who we are! We like what we’re about! We’ve always done it that way!” just brings back memories of the 78, 45 and 33 rpm LP, cassette tape, and the 8-track. I think I’ll continue to use them. IN THE MUSEUM.
Comments OffContinue Reading
Performancing for Firefox
Oct 3 at 12:12am by ObverseView
I’ve been experimenting with this tool. It’s pretty neat, actually.
Here’s the blurb…
Performancing for Firefox is a full featured blog editor that sits right within Firefox
- Works with all major blog software
- Easy WYSIWYG Editing
- Trackback, Technorati and Del.icio.us support
Once installed, just hit F8 or click the little pencil icon at the bottom right of your browser window to bring up the blog editor and easily post to your WordPress, MovableType or Blogger blogs.
It really works well with WordPress. It can handle multiple blogs and provides some stats and other integrated tools for regular bloggers. I’ve used it to post several things on this blog, so it really speeds up the blogging process. You don’t have to visit your blog, login, type and then publish. You can skip the first two steps and then just go straight for the article. Also, the right click of the mouse brings up some shortcuts for regular use so you can blog pages, notes, and upload files to your server.
Excellent.
Comments OffContinue Reading
Microsoft isn’t evil.
May 1 at 4:04pm by ObverseView
Great Tagline: Great website with lots of alternatives to M$ products! Worth checking out for whatever you want to use! Kenneth
Comments OffContinue Reading
Will Microsoft’s Strong Anti-Piracy Stand Drive People to Linux?
Apr 16 at 12:12am by ObverseView
Will Microsoft's Strong Anti-Piracy Stand Drive People to Linux? by George Lunt Windows and Piracy Microsoft is due to release its new Vista operating system either toward the end of this year or at the beginning of next year. Will this new operating system be as successful as Microsoft's other offerings?
Interesting discussion here because of some of the points that people have raised regarding piracy as an alternative form of advertising/promotion esp. in countries that are quite poor. The theory is that getting people hooked on M$ will be good for their own business as people increasingly turn to legal copies…
It's certainly an interesting argument, though M$ has to talk tough to prevent everyone doing that, I suspect that they do somewhat condone this. Linux could really dent their long term 'dependency' relationship, as could open source software in general. Once you're hooked on, say, OpenOffice… why would you ever pay for M$Office?
Kenneth
Comments OffContinue Reading
Recent Visitors