So 2000-2009, commonly referred sniggeringly as the ‘noughties’, has come and gone – and with it the majority of my twenties. For all of it I listened to what I would deem quality music, and for a good deal of it used Last.fm to track what I listened to (and make recommendations). The visualization above shows my listening habits for part of 2009, courtesy of LastGraph.
It’s not always the case that what you listen to most is the music you actually love the most. In fact, quite often it’s the case that you save music for special occasions or ration it so familiarity doesn’t breed contempt. So here are the three tracks that were made in the ‘noughties’ that I love the most – and why. The links will enable you to listen to the song on Spotify.
I remember being in Café Rouge in York with Hannah when we heard this for the first time. It must have been 2003 as we were just married. We asked the waiter which album was playing and he replied it was John Mayer’s Room For Squares. I went home and immediately bought the CD. Annoyingly, however, it’s the only album of Mayer’s that isn’t available on Spotify (which I now use instead of CDs and MP3s).
What I love about 3×5 is the feeling of distance, the sense of the inexpressible in the lines:
Today I finally overcame
tryin’ to fit the world inside a picture frame
Maybe I will tell you all about it when I’m in the mood to
lose my way but let me say
You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes
it brought me back to life
You’ll be with me next time I go outside
No more 3×5’s…
In perhaps my first use of the term, I’d call it a ‘bittersweet’ song. It’s positive yet mournful at the same time. I wish the live version did the studio version justice. It’s legendary - perhaps even more so in the context of the rest of the album.
When this came out I was working at HMV in Meadowhall, Sheffield. The Cinematic Orchestra produce that sound that’s all encompassing and envelops you. I absolutely adore, for example, the soundtrack to the film The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos they did recently. The first three-and-a-half minutes is Cinematic Orchestra at the top of the game. Then Roots Manuva’s rhyming kicks in.
His lyrics make little sense. That doesn’t matter. It’s more than the sum of it’s parts. Wonderful.
Like the rest of the known world, I found Bon Iver’s album For Emma, Forever Ago to be beautiful and with an engaging backstory. However, it was when I started using Spotify that I came across the excellent EP Blood Bank – containing the sublime Woods. It’s rare for a track to be perfectly matched in sound, concept, and execution, but that’s exactly what we find here.
Wondeful melodies combine and build up to a crescendo. Use of auto-tune actually adds to atmosphere of the song, being used to make elements sound almost like wolves howling. It’s an extremely atmospheric track. One to play with headphones on, alone. I love it.
Although you wouldn’t know it from the above, my tastes are fairly eclectic. I’m as likely to listen to The Prodigy as I am to some Ludovico Einaudi. But the above are those I come back to time and again. I’ll no doubt have made some glaring omissions – if so I’ll come back and edit this.
Suffer the poor person new to the wonderful world many of us inhabit. I don’t think the phrase ‘Web 2.0′ quite covers it any more, to be honest. Some have clutched at different titles to set those who inhabit this ‘other’ space – some have talked of the ‘networked teacher’, the ‘connected educator’ and so on. I’m not sure sure we need a formal title, but I think most people will know what I mean when I say there’s a difference between being a teacher in a classroom with a textbook, and being a teacher connected to literally hundreds of others worldwide through various communications technologies and conventions.
The trouble is, how do you get into this cocktail party?
What happens if you don’tknow who to turn to?
What if you haven’t got a Twitter network to support you yet?
What if you’ve just found a tool and you’re wondering if it could be used with students?
What if you can envisage an end product but don’t know the technological means of getting there?
That’s where this idea of heuristical templates comes in.* If people committed to using a common format to review and discuss tools and applications relating to educational technology and e-learning, then this would have a number of advantages:
It would give the newbie a common structure that they could seek out.
If Creative Commons licensed, these could be syndicated in a central place.
It would lead to some cohesion in certain parts of the edublogosphere.
An example of someone who blogs extremely well about new tools and approaches is Tom Barrett. By the end of reading one of Tom’s posts you know what the tool can be used for, why you’d use is, any problems there may be, and other people who have used it before.
To that end, and inspired by Tom, I suggest the following structure taking Posterous as an example.
* Perhaps E-Learning Templates is better? Hmmm…
Name
Posterous
URL
http://posterous.com
What is it?
Posterous is a blogging solution. A blog is a website that is easy to maintain and which has the most recent content at the top. Posterous sets itself apart from other blogging solutions as it is almost entirely updated by using email. Sending an email to post@posterous.com serves not only to set up the blog but to update it. Posterous deals ‘intelligently’ with email attachments – for example turning MP3s into an embedded media player and Powerpoint presentations into slideshows.
How much does it cost?
Posterous is free for up to 1GB of space. The FAQ says that in future Premium (paid-for) features will be add-ons to the functionality available for free.
A few days ago I wrote a post entitled Which is the best netbook operating system? The result of my experiments were rather skewed having neither access to a netbook at the time (I used virtualization on my Macbook Pro) nor to the promising Jolicloud operating system.
Built upon Ubuntu Netbook Remix, an operating system which I already have a lot of respect and time for, Jolicloud is another ‘layer’, as it were. It treats web applications and desktop applications as if they were the same, so to install OpenOffice.org and ‘Google Reader’ is achieved via the same one-click interface (shown below)
I bought myself an Acer Aspire One netbook, for the bargainous price of £99 + delivery on eBay. There was nothing wrong with it at all. I’ve simply added 1GB RAM (c.£11) to make it a bit more speedy.
As you can see below, you ’sign in’ to Jolicloud and can follow other users. This means you can see what apps. and other things they’re using.
Signing in also lets you check if there’s any updates to Jolicloud (I’ve just upgraded to Alpha 2c)
If you have more than one computer running Jolicloud, you can see the on the screen below. I assume this will lead to the ability to ’sync’ them in future?
WINE, a Windows emulator for Linux, is also a one-click affair. This means that you’ve got access to the excellent Spotify, quickly and easily!
Below you can see some of the applications I installed via Jolicloud and how they showed up under the ‘Internet’ tab.
I was delighted to see that the Jolicloud team have included a development build of Google Chrome. It’s a great browser and, in fact, I’m using it to write this blog post!
Finally, another ‘application’ – this time newsmap. Jolicloud simply opens it full-screen in a window.
Finally, just a note to say that everything – and I mean everything, works out-of-the-box. The latest release even has a drop-down menu at the top-right to select what speed you want the processor to run, or if you want it to run ‘on demand’. Legendary.
Suffice to say it’s staying installed on my netbook for the foreseeable future!
I’m a bit of a sucker for gadgets. I keep telling myself that I should hold out for the second generation of things, but I just get carried away again and again. That’s not to say that I don’t buy quality stuff; quite the opposite in fact. Yesterday I sold my Asus Eee 4G to @moodlehotpotato (Mary Cooch) after a brief Twitter chat, Skype chat and Paypal payment. It wasn’t because it didn’t serve a need – it was because there was so much potential there I wanted something that could fulfil that need to the max!
There’s many sites and blogs that have waxed lyrical about the Asus Eee 4G. From a teacher’s point of view, this is what I liked about mine:
The size and weight mean I can carry it one-handed from one classroom to another. As I teach History in my classroom and ICT in various other classrooms, this is great.
Internet connectivity is great: wi-fi is painless to set up
I could take it to meetings instead of a pen and paper.
My use of it makes staff and students alike want one. It makes the school purchasing a set more likely.
It runs a version of Linux customised for that particular device. Anyone who’s used OSX on an Apple computer knows the difference this makes…
So if it’s so great, why have I sold it? Well, three reasons:
The screen, whilst useable, is a bit small. Newer models have 8.9″ screens instead of 7″ which enables them to utilise a 1024 pixel-width resolution. This makes all the difference when web browsing. Who designs sites for 800×600 in this day and age? (my web stats show that less than 2% of visitors to this site, for example)
It hasn’t got Bluetooth built in – I purchased a micro-USB dongle, but it was a hassle to setup. I want things to be straightforward. Newer models have Bluetooth built-in.
Battery life, whilst acceptable at a shade under 2 hours in normal use, could be better. Newer models, based on Intel’s Atom processor, promise to drastically improve on that.
So what am I going to buy? Well, a post about 4P Computing over at OLPC News (Price, Performance, Portability and Price) showed that only three met the criteria for a true Netbook:
Of those, the Elonex One only actually has a 300mhz (must have been a mistake), the OLPC XO-1 is garish and not easy to come by in the UK, and the Norhtec Gecko only has a 7″ screen. It was obvious that I was going to have to cast my net wider, which is where the Low-Cost Laptop Cheat Sheet over at Laptop Magazine proved helpful. I’ve taken off the column about US availability as well as removed any that aren’t available in the UK (at least not according to Google Product Search). Finally, I took off any that had 7″ screens, changed the price to GBP, added the Asus Eee 900 and HP Mini-Note, and reproduced what’s left of the table below:
I paid £219 for my Asus Eee 701, so as you can see my next purchase is going to cost me at least 50% more. But which one shall I choose? Here’s the main positive/negative points about each one as far as I can see:
Asus EeePC 900
Advantages: Available now, multi-touch trackpad, lightweight, same size as 701. Disadvantages: No Bluetooth, 901 coming out shortly. Reviews:
Advantages: Sleek metal body, WXGA screen, huge hard disk, optional Bluetooth, available now. Disadvantages: Some users complain of fan noise, processor quite slow.
Advantages: Bluetooth, Intel Atom processor (improved battery life). Disadvantages: Potentially expensive, not available now (early June). Pre-release specs:I4U (unconfirmed)
MSI Wind
Advantages: Bluetooth, 4-in-1 card reader, 10″ screen, Intel Atom processor (improved battery life). Disadvantages: Not available now (early June), likely to be significantly bigger than Asus Eee.
It looks like if I’m going to buy now, it’s the HP 2133 Mini-Note or the Asus EeePC 900. If I can wait until mid-June, I’ve got the option of Netbooks with the new Intel Atom processors – namely the MSI Wind and Asus EeePC 901.
I’ll probably wait. But if I don’t, then here’s the HP and Eee 900 head-to-head:
Feature
HP 2133 Mini-Note
Asus EeePC 900
Dimensions (WxDxH)
25.5 x 16.5 x 3.3cm
22.5 x 17 x 3.4cm
Weight
2.63lbs (1.27kg)
2.2lbs (1kg)
Screen size
8.9″ WXGA
8.9″
Processor
Via C7-M 1.2Ghz
Intel Celeron M ULV 900Mhz
Memory
1GB
1GB
Operating System
Linux or Windows Vista
Linux or Windows XP
Battery Life
c.2 hours
c.3.5 hours
Storage
120GB HDD
12GB or 20GB
Bluetooth
Yes
No
WLAN
802.11a/b/g
802.11b/g
Keyboard size
92%
80%
Multitouch trackpad
No (scroll zone)
Yes
Webcam
0.3 megapixel
1.3 megapixel
ExpressCard/54 slot
Yes
No
SD card reader
Yes
No
Case
Anodised aluminium
Plastic
I reserve the right to make a carefully-considered, well-researched impulse purchase…
My parents’ Freeview box died this week. They wanted a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) similar to ours (Sony RDR-HXD870) but didn’t know where to start. Obviously they didn’t want to pay for features they were unlikely to use. Wisely, they asked me for help.
As I’ve been laid up with my arm in a sling after a suspected broken arm (it’s actually only bruised), I’ve had some time for some one-handed Googling and researching.
The fruits of my labour can be found at the following Google Spreadsheet: http://tinyurl.com/38u2e. It may be of help for those in the process of researching which Freeview PVR is best for them. I’ve made some suggestions! (more…)
I love my iPod. I love my Macbook. I will probably purchase an iPhone. But at the moment, I’ve got a Nokia N95, an amazing bit of kit. With all of the hype surrounding the iPhone, I can’t help but think that people aren’t comparing the specs of these two phones. So here’s a brief overview: (more…)
Last night I finished reading Wittgenstein’s Poker: the story of a ten minute argument between two great philosophers. It’s actually one of a number of books I occasionally buy originally for my mother which we then both read and then talk about, fairly informally and on an ad-hoc basis This particular book I would recommend for the intelligent non-specialist, as to someone with a degree in Philosophy (like myself) it’s a bit shallow in places…
After being properly messed about by the Apple Store in Meadowhall, Sheffield and having received an extremely flaky Macbook that I had to take back 5 times, I’ve decided enough is enough. As soon as I get my replacement Macbook I’ll be selling it on eBay. (more…)
vs. 
