Sugden’s posterous

OK - I'm finally irritated enough to comment on this.

I love my MacBook Pro. Everything about it is 'fab' - except its simple refusal to recogniZe English spelling of words. I know that i can add the word in question to my dictionary BUT WHY SHOULD I? Microsoft allow me the luxury of choosing my native language - why can't the (super talented) hippies in San Francisco do the same?

The letter zed (zee????) has no place in realise; itemise; criticise (they even have to change the 'z' to an 's' in criticism!!) and so on.

Get a life chaps and chapettes at Apple - give us our language back!

David

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We’re at the end of what really is day two, but is officially day one
now. The Improving Language and Culture with ICT course has started
well.

On Thursday, we’d heard that there was to be a right-wing English
Defence League rally in Leeds on Saturday with the inevitable
opposition rally occurring at the same time. Because our visitors were
coming to Leeds to witness and learn more about British culture (and
given that the postmen and local refuse collectors were striking
anyway) we decided that as the Latvians had arrived a day early, we
would ask them to visit York on Saturday instead of Leeds! This turned
out to have been a good plan because the two that did go to York had a
brilliant time. The third Latvian went to Bradford and enjoyed herself
too – the only problem being that we’re spending a day in Bradford
this Tuesday. Never mind.

So that was three participants sorted – but the rest were arriving at
various times in the day. Only one, from Germany, was affected and
then, only because the police had put a ring around the railway
station, that prevented taxis from operating out of there. The poor
man had to walk all the way to our hotel, with his luggage, not
understanding why there were no taxis!

Sharon and I arrived mid-afternoon.

We first went to Leeds Metropolitan University to drop off all the
tools and equipment we will need on Monday through until Friday and
then to the Novotel in Leeds, where we had our first meeting today.
They knew we were coming today, when we called in last week to check
and they knew who we were on yesterday when we came along with all our
‘stuff’ for Sunday (today) – but today (Sunday), they had no idea who
we were (but that’s another story and one that a stern voice and no
nonsense but polite attitude took five minutes to sort out). Then we
arrived at the Ibis, where we are to stay for eight (8!!) days.

We’d arranged to meet everyone at 7.00pm for dinner at 7.30pm – at the
Ibis. Which was ok, but fairly confusing because no one had met anyone
else. Luckily I have a distinctive visage and was able to attract
people from all over Europe to our table. There were fourteen of us
for dinner and as it was Halloween (another story), a special menu
too. So the meal went ok and the group got on well. Four people were
still traveling as we went to bed.

Breakfast was nice and relaxed but the weather had changed. Outside it
was pouring down. Torrential rain followed by strong winds was the
story of the day. Everyone was drenched by the time we got to the
Novotel. We’d planned that everyone would introduce themselves first
and then tell us a little more about their countries by means of a
newspaper collage. But most of them didn’t bring their newspapers to
the Novotel. So we moved on to the ‘what do you think England is, what
do you think the English are, what do you think about English culture’
activity. We were investigating preconceptions and asked the group to
mix themselves up to reach a common understanding of ‘England’. This
turned out to be a brilliant get-to-know-each-other activity that
highlighted some real stereotyping. The idea is that we re-visit the
activity again next Saturday and see how things have (or have not –
gulp) changed.

We spent the afternoon at The Armouries (after another stern voice and
no nonsense but polite attitude with the taxi company). Now we’re
preparing to go out into Leeds for a communal dinner – at La Tasca!

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Further to the post at: http://blog.midchesh.ac.uk/coolstuff/ kindly posted by Alan Carr, I'd like to add a few notes for Office 2007 users.

To enable and access Macros you need to enable the Developer Toolbar. I can't remember 'exactly' how I did this but first of all Click on the Office Button and then PowerPoint Options. It was somewhere around here (anyone who can be more exact please reply and remind us)

Once the Developer Toobar is installed you can click on it and access the Macro Security button. By default this is set at 'no macros' and you will need to change this to make Alan's instructions work. Once you've changed the Macro Security re-open the file you've downloaded following Alan's instructions and click on 'Macros'. 

To get the folder's address; locate your folder and right-click its name in the address bar - choose 'Copy Address as Text' and paste this into the dialogue box presented when you follow Alan's instructions. Don't forget the / forward slash.

Many thanks to Alan for sending this through - it's an interesting and easy way to present photos. My first PPT created this way was only 1.7meg and there were about 20 pictures - but beware, they could be much much bigger files created this way.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8299362.stm

I've just read the above - which I saw posted on Twitter by Kathy Boyer @kathymboyer and I do wonder if this is something that affects us all in one way or another.

Whilst on holiday this year, I blogged extensively - http://dsugdenholidays.wordpress.com/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsugden/sets/72157621427475884/ Prior to starting my http://eduvel.wordpress.com blog, I blogged for almost five years on my http://www.village-e-learning.co.uk/blog.htm blog page. I recently noted that I have been blogging for ten years http://eduvel.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/10-years-of-blogging/

I think I am a blogger.

But since Jaiku died (did Google kill Jaiku by neglect?) and since I took up with Twitter (which is only half as functional as Jaiku ever was or Friendfeed still is - 'for now'), I've found myself searching for the quick post. Which is what micro-blogging is all about. Reading the 140 character maximum post on Twitter has been like a drug. So much so that having finally made Tweetdeck work for me, I have a fourth column showing my Facebook news wall (or something similarly unintuitively named), which updates me on the most banal of things my 'friends' are doing. It repeats their tweets, it tells me how far they have got with the 'I've a Zombie Warrior in my garden' game or that they have thrown a sheep at me. I hate Facebook. But still it's there - my fourth column - and I tell myself it's there because it keeps me in touch with both of my 30 something kids; what my 18 year old steppy is up to; what my ex-students are doing, playing, drinking etc. But - WHY DO I NEED TO KNOW?

I can phone my kids (I can visit them - they visit me), I can knock on Betony's door, she's only upstairs, I never bothered before Twitter/Facefeed what my ex-students were up to and I managed quite well. But now, I'm constantly checking what he/she/they has/have said and no longer blog like I used to. On the upside I still learn a lot from my friends on Twitter and hopefully my contributions to that genre of community practice are valued - but Facebook? I'm in the process of killing one account - I wonder if I should strangle the other too?

b.t.w. - when I say Jaiku is dead - I mean mortally wounded. When I say 'for now' after Friendfeed, I mean it has now merged with Facebook - so it's only a matter of time before it too starts struggling to breath.

David

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