My Technology Addictions

I have just read a post on Probable Distractions blog about an really cool workplace that is fitted out to look like the Nautilus from Jules Verne?s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Just imagine how inspiring it would be to work in a place like that.

This got me thinking about what other great workplaces there must be. I remembered seeing a  documentary on The Googleplex that showed bright colours fun  games and  staff moving around on scooters

so I decided to “Google” fun workplaces and I found some really cool places to work and some fun ways to organise your office space. I also found some cool desktops at nownow.com.au , I did note that they seem to be predominantly macs!

Red Bull in London has a 29 foot slide that staff can use to go between floors

We mere mortals can but dream

Cartoon by Dave Walker.

Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

I can’t believe that it is a month since I posted. I have been pretty busy with attending the WA Training Forum on the 14th and 15th of May at the Burswood Entertainment Complex, Perth WA. I was all organised for this event and had arranged to stay in Perth for the whole week. No work, no kids, no hubby. This meant that I could attend other workshops on the Wednesday and Thursday and go technical book shopping with my friend Sue on the Friday. Well that got blown out of the water when I came down with the flu on the Saturday before the conference. I felt pretty unwell until a trip to the pharmacy helped on the Monday afternoon. Still didn’t really get past about 60% for the whole week though and it is still dragging on now. The Training Forum was a good opportunity to catch up with colleagues that I hadn’t seen for 12 months and hear what everyone has been up to. The session that I was really interested in was on day one called “Emerging Technologies” by Marcus Ragus and Daniel Dacey

It is all about using RFID enabled devices in education. Sue has an article with more detail if you are interested.(Radio Frequency Identification) I also went to the Nerd School session that Sue attended and in her post about Nerd School it is me she is referring to snoring in the room. I don’t see anything wrong with that really seeing I was so ill, but she was up at 4.30am writing that post!! Well I made it through the rest of the week and I think I heard Marcus and Daniel’s presentations about 3 times over all and managed to get a handle on what they have been doing by the third session On Thursday I managed to catch up with Daniel for a geek talk about what we have both been up to with mobile development and that was great. It is good being able to have a semi technical chat with someone who understands what you are talking about. Sue just sighs and walks off when we start, especially if we are all on a Skype conference call together.

Photo’s courtesy of Sue Waters flickr account. Thanks Sue

Several years ago I discovered the Internet Archive Wayback Machine this is an archive of the internet and other digital content. It allows you to enter a web address and visit archived versions of web sites, you can also link to sites you find in the WayBack Machine so it can be a great to use with students.

With the rapid changes of websites and digital content having an archive of what has been done and where we have been is not something many of us think about. We create our web pages and then add changes as we need, these changes then overwrite the original pages so previous information is lost. The WayBack Machine allows you to view the previous content and keep it for prosperity, by creating this archive of digital content they are preserving our culture and heritage that in this digital age may otherwise be lost.

When I first found this I thought it would be a great teaching tool to use with my student who were learning about the internet and creating web pages. To be able to view websites and pages that are no longer being hosted is a great service. I soon discovered that access to this site was blocked and students could not access it on campus (and yes I did request to get it unblocked) So I ended up taking screen dumps and creating power point presentations to show the students how websites have developed and changed. How moving graphics and a lot of unnecessarily information has been coming off a lot of sites when the owners of these sites have analysed who their viewers are and how long it can take to view the site. This of course is not always the case with many big business’s still having large images and pages full of text when all you want to do is log in and check your account.

Anyway back to the Wayback Machine they were founded in 1996 and are a “non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format”. So they are” building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.” This archive currently includes includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages .

The way it works is that you can enter the web address of any website and view an archive of all their pages. There automated systems crawl the web every few months so a continual archive of the web is compiled. You can also contribute digital content to be archived. Check out their FAQ’s for more information about how it all works, and just if you were wondering how big it is it contains almost 2 petabytes of data and is currently growing at a rate of 20 terabytes per month.

Go have a look and just to get you started go visit my first website from 1999 & 2001., its enough to make me cringe, jumping dolphins and dancing email boxes…..How things have changed since 1999 my current website is now very plain and definatley less flashy and I think I like this better. Some would differ with me in this as my friend Sue has pointed out we should be adding more glitter and jazzing things up, I think I will leave that to her.