Bett 2010 – What floated my boat?

Posted on by primaryt


Bett is over for another year, do you feel these are the top 5 finds?

5. Development Games package – This interesting use of technology is nothing new but it’s fun and easy to adopt, Timocco’s new software (although it’s not web2) is a way of interacting with PC applications by using your hands.

4. LED projector – Casio – doesn’t require a bulb

Ever had the shock of the cost of a replacement bulb for your classroom projector? Most suppliers now supply a 3 year bulb warranty however the LED infused Casio replaces a standard bulb with powerful LED’s, capable of 3000 lumens and a reasonable throw (compared to it’s competitors). Shame about the price tag, £900+! Tied a close 4th was the Smart Document Camera.

3. IWB projector that doesn’t require an IWB (Epson BrightLink 450Wi interactive projector)
Epson showed off their latest short throw projector that doesn’t require an IWB (Interactive White Board) for it to have Interactivity. Most schools will probably want a whiteboard anyway but this product decreases cost of ownership by removing the interactivity from the board, we expect that our price on these will be £1600 fully fitted.
2. 3D LCD screen that doesn’t require glasses
This is one of those items I have been waiting about 6 months to see in the flesh and I hate to say it that I wasn’t bowled over but I was excited! The demo I saw didn’t have any decent content on it, I would love to borrow one for a few weeks and watch a load of 3d movies on it to evaluate the difference and to document some practice teaching and learning uses.
And in at 1. Finding out my cousin’s son frequently learns and plays on Primary Games Arena. Awesome!


As always, because I’m a moody monkey I had a beef with a few things:
The lack of creativity and research/thought that went into naming edupics.org baffles me, a bad name for a service when there is already a great service called edupics.com doing something similar and for free…… Bee-It disclosed their genius business model…. Charge suppliers for web space. Fail… Google’s advertising. . Google, if you are listening. You don’t need to advertise, we are already at your mercy. Stop wasting resources.
And some notes/thanks:
Had some great chats with @simfin, @merlinjohn, @ianaddison and many more great people, thanks! There were lots of interactive flash content creators there again this year, I expected that this market would of pushed quite a few out but obviously some are going strong! Sorry I didn’t do any evening events this year, I decided on my only evening available to go and see my family which I’m glad I did because we all had a great time :).. I discovered the NEN website has some great resources to offer, you should check them out.. Oh and It’s learning is probably my favourite VLE provider as it is inclusive for service providers, unlike pretty much every other VLE…
What I want to see in 2011? And I think I will…
A short throw LED projector that has interactivity built in.
Other peoples thoughts about Bett2010

Shimla Curry house (Shipley) review

Posted on by primaryt
One word review summary:
Starters = Yum.
Bhuna = Slop
Korma = Jar
Chicken/Keema = Nothing

Overview: Average and overpriced
Full review:
We started with veg pakora, meat samosas and masala fish. All 3 were very good yet verysmall portions for the price paid. The restaurant was a bit cold and suffers from over modernistic interior, it kinda feels like a poor man’s Akbars.
Our mains arrived in true Akbar’s style with a naan on a tree and our dishes on a trolley but this was easily overlooked by the elegance of the japati wrapped in a tea towel which is by far my favourite way of recieving japati as it keeps them fresh and yumalicious..
The first dish I tried was the Chicken Bhuna (pictured above), my benchmark test. I was shocked by the sloppy appearance and how white the chicken was when split open, also I was disappointed in the lack of chicken in the dish. I wasn’t impressed overly with the taste, a massive sugary sweetness from onions just didn’t seem right.
Next I tried a korma (pictured above) , I could of been served this in any house, in any restaurant or at home by just cracking open some Sharwood sauce and adding cream, it wasn’t a restaurant ready curry in my opinion.
Next was time for my favourite curry (of 2009) which is the Chicken and Keema mix, as the first 2 curries didn’t compeltely insult me I had high expectations here. They were soon shattered :(… It tasted like meat bolognese, Maybe it was because I’d been so overwhelmed by the flavour of the previous 2 curries? I’m not sure, it just lacked balls which is a shame because it looked the part.
Price: 3 main dishes, 3 starters, 4 japati, 1 naan. £33.65 – Equivalent food at a very good local curry house (£26)…
To summarize: An average curry house that is trying to be like too many other curry houses. Food isn’t offensive and it may be right up your street if you like a wetter curry. The service was average to good.

Problem with Etherpad file import/export

Posted on by primaryt

In Etherpad when you click to export a Word .doc or .pdf file you get the error:

Error message: “Unsupported file type:.. Etherpad can only import txt, html, rtf, doc, and docx files.”

Cause: Openoffice is not running or Etherpad not properly configured.

Solution: Add the below to your Etherpad start up script before you start the Etherpad VM.

/usr/bin/soffice.bin -headless -nofirststartwizard -accept=”socket,host=localhost,port=8100;urp;StarOffice.Service &”

Check the following files exist in the instrastructure/lib folder:

activation.jar

cos.jar

dnsjava-2.0.6.jar

jetty-sslengine-6.1.20.jar

juh.jar

ridl.jar

tagsoup-1.2.jar

c3p0-0.9.1.2.jar

derby-10.5.1.1.jar java_uno.jar

jetty-util-6.1.20.jar

jurt.jar

mysql-connector-java-5.1.10.jar

sanselan-0.94aj.jar

unoil.jar

commons-lang-2.4.jar

derbytools.jar

jetty-6.1.20.jar

json.jar

mail.jar

rhino-js-1.7r1.jar

servlet-api-2.5-20081211.jar

yuicompressor-2.4-appjet.jar

You need to modify execution.scala and importexport.scala – See this document

Notes:

Check your etherpad.localdev-default.properties, you should have:

etherpad.soffice = /usr/bin/soffice

Also check during bin/rebuildjar.sh clearcache you don’t get any errors.

I recommend following this guide here if you haven’t yet..

This was resolved in a discussion found here (sorry it’s a lengthy discussion)