OAC WordPress Tips . . . at least . . . for ME

OAC WordPress Tips . . . .
. . . or . . .
How to Avoid <html>
. . . and . . .
TAG! You’re . . . IT !

I had been doing a daily OAC post here since everyone started working from home, late last March. I paused daily posts, after my August holidays as I knew the Fall session would be crazy busy … and it has been. But I was surprised when I looked at my Posts ‘roster’ and …. 182 posts? And this one would make 183? They sure do add up! And that doesn’t include Pages, but only 4 there, so far.

So, along the way, I have figured out a few very basic shortcuts that help me actually concentrate on the content, not the tools, buttons or menus that are literally .. EVERYWHERE .. on our OAC Dashboard! So I thought I would list my Top 5(-ish) OAC WordPress tips and/or hints … as a start! I might even turn them into a Page as well!

FIRST, create your blog!
OAC is free for the UVic community! Create a new site by going directly to The Online Academic Community (Instructions here too!)and clicking on “Create a Site”. You will be asked for your NetLink credentials and then you will be given a form to create your own blog! You can have MANY blogs – practice ones, photos, documents, diaries, public, private, shared, collaborative, etc. Just blog responsibly!

Your first post could be just that … a message that it is your first post! For many details of creating your first post, I highly, HIGHLY recommend viewing all the training videos that are available within your Dashboard!

Now, you have your own blog, have watched the videos – they are short and easy to undertand …. now some hints!

Keep it Simple … especially your First Post … and … SAVE OFTEN!
That is my first and probably most important hint – SAVE OFTEN!!!!!

Just make your first post … your first post! You can say who you are, what you hope to accomplish and keep it simple, straightforward and just text! Use the ‘Preview‘ button to see what it looks like, use the ‘Save Draft‘ button to save every so often (first and best hint EVER!) and then click ‘Publish‘ and .. you just made your first Post! You can email a colleague or UVic community member and they can now see your first Post!

Here are a few more basic and simple hints, with just a brief explanation why … and I can see you nodding your head too!

Use ‘CTRL Z’ to undo anything you … just did! It works for quite a few potential ‘Undos’, so if you go TOO far, just use ‘SHIFT CTRL Z‘ to .. yes, Undo your Undos…. but the one caveat is ….. if you SAVE, then you can’t go back and do any Undo’s. But if you Save enough times, there are earler versions called ‘Revisions‘ which appear at the VERY bottom of each Dashboard Post you are working on. And not good with the keyboard? It is part of the menu above each Post – hilited with a purple box below.
Create a new Post … but only as a notepad for ideas! Yes, your SECOND Post will never, ever be published! I use this as my Ideas Post and constantly add thoughts, ideas, websites, notes or anything that I might use LATER, and it just stays as an unpublshed Post! What could be better than all your ideas and potential future Posts, waiting there for you in your OAC blog! Do it! And I do the same in a draft Pages document too. Earlier I ‘posted’ about the differences between Pages and Posts … here! (Shameless self promotion!)

Spacing between paragraphs. That drove me nuts at the beginning! Then, much like Word, there is a secret ‘handshake’ … which really isn’t so secret. I stick with the default spacing for each paragraph. Then I hit ‘Enter’ and it will automatically insert a DOUBLE SPACE between paragraphs. Sometimes, you don’t want that. So … just use ‘SHIFT ENTER’ and you get spacing tight between paragraphs! You are thinking .. why would I want this? Well, you will know when … at least for me, once you start inserting images, or perhaps wanting to space short, one line paragraphs (say poetry) in close proximity to one another. Try it … you will like it! Very handy!

Preview before Posting …. but always a safe route out … or back! Always a good idea to Preview your post ahead of time. Just click ‘Preview’ and a new tab will open with a … preview of your Post! Nothing written in stone, and what I do is read down my own Post, and as I see a mistake or something that needs editing, I close THAT tab, I immediately return to my Post to fix it and then Preview again! Only takes a few seconds to Preview, find the mistake, close the Preview, and fix it. Then Preview again until done! It will be frustrating to notice quite a few mistakes, mostly cosmetic or typos most likely, but FORGET one of them if you just Preview your Post once.

Best Closing Hint is THE most dangerous one …. GO AHEAD AND MAKE MISTAKES! You can edit, add, revise, remove, modify, enhance, return to Draft, and even make Private, any of your Posts and Pages! If you aren’t making mistakes … you aren’t learning … or at least, you aren’t Blogging! This ain’t rocket science … unless of course, your Blog is about …. Rocket Science!

And, you CAN teach an old dog new tricks … I was always unhappy with my scribbly pen drawing feature. Today, figured out how to draw a nice regular shaped hilite box around a part of an image! And that might be a more detailed hint, as it involves screen grabs, editing the screen grab, exporting to .png format, then adding to my Media Library, but saving my blog before inserting the new media image …. yeah…sounds hard, but isn’t! A future hint!

Some FUTURE Favourite OAC WordPress tips and hints and tips

- Copying a Post
- Your Media library
- Inserting media and resizing them – they never really fit perfectly!!
- Best WP sites for hints and help (UVic is AWESOME!)
- YouTube video(s) in your Blog (Releasse … The Kraken!)
- Screen grabs and modifying them before adding to your Media Library

And the links below area ALL here at UVic! They will be your absolutely BEST resource of ALL for OAC! Have fun! And I would describe them all as …
🔥 HOT OFF THE PRESS WINNERS 🔥

And just to be different, a TED Talk about .. early Blogging! Mena Trott is hilarious and there are many entertaining and close to home (for me!) events that made her an early blogger! Enjoy, I certainly did!

BE SAFE EVERYONE!

Pandemic

Stress Relief or How I Learned to Love Writing Exams …. Mostly ….

Stress Relief . . .
. . . or . . .
How I Learned How to Love Writing Exams
. . . mostly . . .

Been there. Done that. What could go wrong?

Well, sometimes nothing, sometimes everything and sometimes … a bit of both.

I have written my fair share of exams. I can barely remember a handful of ACTUALLY writing them, and few still of how I did. But, I could find my U of Calgary transcripts … or maybe my B.Ed. degree … to prove I survived.

There are no hard and fast strategies that always work to reduce exam stress. You really have to find what works for you. And no guarantee it works every single time.

For me, simple meditation works. At least, it works now …. but not always. That is why they call it a ‘practice’ of meditation.

Unfortunately, I did not have that as a strategy when I was an undergrad. One of those…. “if I only knew then, what I know now“!

Back then, I relied on the oldest strategy known to every student in the world – blind luck! I simply HAD to wear my lucky Edmonton Oilers jersey AND I had to bring the ball from my most recent raquetball game … that I won! Simple!

Multiple-choice, short answer, math/stats type exams were fairly straight forward for me. The most imaginative study trick came from a Stats Instructor. We could bring in a 4×6 recipe card with ANYTHING WE WANTED ON IT! What a great idea! Forced us to study what we were uncertain of, by writing it down and bringing it with us to the test. And I barely referenced it … because I had studied what I was unsure of! And I got an A in the course! WOOT!

I did hate open book exams. They were simply THE hardest to write because you would THINK they would be easy … but you wasted time looking up answers that you SHOULD have known. Oh well, not too many like that.

But the worst exams for me were LONG ANSWER or ESSAY EXAMS! Dates, people, documents, history, facts …. SO many blank pages, so little grey matter!

I basically would get the answer booklet, then turn to the last page and purge every fact, date, document reference, etc. IMMEDIATELY. I did not even LOOK at the questions. Then, I would look at the first question and .. I had just written my own cheat sheet! Other info would pop into my head and I was able to complete these horrific long answer/essay exams.

And I have been on the ‘Other Side’ of exams … crafting them so that the exam would truly reflect the knowledge base of each student. The last thing you want is to have an exam where either achievement is random or that it does not discriminate between students who DO KNOW the material and those who do not.

And although it is not available right now, Walking the Labyrinth by Candlelight at the UVic Multifaith Centre has been incredibly beneficial to me. Once, I was the ONLY PERSON IN THE ENTIRE CHAPEL WALKING THE LABYRINTH! Best meditation experience I have ever had! I came out to a pitch black night, stars twinkling brighter than ever and totally refreshed!

Bottom line is there will be something that can help you study, minimize anxiety and improve your test scores. Maybe not all the time, but most of the time, hopefully.

The links below are ALL UVic sites! Well, the very last one, #10, is the only non-UVic site I listed. To be fair, there are hundreds of sites out there, and I thought I would concentrate on the UVic sites I could find and … just one more. And a nice little pause at #9 … to just take a moment and relax ‘MIDST my links!

Everyone stay safe and healthy, whether working at UVic or at home.

Meditation at UVic – Multifaith Centre (Works for me!)
Walking the Labyrinth (Unfortunately, not available, but …. AMAZING!)
Zoom On-line Morning Meditation with Henri
How to Beat Exam Stress – OAC My UVic Life (Shameless OAC Placement!) 🔥HOT OFF THE PRESS WINNER🔥
Tips for Exam Season (UVic … and advice still timely and relevant!)
Coping with Exams and Exam Anxiety (UVic!)
Anxiety and stress (UVic! Sensing a trend…..)
UVic Student Mental Health Blog 🔥HOT OFF THE PRESS WINNER🔥
(left blank on purpose …. a stress free resource!)
How to Beat Exam Stress: 25 Tips Backed by Research (The ONLY non-UVic site!)
Workplace Wellness (An OAC UVic site!) 🔥HOT OFF THE PRESS WINNER🔥
Resilience Resources (A subsite of Workplace Wellness!) 🔥HOT OFF THE PRESS WINNER🔥

University of Victoria Labyrinth Multifaith Chapel

And, well, just don’t write an exam like Mr. Bean!

BE SAFE EVERYONE!

Pandemic

Emergency Preparedness

Emergency Preparedness
{Quake News}
… especially at UVic!

How timely and ironic!

This morning I was updating my OAC Favourite and Useful UVic Links Page and was adding a new section on Emergency Preparedness. AND A MAGNITUDE 3.0 EARTHQUAKE RUMBLED THROUGH OAK BAY AT 8:45 AM! REALLY! Even more details HERE!

I am pretty sure my colleagues thought I was crazy (often, a default!) but it was confirmed! So, whew, it was not ‘Fake News‘ … it was … ‘Quake News‘! (I was actually ‘booed’ by a colleague for that joke!)

I had started the morning updating my links as BC is now under Province Wide Restrictions (as of today, November 20, 2020) which includes mandatory mask wearing in Public Places – and that means AT UVic TOO!

CHD staff are ALWAYS wearing their masks and wear gloves when cleaning or potentially touching high contact surfaces. AND especially when they are in ALL areas of UVic.

**BC Province Wide Restrictions – November 20, 2020**

I just want to say THANK YOU ALL for doing this! I think of it as a gift to everyone around me. I wear my mask even if I am outside my closed-door office, even for just a minute!

The links below are all very important and useful, especially now and even especially today! Literally … TODAY! They are all posted at my OAC Favourite UVic Links Page too.

Everyone stay safe and healthy, whether working at UVic or at home.

AND TOP OF THE HEAP NEWS!
By Friday, April 23rd 2021,
everyone (18+)
will be eligible to register
for a vaccine!

And specifically for AstraZeneca (40+, first dose), find a pharmacy near you:
AstraZeneca/COVISHIELD COVID-19 Vaccines In Pharmacies

As always, information changes, so you can keep up to date with the BC Covid App.

Emergency Planning (Take a few minutes for this site please)
Emergency Procedures (And what to do … if ….)
Earthquake and Tsunami (How many in the last 30 days … SEE THEM!!)
An earthquake happened in Oak Bay, WHILE I WAS UPDATING THIS POST! 🔥 HOT OFF THE PRESS WINNER 🔥
Snow or Extreme Weather (Yes, it snows in Victoria .. LOTS!)
Specific Hazards (Nitty gritty specifics of what could happen)
Campus Evacuation Procedures (Where to go ….)
Emergency Planning – Events & Upcoming Training (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!)
UVic Alerts (Register today, right now!)
Safety Committees at UVic(Join a great committee! I did!)
And .. UVic Covid Information too
Province-wide restriction 🔥 HOT OFF THE PRESS WINNER 🔥
BC Covid Dashboard (Added April 9, 2021)

BE SAFE EVERYONE!

Pandemic

OAC WordPress Tutorials . . . ARE BUILT IN FOR YOU!

OAC WordPress Tutorials
… ARE BUILT IN FOR YOU!

So, you are about to create a strange new thing – A BLOG! But not just ANY blog – your very own Online Academic Community OAC UVic FREE BLOG!

If you have UVic Netlink ID credentials … then you can have a WordPress blog hosted by UVic! It is that simple … mostly! It really IS that simple!

And this will be a very short post … just to get started on what to simply WATCH FIRST before you do anything, other than … create your blog name first. And you CAN create multiple blogs too, one to test and one to actually post on. Totally up to you!

So, if you are THIS far, then you have already created a blog name for yourself. If not, then go to Online Academic Community OAC and create one for yourself with your credentials.

🔥 UPDATED POST! 🔥

The WordPress Tutorials, as originally posted, do not seem to be available right now. BUT there is a new Dashboard Training Video Series, as shown immediately below! The link is here, and you can also click on the image below to go directly there. The Categories, each clickable are below:

And then, log in! Welcome to your Dashboard, the first thing you will always see when logging in. Now, over on the left hand side is a Sidebar with tons of magic options – otherwise known as Menus and Sub-Menus!
NOTE: the WordPress Tutorials as shown below, are not available. Use links above. The new links and videos are great!

Click on ‘WordPress tutorials‘ and a ton of video tutorials will pop up in the Dashboard. Perhaps start with … TheDashboard! I have put a RED STAR beside what might be some starting points, but just start watching some!

That is it! You are basically reading the recipe book, before picking out what dish to make first! And as you go through, in any order, go back to a previous one as it might just be a ‘light bulb’ moment of connecting various tutorials, techniques, features and ideas!

Post photos, quotes, YouTube links, UVic sites, recipes, essays, thoughts, poetry, art, jokes, and anything you want to share! Release your inner artist! See what happens!

I still go here and will continue to check out the tutorials to discover new things to try! All you need to get going is all waiting inside OAC for you!

ENJOY!

Pandemic

Pages and Posts

Pages and Posts … What Gives?

So what is the difference between a Post and a Page?

As I am finding out, they are both quite different and useful! There are all kinds of sites you can look up at Google and support from WordPress for Pages and Posts (tutorials) about their differences. For me, the difference is that a Post is like an email to your Inbox. You publish some information on a specific day and time. And then done! It stays in your email in reverse chronological order as more emails arrive.

Your next Post becomes the most current one, in reverse chronological order. You can usually cycle back to the previous post from within any currently viewed post. The benefit is … each Post is usually about a single topic. But that is not a hard and fast rule.

A Page is like a Post without a chronology or end date, but can contain multiple topics, themes, links or categories. And is usually always available and visible at any Post, usually by setting up a Widget or Theme settings. Think of it as a ‘Long-Term Post’. Always there.

So if you want a reader to see or have access to a ‘Long-Term Post’, then use a Page. If it is something that is just a topic for that day, but still accessible later on, then use a Post.

And nothing says that what is in a Post, can’t be turned into a Page. OR, as you will see below, I will take the most currently added information on my Favourite and Useful UVic Links Page, Cyber Security Awareness Month, and tack it on to the end of this Post. Confusing? Maybe, but once you play around with WordPress and try one new thing every week or so, then you just build on blogging skills!! Explore Pages and Posts and .. it is your Blog, do what YOU want to do!

For me, I only have 3 Pages:

But I have over 179 Posts, including THIS POST!

Each PAGE represents something that potentially delivers not only timely, but ‘timeless’ information. A Page will look like a Post (Theme dependent), but these 3 are PAGES that have the most up to date and continuously available information, that I want to make available, even for myself! So, think of a Page as a very, very, very selfish .. Post! It is always there, seeking attention! LOL!

Favourite and Useful UVic Links has a growing list of … Favourite and Useful UVic Links, without having to search my entire blog for them. Always there.

The CALL Facility … and other Mysteries of UVIC. This has the most current version of an oriention to The CALL Facility. Always there.

ZOHO – CALL Facility Bookmarks. I constantly refer to this and it is constantly being edited, updated and revised. Always there.

It is VERY tempting to just have a growing list of .. Pages. Nope, don’t go there. Think about how many you REALLY want to be there. And then cut it in half. Just like packing for 3 months in Europe. Lay EVERYTHING OUT that you think you might need for 3 months of travel. Then discard half of it!

I might add 1, perhaps 2 more, but no plans for that in the near future. But, never say never!

And even here at OAC, there is a WordPress tutorial section, while you are creating your blog, to give you tutorials on Pages and Posts. Look for it!

And below, fresh off my updated Page, are my favourite links for Cyber Security Awareness Month here at UVic.

October 26, 2020 – New Favourite Links –Cyber Security Awareness Month

Nav’s CISO Blog at OAC – Personal Perspectives from UVic’s Chief Information Security Officer
UVic Instagram Takeover 2020 (🔥 HOT OFF THE PRESS WINNER 🔥 … even though a little late….)
Cyber Security Awareness Month – UVic (a little late, but better than never!)
Phishing – University Systems (UVic)
Phishing Awareness Training Campaign – University Systems (UVic)
UVic Information Security Standards
UVIC Information Security
How to Contact University Systems and The Computer Help Desk
Advanced Persistent Threat Groups (from Nav’s Blog on Oct 20)
Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (Canadian Government)

What’s the difference between posts and pages in WordPress? | WordPress for beginners

How to write a post or page in WordPress | WordPress for beginners

Throwback Thursday . . . Language Quotes!

Throwback Thursday
. . . or . . .
Language Quotes!
(and a bit of nostalgia!)

Learning another language is like becoming another person. One of my favourite quotes, ever!

You can take the boy out of The CALL Facility, but you can’t take The CALL Facility out of the boy!

I have been around for a few days … since October of 1989! Whoa, that seems like yesterday to me! A future post will have some slightly grainy images of what CALL once looked like … well before numerous renovations (scheduled and unscheduled!) and before The Great Flood of 2015! That was some kind of day! There are a few images in a previous post, which includes a pdf of exactly what CALL is!

And the most recent version of my CALL Jeopardy file is here. ALL of the files are there too, including old photos of CALL, the Great Flood and the rebooted CALL!

An earlier post mentioned the 30th Anniversary of The CALL Facility! Technology certainly has changed!

And changes are still coming! Just AFTER we started working remotely from home, NEW FURNITURE ARRIVED FOR THE CALL FACILITY!

I was VERY BRIEFLY back at CHD earlier this month, to upgrade my remote laptop, and went in to look at the new furniture … AND IT LOOKS FANTASTIC! I sure hope we can get back to using our facilities, classrooms and ALL OF UVic soon, but in a safe, VERY SAFE manner!

A fairly busy day today, so some quick quotes about learning languages. I also include quotes in each slide when I give my CALL Facility orientation, so you can click HERE to see those too! They are current to January 2020!

Mostly, these are new, but there are a few favourites in here too!

And some Albert Einstein quotes too! After all … on the Quantum Level … everyone speaks the same language … and other magical things like that! Yeah, too many Marvel movies clunking around my head! But that is a GOOD THING!

All the usual Daily Links and YouTube videos are after the language quotes below!

Enjoy!

As long as I have words at my disposal … … and Google, there will be
Throwback Thursdays!

ENJOY!

TTFN!

Top 20 Quotes
About Language

Inspirational Quotes About Learning
A New Second Language

Quotes About
Learning Languages

Learning Quotes About
Learning a Second Language

Language Learning Quotes

Inspirational Quotes
for English Learners

Language Quote #9

The Best Quotes From
Albert Einstein

Top 20 Amazing Quotes on Patience
From Famous People

Pandemic

Where Are My Keys . . . or . . . Forgotten Computers and Software

Where Are My Keys
. . . or . . .
Forgotten Computers and Software

Where are my car keys? I can just ping them, right? Ah, if Life were that easy. Wait a minute, some car keys DO have bluetooth and only need to be close to the car to open and start it! Remember when car keys were actually … KEYS! LOL!

Full Disclosure – I still have car keys that look, act and FEEL like car keys! Most now have bluetooth and all you have to do is be NEAR the door, NEAR the car and the keys open and start the car! Ah, the good old days of fiddling with multiple keys … good times, good times.

So how many computers have YOU worked on and have … forgotten about! I had a post awhile ago about just that topic, ‘Open the Pod Bay Doors, HAL“.

Whether you bought them or used them at school or work, there are probably a dozen or more … Forgotten Computers and Software over the years. Me? Maybe a couple of dozen computers and many, many more software programs or applications!

Remember when the ENTIRE COMPUTER was one huge modular unit! And the very first computers I worked on at U of Calgary, were either hidden from site and you presented your punched cards (FORTRAN!) and waited for the output!

Then when I started taking ‘Computers in Education’ courses, I was handed the keys to The Vault! I had access to the ‘teletype’ room where I could code in BASIC and run the output on rolls of newsprint! Good times, good times!

The first program I worked on was for Probablity with a simulation of pulling coloured balls out of a ‘Greecian Urn’. And it even printed out an ASCII Greecian Urn! Yeah, I have a printout, somewhere in ‘The Garage’ and will look for it one day! LOL!

I was fortunate enough to be invited to a lecture given by Grace Hopper. And you might rightly say … WHO? Well, she was a TITAN OF COMPUTER SCIENCE! And she gave us all a … NANOSECOND at the end of her lecture! Wait, what?

She concluded her lecture (best lecture of all time!) with how she explained to her Non-Techie Supervisor, how fast light travels and how that impacts any lag or delay with satellite communications! She brought out lengths of ROPE to demonstrate how far light travels in a second and working her way down to a NANOSECOND or a BILLIONTH OF A SECOND! Turns out, it is about a foot!

And she pulled out about 100 small lengths of multi-coloured wire and spread them on the desk for us to take as we walked out. Well, I have never seen such a rush of people to get their ‘Grace Hopper Nanosecond‘! Fortunately I was able to get one for myself! Unfortunately, it has disappeared in my many moves over the years! But what a memory for me!

And I bet I can name a MASSIVE computer related piece of ‘software’ that almost everyone will have forgotten about … Y2K! And if you have NEVER heard of that term … then you are probably not much older than 20 years old!

Y2K refers to a software ‘glitch’ that did not take into account the calendar year 2000 in most computer code developed between 1980-1999. Basically, EVERYTHING!

Typically, amongst other problems, only 2 digits were used to indicate the calendar year, thus ’89’ and ’99’ were used for ‘1989’ and ‘1999’ in databases, calculations, spreadsheets, banks .. YOU NAME IT! So when the decade ended and we entered the year 2000 … uh-oh! Right back to the year 1900!!!!

I remember staying up, hoisting a glass of champagne and welcoming … ‘The End of the World’!!! But, or more punny, ‘Byte‘ nothing happened! LOL!

So that brings up … Y3K! LOL! I sure hope I am still around to toast 3000!

And this post quickly turned to Grace Hopper, didn’t it! I love telling people this story AND most people have never heard of Grace Hopper! AND an even BETTER Grace Hopper story! She is credited with the first EVER case of ‘debugging’ a computer …. LITERALLY!

She crawled into a computer … it was that big! And she found a relay switch, an actual MOVING PART INSIDE A COMPUTER and a moth had become ‘trapped’ beneath the lever! She then proceeded to ….’debug’ the computer and documented it! That document, moth and all, are in the Smithsonian now!

I found SO many articles, images, cartoons and resources while doing my usual bit of research for my post, I have more links below than ever before!

Articles on ENIAC, UNIVAC, Personal Computers, COBOL and most especially, Grace Hopper. Take a trip through time, wax nostalgic, and think back to when a computer took up an entire room, if not an entire building!

Oh, and if you see an old, really old, Apple Computer at a garage sale … maybe think about buying it! It could turn out to be this one! worth almost HALF A MILLION DOLLARS!

What you hold in your hands now is not just a phone – it is the FUTURE that visionaries like Grace Hopper could only DREAM of would eventually be possible!

And as Arthur C. Clarke described in ‘Clarke’s Three Laws” at Wikipedia:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

We truly live in a Magical Time now!

Enjoy the Magic!

As long as I have ‘The Garage’ there will be forgotten and old computers stored there . . . and magical OAC posts!

ENJOY!

TTFN!

Computer Pioneers – Part 1

ENIAC – The First Computer

Apollo’s Forgotten Computer
The LVDC

Forgotten Fun
Texas Instruments TI-99/4A

Tano Dragon 64
Unboxing

Panasonic JR-200U

1983 Radio Shack TRS80
Color Computer 2

Tandy 1000

Sinclair ZX81 – British Computer

Why Apple Products
Use 30 Year Old Software

Evolution of Laptops
1975 – 2020

Top 10 Horribly Outdated
Technologies Still in Use Today

Quantum Computers
Animated

“Then the hard drive says to the floppy, 110010001110011…”

‘This is what people had to use before they got antennae.’

Pandemic

Daisy Daisy . . . or . . . Songs About Computers . . . kinda . . .

Daisy Daisy
. . . or . . .
Songs About Computers
. . . kinda . . .

Daisy Daisy … on a bicycle built for DU – PLEX? Well, the HAL 9000 never could carry a tune! This might technically be cheating, as HAL is singing a song, but I prefer to think that this was part of his diagnostics and it truly is a song about a computer. A very lethal computer! LOL!

Full Disclosure – I have never taken ANY music lessons and … it shows! And on my iPhone, I don’t have a single track of music. Not one. I have some movies, but not a single song!

So why songs about computers? Why not! It is my OAC blog and I try to combine computers, languages, words, programming, learning, pop culture and legacy technology …. all in one place! Hit and miss, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes …. it rains! Can you name the movie line came from? No computer songs, but a great movie and soundtrack!

Surprisingly, there were not too many actual songs ABOUT computers ‘out there’. Lots of soundtracks geared towards the computer content of a movie, but a little digging and found a few things.

I consider the soundtrack to ANY movie, more like a character IN THE MOVIE! I bet that if I just mention movies with famous soundtracks, you can instantly bring to mind, some of the tunes that are part of that movie – The Hobbit, Pirates of the Caribbean, Pulp Fiction, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Apocalypse Now, Guardians of the Galaxy … you get the idea! At least, that works for me! LOL!

So, after this, I just might put some tracks onto my iPhone! I will probably start with the soundtrack from … Guardians of the Galaxy – Volume I! LOL! Yeah, probably bent my rules a bit to include songs sung by computers, songs written by computers and just plain old … favourite songs and soundtracks! Thus and hence and therefore …. KINDA!!!!! All those data bits gotta end up somewhere!

And the usual YouTube videos to follow with some BRILLIANT and HILARIOUS computer parodies of popular music videos! I was … amused by them!

And especially weird and wonderful – how to make a huge array of floppy disk drives actually perform in concert …. POP MUSIC! Definitely Weird and Wonderful today!

Enjoy!

As long as I have an old iPhone with literally NO music on it … there will be OAC posts! Seriously.. no music!

ENJOY!

TTFN!

Database Skills
Sia Cheap Thrills Parody

Sia – Actual Cheap Thrills

Call Me Maybe – Parody Video
Sys Admin Song

Call Me Maybe – ACTUAL Song

Lady Java

Lady Gaga – ACTUAL Poker Face

Seven Databases in Song

Pikotaro – PPAP
Pen Pineapple Apple Pen

THUNDERSTRUCK
on FLOPPOTRON

Bohemian Rhapsody
on FLOPPOTRON

Sheldon Allman
Univac and Humanoid

Wintergatan – Marble Machine

‘No one does research with such flair. He’s the Boogie Woogie Google Boy of Division B.’

Pandemic

Throwback Thursday . . . or . . . Laughter and Chuckles!

Throwback Thursday
. . . or . . .
Laughter and Chuckles!

Why did the chicken cross the road? Error 404. Road can not be found.
ALMOST a … Dad Joke! Years ago, I once ‘collected’ cartoons from the comic section of newspapers or editorial pages, specifically looking for Math, Statistics or Numbers in general – for use as motivation in my classes! I probably still have them somewhere in ‘The Garage’ and will look for them one day and have a post dedicated to really old math cartoons!

Once, I included a funny math cartoon at the very END of a printed math test for my Grade 12 Math 31 (Advanced) class. This was during my Student Teaching year at U of Calgary.

I had the opportunity to teach ‘Probability’ to my highly motivated International Baccalaureat program at the school I was assigned! Well, this threw them for a loop! “Is this a question?“, “Is this for marks?“, “How do I answer this question?” and ‘What is this for?”

And to his credit, my Supporting Teacher let me do all kinds of crazy things in all my classes! This will be a theme for another OAC post one day!

One small amazing Fun Fact: I ended up being paired with not one, but TWO of my OWN High School Math teachers from my high school years … just by chance! What are the odds on that !!! Well, that is what statistics are for! LOL!

So, some Throwback Thursday humour and random images, YouTube videos and cartoons to maybe provide a chuckle or two!

And that is about it for today! A busy day with some meetings, documents and workshops at the speed of Self Pace too! I might throw new stuff in later! You just never know!

Enjoy!

As long as I have stuff in ‘The Garage’ … and the “World Wide Web“, there will be Throwback Thursdays!

ENJOY!

TTFN!

Why Computer Engineering
is Like Standup Comedy

I’ve Got a Problem with My Apple
The One Ronnie – BBC

One Day, A Computer Will Fit …
… On A Desk – Arthur C. Clarke (1974)

Computer Joke of the Day
May 1, 2020

Modern Upgrades
for Classic Computers

15+ Funny MS Windows Jokes
That Will Make You Laugh

10 Funniest TED Talks
Compilation

Computer Predicts the
End of Civilization (1973)

Arthur C. Clark
Predicts the Internet (1964)

A Funny Look at the Unintended Consequences
of Technology (TED)

BYOD issues were an even bigger problem in the 1950s.

BYOD was not as much of a concern in the office as BYOG.

‘Well, for starters, I’ve never seen a laptop in Roman Numerals.’

“It’s a fantastic computer! It’s so old that none of today’s hackers know how to hack it!”

“That old computer we recycled in 1989 is now worth a fortune.”

“Don’t worry Mac, I’ll have that happy face back in no time.”

Pandemic

Wonderful Wednesday . . . C64 Marketing

Wonderful Wednesday
. . . . .
Commodore 64 Marketing!

My first computer I EVER purchased! I think I might even have my original receipt! I will have to dig around my own computer archives aka ‘The Garage’ and see if I can come up with that papyrus document! And … drum roll …. I FOUND IT! Click on the image to see it in a bigger tab!

And why did I buy a C-64, specifically, the SX-64, the World’s First Luggable Computer? It cost me $901.95 (note there was no tax!) and that was a huge amount, in today’s dollars! Actually, it works out to be …. $1,962.18 in ‘today’s’ money! I used the Bank of Canada Inflation Calculator, which I did not know existed until this morning!

There were a few reasons – I had just started to work in a classroom that was FILLED with Commodore-64 computers, I was taking a graduate course at the U of C about Technology/Computers in Education and … a buddy of mine could buy it through his company AT A DISCOUNT! But none of those beat out … THIS IS SUCH A COOL COMPUTER! So had to buy the Commodore SX-64, which was also known as the Executive 64 or VIP-64 in Europe!

So it got me to wondering about how the Commodore became, at the time, the single best home computer EVER SOLD! And I came to the conclusion that … I don’t know why! LOL! Oh, well, maybe marketing has alot to do with it! Just look at Apple! I have posted about how Apple have made such fantastic ads before! (Yup, product placement!)

My ultimate, non-academic conclusion is that …. EVERYONE COULD OWN A HOME COMPUTER!!! And if Commodore could make it cheap, easy, small, available and FUN – then they found the magic recipe to sell MILLIONS OF THEIR COMPUTERS! And, literally:

The Commodore 64, also known as the C64 or the CBM 64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas, January 7–10, 1982). It has been listed in the Guinness World Records as the highest-selling single computer model of all time, with independent estimates placing the number sold between 10 and 17 million units. (From Wikipedia)

And it is a bit unknown as to how many SX-64 computers were sold. There was a rumoured DX-64 with dual floppy drives, but that never appeared.

The exact number of SX-64 sold from 1984 to 1986, when it was discontinued, is unknown. The serial numbers of over 130 SX-64s from series GA1, GA2, GA4, GA5 and GA6, with serial numbers ranging over 49,000 for series GA1, 1,000 for GA2, 17,000 for GA4, 11,000 for GA5, and 7,000 for GA6 have been reported. (From Wikipedia)

I will have an SX-64 dedicated post in the future, showing how fast it booted, cartridges that I have and how I can connect it to my Toshiba large screen tv too!

It really was an amazing computer! And speed – it boots up in about 5 seconds! And it only had the one floppy drive! Remember sorting through floppy disk banks! Good times, good times!

Fun Fact – did you know that Commodore actually made other computers, including a Commodore PC compatible and another one called the Commodore 128? Fun Fact!

Be sure to look closely at some of the vintage print ads I included after all of this! William Shatner HIMSELF – CAPTAIN KIRK – was a spokesman for the Commodore VIC-20 – the computer that came out BEFORE the C-64!! I can legitimately say – I own an Official Star Fleet Computer!