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Microsoft Books for FREE on Amazon (Kindle) - Hot UK Deals #yam

2013-02-14T08:30:00.001-08:00

Introducing Windows Server 2012
Introducing Windows SQL Server 2012
Introducing Windows 8 - An Overview for IT Professionals
Moving to MS Visual Studio 2010
Programming Windows 8 apps
Security and privacy for MS Office 2010 users
Introducing Windows Server 2012 RTM edition
First Look: Microsoft Office 2010
Microsoft® Office 365

via hotukdeals.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Grammar and punctuation test: take our quiz | Teacher Network | Guardian Professional #yam

2013-02-14T05:37:00.001-08:00

In June, year 6 pupils will sit a National Test in spelling, grammar and punctuation. But how good is your knowledge? Take our quiz for students, teachers and grammar fans

via guardian.co.uk

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Microsoft Security Newsletter for IT Professionals - @Microsoft Security Blog

2013-02-14T03:56:00.001-08:00

Are you an Information Technology (IT) Professional or developer looking for a resource to stay up to date with Microsoft security? If so, I strongly encourage you to check out our Microsoft Security Newsletter. This monthly newsletter delivered to your inbox in either HTML or Plain Text covers a wide range of Microsoft security topics from leading experts

via blogs.technet.com

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Make your own eBooks with Inkling's free digital publishing kit | ITProPortal.com #yam

2013-02-14T03:54:00.001-08:00

San Francisco eBook publishing startup Inkling has released a new set of collaborative online digital publishing tools to try and coax book publishers to fully move their content into the Internet age.

The new software suite, called Inkling Habitat, will be the first online, collaborate, free, and open digital publishing environment for professionals.

Matt McInnis, CEO of Inkling, showed off some of Habitat's capabilities at an event in New York this week. The online software appears to compete with the likes of Adobe's Digital Publishing Suite and even Apple's iBooks Author. Like Apple's product, Habitat is free, although it sounds slightly more geared toward professional publishing houses, particularly those in education.

via itproportal.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

COBOL will outlive us all | ITworld #yam

2013-02-13T05:07:00.001-08:00

In the early 1980s, I was told that COBOL was going away and that I should quickly move toward other programming languages. Well, thirty years later, COBOL is alive and well and living in large companies everywhere.

Yes, most of the smaller COBOL programs written in the 1970s, 1980s, and even 1990s have been replaced with newer systems and newer technologies. However, the big mission critical systems written long ago in COBOL and modified and enhanced for the past thirty to forty years are still driving very large, very prestigious companies around the country and around the world. These companies include banks, insurance companies, manufacturing companies, retail chains, health care organizations, and every other type of company you can imagine.

via itworld.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

If We Profs Don't Reform Higher Ed, We'll Be Re-Formed (and we won't like it) | HASTAC #yam

2013-01-25T07:48:00.001-08:00

Although normally a pretty upbeat and optimistic person, I end a lot of my different talks these days with a pretty scary, even dystopic slide:    "IF WE PROFS CAN BE REPLACED BY A COMPUTER SCREEN, WE SHOULD BE.”

That gets people’s attention.   And it makes people mad.   My meaning is often misunderstood at first—and that’s what I want. I want profs in the audience to be outraged that I’m saying they can be replaced by a computer screen.   And, if they think they are not replaceable by a computer screen, I want them to articulate why.

If they can make a good case for what they add, then my conditional statement is answered negatively:   No, I cannot be replaced by a computer screen because of . . .       Making that case accurately and persuasively (to the public, to legislators, to donors, and mostly to our students) is the single most important thing any professor can do because, if we don’t, it will be made for us. And we won't like the result.

via hastac.org

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Flipped Classroom Successes in Higher Education | Emerging Education Technology #yam

2013-01-25T05:22:00.001-08:00

Colleges and University Professors are Improving Learning Outcomes, and Lowering Costs, with Flipped Classroom Techniques.

via emergingedtech.com

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Have Books Jumped the Shark? - Edudemic #yam

2013-01-22T10:15:00.001-08:00

When you think about it, hoping that a 21st century middle or high school student will obsess over reading like they do. . .say. . .Tumblr or their new iPhone. . . is almost laughable. It is as anachronistic as wishing for an age before freeways or toys before plastic.

Indeed, expecting kids to deeply embrace and read books today whether for independent reading or homework is not a whole lot different than asking them to churn their own butter, carry their favorite music around in their backpack as an LP collection, use a telephone that is wired to the wall, or watch their favorite shows on a black and white tv with rabbit ears. But really – have books jumped the shark?

via edudemic.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Joe Wilson: E-Assessment Question , #InsideLearning and #GlowRoadshow #yam

2013-01-21T03:30:00.001-08:00

For learners, and I am one, learning is a lifelong continuum . I still think though that those who deliver learning and the accreditation of learning still live in silos, worse some of them have stopped learning.

via joewilsons.net

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Mayer & Clark – 10 brilliant design rules for e-learning

2013-01-18T07:12:00.001-08:00

Richard Mayer and Ruth Clark are among the foremost researchers in the empirical testing of media and media mix hypotheses in online learning. Their e-Learning and the Science of Instruction (2003) covers seven design principles; multimedia, contiguity, modality, redundancy, coherence, personalisation, and practice opportunities. Clear explanations are given about the risks of ignoring these principles - with support from worked examples and case study challenges. It should be a compulsory text for online learning designers.

via donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Global Game Jam 2013 Competition - Microsoft UK Faculty Connection #yam

2013-01-18T04:08:00.001-08:00

Microsoft is supporting the WW competition and in the UK were having a dedicated competition at each event and online.

So even if who cannot physically attend the event can enter the online competition see http://www.ubelly.com/global-game-jam/

via blogs.msdn.com

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Winning the Talent War with the System z « DancingDinosaur

2013-01-17T03:50:00.001-08:00

The next frontier in the ongoing talent war, according to McKinsey, will be deep analytics, a critical weapon required to probe big data in the competition underpinning new waves of productivity, growth, and innovation. Are you ready to compete and win in this technical talent war?

Similarly, Information Week contends that data expertise is called for to take advantage of data mining, text mining, forecasting, and machine learning techniques. The System z data center is ideally is ideally positioned to win if you can attract the right talent.

via dancingdinosaur.wordpress.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Ten lies programmers tell themselves | ITworld #yam

2013-01-15T10:38:00.001-08:00

If George Washington really never told a lie, then he must never have been a programmer. All those long hours sitting alone in a cube or at a workstation (unless you pair program) can lead you to not just talk to yourself, but to outright lie. How else to justify doing (or not doing) certain things that you probably shouldn’t (or should) do?

via itworld.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

MagicScroll Instantly Makes Any Web Page Distraction-Free and Adds a Book-Like Interface - LifeHacker #yam

2013-01-14T06:38:00.001-08:00

Chrome: Reading articles online isn't always the most pleasant experience. MagicScroll is a Chrome extension that transforms a page into a book-like, distraction free experience to make reading longer articles online easier.

via lifehacker.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 App competition 2013 #yam

2013-01-14T06:16:00.001-08:00

Join the European APPCUP 2013!

Take the chance to develop your application for Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8.

It´s a great opportunity to showcase your development skills for innovative applications.

via appcup.eu

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Should You Use Twitter? This Flowchart Has The Answer. - Edudemic #yam

2013-01-14T06:15:00.001-08:00

While I’m strongly in the camp of ‘everyone should use Twitter because we all use it in a different way,’ this humorous Twitter flowchart was just too interesting to not post. It’s basically a visualization that helps you critically think about why you should or shouldn’t use Twitter.

via edudemic.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Christmas Special: Free Stuff From Microsoft - TechNet UK - Site Home - TechNet Blogs #yam

2012-12-20T06:31:00.001-08:00

Christmas comes but once a year, which is similar to the frequency in which I blog. I thought as it’s the season of good will, I would write a blog that details some of the free stuff we have to offer.

via blogs.technet.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Why Averages Are Inadequate, and Percentiles Are Great | Cloud Computing Journal #yam

2012-12-20T05:53:00.001-08:00

Anyone who ever monitored or analyzed an application uses or has used averages. They are simple to understand and calculate. We tend to ignore just how wrong the picture is that averages paint of the world. To emphasis the point let me give you a real-world example outside of the performance space that I read recently in a newspaper.

The article was explaining that the average salary in a certain region in Europe was 1900 Euro's (to be clear this would be quite good in that region!). However when looking closer they found out that the majority, namely 9 out of 10 people, only earned around 1000 Euros and one would earn 10.000 (I over simplified this of course, but you get the idea). If you do the math you will see that the average of this is indeed 1900, but we can all agree that this does not represent the "average" salary as we would use the word in day to day live. So now let's apply this thinking to application performance.

via cloudcomputing.sys-con.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Computational Fairy Tales: Book: Proper CompSci concepts in improper contexts. #yam

2012-12-06T04:21:00.001-08:00

Have you ever thought that computer science should include more dragons and wizards? Computational Fairy Tales introduces principles of computational thinking, illustrating high-level computer science concepts, the motivation behind them, and their application in a non-computer—fairy tale—domain. It’s a quest that will take you from learning the basics of programming in a blacksmith’s forge to fighting curses with recursion.

Fifteen seers delivered the same prophecy, without so much as a single minstrel to lighten the mood: an unknown darkness threatens the kingdom. Suddenly, Princess Ann finds herself sent forth alone to save the kingdom. Leaving behind her home, family, and pet turtle Fido, Princess Ann must face goblin attacks, magical curses, arrogant scholars, an unpleasant oracle, and rude Boolean waiters. Along the way she must build a war chest of computational knowledge to survive the coming challenge.

The Computational Fairy Tales book includes ~30 rewritten or revised stories from the online collection and 15 all new chapters. Each story serves to illustrate a computational concept, supplementing official instruction or motivating computer science concepts. The stories have also be set up to provide a natural progression both within the computer science concepts and within the fairy tale quest.

via computationaltales.blogspot.co.uk

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

How four Microsoft engineers proved copy protection would fail | Ars Technica

2012-12-06T04:10:00.001-08:00

Can digital rights management technology stop the unauthorized spread of copyrighted content? Ten years ago this month, four engineers argued that it can't, forever changing how the world thinks about piracy. Their paper, "The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution" (available as a .doc here) was presented at a security conference in Washington, DC, on November 18, 2002.

By itself, the paper's clever and provocative argument likely would have earned it a broad readership. But the really remarkable thing about the paper is who wrote it: four engineers at Microsoft whose work many expected to be at the foundation of Microsoft's future DRM schemes. The paper's lead author told Ars that the paper's pessimistic view of Hollywood's beloved copy protection schemes almost got him fired. But ten years later, its predictions have proved impressively accurate.

via arstechnica.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

25 Ways Software Startups can use BizSpark, Day 3: Upgrade your PC (or macbook using bootcamp) to Windows 8 | Taylor Cowan (Online)

2012-12-03T06:51:00.001-08:00

BizSpark, via MSDN, comes with a generous supply of Windows operating system licenses, including the recently released Windows 8 OS. Upgrading from Windows 7 is easy and will allow you to keep your files and settings. If you or your teammates have MacBooks you may use the preinstalled “bootcamp” software to run Windows 8 on a partition. Here’s are the steps I used to get Windows 8 up and running on my MacBook:

via taylorcowanonline.com

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25 Ways Software Startups can use BizSpark, Day 2: Run your blog, a wiki, and a marketing site | Taylor Cowan (Online)

2012-12-03T05:37:00.001-08:00

Most startup companies will want to run at least one, and often several websites. A wiki for technical documentation, a blog for the team to keep customers informed, and a marketing site can be had free for three years using the benefits provided by BizSpark. How so? All BizSparks are eligible for up to $3700 in free Azure utilization each year they are in the program. Under that program your startup could run 3 custom websites, with ample storage and bandwidth included. Azure’s web site product makes it easy to run custom asp.net, php, or node.js sites. Code and content can be updated using TFS, FTP, or GIT publishing. You may also quickly create sites from a gallery of blog, wiki, and CMS engines.

via taylorcowanonline.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

How Writers Use Evernote, Google Drive, Dropbox and CloudHQ - cloudHQ Blog #yam

2012-12-03T05:24:00.001-08:00

There are many individuals and companies that use the cloud to help improve their business activities. We were curious how writers use cloud services in their line of work so we contacted a few of our customers that are freelance writers and asked them how they use the cloud.

Based on these interviews, we found that the majority of writers use multiple cloud services- Google Drive, Evernote, Dropbox and cloudHQ. Google Drive, Evernote and Dropbox are not instantly compatible with each other so the writers use cloudHQ to sync them all together for the ultimate writing package.

via blog.cloudhq.net

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Play Any YouTube Playlist with VLC Media Player for Ad-Free Listening

2012-11-27T04:39:00.001-08:00

Listening to playlists on YouTube is a great way to check out new music for free, but you have to keep your browser open and you have to watch a bunch of ads. If you'd like a cleaner experience, tech blog Digital Inspiration shows how to play playlists in the VLC media player.

via lifehacker.com

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Google Type uses image search to generate fonts | Crave - CNET

2012-11-27T02:43:00.001-08:00

Despite the name, Google Type isn't a real Google product. The site generates fonts based on Google image search, hence the name. You type in words, the site digs through image search and regenerates your text using image versions of each letter.

This is all based on an interesting quirk of Google's image search. If you type in a single letter and search images, Google gives you a lovely collection of image representations for that letter. For example, plug in "Y," and you may see the "Y" from "Yahoo," an illustration of a guy with his arms up in a "Y" shape, and a hand making the hang-loose sign. Any of these could pop up in Google Type.

via news.cnet.com

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