My two weeks with the Asus Eee Pad Transformer

With all the tablet and iPad hype going on, Skool (www.skool.nl; Google will translate for ya) is also interested in how tablets can be managed and prepped in such a way that they do what they do best: Just Work!

In an attempt to familiarize myself with the use of tablets, I was given the opportunity to try out an Asus Eee Pad Transformer with docking station/keyboard. Here's a brief report of my experience so far.

The Good
The tablet looks really slick. It's stylish, comes in a decent color and even the keyboard feels good. The keyboard even comes with dedicated keys for search, lock, home, settings, bluetooth/WiFi toggle and even has a key for returning to "auto brightness". The touchpad that comes with the keyboard also supports multi touch, which is nice if you want to scroll a web page without touching the pad itself.

Of course there is direct access to all the goodies in the Android market. After setting the whole thing up with my personal Gmail account, I noticed almost all of my apps I run on my HTC Sensation got automagically installed on the Honeycomb device. Really quickly I had most of my regular apps available.

Asus also included a few goodies of its own. The Transformer comes with software that allows you to connect to your PC. You have to install a little piece of software on your PC for that, but then you are able to connect to it in a remote desktop kind of way. Of course until Windows 8, you still will be stuck with a UI that is not made for touch. Don't think you can easily use Outlook from your Transformer. Not even with the keyboard attached. It's just not made for touch.

The Bad
After setting everything up, running a few updates and waiting for all apps to be installed, I noticed that that was all it did. No backup of the app settings or data had been restored. So, it took me another hour or so to get all those apps configured the way I am used to.

Furthermore this is typically one of those type of devices that when in the house, it gets hogged by the rest of the family. My 5 y/o son asked me the first time he saw me with it: "Does it come with Angry Birds?" It's addictive. Not just for the kids, but also for me. I like to have it around, if it was only for being able to check things online on a screen larger than on my phone.

The Ugly
I haven't noticed any ugly yet. One thing that's going to be a pain to get device management done right for the schools will be the fact that there is no way to do some kind of initial provisioning for the WiFi connection. Aside from that, the Transformer (like most others) forces you to go through a wizard as soon as you turn it on for first use. In schools you most likely don't want teachers to have to go through that initial setup.


But how do we get to proper (manufacturer independent) device management without working with the manufacturers directly? An interesting technical challenge!

Fog

This weekend has been the rebirth of my photography hobby. From now on, I am a re-born photographer :-)


I could not have picked a better subject: Fog.Do you know how hard it is to take reasonably good photos of fog? Let me tell ya, it's hard! 


I have learned that I still need a lot of practice. I remember the days where I would be in the darkroom with my dad developing our black & white photos. Initially I viewed it as pure magic; later on he introduced me to the inside scoop. From that moment on, I have always been interested in photography and jealous of the people that have the time (or take the time) to take great photos. Google+ definitely has re-charged that interest. There are so many great and inspirational photographers that post their photos!


For now, I am just trying. I need to go back to the basics. I need to think aperture, shutter speed, ISO again. I am familiar with the terms and what they mean, but I can't trust my instinct anymore. I have to re-learn I guess.


Back to the drawing board so to speak. And go back to practice and practice and practice. I hope you will see lot's of photos taken by me. I invite everyone to comment on them and to not be kind or polite. Be critical. That's how one advances!


Here are my lessons learned from yesterday's foggy photo shoot:
https://plus.google.com/116672178660074115883/posts/VirwubC9CLR


Oh, and yes, I am trying out the new dynamic views on my blog :-) Let me know if you like it.

Strategy development by looking back

This past week has been a weird one: I didn't really feel like blogging, although I posted another CONTRAST photo here. This week has been an inspirational one though.


Steve Jobs

Lots and lots and lots of (good) stuff has been posted about Steve and about the way he changed the world, and how he accomplished that within Apple. Why do people do the things they do (see my previous post in Dutch about this subject)? Why did Steve do the things he did? He wanted to make great things. He wanted to keep it simple. He wanted your grandmother to be able to use the iPad. Guy Kawasaki the other day got an hour to share his experiences with the online audience of the Facebook Success Summit. Take some time to at least listen to a part of this: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-steve-jobs-changed-the-world-this-week-in-social-media/


All these retrospectives made me think of the Commodore64 most us (older) geeks have owned or used at one point in the past. Being curious by nature, I checked Wikipedia last night and this piece of fine machinery had sold up to 17 million units in a 12 year (1982-1994) time span! Prices were just under $600 at a time (1982) where a gallon of milk on average would set you back $2.20 (now $3.50). Try to imagine that we would still be able to buy (new!) computers that were just released in 1999... Just try to remember what type/model your main computer was back then? For me this was the time I was getting ready to move to the US and start working at CyberCash (later part of VeriSign Payment Services; now part of Paypal). I remember using mIRC for IRC on a Windows 3.11 Intel 486DX computer. It was the computer that I also tried compiling the 1.2.8 Linux kernel on, which would take at least an hour and a half! Can you imagine still using that?


Change
Yes, a lot has change since then. We buy iPads that range around the price of an old Commodore64 back in 1982. Not one, but two, three of more, so every family members can use one. The iPad is the PERSONAL Computer per sang. It is not made to be used by multiple users; it's made for YOU and YOUR personal computing experience.


Android (and most likely Microsoft's Windows 8) tablets follow suit. The Android tablets allow you to combine multiple (Google) accounts in one device. Not so that multiple users can use the device without getting into each other's stuff, but to make the experience even more personal and foremost: simple and convenient.


How does all of this apply to education? Why are people doing the things they do and use iPads (or other tablet computers) in education? Andy Brovey describes a few reasons:

• "First is size. Apple’s tablet is easily held, shared and stored away when not in use. Previously when students wanted to show or share their screen to others, the teacher or peers needed to go to the machine. Now the machine comes to them."
• "Next, consider battery life."
• "Finally, the iPad is versatile. [...] The iPad becomes the app."

The first two reasons are simply technical improvements. They are important, yet not as significant as the last reason mentioned. Read this again: "The iPad becomes the app." All of a sudden it's about the content (again). About what actually is the added value, instead of the cool gadget the iPad is perceived to be by people. The iPad becomes like a book to the teachers. It's not complicated to operate and doesn't require technical background to use, as Steve Jobs wanted your grandmother to be able to operate it :-)

So, are you using iPads or other tablet computers in your teaching? How does it fit your curriculum? How do your students use them? Please feel free to share in the comments.

Waarom doen mensen de dingen die ze doen?

Na drie jaar was het dan eindelijk weer zover: Bovenschools Landelijk Overleg Skool: Een bijeenkomst van ICT-ers (al dan niet bovenschools) en directeuren (al dan niet bovenschools) georganiseerd door Skool, waar samen gesproken kan worden over de zaken die er toe doen op ICT gebied in het onderwijs.

Ik kies er bewust niet voor om hier een samenvatting van alle presentaties (zoals onder andere die van Frans Schouwenburg van Kennisnet) te schrijven, maar wil graag delen de zaken die mij van deze dag na een uurtje terug naar huis rijden nog zijn bij gebleven. En, die mij bezig blijven houden. En, die ik herken uit eerdere blog posts, dan wel interne communicatie.


Drijfveren
In zijn samenvatting de door hem geleide tafel sessie rondom de stelling "Over drie jaar heeft iedere leerling zijn eigen tablet" vatte Joost Rijsterborgh (Commercieel Directeur Paradigit Groep) zijn indruk van de middag samen: Skool heeft de opdracht om zich te richten op voor het onderwijs relevante innovatie. Het is dus zaak dat er goed geluisterd wordt naar wat voor het onderwijs relevant is. Dat wat relevant is, zal worden geadopteerd.

In sessies zoals die van vandaag en in een kleiner Innovatie Platform waarin klanten en Skool strategen vertegenwoordigd zijn, zullen we dus moeten gaan bepalen wat het onderwijs als relevant ziet. Maar, hoe bepalen we die relevantie? Wat bepaalt of nieuwe ontwikkelingen zullen worden opgepikt en ingebed in het onderwijs? Hiervoor moeten we ons afvragen waarom mensen de dingen doen die ze doen. Wat zijn de drijfveren om ICT in te zetten binnen het onderwijs door de "gemiddelde" leerkracht?

Waarom doen mensen de dingen die ze doen?
Deze vraag heeft mij de afgelopen dagen bezig gehouden en kwam opnieuw naar boven tijdens de diverse sessies waar ik als toehoorder een indruk probeerde te krijgen van hoe het onderwijsveld aankijkt tegen ICT in het onderwijs en de inbedding daarvan door leerkrachten en leerlingen. Waarom hoeven we bijvoorbeeld leerlingen niet de opdracht te geven om een tablet te gaan gebruiken (ze gebruiken hem uit zichzelf)? En waarom is het daarentegen zo moeilijk om binnen een team van 20 collega's meer dan twee van die collega's aan de gang te krijgen met zo'n apparaat?

Is het zo ingewikkeld? Is men bang het apparaat stuk te maken? Kent men de mogelijkheden wel die een dergelijk apparaat biedt? Of, is de vraag veel simpeler: Ziet men het nut in van de toepassing van een tablet in het onderwijs? Ben je er als ICT-er wel in geslaagd om de toegevoegde waarde ervan over te brengen, zodat die collega's intrinsiek gemotiveerd zijn geraakt om de tablet in te zetten? Of, heeft de gadget geilheid de overhand gehad in de aanschaf van die dingen?

Dat gevoel van nut hebben speelt m.i. een cruciale rol in de snelheid waarmee ICT innovaties worden geaccepteerd en ingebed in het onderwijs. Met andere woorden: Het moet iets toevoegen aan het primaire proces op de scholen! En die toegevoegde waarde wordt bepaald door de visie die je als organisatie uitgewerkt hebt als het gaat over de inzet van ICT binnen je onderwijs.

SCRUM
Interessant genoeg hebben we hier een directe link te pakken naar de wijze waarop Skool Automatisering sinds april haar ontwikkelproces heeft ingericht. Hiervoor is namelijk een begin gemaakt met de implementatie van de SCRUM methodiek. Deze methodiek zorgt ervoor dat de gehele organisatie zich met de juiste focus richt op de zaken die relevant zijn voor de klanten. Uitgangspunt is dat in korte ontwikkelfasen ("sprints") gewerkt wordt aan de ontwikkeling van die zaken die de klanten als relevant ervaren. Het gaat dus om die zaken die ultiem de meeste toegevoegde waarde hebben voor het onderwijs. Precies die zaken dus, waar Joop het in zijn samenvatting over had.

Daarnaast biedt deze methodiek (vanwege de korte ontwikkelfasen) de ruimte om snel te schakelen en daarmee dus snel te kunnen reageren op nieuwe externe ontwikkelingen en veranderende relevantie bij de klanten, dan wel Skool Automatisering zelf.

Relevante innovatie
Als we ons dus focussen op de relevante innovaties, richten we ons dus op de zaken waarvan de leerkrachten de toegevoegde waarde aan hun onderwijs inzien binnen de visie die daarvoor is ontwikkeld. De afgelopen jaren heeft Skool Automatisering techniek de school uit geholpen; nu is het tijd om de leerkrachten die tools in handen te geven die het onderwijs tot haar volle potentieel laat werken.

NB: Deze post geeft mijn persoonlijke visie weer en is niet noodzakelijkerwijs die van Skool Automatisering.

Life's what you make it

After reading +Chris Brogan's Google+ post on Choices I remembered similar thoughts that I used to have at times when things weren't going all that great for me. Phrases like "Life's what you make it." and "Just Do It" (trademarked by Nike) all came back to me.


Choices and strategic planning
Interestingly enough Chris' post also fits the whole strategic planning thing I wrote about two days ago. Strategic planning is also about setting goals, determining the ways to those goals and CHOOSING to stick with one´s plan. It is about choosing to take action and to set small steps towards your goal. The essence is that you make conscious choices. Too often (especially in smaller organizations without too many formal business processes) choices are made subconsciously. No explicit moment at which a choice to stick with or deviate from the plan almost certainly drives you further away from your path. Slowly, almost without you noticing it. All of a sudden you realize that you're out in the boonies and that the path you thought you were on is many many miles away from where you're standing and your original goal is probably even out of sight. You find yourself wondering: "How did that happen? Where did I go wrong?" Let me tell you: It went wrong the moment you subconsciously CHOSE not to make conscious choices anymore. "Just Do It" means more than just diving in head first. It means that you have to set your goals consciously and act on them by make the right choices.


So, how does that apply to your job? Does your company have a Master Plan? If so, do all your co-workers know what the plan is? Are high level goals translated into concrete paths and objectives? Are they SMART (Specific-Measurable-Acceptable-Realistic-Time-bound)? If not, who CHOSE not to do that? If they are, who is keeping track if everyone is walking the same path?


Do you feel powerless, because your company's management has decided they don't need a plan? CHOOSE to do something about it. Life's so much easier when you've set goals for yourself. What is your contribution to The Master Plan? CHOOSE to contribute. Otherwise: Get the heck out!


Life's what you make it
Not just your company's Master Plan is important for your happiness. Even more so is your Personal Master Plan. Do you have one? If so, do you make the right choices to get closer to your goal every day? What choices do you find the hardest to make?


I personally have set a few goals. One of them is to become a better writer (in English) and to be (more) in touch with the world that I live in every day. I must say that Google+ and especially people like +Chris Brogan and +Robert Scoble have inspired me to do so; to actually start writing about things other than my five year old making some witty remark or a funny face. I love being able to write more than 140 characters per update again :-) I could have been watching some mind numbing TV right now, but I CHOSE to get one step closer to my goal of becoming a better and especially more interesting writer. Hopefully +Margie Clayman's post "Let's Talk About Getting That First Reply On Twitter" will help me to improve on the latter even further and will me make being noticed.


Almost an entire year ago I also set another goal for myself: Being able to run 5 km. I did that after racing in a family run in my home town Breda with my wife +Brigitte van Pelt and eight year old daughter. It's been a tough journey with quite some injuries and motivational problems, but from what it looks like now I will be running my first 5 km race at the Singelloop Breda on October 2nd. Who would have thought? Every night I force myself to choose whether to stick with my schema or not. Every night I decided not to stick with the plan, I realized I made it harder to reach my goal in time. Every time I stuck with my plan, I knew I was one step closer to my ultimate goal. Running and training for a race is a great metafore for a lot of things and I have used it multiple times. Even in strategic planning sessions with our management team at Skool Automatisering.


So, what is (one of) your goal(s)? How do you make conscious choices every day to get closer to reaching it?

What's been keeping me busy today?

After more than two years I am returning to this blog. Although Google+ also seems to be a good place to write longer-than-140-character-posts, I prefer to have a place that people can find easily, even without having to add me to their Google+ circles. So, here goes.

What's been keeping me busy today? Of course there was work. As Technical Manager @ Skool Automatisering, I get involved in all not-so-standard or how-the-f-did-we-f-this-up technical issues and am expected to SOLVE them. My team is The Endpoint. We solve it, or it doesn't get solved at all. No pressure. Luckily the team consists of a bunch of the best-of-the-best engineers and developers; so far we seem to manage. Although it generally takes longer than the business side of things would like to see. Oh bugger.

Today also was the day to get more acquainted with strategic corporate planning. As a member of the Strategic Planning Xchange group on LinkedIn, I came across Frontier Strategy Group Chris Moore's three part blog post, that describes the challenges of the strategic planning process by answering three critical questions:

• Is the planning process too reliant on faulty assumptions or incomplete data?
• Does your planning process fail to take into account the rapidly changing external market and macro environment?
• Are mid- and lower-level managers placing enough priority on strategic planning, and am I doing enough to improve their planning capabilities?

More and more it becomes clear to me, that strategic planning makes up for an interesting journey. Especially at a company like Skool Automatisering. I am in for interesting journeys. I need to get out of my technical comfort zone. Heck, I might even end up getting my MBA! 

In the mean time. I am going to see where most traffic to this blog will be coming from. Is it Twitter, Facebook or Google+? I am loving Google+ with first of all it's ease of use and secondly the content that is being generated and shared by +Vic Gundrota, +Robert Scoble and the likes. Just loving it! 

Lately I have been using Twitter only to read the silly <140 character status updates from friends and co-workers. Although Facebook is adding new features more quickly than Google+ seems to able to keep up with, I still can't get used to the cluttery UI that seems to have to come with those changes. Sorry Facebook.

So now you know. This is what has been keeping me busy today. Tomorrow, there will be more. Software and Packaging Engineer recruitment and more hardware SkoolControl certification issues. I'm sure. 

But, we'll prevail! The glass is always at least half way full.

Cloud Goes Open Source?

Open Cloud Manifesto.org

More Telfort porblems

As reported in February 2008, I was experiencing problems with the down- and upload speeds of my 20Mbps connection. Now, similar problems occur.

Down- and upload speeds of <4000kbps style="font-size:85%;">cobblestone.attic.s62.nl Snt: 3 Loss% Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
10.0.1.252 0.0% 0.5 1.9 0.5 4.8 2.5
82-169-7-254.ip.telfort.nl 0.0% 22.1 23.2 22.1 24.1 1.0
vpn494-telfort.bcsw1.asd-nh.net.tiscali.nl 33.3% 23.0 23.4 23.0 23.9 0.6
vlan507.bcsw1.asd-tc2.net.tiscali.nl 0.0% 23.6 23.4 23.0 23.7 0.4
195-241-4-134.ip.telfort.nl 0.0% 32.4 29.7 26.8 32.4 2.8
Welcome.at.BD1.as24730.nl 0.0% 32.9 30.0 28.6 32.9 2.5
Welcome.at.M40-2.as24730.nl 0.0% 23.9 24.2 23.9 24.9 0.6
rc02-netholding-gige-1.prolocation.net 0.0% 25.0 24.8 24.1 25.4 0.6
telfort.net 0.0% 24.3 24.6 24.3 24.8 0.3

Please fix this. (I have reported this through Telforts website).

Ubuntu on HP MiniNote 2133

I am expecting a HP Mini 2133 within the next few days. It's loaded with Window XP Home, so I am sure I'll experience an urge to at least install Ubuntu in dual boot on it. Checking the web, I found this blog to describe best practices: AWG's Blog

I'll keep you posted on the progress...

Brownies op donderdagkoekendag.nl

Kim and Ana @ scouting dinner

Lol op de schaatsbaan!

Donkere wolken in Kerkrade

Skating fun!

Photojojo » Hold the Camera, Kid: Luring your Child into the World of Photography!

Photojojo » Hold the Camera, Kid: Luring your Child into the World of Photography!

NextAction - trimpath - Google Code

In my quest for GTD tools, I cam across this. Looks good and I don't want to forget about it:
NextAction - trimpath - Google Code

Let's see if it's still good after I finish reading The Book.

Another tool I don't want to forget about is TiDy:
http://en.longwitz.ch/pages/links/tidy--download.php

It's an Excel sheet that will help you in recording your time spent on things.

Getting Things Done (GTD)

For a while now, I have been dealing with the uneasy feeling of not being able to get things done in a way and in a tempo that I used to be able to. I have started delegating more and more stuff, but am also very eager to help our engineers out when they encounter one of those not so easy to solve problems. Challenges is what our sales folks call them ;-)

Today is the day that I started to change my life. I have started to read David Allen's "Getting Things Done" after trying to find this one application that I could use to organize my work and tasks. During my quest for The Ultimate Tool, I noticed I needed to read the book first.

At the end of the Welcome chapter I realized I had started to read the right book, when seeing this quote for a "follower":

"When I habitually applied the tenets of this program it
saved my life . . . when I faithfully applied them, it changed my life.
This is a vaccination against day-to-day fire-fighting (the so-
called urgent and crisis demands of any given workday) and an
antidote for the imbalance many people bring upon themselves."

The feeling of day-to-day fire-fighting is so recognizable. As is the aforementioned imbalance. I just hope my life will be saved; and my life will be changed.

Life's what you make it. Yeah, life's what you make it; let's make it right!

Optimizing NFS Performance

We might need this in the morning... Too many hanging NFS mounts in the cluster lately.

Optimizing NFS Performance

Olympic Wrap-Up: Jamaica Wins; Aussies Are 5th; U.S. Ranks 33rd; China Is 47th - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog

Prove anything with statistics....

Olympic Wrap-Up: Jamaica Wins; Aussies Are 5th; U.S. Ranks 33rd; China Is 47th - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog

Ubuntu Productivity » Blog Archive » Ubuntu Photo Manager Experiment

Ubuntu Productivity » Blog Archive » Ubuntu Photo Manager Experiment