Education
Schools, Universities, ITO's
A couple of students came to me recently to explain that they needed help with (what appeared to be) a really complicated process for creating stop-motion animations. They were doing something in Photoshop with some proprietary plugin that could only run on a particular computer, and were unable to bring that computer to school. It got me thinking: the process of creating stop-motion animation is not complicated, so surely there must be some easy-to-use software out there for creating animations. The short answer is: there is.
Further to my post last month, it appears the NZ government has done a u-turn on software patents and has decided, in the face of plenty of evidence to the contrary, we need them after all. What I found most surprising is the relative speed with which MP Simon Power did his flip flop.
Wow. What a busy term. More posts to come, but in the meantime, here's some nice, open eye-candy:
The Origin... from Agustin Eguia on Vimeo.
(Thanks to cyberkiller.)
One of the biggest threats to free and open source software at the moment is the existence of software patents. News came out recently that not only is Apple suing HTC over its smartphones, but Steve Jobs also has his eyes on the brilliant open source video format Ogg Theora. Essentially what companies like Apple want is for everyone in the computing world to use the product they developed and to pay them a royalty for the privilege of using them.
Now, I don't know the first thing about music composition, but I do know that even I could pull something passable together using software like this. Jokosher is only in 0.11 release, but already it's a very usable, powerful multi-track authoring studio. From http://www.jokosher.org/:
One of the great things about being part of the community of Moodle users (that numbered 50 million last time I checked) is the wealth of third-party add-ons available. One module I think is great is the Game module. It takes any normal quiz, glossary or questions and turns it automatically into any one of 8 games, from hangman to sudoku to something similar to 'who wants to be a millionaire'. One of my great tricks is to get students to build a glossary of key words and definitions for a topic as we go.
Christmas comes twice a year for Ubuntu fans. New releases come out on the 4th and 10th months of the year (hence the numbering 10.04 came out in 2010 on the 04th month. There are a number of really good new features which The Silent Number summarises here. Off the top of my head, here's what I'm thankful for this Christmas:
- New design: the aubergine and orange theme is good. I was getting a bit sick of the yellow and brown anyway.
One of the most high-powered, full-featured open source applications is Blender 3D. It's an incredibly powerful 3D modelling application that has been used to make short films like Big Buck Bunny and Elephant's Dream. So what do all those 3D characters do after their film careers end? They get jobs in computer gaming.
I've been listening to Tommy and the Fallen Horses lately. They're well worth checking out. One review I read had their new album as the best kiwi album of the last decade.
When I first heard about Kaltura, I refused to believe my ears. I remember thinking "There is no way that someone can make an online video editor that lets different people upload different pieces of footage into a single project and edit it asynchronously. Impossible." thankfully my curiosity got the better of me and I clicked on the link and had a play around.
I have over fifteen years experience in systems and network configuration and support. For most of that time I have been working with Open Source Software, and believe that Open Source software provides the best solutions for business, educational and personal use.
