Busy times

Hal

Well, it’s been a busy few weeks for me, and when my head is down getting work done I tend not to write very much here.

Most recently I have been to Ahmedabad in India.

Ahmedabad is a city in Gujerat, north of Mumbai by an hour’s plane flight (about the same as London to Glasgow, then). The city is as you might expect any Indian city to be – full of colour, noise, activity and people from all walks of life. The biggest surprise came as I was being driven around – the roads are simply chaotic to anyone who is not from there! Cars, tuk-tuks, lorries, motorbikes, pedestrians, cattle, dogs all intermingle in a seemingly disordered way, with people simply driving where they want and in many cases heading the wrong way on the carriageway! Roundabouts seem optional.

However, whilst this felt amazingly dangerous, I didn’t see one mishap – not even a slight nudge. The rule seems to be if you get to the give way line first, you don’t give way. If you approach alongside a vehicle, sound your horn to get them to move left. In fact, sound it repeatedly. Eventually, they will move left, (and in doing so only just miss taking out a motorcyclist). Amazing!

My over riding memory is of a town with people who are helpful, friendly and dead keen to talk to you…

From the middle of Gujerat I returned to Heathrow and found instant order on the roads, calmness, orderly queues and absolutely no-one to talk to despite there being easily as many people around!

So what about the quality of the work the team are doing for us? Actually, I am sure it is as good as any done in the UK. There may be one or two things to fix – but all software has bugs when it is written – there may be some issues relating to scalability (in time we will see)… but no matter what we find I know that the team will fix it quickly, simply and without fuss… that’s the work ethic they have got over there. They are all keen to get things working correctly, and with the minimum amount of time spent doing it.

What we have done is manage the process with weekly Skype calls, visits to India, careful documentation, clear wire framing and being as unambiguous as we can be… then raising issues clearly and politely as we find them. If you can find a way to do those things then I’d heartily recommend outsourced work.

In the mean time, back in the UK the project which is using this revised software continues apace – lots of work with end users, training sessions, documentation, testing, more meetings, more demonstrations and more training. It’s full on (but I wouldn’t change it)!

Country Ways, Devon holidays

Hal

I had to write a little bit about the place I’ve been staying in just outside Great Torrington in Devon, called ‘Country Ways’ .

I arranged a very last minute trip to the west country to try to find a relaxing space to do some thinking and a bit of work. The Country Ways web site came up with a late availability, and I thought it looked good. I was not mistaken – this is a collection of small cottage buildings within a farm that offer the visitor a really good standard of accommodation. The units are all converted out buildings, by the look of them, and inside they are very well appointed. My residence for the last few days has been the ‘Dray’ – big enough for two people, with one double bed a bathroom (en-suite) and a modest but very comfortable living area complete with kitchen.

The ‘resort’ (if you can call it that) also has a laundry facility, a gym, pool room (the table based game, not a swimming variety!) and a whole load of open space, swings and walkways, etc.

Located between Dartmoor and Exmoor, south of Barnstaple, it is ideally located for North Devon walking and trips to some of the best coastal resorts, such as Westward Ho! and Bude, amongst many others.

The units are self catering, so bring food! There is no supermarket nearby – the closest being in Torrington which is around 8 miles away. There is no nearby petrol station either – again, you go into Torrington. This suits me, but if you are hoping for all the mod cons of living in the London area, or any urban area for that matter, you’ll be left wanting! This is Devon, and life is different here!

Just to add, last night I was able to see more stars in the night sky than I can remember ever seeing – a truly awesome sight – no light pollution, just the outer spiralling arm of our galaxy. Wow….

Google Mail, Calendars and Apple iPhone

Hal

A while back I wrote about a neat little app called NuevaSync which pretty much handled all that was needed to get iCal, Google Calendars and mail working seamlessly together. Today I want to share a different way of doing things.

It all started when NuevaSync wanted to charge money. I decided I didn’t want an account and started looking at alternatives. For a long time now I have been running my email through Google servers, and setting up an ‘MX’ record with my domain hosting company to send all company mail through GMail. This is brilliant – I get a domain based email address with all the power of Gmail behind it… and I can collect mail through IMAP on my phone, laptop, desktop or through a web browser. Lovely.

However, calendars have always been a bit of a problem. Until recently, NuevaSync took the hard work out of things, but I needed a new way of doing things.

When you use an iPhone to collect mail and link to calendars you have to add an account to the device. It is superbly easy to just go with the ‘Google’ option as it is already pre-defined and all you do is enter your username and password. It works a treat, but there are some drawbacks – for example, when you want to delete mail it only allows you to archive it instead. Calendars only gave you one main calendar, and I run several. SO what to do?

First of all, *don’t* set ‘Google’ as the new account. I choose the ‘Other’ option and fill in the details manually. It’s pretty simple stuff, but it only gives me Mail and Notes. In order to add a calendar I have to go through the same process a second time but select calendar account as the option. Apart from that small inconvenience, everything works really well.

I can now get my calendar through the iCal app on my phone or laptop, collect email through the mail app on either device, or of course use any computer and connect through the web.

Adding events on any device pushes them to all others within a few minutes, and as you’d expect, editing and deleting are just as easy.

So, no need for NuevaSync anymore… it’s all built right in.

Creative Learning Systems

Hal

Creative Learning Systems logo
New company, new logo

Just a quick note – Cleveratom has closed (we went into voluntary liquidation after a run of particularly bad luck, and some less than satisfactory decisions). In the mean time I have set up a new company called ‘Creative Learning Systems’. Does just what it says on the tin…

www.clsystems.co.uk

I am very sorry to lose Cleveratom – such a cool brand! I wish my former colleagues well in their new endeavours, and will look forward to carrying on doing some excellent learning based consultancy, learning space design and web application development with Matthew Eaves as a co-director.

Since we have no development team anymore, we will be looking for excellent individuals who have a lot of skills and want to work in a dynamic way. If you know of anyone, do send me their info (or send them mine!).

BETT 2011, Olympia, London

Hal

Today I went to the BETT show to see the latest in technological developments aimed at education. I have been to almost every one of the shows, sometimes as a visitor, a teacher and as an exhibitor. This year I was just visiting for one day.

I like BETT, I always have. It’s a quirky venue that appeals to me, packed out with technology companies displaying their wares. I thoroughly enjoy walking around and seeing what’s new, how things are developing, the latest version of this or that. Today I was looking forward to catching up with old friends, and seeing some new things too.

Today was remarkably busy for a show that has been touted as being past it’s best. I would say there were as many people at the show as there ever has been, and whilst the organisers claim the reorganisation of the space at Olympia meant there were wider aisles, I couldn’t help feel there were less stands. For example, the gallery in the Grand Hall was not full all the way round as it has been in the past. The loss of all the ‘Policy’ stands from people like QCDA, Becta, NCSL, DfE and so on meant there must have been huge floorspace freed up. Perhaps it was a combination of these things.

Either way, the ‘feel’ of the show was as good as ever – crowds of like minded folk from all over the world converge on Olympia for four days of mayhem, and it still feels like a family event. Yes, it could be better, and yes there could be new things there (still loads of stuff for interactive whiteboards and similar ‘old’ technologies) but ultimately, it’s still the best education show in the UK, and probably Europe.