When I was at high school, summer holidays were wonderfully long, warm and active, filled with tandem bike rides to Taneatua, bush walks to Otarawairere, swimming at Ohope Beach and Lake Rotoma, fishing at the Ohiwa Wharf and spending a week or two with friends in Auckland.  A good batch of books would also get read, lollies consumed and music played. The last week was always the longest as I looked forward to getting back to school.

I always looked forward to school starting again after the Christmas Holidays. I’d try on my uniform a few  times - it was exciting when I made the change into the senior uniform! 

I saw lots of kids this summer enjoying the activities I enjoyed as a child. We’re lucky here. I also saw lots of  kids taking time out online on Mathletics way before school starts. Trying it on for size before they start back at school again.  At our open day kids brought along their parents and grandparents to show them what they did in Mathletics. The common refrain was “I wish we’d had that in my day”. We’re lucky now.

Tomorrow – school starts for most NZ schools and students. From the emails we’ve been getiing teachers and them in the Ministry have worked right through!

 All the best for 2010.

Subtitled “What I’ve learned about surviving tough times”, this autobiography by  Michael Hill (Jeweller) is well worth reading!

On a hot sunny Saturday afternoon I escaped for a while and finished the book I had started on another flight somewhere. I do intend to sit down and read it all again. I never read books twice but want to ensure that I haven’t missed some gems from this admirable Kiwi entrepreneur. A very personal tale, the book is pleasantly splattered with photos and personal anecdotes written by his family and friends.

Michael Hill, the man, is all about family. He is delightfully still besotted with his clever, artistic and lovely wife Christine and so proud of his children who have independently succeeded in their own lives. Michael Hill, the businessman, is the best rare sort – one who values integrity and hard work in himself and others.

The extraordinary part of his life started later than most – that’s encouraging!  As he says “its never too late for the fun to start”.

I think he sells himself short by giving the book the subtitle “what I’ve learned about surviving tough times”. This book is for everyone – successful, struggling or sedentary and needing and kick in the butt.  He finishes the book “If you have what it takes to be a winner. I want to hear from you.”

I lead a winning NZ company that is only 3 years old and going from strength to strength. There’s lots in this book that is encouraging and will be helpful for the years to come.

I’ve also added something to my bucket list. I would like to go to a Michael Hill International Violin Competition

A New Year is also an opportunity to look back and see how far we have come. When we look at technology we have come such a long way in a short time. Kids going to school today cannot imagine what it may have been like without the internet, iPods and mobile phones.  I’m having trouble remembering how things used to be so this has been a wee bit of a project these holidays.

For auld lang syne then ….

A
Analogue – Not really obsolete as I still have and love analogue watches and clocks. Digital never really took off did it? I have noticed that new ovens have analogue clocks/timers rather than the digital style of last century.

B
Batteries – again not obsolete technology I just thought I’d get my wish list out the way early! Also Mouse Balls – remember them? My toolkit was full of spares as they were the floggable item of choice in school computer labs.

C
cd – the DOS command to change directories – from the days when we had to tell computers to do stuff without being able to see what we were doing.  Nowadays OS’s try to anticipate what you want to do before you do. They sometimes get it right.

D
DOS. I loved DOS so much I named a cat after this venerable OS. She’s now buried under an Apple tree. It is still very handy to have more than a passing knowledge of this OS. The modern throw-away generation will do a system restore rather than fix an individual software component using DOS commands.

E
Errors – OK another wish list entry but the combination of improved skills and improved technology does mean less errors.  Things work way better than they used to – don’t they?

F
Floppy disks. In the end they disappeared really quickly as USB nerd stick technology took off. I remember the 5.25″ variety and the Telecom Training Manager who folded one in half to fit into the 3.5″ floppy disk drive!  FDD is now a redundant acronym

G
Gateway. One computer company had to be in this list. They bought out PC Direct and then departed from our shores. Remember their fresian print boxes?  It used to be a nightmare in the old days when every man and their mates used to build computers in their garage with dodgy parts and dodgier commercial practices. Schools bought on price not on total cost of ownership (TCO) and were ripe for ripping off by these merchants of bad experiences. How many folk have bad stories of ICT integration just because of bad buying decisions?

H
Hubs – Ethernet ones are now superceded by switches. I vaguely remember rules about the allowable number of hubs in parallel and cable lengths that we had to check if network connectivity was a bit dodgy.

I
ICQ - (say it out loud) I know its still around but most of us have moved to Skype, Live Messenger, Google Wave or other multi media derivatives. I fondly remember being very bravely on ICQ at midnight 31.12.1999 at Okere Falls in Rotorua and getting messages from all over the world after midnight asking if the world had ended for us.

J
Jumpers – those little fiddly bits that we had to slip over the right pins inside the box and on HDDs to make hardware go properly. These young ‘uns don’t know they’re born!

K
Keyboard Shortcuts. I used to be able to do everything without even touching the mouse.  I remember getting a call in my Telecom days from the CFO Telecom Cook Islands who had arrived and found there were no mice for the computers! I had to talk him through operating the computer without the mouse (and getting around the OS’s reluctance to work without it!).  Office 2007 has retired many of the keyboard shortcuts and no longer even shows the underlines in the ribbon menus that indicated how you could travel sans mouse.

L
Lotus 1-2-3. My love affair with spreadsheets started here. My only gripe about Excel 2007 is that it doesn’t recognise some of my favourite old Lotus keyboard commands like all other Excel versions have done. I think I can live with it.

M
The Sony Mavica digital camera was the bomb in the day. Recording onto a floppy disk was just so handy and revolutionised digital photogrpahy in primary schools. Students were no longer restricted to adorning their computer stories with clip art – they could use relevant pictures!

N
Windows NT. The completely unsupported and insecure OS that you’ll still see on computers in places like Banks and Government Agencies.

O
Overhead Projector – still hiding one in your cupboard? Superceded by data projectors and visualisers.

P
Parallel printing cables. I’ve thrown my supply of alternative lengths out.  PCs don’t even come with parallel ports any more so there must be lots of obsolete printers out there.

Q
QWERTY keyboard – still lives! Despite prophecies of its obsolescenc at the hand of voice technologies and the threat from Dvorak and other lesser known layouts QWERTY  remains. Our brains have become wired QWERTY. I found it really tricky typing an address into a hire car’s Garmin GPS recently – it’s keyboard was in alphabetical order! What is that about?

R
The Windows Registry – yes, that part of the OS that you alter at your own risk. Editing the registry was a buzz when you disregarded Windows’ dire warnings and edited, deleted and added with impunity, restarted and everything worked better than before!

S
Spirit Bander – the magic way of creating multiple copies of a document using methylated spirits – yes, really!

T
Tape Back-ups – nobody does these anymore surely? I remember many, many late nights spent managing a multi disk backup that was meant to be automatic.

U
Ubix -  now known as Konica Minolta. Haven’t photocopiers come such a long way? Our one can be fitted with an accessory that makes coffee – no bull!

V
VDU’s are still with us but the CRT ones are causing recycling folk problems and we’re enjoying the LCD models with their smaller footprint and great resolution.

W
Windows ME – The aberration of an OS for the home user in between Windows 98 and XP. According to Wikipedia Windows ME had 0.04% market share in November 2009. What?

X
XCopy – the powerful command we used to copy files, directories and subdirectories utilising all sorts of clever switches. Pre WYSIWYG click’n'drag!  I was reminded of this when reading a very recent article in Techrepublic - it appears that we can still simplify file management with the XCopy tool. It was removed in Vista but has made a comeback in Windows 7 and some clever dude has created a GUI interface.

Y
Yvonne‘ll fix it – Gone! I now travel sans screwdriver, have given away my spare parts and no longer crawl under desks. I have a new life!

Z
It has to be ZIP drives usually accompanied with the click of death.  Moody and expensive. I’ve spent many hours trying to recover important data folk entrusted to these merchants of doom.

I’ve enjoyed the trip down memory lane. It has been a great journey but the days are better now!

I live on a farm.

OK, it’s a small farm but is is a farm nevertheless. We have cows. In deference to it’s size it is called THE NEARLY FARM. Capitals afford it more importance than it deserves so maybe The Nearly Farm is more appropriate.

I am bemused by folk whose pastime is Farmville. The Facebook variety. It’s almost like farming has achieved a romanticism, a chic image where exciting things happen like (let’s see….) someone else stops by to fertilise your farm. Like that ever happens in the real world!  Did they get a soil analysis done before their farm was fertilised? You can do a lot of damage by fertilising with the wrong stuff you know, just look at the dust bowls of the USA.

Noone has ever just stopped by to fertilise our farm. They have been ordered and paid for, then you wait for the right weather and once the moon is in the right quadrant they roll in with their trucks and spreaders and fertilise. Them over the river that have a real farm with some hilly stuff get planes to fertilise theirs. Planes don’t stop by, they pass over. Preferably. For the health and longevity of the pilot.

Anyone that doesn’t have a Facebook account and friends that play with Farmville on FB will think I have totally lost it if they read further. For their information Farmville is something that some folk do online that leaves strange messages on our Facebook pages recording the activities on their farms. The messages are strange. It is unreal. I’m just telling the story here.

Some folks find that adorable baby calves have strayed onto their farms, some of them are green. I thought at first that they needed to fix the fences but it appears they are delivered in a nappy by storks.  I must warn them that adorable baby calves that are away from their mamas for too long get very noisy. If you can’t find their mamas, you may have to mother them on to one of your nursing cows, or if you don’t have a nursing cow you’ll have to buy formula. Formula will give them the squits as its a change of diet for their sensitive tums. Squits are nasty, messy and smelly and you’ll get some on you. Goodness knows how ghastly a green adorable calf’s squits are!

These adorable green calves presumably have mothers somewhere who are missing them very much. They’ll be making a noise as well and there will be farmers out looking for their lost calves. By the look of the pictures on my Facebook page they have been kidnapped by storks so they could have come a long way. Have they been TB tested? I have to be able to tell those people where our animals were born and I don’t think “the stork brought it” will cut the mustard.

I’m off to the farm now. I’ve done my day job and I’m heading back to the Nearly Farm (aka Farmville 1.0) to deal with fences that need fixing, weeds that need pulling, paddocks that need topping. If I find that a clumsy reindeer from Farmville has stumbled onto our farm I’m going to be in trouble with MAF and the neighbours.  

Maybe there is a good reason why folk stay indoors and play with their own Nearly Farms online. It ain’t the real world though.

Looking at the contents of this blog – it’s obvious what my New Year’s resolution should be.

Blog more.

But why?

I have to have a good reason.

FYI (whoever you are!) I have loads of postings still sitting in my drafts folder either waiting to be finished or awaiting the right moment to be unleashed on the blogosphere. I also regularly purge my postings so there did used to be more than there is now OK?

Anyway I typed “reasons to blog” into Google and chose “I’m feeling lucky” – ’cause I am! I’m sitting here looking out at the rain falling gently on our parched lawn. The birds are going nuts and I reckon I can see the leaves on the trees lifting themselves up in thankfulness for the cool refreshment they’re receiving.

Oops sorry – got distracted there!

My “lucky” answer was an about.com site “10 Reasons to start a blog”. I’m thinking already – “OK, so these are the reasons to start a blog – what about reasons to continue? Continuing is my New Year’s resolution after all.”

Maybe if I look at these reasons to start, I’ll find a reason to continue, so don’t get ahead of yourself Blanchy! 

1. To express your thoughts and opinions
I thought I expressed them quite well verbally and to people who either asked to hear them, were in the vicinity when I expressed them or were employed by me and so were subjected to them quite regularly. Blogging will therefore introduce my thoughts and opinions to a whole new audience. Maybe. Who reads this stuff anyway?

2. To Market or Promote Something
OK, so this is starting to make sense. We do have an in-house blog where we post all the nice, hilarious and inspiring stuff people write to us. That’s for our in-house pleasure and edification. It lets us know we’re on the right track, keeps everyone in touch with our client’s world and even gives us ideas on what else we can do. But who continues to read a blog that’s just marketing and promotion? Maybe a blog is a good forum to introduce new features, discuss implementation techniques. But this is not a company or product blog, this is just me. Do I want to market or promote myself? Why?

3. To Help People
This is good. I like to help people. I don’t see myself as an advisor or guru nor do I feel I am qualified to advise the great unwashed or want that responsibility. How to help in a blogging manner needs some thought. I will think.

4. To establish yourself as an expert
This one is funny! I don’t take myself all that seriously. The blogs (and tweets) I read by folk who claim or are accorded ”expert” status all quote each other and/or  newsfeeds . Much like a Google algorithim the more “experts” you quote the higher ranked you become. I do wonder if some bloggers have personal opinions at all as they appear to be channels living vicariously off the opinions of others.

5. To connect with people like you
I use Facebook, email, txt, LinkedIn and Twitter to connect with my type of people. For this lousy letter writer could blogging be a sort of communal letter without the mail merge facility of personalisation? Facebook does that.  Blogging to me is a rather one sided conversation with a tendency for long-winded monologues. With Twitter there is an awareness that you have connected as your followers have revealed themselves. Blogging appears a lonely pursuit.

6. To make a difference
Yes! That is my whole reason for being and how I like to live my life. This requires greater thought. How can blogging aid something I try to do every day? It all seems a bit too public and trumpet sounding for this shy, retiring do-gooder.

7. To stay active or knowledgeable in a field or topic
I read and listen to stay active and knowledgeable. I also know that if I write something down I remember it better! Everyone else doesn’t have to read my takes on someone else’s wisdom though. Things could become a bit like Chinese Whispers or its internet equivalent – urban legends! I do have my private places where I might pen some poetry or prose – it’s private!

8.  To stay connected with friends and family
Yes OK, before Facebook, Flickr, txt and Twitter. Mind you I do know folk that aren’t on FB and they may like to know what I’m doing and thinking. Really?

9. To make money
I have a day job.

10.  To have fun and be creative
A blog interface does not encourage creativity beyond the strictures of the platform itself.  You can use a blog to record and skite about your creativity in other fields. Is a discipline fun?

I’m going to need some better reasons to continue blogging. I’ll find them. I’m sure they will be here somewhere. So many people can’t be wrong – can they?  I do enjoy reading some blogs regularly its just I don’t think I can be as witty, erudite, wise, relevant or necessary.

A little encouragement wouldn’t go astray . I shall tweet!

Most popular searches

Blanche from TVNZ flicked through this link today (20 February 2009) from www.yahoo.co.nz

• Speights Coast to Coast
• Jetstar
• Mathletics
• Top Gear
• Air New Zealand

More from Yahoo!Xtra Search

There are pre-schools out there that prepare their students for school but I found this Premire College in Chatswood Sydney. What is it preparing it’s students for?

mire  (from www.dictionary.com )
noun, verb, mired, mir⋅ing.

–noun

1.	a tract or area of wet, swampy ground; bog; marsh.

2.	ground of this kind, as wet, slimy soil of some depth or deep mud.

–verb (used with object)

3.	to plunge and fix in mire; cause to stick fast in mire.

4.	to involve; entangle.

5.	to soil with mire; bespatter with mire.

–verb (used without object)

6.	to sink in mire or mud; stick.

Sounds like a really useful form of education!

Ooops!

I was privileged to meet Scott Flansburg aka the Human Calculator this week in Sydney.

I was not only impressed by his mathematical abilities but also his skill at communicating his concepts to audiences, whether they were students, teachers or our group of skilful programmers.

Scott has also announced that he is joining 3P Learning’s World Maths Day Education Team putting out a challenge to students around the world to unite to beat last year’s record of correctly answering 182,445,169 questions in one day.

The World Maths Day site opens for registrations on 15 February for practice and World Maths Day is on Wednesday 4 March. bbbb

Congratulations to Jayne, the UK Team, and everyone behind Mathletics on gaining the 2009 BETT AWARD for Primary Digital Content.

More later ….

View north from Millers Flat Bridge, Central Otago

It already feels like the new year has started as I sit in my office and clear out the detritus of 2008 and make lists for 2009.

I get easily distracted as I ponder whether I need to keep a piece of paper or whether it should be binned or shredded or if a particular snippet of information is safely enough buried in my cerebral hard drive to be recalled if needed.

I form piles and then prune the piles, carefully saving the paper that is only used on one side for future scribblings. I don’t scribble enough to use it all <note to self> scribble more in 2009 to utilise the box of scrap paper hiding behind my desk </note to self>.

Of less damage to the environment is the digital pruning. Documents that have been superceded or updated or are just plain obsolete are deleted. Next on the list – email! I’m a filer and archiver rather than a deleter and am way up there with my digital footprint on the company mail server. Maybe I have too much ruth (isn’t that the opposite of ruthless?) and should shed some of it in 2009.

And then there’s that book in my book shelf “Getting a grip on Time – Productivity and life balance made easy” by Robyn Pearce. I must read that. However it shares shelf space with another (much larger) book “A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder” by Eric Abrahamson and David H Freedman.

I like this para from the book

“As both John Steinbeck and the University of Texas researchers pointed out, our personalities tend to be more clearly expressed in our disorder than in our neatness. When we are being ruthless about ridding ourselves of what naturally accumulates around us and about meticulously straightening out what remains, we are in a sense tidying our identities. The truth is, we are all at least a bit of a mess – and all the more interesting for it.” p. 145

And what about resolutions for 2009? I’m still thinking about it but I figure that it may be best to make ones that can be fulfilled in the first week or the new year rather than broken in that week. Then you have the rest of the year to feel virtuous!