Søren C's blog – Page 6 – remember this, cause I won't

Har du en Laptop til overs til Ordskælv!?

I Ordskælv! 2012 skaber unge, som har oplevet at miste en mor, far, søster eller bror, en kunstbog. De tager udgangspunkt i deres egne oplevelser og skriver personlige essays, der illustreres af kunstnere.

– fra http://ordskaelv.org/2011/08/09/nyt-ordskælv/.

De unge mangler åbenbart bærbare computere at skrive deres essays på… I skrivende stund mangler de vist 23. Jeg har selv en gammel laptop, som jeg efter ferien vil forsøge at gøre klar til de unge essayister.

Luise (fra Hygge Factory / Ordskælv! 2012) skriver om kravene til computerne:

Computerne skal primært bruges til at skrive med, så der må gerne være word eller andet skriveprogram indstalleret, og de skal også kunne gå på nettet. Mht batterilevetid, så er det ikke så vigtigt, så længe, de kan fungere med oplader.

Jeg har tænkt mig at smide Ubuntu 11.10 på den laptop jeg finder frem, og syntes faktisk det giver god mening at sådan et projekt kan støttes med Fri Software.
Hvis du har en eller flere gamle laptops du vil af med i denne forbindelse, så kan Luise fra Ordskælv! kontaktes på: luise@ordskaelv.org (Hun er dog på ferie indtil d. 26. oktober.)
Jeg vil også gerne stå for videredistribution (og evt. installation af et frit OS), men er også selv på ferie resten af ugen.

Fri Software eller Fri Kultur i aften?

Hvis du er i København og ikke ved hvad du skal lave i aften, så har jeg to gode tilbud til dig, hvis du interesserer dig for Fri Software* og/eller Fri Kultur. Det sværeste bliver måske at vælge…

(For mig er valget desværre allerede truffet, da jeg skal til middag på mit arbejde.)

Ubuntu Release Party

Billede fra Ubuntu 10.10 udgivelsesfest på Klaptræet.

Hvis du er til Fri Software (mere specifikt Ubuntu), så er i dag dagen hvor Ubuntu 11.10 efter planen bliver udgivet, og det bliver fejret på Café Klaptræet i aften kl. 19. Det er en uformel sammenkomst, hvor du kan komme, drikke en juice/kaffe/øl, og snakke med andre Ubuntu entusiaster og brugere.
Det plejer at være ganske hyggeligt at mødes og høre gode bruger historier, udveksle erfaringer og måske høre lidt fra de modige beta-testere om hvad vi kan forvente i den nye Ubuntu.

Mere info kan findes på begivenhedens Facebook side.

CC Salon Copenhagen

Hvis den frie kultur og Karrierebar i Kødbyen trækker mere, så afholdes der CC Salon Copenhagen fra kl. 19.30. Her er der et mere formelt program, med 4 oplægsholdere.

Mere info:
http://www.creativecommons.dk/?p=540

CC Salon Copenhagen logo af Michelle Thorne

* Jeg ved godt at Ubuntu ikke er Fri Software i den strenge rms forstand, men overskriften blev mere elegant på denne måde.

IRC møde i Ubuntu Danmark mandag d. 29

På mandag holder vi IRC møde i Ubuntu Danmark.

Dagsordenen kan findes her:

http://loco.ubuntu.com/meetings/ubuntu-dk/148/detail/

På dagsordenen er bl.a. Ubuntu 11.10 Release Parties.
Udgivelsesfester er vores halv-årlige festlige markering af en ny Ubuntu udgivelse. Den næste Ubuntu version bliver udgivet i oktober, så det vil være oplagt at lægge udgivelsesfester i slutningen af oktober eller november.

Vi har tidligere både haft udgivelsesfester som har været relativt små, planlagt med kort varsel og større arrangementer, både udadvendte og mere interne, som har krævet mere planlægning og arbejde.

Vi har endnu ikke besluttet hvad vi skal gøre denne gang, men hvis du har nogle konkret ideer eller har lyst til at være med i den praktiske planlægning, så duk op i #ubuntu-dk-moede kl. 20 på mandag d. 29. august.
(Det er selvfølgelig også i orden at komme med ideer på vores mail-liste eller forum, det er ikke et krav for at være med til planlægningen at man dukker op til mødet.)

Pædagogikum

Jeg blev ansat på Gefion Gymnasium for over et år siden og det er i den forbindelse et krav for min fortsatte ansættelse at jeg gennemfører Pædagogikum.

Altså er jeg i dette skoleår startet på pædagogikum og skal senere i dag på mit første kursus. Uha hvor jeg glæder mig!

Pædagogikum kommer altså til at fylde en del i mit liv det kommende år og man kan nok ikke udelukke at jeg vil skrive en del af mine tanker om forløbet ned her på bloggen. Hvis pædagogikum specielt har din interesse (og du finder de andre ting jeg går og laver knapt så interessante) så kan du finde alle indlæg om mit pædagogikum her.
Jeg ved også af erfaring at det som vil fylde mest her på bloggen vil være de ting som går mig på, irriterer mig eller som jeg finder fjollede, unødvendige eller ligefrem uproduktive.
Det kunne f.eks. være noget gruppearbejde som jeg finder er spild af tid eller pædagogiske teoretikere som fra mit udgangspunkt lader til at snakke og snakke, uden at sige noget.
Så vær advaret – hvis du kun læser mine indlæg her på bloggen vil du sikkert få et negativt indtryk af mit pædagogikumforløb. Det er langt fra sikkert at det jeg vil dele her beskriver hele forløbet. F.eks. er jeg overbevist om at jeg vil få en masse ud af de fag-specifikke kurser og den tid jeg skal følge erfarne kollegaer rundt og følge deres undervisning (og de skal overvære mig undervise). Men det forventer jeg vil få væsentligt mindre plads her på bloggen.

Til mit første kursus forventes det at jeg læser en del tekster. Fra en af disse har jeg fundet nedenstående (efter et afsnit som forsøger at definere didaktik).

Ovenstående definition af didaktisk virksomhed medinddrager “praksis”. Herved inddrages såvel undervisningens indhold som andre forhold, der kan have indflydelse på læringsresultatet – herunder processen. Ordet “praksis” stammer fra græsk og refererer til handlen og gøren. Praksis-begrebet anvendes, hvor der er tale om menneskelig skabende eller reproducerende aktivitet. Derfor er praksis altid bundet til en samfundsmæssig og historisk virkelighed.

Når jeg læser dette – specielt den sidste del af afsnittet, så krummer mine tæer sig altså sammen… hvad er det helt præcist der står? Jeg forstår det ikke og jeg sidder tilbage med en følelse af at det er tekst og ord for tekstens og ordenes egen skyld. Men det kan selvfølgelig være jeg er blevet klogere når jeg vender hjem fra kursus…

I den anden ende af spektret er vi også blevet bedt om at orientere os i følgende pjece om Børn og mobiltelefoner:
http://www.teleindustrien.dk/Billeder/BørnMobil/111501.pdf
Jeg kan afsløre at den bl.a. handler om hvordan jeg som forældre skal vælge det rette abonnement til mit barns mobiltelefon. Det er selvfølgelig en stor og vigtig beslutning, men relevansen for mig som gymnasielære (uden børn) er måske begrænset.

… og så er jeg vist også i den rette positive frame of mind til at få maksimalt udbytte af mit første pædagogikum-kursus.

Marmelade

We have Jam in Denmark as well. We just call it Marmelade.

We meet at Carlton at 10 o’clock Saturday September third.

Anyone is welcome, no special skills required. If you would like to test the latest Ubuntu Oneiric Ocelot you should come by. (At that time Beta1 should just have been released for your testing pleasure.)
If you would like to work with translations, that is an option too. There will be people present with experience in that area if you need a quick introduction.
The jam is also a great opportunity to learn about working with bug work in Ubuntu, and how we use Launchpad to do bug-work.

If you happen to be somewhere else than near Copenhagen during the Global Jam, but still want to participate, take a look at the list over here, where all the jams from around the globe are listed: http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/global/1011/detail/.
If there is no jam near you, get in touch with your local LoCo team and talk to them about the possibility of having a jam. It doesn’t need to be big, fancy and 100 people. I know from experience that a few people meeting in a living room to jam can be a positive experience.

Image by: tyo.. The labels are actually in German, but I didn’t want to use more time looking through Flickr.

+1, Like and Flattr

After some mental back-and-forth I have finally decided to add a Google +1 button, a Facebook Like button, and a Flattr button to this blog.

You can see them in the right hand sidebar, and they look like this:

The arguments for (that finally got me) are quite simple: I wouldn’t mind more traffic to the site, and if someone out there finds the text and content I produce interesting enough to find it worthy of a donation, that would be fun too.
I don’t expect to become rich off the Flattr thing (I’m actually quite curious if any donations will be made at all…). I am also very interested in seeing if the two social-media-website-buttons will actually bring any (new) traffic my way, or if they are just a wast of space and pixels.

The arguments against are these:

I feel they make the site look cheap. This blog is not a formula-1 racing car, and as such should not have stickers from sponsors and similar pasted all over it. To be honest, that is my primary argument against. So, deep down, it comes down to my own vanity (on my blog’s behalf).
The second thing is privacy of my viewers. Although browsing the internet anonymously this day in age requires the user to take many precautions (like using Tor or similar), I still feel that the average user should be able to visit my blog, without Google, Facebook or Flattr knowing about it. With the current buttons (on this site, and any other site that has them) Google, Facebook and Flattr will receive information about each and every visit to this blog. Furthermore, if the user is logged in to any of those services, those companies will have the user info connected to the particular visit. But since it happens everywhere else, I figure it’s cool here as well.

Feel free to share your thoughts on the use of these (and similar social media buttons) in the comments below.

Photo by: Ben Sutherland

The two greatest things about Google+

I have been looking around Google+ the last few days and it seems nice. The interface is intuitive, the Android app works fine, and the idea of putting your friends and acquaintances in circles to sort them by your relationship with them is (while not a new concept) clever.
In general I like most of the Google services and this one has that google feel that makes your average google fanboy (like me) feel good using it.

There is really no reason to pretend that Google+ is not taking on Facebook (I think Google themselves are the only ones claiming that it does something different from what Facebook does), so a comparison is straight forward.
On both systems I can stay in touch and share with people I know. That is basically it, and both systems do this. Who does it best isn’t really that important. As with all social networking tools, what matters most is if the people I want to socialize with are using the system.

So, is there any reason to believe that Facebook and/or Google+ is going to be the last social network I’m going to sigh up with? Properly not.

So as a user, I’m really interested in being able to migrate my data (content, connections, personal info) easily from one network to the next.
And that is the first great feature of Google+. Getting your data out is easy – there is a menu option under Account Settings called Data liberation. It let’s you export your data nice and easy. (See the screen shots to your right.)

The other great thing is the option to delete your account. Facebook has been infamous exactly because this is so hard to do with Facebook accounts. First you have to go through the process of deactivating your account, and only then can you request it to be deleted. But Google is presenting this option one click from my Google+ frontpage.

These two features of Google+ is, in my mind, helping people understand that they are free to leave any social media site, and if they can’t bring their data with them, it’s not really the right place to be to begin with.

But I may be wrong. In the end, the most popular site is properly going to be the one with most kittens…

Kittens! by jameswragg

Blog movingday

For quite some time I have wanted to move my blog from my compadre.dk domain.

Getting the new domain (soerenbredlundcaspersen.dk) was quite easy, and I did that long time ago, but getting around the technical stuff took a bit more time. Setting up a new blog was no problem with WordPress. What took me some time (but now that I know how to do it shouldn’t have taken more that a few minutes) was moving all the old posts over through the wordpress export and import tools and setting up a redirect from the old blog.

So, hopefully I have now managed to transfer all the content from the old domain, set up a redirect that catches all old posts. Additionally I have changed the theme of the blog, from the very brightly coloured Greenery theme to the more low key Titan Theme. Hopefully this change won’t represent a general change from less colour full content on the blog, but I felt now might be as good a time as any to make a change.

On a more technical note, although the redirects should take care of any issues, feel free to update any links and change rss feeds from pointing to http://compadre.dk/blog/ to http://soerenbredlundcaspersen.dk/. All underlying link structure should have been moved along – but if you do notice dead links or other odd behaviour, feel free to let me know.

In case you wonder, this is actually the second time the blog is moving. First time was when I moved from Livejournal to a wordpress install on my own domain.

Is Google+ going to take out Facebook?

So, what is Google+?

That was the question that struck me today while reading xkcd.
It would seem that Google is trying their hands at a full scale social network.

They have tried and ~~failed~~ not quite succeeded in the past. Google is fantastic at seaching, presenting information and seraching and processing your own data.
Their social services have been less successful.
Google Buzz never really took off, and their collaborative tool, Google Wave is now being killed off (at least as a Google service).

But maybe this time they will succeed. The central difference between Facebook and Google+ seems to be what Google describes as circles. Basically you have to sort your contacts. This ensures that things you just want to share with a select few of your contacts doesn’t reach the eyes of all your contacts. The obvious example being the pictures from last night that you may want to share with your close friends, but maybe not with your boss.
Facebook does have something like this implemented (they call it lists), but it is far from intuitive to use.

Another strength that Google has in the coming struggle with Facebook is their track-record. Google has a motto of don’t be evil. Facebook has with their actions time and time again showed that they in fact don’t care about the privacy of their users.

From my point of view, anything else than Facebook can almost only be better. However, that it will be up to everyone to make up their own mind on this matter. The problem with social media is that what really matters is if the people you want to interact with are using your network of choice or not. Not much fun sharing funny stories only with your self…

One issue that Google+ won’t be tackling, in regard to privacy, is the fact that all the data will be located on Google’s servers. Being an American company, that means that quite a lot of law enforcement agencies will have access to the data – and they don’t have to inform the people whose data gets handed over.

In the long run I hope to get all my social media needs fulfilled by some sort of distributed system, where I at least have the option to control my own data. When it matures out of the current testing status, Diaspora might be a candidate to provide this.
In the meantime I am very interested in seeing how well Google manages to implement their Google+ social network. As I stated above, from my point of view, anything is going to better than Facebook. The possible integration with other Google services, such as Picasa, also seems interesting.
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

Bloddonor? Husk rødt tøj i morgen, tirsdag!

I morgen, tirsdag d. 14. juni er det international Bloddonordag.

I den forbindelse opfordrer bloddonorerne i Danmark til at man som donor tager rødt tøj på i morgen for at sætte fokus på det at give blod.

I København på Frederiksberg runddel er der i dagens anledning et arrangement med Carl-Mar, som måske syntes bloddonation er noget pjat.
Men han er også nogle gange lidt pjattet, så det passer måske meget godt?

Generelt er bloddonation rimeligt afslappet. En gang hver 3. måned bliver man indkaldt og så tager det under en halv time og man får gratis øl, juice eller sodavand bagefter! Personligt kan jeg godt lide tomatjuicen. Det er vel en fair pris for at være med til at rede andre menneskers liv?

Du kan tilmelde dig som bloddonor lige her!