SiriusBlog

It must be true. Consider; the Enterprise's computers never blue-screened... even under attack (did you know Vista still reports a BSOD message when it crashes?...who said MS did not do irony?) and its engineers were always telling the bridge that it was not possible to do whatever it was no matter how simple in the time allocated...hah proof!

It's February, it's raining and I'm in Coventry. Unsurprisingly the time of year lends itself to epitaphs.

Coventry, once a proud industrial city was bombed flat during the Second World War,  now it is home to a race of 'quangocrats' once powerful Government employees who have now been exiled from London for crimes we do not know. 

Huddled among the diaspora are: the QCDA (nee QCA..Qualifications and Curriculum Authority), The Family Courts Welfare Dept, the National Probation...

ICT in schools is a good thing... or maybe not if you are a teacher.

Like all powerful tools ICT can be used for good or ill. In my opinion the last decade has seen the bad side come to the fore.

This really was highlighted for me recently by an article carried in the national press which raised concerns about teachers becoming victims of the dreaded key-stroke analysers now used very widely in schools in the UK.

E-Learning the Open Source Stack.

E-learning has been around for a long time. Every College, every Local Authority and many schools have an E-learning department. It's a fine title since one can easily deduce from it that e-learning is something to do with learning and that the 'e' stands for something to do with computers.You can even get a Masters degree in e-learning.

Last month saw the launch of http://www.data.gov.uk web site not only built on Open Source Technology but designed to give UK-data back to the UK-people. Number one amongst the endorsers was the most celebrated Knight and famous Wizard, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. In the same month both UK political parties restated their total commitment to Open Source software.

What is going on? What has happened to the forces of...

It's all over for another year. BETT 2010 was really successful for us on so many levels.

Of course the cold reality of the following weeks and months will tell what leads were really that 'hot' and what were not, but for now, in the cosy afterglow of the show, things look pretty good.

Day 2 in the Bett House.

What a difference a day makes. Visitors a plenty arrive with the thaw and we did not pause for breath the entire day.

What to report? I think it was the sheer depth of knowledge about Open Source software many of our visitors showed that marked the day.

What did I think of Jolicloud, Xmonad, Jing and Sumo?

These FOSS apps are being used extensively in schools... do you know what they are?..I did not.oops

Linux at BETT 2010

You'll have to look hard for Open Source software at Bett 2010, but it's there all right and may even win a BETT award! My bet, though, is that the real significance of this show will be a child shouting 'The Emperor has no clothes!' thereby marking the start of the process whereby teachers reclaim technology for teaching...

BETT stands for 'British Education and Training Technology'. This title has long been forgotten, unlike the BETT show itself. Held at...

Why I'm not celebrating Microsoft's appeal court loss

It's all been said before but software patents -- and many patents these days
-- have gone wrong. The trouble is that in discussing them the arguments
against them are getting muddied.

On one hand, there is a genuine debate. One side says that software patents
are wrong because they hold back innovation, interoperability and free
enterprise. The other side claims, perhaps with some merit, that patents...