linux

Becta's Home Access Scheme...not really a scam

I was asked by a colleague in Holland to explain Becta's Home Access scheme and give an update on how it was going. He was concerned that 'it had all gone a bit quiet' and he could not find out much about it.

As an (sorry, the only) accredited supplier of Free Open Source software to schools we had looked into tendering to become an accredited supplier of the Home Access Package so this presumably is why he thought we might know something.

My current interest in the topic was quite low but was given a fillip by two things:

Becta's Next Generation Learning ... or the Starship Enterprise ran on Linux

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!

Linux Users, the coolest cats in town.

Only one topic in town this week and that's bullying …

This post however was originally inspired by Glynn Moody's unrelated latest blog (in Computer World) which broadly was a treatise on the simile between organising Open Source folk on any large scale and herding cats...

...this activity is, as we all imagine, a futile pastime ... and moreover transposed into an office context, represents for a manager of 'cats' a role of terrifying proportions.

Open Source 2010: New Year's predictions.

New Year predictions are of course a licence to speculate. What's more the normal boundaries of sanity are loosened sufficiently to make the predictions fun rather than libellous.

Harry Tuxxer and the Amazing Kindle

Harry stared gloomily at his laptop as he closed the browser. Life at the new steel and glass Academy just outside a large housing estate some where in the North of England was dull compared to the fun he had had at Bogwarts with its towers and oak panels. Now it was all personal target setting and endless magic exams.

'Things had really changed since the death of Stallmandore,' Harry mused ruefully. He was supposedly poisoned by too much junk food. That's what they said, but Harry knew better.

Is Open Source selling out?

This post poses questions rather than positing answers. It's about the development of modern technology and asks whether it is time to stand back and take stock of where it is taking us.

If time had stopped on the day Michael Jackson did his first 'Moon Walk' we would not now have the PC which brought us word processing, electronic spreadsheets, relational databases and image manipulation software. We would not have the global communication infrastructure which created electronic trading, e-mail, mobile telephony, satellite navigation and the world wide web.

Linux in an Age of Austerity

COP15, the United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009, is only a month away. For many it represents the 'Last Chance Saloon' for combined action against climate change. As one would expect, the Conference's web site displays plenty of windmills and hybrid cars. No doubt it will be very well attended and trill to the sound of a thousand Blackberries and iPhones e-mailing and Twittering the latest forecasts of doom.

Open Source can save schools billions

Sometimes I think the BBC's on-line news front page is written just to wind me up. This weekend it carried a Gov report from the DCSF (Department for the most recent Government Edu Acronym) who commissioned ex WHSmith Chairman, Richard Handover, to conduct a "value for money review" in education.

Linux not the Cloud will Save Schools?

PM Gordon Brown has finally used the word 'cuts' last week with regard to public sector spending. He is determined, in his words, to cut unnecessary spending. M'thinks this must include school ICT unless of course enough money is saved by sacking senior teachers.

Bishop Fox's Community School

Bishop Fox's Community School, founded in 1522, has over 800 pupils and is set in an attractive environment in Taunton, Somerset. It has specialised status as a Business and Enterprise College and is a designated Apple Training Centre. Bishop Fox's network manager Simon King wished to undertake a complete network refresh to accompany a substantial increase in both their ICT facilities and commitment to making ICT available to the wider community. Simon approached Sirius in October of 2008. After a great deal of discussion and refining of ideas in the following months the project was carried out over the five week summer recess ahead of schedule.