OLPC XO

The One Laptop per Child association (OLPC XO) is a project launched by MIT Media Lab.  Their mission is to create laptops which could revolutionize the way children around the world learn.  It was made to be distributed to children in third world countries for the price of $100.  It uses a Linux operating sytems and has flash memory, but does not contain a hard drive.  To aid in the development of the OLPC XO they have launched the "Give One Get One" (G1G1) program. Generally, when someone purchases a OLPC XO another one will be sent to a developing country.  Currently five nations have commited to buying this laptop for their school children.

Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day was celebrated at Notre Dame Regional Secondary Vancouver BC in respect to the veterans who have helped reshape the world we live in today. Students fabricated plays illustrating how much effort Canadians have put in the war. There were also video clips depicting what really happened in the second world war. Altogether, the assembly turned out well and was a day to remember.

Visual Basic

Last week, I started to work with a program called Visual Basic.  It is a program which uses underlying code, which is similar to Turbo Pascal, to create a various amounts applications.  But, unlike Turbo Pascal, it uses more graphical features such as labels and commands.  The first program I created was "Hello World," and I will continue working on Visual Basics for the next few days. 

Microsoft Announces New Operating System

Yesterday 10/27/08 Microsoft unvailed details of two new operating systems. Currently the most commonly used Microsoft operating systems are Windows XP and Windows Vista. Although frequently critcized, often by those who have never used it, Vista is actually a very stable rich environment in which to work, particularly when used with up to date machines.

Nevertheless Microsoft has decided to press ahead with successors for Vista. In late 2009 Windows 7 will be released. It will be much like Vista. Around the same time Microsoft will release Windows Auzre, an operating system that lives on Microsoft servers and not in your computer. This is called Cloud Computing, the "Cloud" being the Internet. Basically, this means that you wont need an operating system or programs: they will all live in the "Cloud."

Whether this works out or not remains to be seen. However, many companies are already trying this, both with Microsoft and with Google products.

"Cloud Computing" is one of the most used technology buzz words at present.

Class Blog

ICT 12 Student Blogs (2008-09)
Ava Balingit
Ryan Battistel
Sofia Busse
Nicole Ceralde
Nathan Chiu
Jonathan De Maeseneer
Danila Di Giacinto
Lia Estrellado
Kimberly Francisco
Dilantha Geekiyanage
Nikko Henderson
Nikka Komisarski
Steffani Mastromonaco
Caitlin Nery
Conner Olenick
Andrea Strazzullo
Adam Troczynski
Nikko Tagle
Alannah Villella
Tomasz Cieslik
Sonia Di Palma
Jason Wong
These are the blog URL's for my ICT class colleagues. The class is using blogger throughout the year to record information about various programs and techniques.

This list will be updated to include several blog URL's not presently available.

iGoogle

Today I signed up for the iGoogle service and made a couple of minor custom changes. I added a custom widget to display my IP address.