QUT Open Day & Busways + GoCard Awesome!
by Administrator Andrew on Jul.25, 2010, under Personal
I went to the QUT Open Day today, and I’m now quite excited about next year!
For the last year or so I’ve had it in my head that I’d probably be going to UQ for university in 2011, but after TSXPO last weekend and today’s QUT open day – I think I’ve got my heart set on QUT for university in 2011. Of the 3 courses they have in the IT area (Information Technology, Corporate Systems Management and Games & Interactive Entertainment) the Information Technology one looks the best because the lecturers there just presented such exciting opportunities. The best part is that in the Information Technology course, there will be elective subjects which let you drill into the area of IT that interests you (such as Enterprise Systems, Network Systems, Web Technologies & Digital Environments) and also the fact that you can enter into half year or year long paid work experience as part of the course, so that companies can see your skills and possibly want to hire you full time at the end of the course. That foot into the industry is such an advantage and probably the the main reason I think I’ll be picking QUT over UQ, as well as the flexible course design too.
While we were there in a presentation – there was this guy, who’s phone went off during the presentation (he hadn’t put it on silent), but what was the terrible bit, was that he answered it, and spoke really loudly to the person on the other end telling them where he was and the presenter had to stop. It reminded me of the Chaser’s, ‘Clive the Slightly Too Loud Commuter” segment, except this guy wasn’t doing a comedy skit, he was just being a bit of an inconsiderate jerk. Found that amusing 
There’s another thing which impressed me today, the GoCard system. I’ve never used a GoCard before, I’ve just used the paper tickets, but today I used my GoCard for the first time today and it was just fantastic. For a trip to Carindale to QUT Kelvin Grove (so a distance of about 15km one way) & back it was $2.88. That’s awesome value. I predict that for next year, it will cost me $4.10 per day for public transport each day I have to travel to Uni, which I think is damm good value! The Busway network is also fantastic, with the South East Busway & Inner Northern Busway really really efficient and hopefully when the Northern Busway and Eastern Busways are completed, they’ll also be fantastic to use!
Next weekend I’m off to the UQ open day to see what they can offer me. Let’s hope they also present me with something great, but I doubt they’re going to beat what QUT has shown they have today. I think 2011 will be a Gardens Point year for me!
I came home on the bus with an excited buzz in me after today’s open day which I haven’t felt for a long time. I think I’m just excited about my future, the future that’s just over 15 weeks away, but maybe that might have just been the coffee I had…
The Digital TV Future!
by Administrator Andrew on Jul.08, 2010, under Technical
I’m getting excited, because ABC News 24 is nearly here. Since I first started watching TV, I remember the 6 channels our TV set could pick up: ABC (2), Seven (7), Nine (9), Ten (10), SBS (28) and Briz 31 (31). Some of the shows on these channels were OK, but a lot of it was reality TV, because that’s what the people like apparently. I was always jellious of the people who had Foxtel, because they had access to stacks of Channels, such as Sky News and the Discovery Channel.
Well Digital TV is set to change this finally. With the ABC launching it’s 24 hour news channel soon, free to air TV will have just made a massive jump in catching up to the content of pay TV, and Sky News will likely be crapping their pants at this moment. One HD has made little impact on Fox Sports, because covering sporting matches involves rights and other legal messes, but covering news can be done by anyone, and the ABC are probably the best in the country at this. I also suspect other channels on Foxtel will be watching the extra channels that Seven, Nine and Ten are planning to launch within the next year or so. Even SBS has 2 more channels planned, and the ABC has some ideas about broadcasting ABC5 and ABC6 in the next decade.
So at the moment we have moved from this
- ABC (Channel 2)
- Seven (Channel 7)
- Nine (Channel 9)
- Ten (Channel 10)
- SBS (Channel 28)
- Briz 31 Or Equivilent Community Station (Channel 31)
To this:
- One HD (Channel 1 & 11) – 24 Hour Sports Channel
- ABC1 (Channel 2 & 21)
- SBS One (Channel 3 & 31)
- Seven Digital (Channel 7 & 71)
- Nine Digital (Channel 9 & 91)
- Ten Digital (Channel 10)
- One Digital (Channel 12) – Non HD Feed of One HD (Plans To Replace This Channel With 10′s Second Multichanel)
- ABC HD (Channel 20) – Offically Decommissioned July 7 2010 To Make Way For ABC News 24
- ABC2 (Channel 22)
- ABC3 (Channel 23) – Dedicated Children’s Programming Channel
- ABC News 24 (Channel 24) – 24 Hour News & Current Affairs Channel
- SBS Two (Channel 32)
- SBS 3 (Channel 33) – Currently Broadcasting SBS One (Plans For SBS3 Coming Soon)
- SBS 4 (Channel 34) – Currently Broadcasting SBS One (Plans For SBS4 Coming Soon)
- 31 Digital (Channel 44) – Brisbane’s Community TV Channel (Known As TVS in Sydney & C31 In Melbourne)
- 7 HD (Channel 70) – High Definition Version Of Seven Digital With Some Unique Content)
- 7TWO (Channel 72)
- 7 Digital 3 – Currently Broadcasting Seven Digital (Plans For 7′s Second Multichannel Coming Soon)
- Nine High Definition (Channel 90) – High Definition Version Of Nine Digital
- Go! (Channel 99) – Youth Channel With Some Older Shows Too!
Red = Decommisioned
Blue = Currently Broadasting Another Channel’s Feed & Plans To Use That Channel In The Future
That’s around 20 channels to pick from within the next few years (there’s about 16 at the current moment) and with digital and how it works, there could be many more channels if the networks wished to add them. The same thing is happening in the radio space too with Digital Radio (I’ll write about them soon hopefully), but it’s still a fair way off before the analog signals get switched off there. Foxtel aren’t going away anywhere, they still have the stronghold on sports coverage, commercial free movies and overseas content, but news is going to be a tough one to sell now. It’s exciting stuff, bring on the complete digital TV switchover in 2013!
One Of The Best Holidays Ever!
by Administrator Andrew on Jun.30, 2010, under Personal
Last Friday morning at 7am, I left Brisbane headed for Sydney to meet the best talkback radio host in the country – The Spoonman! He used to host a late night talkback show on FM station Triple M in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. This was the only show of it’s kind in Australia (because it was on the FM band) and therefore it was a very special show. The show’s motto was “No Topic Taboo, Everything Is Utterly Fair Game” and that’s exactly what it was – The Spoonman would deal with just about any topic in detail, everything from politics to what’s your favourite band of all time? In 2008 Pikelet and Myself started a fan club on MySpace, Bebo and Facebook and then KG joined us a few weeks after we started and took over Pikelet’s role because of other more important things that came up in Pikelet’s life. At the end of 2008 there was a plan to consolidate the three groups on MySpace, Bebo and Facebook into one central website, but sadly due to the onset of the Global Financial Crisis, the show was axed on 27th November 2008. So the fan club turned into a tribute site and a place to download all the existing podcast material from the 3 years of the show (because they got removed from the Triple M website when the show was axed). The Spoonman returned on August 24th reading the workday news and adding editorials to the end of the news bulletins on Sydney’s Triple M only.
So after a few years of listening and setting up a fan club (www.spoonmanfanclub.co.cc) I finally got my opportunity to meet the man behind the Microphone. If you purely listened to the show, you’ll probably form one of two opinions of him. The opinion will either be “this guy knows what he’s talking about, he shuts up the idiots and comes up with sometimes radical, but logically thought through ideas” OR you’ll think “what an arrogant bastard, always hanging up on and abusing callers he doesn’t agree with him”. Well when I met him, he is the nicest guy. I met him the day after the Labor leadership spill and the week had been a big one for the Spoonman with all the coverage and analysis that was needed and therefore he was tired, but he still spent 2 and a bit hours with my family and I taking us on a tour of the station, having a drink with us and just a good conversation about everything from radio to politics to just life in general. So that was probably my highlight of the year so far 
.
The next day I met up with my mate KG, who I only see if I go to Sydney OR if he comes up to Brisbane. He took showed me where he worked (Nova 96.9 Sydney) and we had a good chat and some lunch too. That was also pretty awesome and it’s always good to meet up with KG when I go to Sydney! The following day my family and I then travelled up the Sydney-Newcastle Freeway to Newcastle for Lunch and then up the Pacific Highway and The Lakes Way to visit Deanna at her house about 30 minutes outside of Forster/Tuncurry. It was lovely to see Deanna again and to see that she’s quite happy and doing well in Year 11. Finally after an overnight in Tuncurry it was time to drive back down the Pacific Highway to Newcastle and then Williamstown Airport to fly home! I will probably be posting a blog soon about the state of the Pacific Highway because roads interest me like that.
So that was my awesome four day holiday and it was probably one of the best holidays I’ve ever been on
Queens Birthday Long Weekend Jam Packed Post (Kinda)
by Administrator Andrew on Jun.12, 2010, under Personal
Haven’t posted here for a few days and thought I’d better update the thoughts from my inner sanctum to you all. I’ve got a mini cold, one of those which is slightly more than my normal sinuses but not enough to stop me doing anything. It’s just annoying, but thankfully I’ve got the long weekend to make sure I come back to school ready for what will be a 4 day week, but one hell of a 4 day week.
I have a normal day Tuesday, followed by 2 exams on Wednesday followed by 2 days of QCS Test practice. I really really hate QCS and personally think it’s a band aid to a very broken system of senior assessment in Queensland. Then it’s holidays for 3 whole weeks before 17 weeks left of school :O – wow this year has gone fast (yet this term has gone slowly…).
This holiday will mainly involve me staying up late and co-hosting the Endeavour Online Afternoon Show with Daniel 
– so if you’re up late and want to listen to me just chat with Daniel and play some pretty good music, then check out www.endeavouronline.net. I’m also going on a mini holiday for a few days to visit the legend of Sydney FM radio: The Spoonman! If you’ve never heard of the Spoonman before, then he used to be a Sydney based radio talkback announcer who hosted a late night national FM talkback and rock music program. He was more edgy than the AM talkback and had radical opinions sometimes, but hosted the best show on radio at the time and usually nailed the issue he was discussing even if it disagreed with mainstream views. I’m also going to visit my friend Deanna who moved away from Brisbane in 2008 and so that will be awesome to see her again for a day 
I have also spent a bit of time on YouTube and came across this awesome (but extremely random song) called Chicken Monkey Duck, so I thought I’d share this with you all!
Lastly, I have an urge for something, but I don’t actually know what it is – don’t you hate it when that happens, you want something, but you don’t know what it is you actually want?
Have a good night and thank you Queen for giving us a free holiday, I think you’ve contributed nothing else to Australia and bring on the republic, but I do thank you for a free holiday
iPhone 4 = Meh but Windows Live Wave 4 = YAYYYYYY!!
by Administrator Andrew on Jun.08, 2010, under Technical
OMG today was a busy day for technology news (which is why I get frustrated when I’m stuck at school because one I cannot stay up late (2-4am) to watch the keynotes and presentations live, but also because at school I’m away from Twitter where the breaking news occurs).
Anyway I knew all about the new iPhone, because it made top news this morning (more on it in a sec) but what I didn’t know was that the Windows Live Wave 4 Web Services have begun to roll out today, that was until I got home.
First I’ll address the new iPhone, I’m just not interested! Steve Jobs is a marketing genius who can sell people anything, especially things they’re never going to use or things that already exist or things that will actually be annoying. The big one seems to be the front facing Camera. Most smart phones (I know my HTC Touch Diamond does) already have a front facing camera, and guess what – I’ve never used mine and I don’t know many people who have used theirs either. The fact is, in Australia it’s too damm expensive to video call so what would you bother? If you’re going to video call iPhone to iPhone via Wi-Fi, then why not just use Skype on a laptop, which is the world leader for video chatting (or use Windows Live Messenger). Multitasking is actually good, looks well implemented, got to give Apple credit there, but iAds, oh hang on a sec… you’re trying to tell me, having pop up fully interactive ads in your apps is a good thing? I don’t want ads in my apps, I just want to use them. Every modern web browser comes with a pop up blocker, because we generally don’t like pop ups, so why would we want them clogging up our phones? One other good point, for the first time it seems that iPod Touch users will be allowed to upgrade to version 4.0 software (now called iOS 4) on their 3rd generation (and 2nd gen but missing features) iPod Touch for Free instead of having to fork out $20 or so. Apple peoples can download iOS 4 later this month and buy an iPhone 4 in July.
Moving on now to the news which I’m much more excited about, and the news which will probably gain an article on my main website once it’s all finished, Windows Live Wave 4 web services! The rollout has begun. I know most of you aren’t going to notice this yet, because currently Windows Live Hotmail and Contacts have not been updated (and most people I know only use Hotmail on the web, not the other wonderful services available), but everything else has. The new header means that you will be able to see at a glance on any page you’re on how many unread emails you have and how many of your friends are online and even start a conversation with them in the browser. The big thing for me though is that in Wave 3, Facebook, MySpace etc were all integrated into Windows Live, but they didn’t do much – this time, all the news feed updates from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and many many other services can be integrated into one feed that appears throughout Windows Live and (when the Essentials beta comes out) inside Windows Live Messenger). You’ll also be able to link up all your Facebook contacts with your Windows Live Messenger contacts (removing duplicates) and then chat to people through Facebook chat via Windows Live Messenger (which is awesome because I hate Facebook chat).
The other big one, is Windows Live Skydrive now has Windows Live Office – which means, Office Web Apps are here – WOOOO! Now these certainly aren’t fully featured (they’re a bit lacking actually), but when coupled with Hotmail when it gets updated soon hopefully, I see this as a massive time saver! Imagine getting an email with a Word Document attachment and editing and sending it back to the person without leaving Hotmail! It’s going to become a reality very very soon!
Anyway – I’ll leave it there, there will be a lot more in my article very soon, but I’m hoping you’ll all check out what’s currently available and realise there’s much more coming! Hotmail is NOT updated yet, so you’ll have to go to http://home.live.com/ if you want to see the changes!
How We Write & The English Language
by Administrator Andrew on Jun.06, 2010, under Personal
I’ve been doing some assignments lately, where my parents have proofread it to make sure it makes sense and also to make sure I’ve spelt everything correctly (which hasn’t been a problem, since I’m a pretty good speller and also the computer does help a lot). The problem has been that apparently I don’t use big enough words and that I’m going to need to increase my vocabulary when I become an adult.
I cannot see why this matters. As long as you use the jargon and terminology specific to the subject you’re writing about, then why do you need to use fancier words than necessary. Here’s an example: I was writing about the apartheid era in South Africa and wrote this (not a complete sentence), “…realised that they didn’t have enough people to work…”. I was told to write this instead, “…realised that they didn’t have an adequately sized workforce…”. To me, they both mean the same thing, one just uses fancier words than the other. So why can’t I use the one I choose and get the same mark?
To me, the point of communication is to get your message across from one person to the other in a way that you can both understand that message. Both of those sentences achieve that goal, my sentence even gets across to more people than the so called “improved” sentence. Why do we have multiple words that mean exactly the same thing, that doesn’t improve communication, that handicaps it because everyone has to know all the different words that mean that one thing.
The other problem I have is that, in traditional English (the UK one that we use in Australia) we still have silent letters in words. WHY on earth would you want to have letters in a word which are silent and therefore are useless? e.g is Colour: the US removed the u because it was not needed, same with programme: they removed the extra me because it was not needed. Nobody has moved yet to remove the g from gnome so that it’s just nome. Spelling would improve if we spelt words exactly the way they sounded.
Anyway – there’s my rant about the English language. I have plenty to rant about, so hopefully I can find some time to write about it here!
New Podcast Available Here :)
by Administrator Andrew on May.12, 2010, under Personal
I listen to a lot of radio, my favourite shows being Robin Terry & Bob on 97.3 FM Brisbane and The Spoonman, Paul & Rach and Ugly Phil on Sydney’s Triple M. I also listen to another great show on an online UK community station called Endeavour Online which is hosted by Daniel Pettigrew. He has started a segment on the show called the Friday Afternoon Panel which consists of a few of us Australians who listen to his show regularly. So I’m very excited that I’m on this Friday Afternoon Panel but because it comes on too late for most people in Australia to listen live (being Friday night at 11:30pm) I’ve decided to podcast the show, here on my blog for you all!
If you click the Friday Afternoon Panel Podcast button at the top of the screen, each week I’ll update this page with the latest episode of the show so you can listen to it. Please leave your comments and feedback in the box at the bottom of that page and I’ll try and respond to it on air!
You should also listen to Endeavour Online when you can as it is a great station at www.endeavouronline.net
A Facebook Warning Regarding Community Pages
by Administrator Andrew on Apr.26, 2010, under Technical
Facebook launched Community Pages this week, which are part of a bigger picture for Facebook which I may write about at some point on Andrew Tech Help. Today I offer a small warning to all of you about what you write on Facebook and how Facebook will display this information publicly in places you don’t expect if you have an open profile.
This is an example of a community page for a school. The Related Posts by Friends section isn’t a big deal. Any of your friends who uses the words in the title of the page, in this case “Ormiston College” in any of their statuses or posts, will appear on this page, this section will vary between each person due to who their friends are and what they’ve said. The bigger section is the one which says Related Global Posts. This will list anything Facebook can find on Public Profiles about the topic, again in this case “Ormiston College”. So if you have a public profile, then you gotta be really careful about what you say when you mention words that could appear on a community page where they could be seen by anyone.
The easiest way to solve this is to make sure your profile is Private.
You can do this by going to the Account menu on the top right of the screen and choosing Privacy Settings and then clicking the Profile Information link. On this screen, set at a minimum the Posts by Me, Posts by Friends and Comments on Posts sections to Only Friends. It’s probably a good idea to set them ALL to Only Friends. As you can see below – I’ve also created another list and am setting custom settings applying to that list (which I’ve named probation).
At this point, while you’re fixing your privacy settings, I’d also check your contact details settings, by clicking Back to Privacy and then the Contact Information link. Here you can set what pieces of your contact information (phone, address, e-mail) etc appear to the public too. I’d set most of these to Only Friends as well.
So yea, I’ve hoped this little tutorial has helped with securing your Facebook Profile. These Community Pages are part of a bigger picture, but if you want them to work in your favour, then you gotta lock down your profile a little bit.
BTW: I happen to disagree with the comments in the pictures above, just to make sure you know!
Good Friday
by Administrator Andrew on Apr.03, 2010, under Personal
Good Friday, it’s a day that I just don’t understand. Note that if you’re overly religious and take offensive at someone speaking against a religion, then you should probably stop reading this post right about now.
Now, before I get comments explaining to me about why we have Good Friday and why it’s called that (Jesus died to save our sins and we’re greatful etc etc), from a logical standpoint – I simply don’t see how someone dying painfully nailed on a cross (whether it be fiction or fact) can be seen in any way good. I’ve been brought up to see that murder, for whatever purpose is a very bad thing, not good and definitely not good enough to have a public holiday behind it. I would have called it Bad Friday or Very Sad Friday then then Good Sunday for when Jesus supposedly comes back to life – that’s what I would logically see as the “Good” bit! Anyway – enough about the logics of it all, now onto my actual issue.
EVERYTHING IS SHUT TODAY!! For someone who’s not religious and staying away from churches, there’s not much to do really. The newspaper isn’t printed (even though the internet doesn’t take a break thank goodness), most shops are closed, most attractions are closed, radio shows are on holidays and the TV is full of movies about Jesus! – it’s a public holiday with nothing to do. There’s a large number of people who aren’t Christians (especially Muslims, Hindus and Atheists etc) who won’t be spending the day in church feeling sorry for Jesus and eating fish. What are we supposed to do. I can understand Christmas day being a public holiday and even Easter Sunday, because at least you can participate in the commercial part of it, with gift and egg giving no matter what religion you are, but Good Friday has nothing and is specifically Christian only! ANZAC Day is also an important public holiday, because it affects all Australians, as does Australia Day, and even those days aren’t as shut down as Good Friday is!
So I hope in the future we can lift the commercial absence of Good Friday for those of us who do not wish to participate, so we can have a public holiday with something to do (like Labor Day). The Christians who wish to take Good Friday off and go to church should fully be allowed to and I have no problem them doing that, but the rest of us should be allowed to do more than sit at home with less to do than normal.
BTW – before I go, stuff like this really annoys me: http://www.news.com.au/national/atheists-are-believers-who-hate-god-says-anglican-archbishop-peter-jensen/comments-e6frfkvr-1225848927144 – Atheists are simply people who do not believe there is any God at all, we do not hate your God as you cannot hate something which doesn’t exist! To any religious people I’ve offended, I’m sorry, but I warned you not to read, and this is my blog where I can express my thoughts on things.
Last Ever Term 1 DONE!
by Administrator Andrew on Mar.26, 2010, under Personal
Time to post again. A big sorry for my lack of posting during the school term, I decided to concentrate on other things so this blog kind of got forgotten. I’ll now give you a brief update of the last 9 weeks. Year 12 started off really well. I’ve posted 2 articles to my website in the last 9 weeks. One of them because I was annoyed at all the Vista bagging going on at school when I returned, and the other was my IPT assignment. The task was to write an argumentative essay on whether or not Stephen Conroy’s internet filter was a good policy. I wrote a strongly worded essay arguing heavily against the policy and for that I got an A.
The rest of the term was just the standard types of assessments for year 12 students: reports, essays, exams and orals. I also have been keeping the minutes and agendas for the after school prefect meetings all under control and up to date. The term has turned out really tiring actually. It finished off with the QCS practise test, to see how much the in school tuition has improved our results. Personally I do not think setting an all day test on the last day of school is such a wonderful idea, but that’s what occurred. I also think that the Queensland education system and the way we examine and assess senior students across the state is fundamentally broken, because what everyone else in my subject or my school scores in a test, should not affect what my exit score should be. That gives schools with more resources and a better socioeconomic area a better advantage over schools who don’t have these positive factors, but that’s another story for another time. I also finished uploading all 419 podcasts to the Spoonman Fan Club. The Spoonman was an awesome late night talkback announcer on Triple M from 2005-2008 and when his show finished, KG and I decided to set up a central tribute/info website for him. It’s taken me nearly 1 and 1/2 years to upload all the podcasts, but they’re all there now.
I’ve also been following the developments in the tech industry, most of them by Microsoft. The Windows Phone looks absolutely fantastic and I cannot wait to get one next year. Good on Microsoft for starting afresh with their phones and trying something different, instead of just being an iPhone clone. The other big one for me is Windows Live Wave 4. I obtained a leaked copy of the Live Essentials for Wave 4 and so I may be writing an article about them soon. Here’s a sneak peak of Windows Live Messenger 2010.
Windows Live Messenger 2010 Beta Milestone 2
These holidays I have a few things planned. It will be mainly relaxing, but I have a few tasks and little jobs to do that will keep me busy and also Sam and I plan to visit The Bryan Madigan of SeaFM 91.9 on the Sunshine Coast. He’s the guy who used to take the callers on the Spoonman show and also was one of the 3 announcers of the ATFS podcast. Lastly – on Wednesday when Windows Live Messenger had a bug in in when people were appearing offline when they were really online, I posted here the instructions on how you could get around that. I thank all of you who came here and read the post, I had nearly 3000 viewers in one night and so I’m really grateful and I hope you all stick around to see what I post and also for updates on my main website, which you can find at the top of this page.
Thanks for reading, leave comments as you wish and I’ll hopefully have holidays content to write here for you!!
