Details of the LUV workshop are here Brett. Chocolates seem to be the current currency. It is a really friendly crowd ;-)<br> <a href="http://luv.asn.au/2009/10/17">http://luv.asn.au/2009/10/17</a><br><br>A learned colleague in NSW endlessly sings the praises of UNR .. reckons it is the best thing that Canonical have ever assembled. :-)<br>
<br>Regards Roland<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2009/10/14 Brett Groves <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:groves.brett.g@edumail.vic.gov.au">groves.brett.g@edumail.vic.gov.au</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
Funny you should say that Roland, we have a young lady in our junior
school who has a disability similar to that of <br>
Thalidomide victims and has trouble writing for extended periods. She
cant carry around a laptop we discovered, it's just too heavy, but boy
can she fly on a netbook. I bought her an Acer netbook with the atom
processor, but I was very worried about locking down the unit using
Windows without having to go to all the hassle of making a new image
and making it a domain connected machine. I loaded UNR (never seen it
prior to that) and thought it was simply stunning. So fast and a
beautiful interface. That was the final straw that made me decide to
change over my R61.<br>
<br>
What is the 'LUV Saturday workshop'?<br>
<br>
You would be very welcome to come anytime Roland, we are just at one of
those critical junctures at the moment deciding between laptops,
desktops and student owned netbooks (e-Learning plan is now on it's 9th
iteration lol) and perhaps leaning toward a complete paradigm shift in
the way we do business, perhaps putting our head in the cloud(s) lol.<br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
Brett<br>
<br>
Roland Gesthuizen wrote:
<blockquote type="cite"><div><div></div><div class="h5">Bravo Brett! Well done mate. You can now easily imagine
how fast and slick it runs on a Netbook (special ubuntu netbook mix).
Sure it will not do everything but hey, it does what it offers and it
does this really well. Others have pointed this out to me before. Come
along with your R61 and share your work at the LUV Saturday workshop :-)<br>
<br>
I am delighted to read how you used Virtual Box. In a pinch you can
copy or move a VM from one computer to the next. We have a standard
image that we can now easily share with staff by just copying the file
and making some minor tweaks. Did it for a couple more staff today. It
is a great teaching tool for students and I note that it is even
standard on the Dept Apple MacBook images.<br>
<br>
Would love to drop past and see what you are up to at Croydon SC. :-)<br>
<br>
Regards Roland<br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">2009/10/12 Brett Groves <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:groves.brett.g@edumail.vic.gov.au" target="_blank">groves.brett.g@edumail.vic.gov.au</a>></span><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Greetings
all,<br>
<br>
Luckily I'm already bald or I would have torn out any hair left since I
got my new R61 Lenovo a few months ago and have had to struggle with
the joys of Vista. Blue screens, slow, "Windows has detected the cursor
has moved, would you like to restart now" type messages.....I had had
enough. So I set aside some time over the hols to look at Ubuntu.<br>
<br>
Tried the alpha version of the new 9.10 release and it was lovely and
very easy to configure but doesnt yet support virtualbox (more on that
in moment).<br>
<br>
I loaded as a final option instead version 9.04. I actually really
didn't need to set aside much time at all. It was unbelievably easy to
configure for EduPaSS wireless, the network share drives are
ridiculously simple to map, in fact the whole process has been quite
pain free...a revelation!<br>
<br>
So now my laptop runs at least twice as fast, never blue screens hasn't
crashed yet, and installing programs like Rolands suggestion of
Kdenlive was trivially easy.<br>
<br>
I also installed a program called virtualbox. This is a very nifty
piece of software (IT teachers take note if you want to build
disposable servers with your students, much easier than VMware for a
pseudo IT teacher like me) that allows you to install a 'virtual' copy
of Windows. Windows and Ubuntu can be seamlessly integrated using an
add on called guest additions. So now I have XP and Ubuntu running side
by side for those programs like Markbook, FirstClass, VBnet etc that
don't have a Linux version but are needed for the day to day life of a
teacher.<br>
<br>
The one and only grumble is I have had little trouble getting Flash to
work in Firefox, handy for youtube, teachertube etc. I am confident
though this can be sorted or if not I know it works out of the box on
Ubuntu 9.10 which is available as general release in 17 days.<br>
<br>
Overall I'm incredibly happy with the project and the change, so if you
are as frustrated with MS as I have been don't just put up with it,
there are many better alternatives out there and I expect that Ubuntu
is just one possibility.<br>
<br>
If anyone would like assistance in making the switch just drop me an
email, would be very happy to help.<br>
<br>
Brett Groves - ICT Coordinator - Croydon Secondary College<br>
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<br>
<br clear="all">
<br>
-- <br>
Roland Gesthuizen - ICT Coordinator - Westall Secondary College<br>
<a href="http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au" target="_blank">http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au</a><br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Roland Gesthuizen - ICT Coordinator - Westall Secondary College<br><a href="http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au">http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au</a><br><br>"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead<br>