Revolutionize my School Bag

My daughter while hanging her heavy school bag on her shoulders before leaving for school in the morning looked at me as if she is saying, can't you do something for it? As she left I thought seriously about the options to make her life easier and smarter by using technology. And honestly speaking, having so many technology platforms available today, carrying heavy school bags is unfair to our children.

So what do we need to do? there are several solutions available in the technology world and one of those is an iPad with iBooks. But the problem is that iPad is an expensive device for school education and specially in countries like Pakistan where children carrying an iPad is a bounty for street criminals. So the challenge is to come up with a cheap device for the sake of both affordability and security as these devices would be of less advantage for criminal minded people.

In my opinion, in Pakistan the roadmap to smart education starts from a smart school bag and eventually to a smart classroom. The need is to find a suitable device with eBook reader to replace traditional textbooks and a writing tool to replace traditional copies. I know there are plenty of eBook readers with handwriting recognition tool are available but again the challenge is to be affordable and child friendly, a customized educational device.

The next step is to revolutionize the classroom by introducing engaging and interactive ways of teaching through the use of technology in order to replace traditional textbooks. Replace the blackboard by projector based presentations through smart devices to save the time spent in writing during the class and to make the content available inside and outside the classroom rather than wasting the content by rubbing the blackboard at the start of every class.

Last but not the least, introduction of new tools and technologies in education will reduce the use paper and printed material to keep the environment clean and green. Its time for all of us techies to jump in and do our part to revolutionize the area of education.

YouTube introduces 'YouTube For Schools'

YouTube is launching a learning tool 'YouTube for Schools'. It is a learning portal for students and teachers.

A blog post on YouTube explains:

When I was in school during the 90s, watching videos in the classroom was a highlight of any week. The teacher would roll in a television on a cart, pop in a VHS tape, and then we’d enjoy whatever scratchy science video my teacher had checked out from the school video library that week. Sight, sound and motion have always had the power to engage students and complement classroom instruction by bringing educational topics to life.

We’ve been hearing from teachers that they want to use the vast array of educational videos on YouTube in their classrooms, but are concerned that students will be distracted by the latest music video or a video of a cute cat, or a video that might not be appropriate for students. While schools that completely restrict access to YouTube may solve this distraction concern, they also limit access to hundreds of thousands of educational videos on YouTube that can help bring photosynthesis to life, or show what life was like in ancient Greece.

To address this issue, we’ve developed YouTube for Schools, a network setting that school administrators can turn on to grant access only to the educational content from YouTube EDU. Teachers can choose from the hundreds of thousands of videos on YouTube EDU created by more than 600 partners like the Smithsonian, TED, Steve Spangler Science, and Numberphile.

We know how busy teachers are, and that searching through thousands of videos sounds like a daunting visit to the world’s largest library, so we’ve also worked with teachers to put together more than 300 playlists broken out by subject -- Math, Science, Social Studies, and English Language Arts -- and by grade level. Teachers can find them listed out at youtube.com/teachers. Of course, this list wouldn’t be complete without your input -- teachers, what videos do you use in your classroom? Suggest your own education playlist here.

YouTube for Schools is just the latest initiative in our ongoing efforts to make YouTube a truly valuable educational resource, and to inspire learners around the world with programs like YouTube Space Lab. So how do you get started? To join YouTube for Schools or learn more about the program, head on over to www.youtube.com/schools.

My concerns after attending Microsoft Open Door event today at 11th ITCN Asia

Went to attend Microsoft Open Door event at the 11th ITCN Asia held at Karachi Expo Centre. The content was not that impressive because as a developer’s point of view most of the technologies discussed are already adopted by the developers community and are into the market for quite some time. And I strongly have this opinion after viewing videos of some of the sessions at Microsoft Build conference (www.buildwindows.com).

But my post is not about the technology and event feedback. Its about my concern over the collective turnout of ITCN and Microsoft event. I remember some previous ITCN events when there were delegations coming to Pakistan from all over the world to attend this event. The event being attended by the President, Prime Minister and top officials of the country. Presence of top giants of the technology world. To sum it up, an obvious excitement was seen in the town about the event.

I also remember some past Microsoft’s PDC events, used to held at multiple hotels in Karachi and Lahore at the same time, having all their conference rooms filled with attendees. Whereas, today both events being held together (I understand that Open Door is not as big as PDC but still it’s a Microsoft event) could not produce a noticeable crowd.

What is the reason behind this disappointing fact? Is global recession is responsible for this as companies like Microsoft does not have enough budget to spend on big events in countries like Pakistan? Is our security issues to blamed for this? let us find out.

How to install Windows 8 (Developer Preview version) with Windows 7, side by side (Dual Boot)

Microsoft has just released a developer preview of their upcoming operating system Windows 8 (download here). Users can download the preview and install it on their systems.

Windows 8 has following System Requirements:

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
• Taking advantage of touch input requires a screen that supports multi-touch
• To run Metro style Apps, you need a screen resolution of 1024 X 768 or greater

If you want to install the Windows Developer Preview without any DVD or USB then follow the steps below:

1. Download the ISO file from Microsoft (download here).
2. Mount the ISO using any mounting tool. Virtual CloneDrive in my case.
3. Do not use the autorun installer. The autorun installer only allows you to upgrade your existing Windows installation and does not allow you to install on a separate partition.
4. Navigate to the virtual disc and go to the folder "sources".
5. Run setup.exe and proceed.

To make Windows 7 the default:

You will notice upon first boot of Windows 8 you are presented with a graphical boot menu that will let you choose between your Windows 7 and Windows 8 operating systems. Windows 8 will be the default, meaning if you don't manually choose Windows 7 from the menu, your computer will boot with Windows 8 after three seconds of inactivity.

If you don't want to make Windows 8 the default, here's how to make Windows 7 the default:

1. On the boot menu, click on the button at the bottom that says "Change Defaults or Choose Other Options".
2. Hit "Choose the Default Operating System".
3. Pick Windows 7 from the menu.

Melbourne most suitable for accommodation

The Economist magazine's Intelligence Unit Liveability Ranking Report August 2011survey ranked Melbourne first, Vienna second  and Vancouver as third.

For the first time in almost a decade the Australian city of Melbourne has become the best city to live in the world after replacing Vancouver city of Canada.

Vancouver was on top since 2002 in this survey. However, after this year's survey it is at the third position.

Overall, seven cities of Australia and Canada are in the top 10 positions and Zimbabwe's capital Harare, Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka are on the bottom.

These cities were sampled at five points including stability, medical facilities, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.

Melbourne and Vancouver were on joint top position in 2002 survey.

Britain's capital London is ranked 53rd among one hundred and forty cities. Honolulu is at the top among American cities.

According to The Economist magazine's Intelligence Unit, the financial crisis has affected the European countries, while Arab countries have been affected by the revolution. This can be witnessed from the fact that Libya's capital Tripoli on 135 from 107.

Top Ten cities

1. Melbourne
2. Vienna
3. Vancouver
4. Toronto
5. Calgary
6. Sydney
7. Helsinki
8. Perth
9. Adelaide
10. Auckland