Yesterday I did something odd to my computer desktop (I have to admit I've never properly conceptualised the icon of the little house in OS X) with the result, as I realised several hours later, that I lost all the emails and folders from Entourage, which kept opening up in an empty window asking me to create a new identity. Much of my stuff was still available from the web interface, but in a really tricky and unfriendly format.
Can I just say how pleased I am that after several attempts to re-load everything back into its rightful place, I succeeded? Incredible.
Showing posts with label computers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label computers. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Friday, March 14, 2008
Writing lectures ...
... has changed completely.
The very first lecture I ever gave was on the poetry of Sylvia Plath (and Adrienne Rich, I think) to first year Modern Literature students. There would have been several hundred of them, and it would have been about 1985. I wore a long-sleeved purple cotton shirt. This was back in the days when women, though present in my department, were more likely tutors than lecturers, and certainly not senior lecturers or professors. I'm sure it was the surprise of seeing a young woman lecturing, and the astonishing poetry of Plath, or perhaps just kindness at seeing someone inexperienced making it through to the end of the lecture without falling over, but I received a round of applause and was instantly, thoroughly hooked.
The writing of lectures, and the nervous anticipation of presenting them, is upon me again this semester. I'm writing new lectures for my own medievalism subject, and next week I will also give two lectures in one of our new multi-disciplinary subjects, Homer to Hollywood. So on Monday I lecture on the Bayeux Tapestry at 10.00, then repeat the lecture at 12.00; then on Wednesday it's the Song of Roland at 10.00, then 45 minutes on Malory and the myth of Camelot to the medievalism students. One of my tutors will then give his first half-lecture in the course on Tennyson's Lady of Shalott (this is a ridiculous 90-minute lecture spot for the 118 students in this course), while I dash back to repeat the Roland lecture at midday.
Over the years I have become more economical in the preparation of lectures. My Plath lecture was a pretty complete script, written well in advance. These days, if I prepare too soon, or too comprehensively, I feel the lecture falls flat. I must also admit, even though I once made a speech about how Powerpoint was not a necessary component of good teaching, I do use it now, as a way of organising my thoughts and concentrating my preparation. So I'll prepare an outline on one slide, load up any images or text I want to analyse, add in a few notes at the bottom of some slides ... and just start talking.
It's a bit risky, this method. It's possible to spend too long finding good images and playing with the powerpoint designs, and forgetting about the actual points you want to make, though it's easier if, like me, you have no design imperatives or skills: default settings usually work just fine. I still find it a little hard to make the best use of powerpoint. It's great for images, and for close textual analysis, and that makes it great for teaching medieval culture, but it does tend to reduce everything down to dot points, when we know - and when we want our students to know - that things are usually a lot more complicated than that.
So while the hot northerly winds bluster around the house*, I'm uploading images of the tapestry, and re-reading the poem, and thinking about Malory, and trying to judge that perfect balance between preparedness and freshness that will see me through those 4.75 hours of lectures next week.
* Thank goodness the weather pixie hasn't put her bikini on, though. I had to think long and hard before choosing this model, because of the swimsuit option that came with it. What if people thought she was me? Worse than wearing the wrong frock to a lecture...
The very first lecture I ever gave was on the poetry of Sylvia Plath (and Adrienne Rich, I think) to first year Modern Literature students. There would have been several hundred of them, and it would have been about 1985. I wore a long-sleeved purple cotton shirt. This was back in the days when women, though present in my department, were more likely tutors than lecturers, and certainly not senior lecturers or professors. I'm sure it was the surprise of seeing a young woman lecturing, and the astonishing poetry of Plath, or perhaps just kindness at seeing someone inexperienced making it through to the end of the lecture without falling over, but I received a round of applause and was instantly, thoroughly hooked.
The writing of lectures, and the nervous anticipation of presenting them, is upon me again this semester. I'm writing new lectures for my own medievalism subject, and next week I will also give two lectures in one of our new multi-disciplinary subjects, Homer to Hollywood. So on Monday I lecture on the Bayeux Tapestry at 10.00, then repeat the lecture at 12.00; then on Wednesday it's the Song of Roland at 10.00, then 45 minutes on Malory and the myth of Camelot to the medievalism students. One of my tutors will then give his first half-lecture in the course on Tennyson's Lady of Shalott (this is a ridiculous 90-minute lecture spot for the 118 students in this course), while I dash back to repeat the Roland lecture at midday.
Over the years I have become more economical in the preparation of lectures. My Plath lecture was a pretty complete script, written well in advance. These days, if I prepare too soon, or too comprehensively, I feel the lecture falls flat. I must also admit, even though I once made a speech about how Powerpoint was not a necessary component of good teaching, I do use it now, as a way of organising my thoughts and concentrating my preparation. So I'll prepare an outline on one slide, load up any images or text I want to analyse, add in a few notes at the bottom of some slides ... and just start talking.
It's a bit risky, this method. It's possible to spend too long finding good images and playing with the powerpoint designs, and forgetting about the actual points you want to make, though it's easier if, like me, you have no design imperatives or skills: default settings usually work just fine. I still find it a little hard to make the best use of powerpoint. It's great for images, and for close textual analysis, and that makes it great for teaching medieval culture, but it does tend to reduce everything down to dot points, when we know - and when we want our students to know - that things are usually a lot more complicated than that.
So while the hot northerly winds bluster around the house*, I'm uploading images of the tapestry, and re-reading the poem, and thinking about Malory, and trying to judge that perfect balance between preparedness and freshness that will see me through those 4.75 hours of lectures next week.
* Thank goodness the weather pixie hasn't put her bikini on, though. I had to think long and hard before choosing this model, because of the swimsuit option that came with it. What if people thought she was me? Worse than wearing the wrong frock to a lecture...
Monday, November 19, 2007
Brisbane distractions
Back from Brisbane on Saturday night, after attending the symposium of the Australian Humanities Academy. Brisbane was gorgeous, though I took my customary approach to a conference — fly in at the last minute and leave early — so I didn't see that much of the city. Why do I do it this way? To fend off that awful feeling on the first day away, of wondering why in the world one would want to leave one's home, and hang around airports and burn up greenhouse gases, and sleep in a hotel. So I try and minimise the pain by not really committing to the city. Paul and I never seem to manage to go on such trips together, so that's another reason not to hang around.
I did manage to get in a couple of walks, though, along the boardwalk along Southbank. Restaurants, cafes, a Nepalese pagoda, and the little sandy beach built into the riverbank (where I swam, 11 years ago), though it was closed for renovation, with all the sand piled up under tarpaulins, while they sealed the base. It was mild for Brisbane, I think; a balmy 26, which made sitting outside in the evening extremely pleasant. The first evening saw me and two companions sharing a bowl of succulent mussels in a rich tomato and chili broth, sopped up with an excellent sourdough.
The theme of the conference was the nature of e-research in the humanities. There were some terrific papers showcasing wonderful projects and resources; and also some reflections on the nature of this work, too, so it wasn't just "show-and-tell".
One remark struck me, though, when a prominent Vice-Chancellor commented that the era of the lecture was dead; that students simply wouldn't tolerate being lectured to in the old way. I guess that's true, that our attention span has been horribly reduced. My companion at the conference dinner on the second night told me how Pascale had anticipated the "distractions", like email, that break up our concentration span into bits and pieces. But it was odd to speculate on the irony that the symposium was presented in a conventional lecture theatre, that had been adapted to take powerpoint, etc. So when speakers presented their sites and applications, they were in darkness at the side of the stage, while the screen was lit up. Most of these applications were text-intensive, too, so if you were sitting up the back, it was pretty hard to see what was on the screen, much of the time. Nor were the speakers miked up, so that when they were answering questions, you couldn't always hear very well. No wonder some of the academicians were seen nodding off. And in truth, it is hard to concentrate for a day of such presentations. It might have been an idea for the conference to be held in a lab, where we could have interacted with these resources ourselves.
In fact, the organisers had made several laptops available, and I got used to seeing people surfing around sites that were being discussed in front of them. Some were also checking their email, too... But if that's the best way of presenting this material, either to a conference, or to a class, then it's no wonder that the connection between audience and presenter is diluted. I'm not a luddite in such things: I do use powerpoint when I teach, for example, and I have offered minimal online sites for larger subjects; but I do also love the human connection it's possible to make in a lecture, and the way that quite unexpectedly, sometimes, the group goes completely quiet and you realise that something has struck them, collectively, and you had no way of anticipating what it would be. The symposium wasn't really concerned with teaching, though.
Oddly, it's the idea of the "distraction" that has stayed with me. I'm determined to try and exert some discipline over my own. I wonder if reading Pascale would help. Or is that just another distraction?
I did manage to get in a couple of walks, though, along the boardwalk along Southbank. Restaurants, cafes, a Nepalese pagoda, and the little sandy beach built into the riverbank (where I swam, 11 years ago), though it was closed for renovation, with all the sand piled up under tarpaulins, while they sealed the base. It was mild for Brisbane, I think; a balmy 26, which made sitting outside in the evening extremely pleasant. The first evening saw me and two companions sharing a bowl of succulent mussels in a rich tomato and chili broth, sopped up with an excellent sourdough.
The theme of the conference was the nature of e-research in the humanities. There were some terrific papers showcasing wonderful projects and resources; and also some reflections on the nature of this work, too, so it wasn't just "show-and-tell".
One remark struck me, though, when a prominent Vice-Chancellor commented that the era of the lecture was dead; that students simply wouldn't tolerate being lectured to in the old way. I guess that's true, that our attention span has been horribly reduced. My companion at the conference dinner on the second night told me how Pascale had anticipated the "distractions", like email, that break up our concentration span into bits and pieces. But it was odd to speculate on the irony that the symposium was presented in a conventional lecture theatre, that had been adapted to take powerpoint, etc. So when speakers presented their sites and applications, they were in darkness at the side of the stage, while the screen was lit up. Most of these applications were text-intensive, too, so if you were sitting up the back, it was pretty hard to see what was on the screen, much of the time. Nor were the speakers miked up, so that when they were answering questions, you couldn't always hear very well. No wonder some of the academicians were seen nodding off. And in truth, it is hard to concentrate for a day of such presentations. It might have been an idea for the conference to be held in a lab, where we could have interacted with these resources ourselves.
In fact, the organisers had made several laptops available, and I got used to seeing people surfing around sites that were being discussed in front of them. Some were also checking their email, too... But if that's the best way of presenting this material, either to a conference, or to a class, then it's no wonder that the connection between audience and presenter is diluted. I'm not a luddite in such things: I do use powerpoint when I teach, for example, and I have offered minimal online sites for larger subjects; but I do also love the human connection it's possible to make in a lecture, and the way that quite unexpectedly, sometimes, the group goes completely quiet and you realise that something has struck them, collectively, and you had no way of anticipating what it would be. The symposium wasn't really concerned with teaching, though.
Oddly, it's the idea of the "distraction" that has stayed with me. I'm determined to try and exert some discipline over my own. I wonder if reading Pascale would help. Or is that just another distraction?
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Watching People Working
Can home renovations really be fun? Sure, the mess and noise are pretty bad, and we certainly won't talk about the cost in the week that interest rates have gone up another .25%. But I have to admit, I love watching the way these people work.
Our alarm radio begins its gradual crescendo at 7.00 but by then Peter and Shannon have usually arrived. They'll spend a little time sorting things out on the front verandah, but even before one of us has staggered out of bed to make breakfast, Peter is striding down the corridor and running up the stairs to where most of the work is going on. And this is how his day goes. He literally runs up and down the stairs each time. When he's on the job, he is a model of concentration and focus. When he stops to consult with us or the architect he is clear and patient; and is cheerful and funny when he is taking a break, but it's hard to engage him in any small talk if we take friends and family up during the day to show them the progress. I sometimes wish I could focus on reading and writing with the same intensity.
A few weeks ago he proudly announced we had to all bow down to Shannon, who has just completed his four-year apprenticeship with Peter, and who will probably soon be moving on. "Can't afford him now," he said drily. Peter is stocky and compact; Shannon tall and lanky. And it was Shannon who showed us the picture of one of Peter's buildings used as an illustration on the outside of the paint tin. Anyone want a recommendation for a builder? Go here.
Some days there are up to ten people on site. It's just an upstairs bedroom and bathroom being built into the roof space, plus a little balcony, but it has involved a fair amount of structural work, too, on foundations, and walls, and roof. The painter is lovely, and brought us a bottle of sweet and syrupy home-made wine. The electrician drives Peter crazy because by contrast to his enthusiasm and passion he is quiet, reserved and pessimistic by nature. But in spite of all his dire warnings about things being difficult or too long or too short or the wrong kind, everything he's done so far seems to work.
And the funniest thing. We have a wall where we have been writing Joel's height as he grows. There are lots of other names, there, too, of Joel's friends, and family - and we make jokes about how long it will be before Paul and I start to shrink. No one laughed at us when we said we didn't want them to paint over this record. I'm not sure if the plasterer heard this but in any case, he's added his name "Plasterer. 26/7/07", just above Paul's height. What's really funny is that he's actually a fair bit shorter!
We sometimes don't leave the house till mid-morning, and often seem to be pushing the bikes out the door when there are up to half a dozen people already having morning tea on the front verandah. But no one makes any rude comments about our odd hours - and I never have to take up that defensive tone: "But I was working till 10.30 last night...".
I don't mean, at all, to sentimentalise manual or artisanal labour; just to express my respect for the sheer energy and concentration of the work going on around me.
And computer update: I've finally ordered my new laptop and hope to have it commissioned and registered and uploaded by next week. And the Arts IT folk are producing a series of CDs, all labelled with my name and all, without my having to sit with them and go through my files, so the back-up will be comprehensive and well organised. Life about to return to normal!
Our alarm radio begins its gradual crescendo at 7.00 but by then Peter and Shannon have usually arrived. They'll spend a little time sorting things out on the front verandah, but even before one of us has staggered out of bed to make breakfast, Peter is striding down the corridor and running up the stairs to where most of the work is going on. And this is how his day goes. He literally runs up and down the stairs each time. When he's on the job, he is a model of concentration and focus. When he stops to consult with us or the architect he is clear and patient; and is cheerful and funny when he is taking a break, but it's hard to engage him in any small talk if we take friends and family up during the day to show them the progress. I sometimes wish I could focus on reading and writing with the same intensity.
A few weeks ago he proudly announced we had to all bow down to Shannon, who has just completed his four-year apprenticeship with Peter, and who will probably soon be moving on. "Can't afford him now," he said drily. Peter is stocky and compact; Shannon tall and lanky. And it was Shannon who showed us the picture of one of Peter's buildings used as an illustration on the outside of the paint tin. Anyone want a recommendation for a builder? Go here.
Some days there are up to ten people on site. It's just an upstairs bedroom and bathroom being built into the roof space, plus a little balcony, but it has involved a fair amount of structural work, too, on foundations, and walls, and roof. The painter is lovely, and brought us a bottle of sweet and syrupy home-made wine. The electrician drives Peter crazy because by contrast to his enthusiasm and passion he is quiet, reserved and pessimistic by nature. But in spite of all his dire warnings about things being difficult or too long or too short or the wrong kind, everything he's done so far seems to work.
And the funniest thing. We have a wall where we have been writing Joel's height as he grows. There are lots of other names, there, too, of Joel's friends, and family - and we make jokes about how long it will be before Paul and I start to shrink. No one laughed at us when we said we didn't want them to paint over this record. I'm not sure if the plasterer heard this but in any case, he's added his name "Plasterer. 26/7/07", just above Paul's height. What's really funny is that he's actually a fair bit shorter!
We sometimes don't leave the house till mid-morning, and often seem to be pushing the bikes out the door when there are up to half a dozen people already having morning tea on the front verandah. But no one makes any rude comments about our odd hours - and I never have to take up that defensive tone: "But I was working till 10.30 last night...".
I don't mean, at all, to sentimentalise manual or artisanal labour; just to express my respect for the sheer energy and concentration of the work going on around me.
And computer update: I've finally ordered my new laptop and hope to have it commissioned and registered and uploaded by next week. And the Arts IT folk are producing a series of CDs, all labelled with my name and all, without my having to sit with them and go through my files, so the back-up will be comprehensive and well organised. Life about to return to normal!
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
A computer is just a computer
(to be read while listening to the soothing sounds of this.)
It's still the same old story.... You develop some excellent habits as far as backing up your computer goes; and you maintain them, and you might even have recently backed up the most important documents and files on which you're working. But even so, when your laptop, bought in November 2005, suddenly develops an electrical fault and starts fusing whatever power supply you plug into it (I told the ArtsIT man about this and he still plugged in his own cord and fused that too), and you are told, after two weeks, that it's going to cost $1660 to repair, while a bright shiny new one is listed at $1749), what are you going to do? You're going to hold your tongue, and get ready to go through all the hoops again: working out which computer to get (and which colour: black or white?) and wait for Arts IT to upload all the relevant software, because our School can no longer afford our own LITE person and the wonderful Damian has now left to work on an amazing-sounding ornithological project with his wife.
Then you're going to see if they can retrieve any of the files from your old computer, and then if you're as bad at this as I am, you're going to start to build your email address book again, one by one. You're going to make some excellent resolutions about storing emails on the clumsy server, rather than on Eudora; and you're going to spend hours customising your music, photos, emails and files (and hope like crazy they can save your son's unfinished Lego animations: yeah, he thinks they're all technically imperfect, but you think they're great).
And then maybe three weeks after your battery ominously stopped re-charging, you might be back at work.
So, it could be a lot worse: but it is still very irritating, just when I feel ready really to start writing again. I'm currently working on Joel's computer in Paul's study (and nursing a sore throat, too, just to make everything really lovely).
I used to develop a kind of sympathetic affection for my computer: I don't think I feel that any more. Partly because when they break down they just seem to give up the ghost completely: they don't even want to get better when I'm doing all I can to keep myself healthy. Partly because, if I think about it, a fair amount of my work does take place on the server (as email correspondence), or is stored on the ARC Network's Confluence site, or is stored on my collaborators' computers. Or, since I truly have not been too bad about this, book and essay drafts are mostly filed away and duplicated on little memory sticks.
Still, the fundamental things apply.... back up NOW!
Update: The word is that Apple is about to make an announcement about a new range next week, so that it's probably worth waiting till then (and even the additional time it will take to order and load up with the stuff). Apparently the current 13" Powerbooks that I was tossing up between (black or white) have very shiny glass screens that are great if you want to watch movies, but irritating if you want to write books. Wonder if the new range will give us some options here. In the meantime, back to Joel's computer...
It's still the same old story.... You develop some excellent habits as far as backing up your computer goes; and you maintain them, and you might even have recently backed up the most important documents and files on which you're working. But even so, when your laptop, bought in November 2005, suddenly develops an electrical fault and starts fusing whatever power supply you plug into it (I told the ArtsIT man about this and he still plugged in his own cord and fused that too), and you are told, after two weeks, that it's going to cost $1660 to repair, while a bright shiny new one is listed at $1749), what are you going to do? You're going to hold your tongue, and get ready to go through all the hoops again: working out which computer to get (and which colour: black or white?) and wait for Arts IT to upload all the relevant software, because our School can no longer afford our own LITE person and the wonderful Damian has now left to work on an amazing-sounding ornithological project with his wife.
Then you're going to see if they can retrieve any of the files from your old computer, and then if you're as bad at this as I am, you're going to start to build your email address book again, one by one. You're going to make some excellent resolutions about storing emails on the clumsy server, rather than on Eudora; and you're going to spend hours customising your music, photos, emails and files (and hope like crazy they can save your son's unfinished Lego animations: yeah, he thinks they're all technically imperfect, but you think they're great).
And then maybe three weeks after your battery ominously stopped re-charging, you might be back at work.
So, it could be a lot worse: but it is still very irritating, just when I feel ready really to start writing again. I'm currently working on Joel's computer in Paul's study (and nursing a sore throat, too, just to make everything really lovely).
I used to develop a kind of sympathetic affection for my computer: I don't think I feel that any more. Partly because when they break down they just seem to give up the ghost completely: they don't even want to get better when I'm doing all I can to keep myself healthy. Partly because, if I think about it, a fair amount of my work does take place on the server (as email correspondence), or is stored on the ARC Network's Confluence site, or is stored on my collaborators' computers. Or, since I truly have not been too bad about this, book and essay drafts are mostly filed away and duplicated on little memory sticks.
Still, the fundamental things apply.... back up NOW!
Update: The word is that Apple is about to make an announcement about a new range next week, so that it's probably worth waiting till then (and even the additional time it will take to order and load up with the stuff). Apparently the current 13" Powerbooks that I was tossing up between (black or white) have very shiny glass screens that are great if you want to watch movies, but irritating if you want to write books. Wonder if the new range will give us some options here. In the meantime, back to Joel's computer...
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