Parent’s Guide to Windows Vista (Via Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson.) I’m usually not one for locking down a computer to limit what students can do with it… and I’m still not in this case, but with so little “Vista in Education” news out there, ...

My first patch to Perl 5 was a quick and dirty tiny feature enhancement. It also broke a couple of tests. That small act of public humiliation reinforced what I already knew was a good practice; automated testing is an important part of creating software that works. I spent ...

Everyone wants to know what the next big thing is going to be, and if market analyst Datamonitor is to be believed the answer is mobile broadcast television. With the opportunity to combine two of the undeniably most popular and successful consumer products in history, namely TV and mobile telephones, ...

I’m a big fan of online surveys and have taught many teachers and administrators to use SurveyMonkey.com specifically. They’ve rolled out a major overhaul of their interface… and I don’t think I like it. I was excited at first of course, but it is VERY SLOW - and for no ...

The PlayStation 3 is, without doubt, a multi-talented piece of kit: state of the art games console, Blu-Ray player, media centre and more. Much more, in fact, because from the 1st June you will be able to add Linux Enterprise Server to the functionality list. That is the date ...

Yes, this is a Movable Type weblog. Yes, I accessed it through Firefox. Yet I hate typing in little text input boxes. I’m writing this (surprisingly post-modern) entry in Vim, a tool I find almost indispensible. It seems like every time I use a computer, I end up ...

Perl has a long history of copious documentation through the Plain Old Documentation format. This applies to much of CPAN, not just the core modules and documentation. The perldoc utility is the main way to view this documentation. It has more features than people imagine (it was worthy of Hack #2 in Perl Hacks), but it’s ...

IT security and control firm Sophos is warning of an ongoing spam campaign which promises not only a trailer featuring, but also free tickets to see, the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End’ movie. The warning signs are all there, the familiar skull-and-crossbones logo of the popular ...