Teknologi, the enabler.

Thu, 9 Apr 2009
2 min read
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One of my fellow trainee teachers over here at Saint Gabriel’s also rides a motorcycle, so we are usually partners-in-crime in terms of rushing off just before the rain pours.

Our pet peeve is not being to get an early enough headstart because of the lack of a proper notification system. The current technology we use is Windows i.e. we look out of the window in the I & E room where we’re seated and guesstimate when it is we should leave.

Bad jokes aside, we also make use of the NEA’s Local Weather portion of the website quite a bit. But being the humans that we are, pulling the information from the website can be quite a hassle sometimes.

So what does one do? In an age where humanity’s kinship with that of electric currents has long been recognised (i.e. we follow the path of least resistance, LOL), ‘push’ technology comes into the picture.

Presenting to you, ladies and gentlemen, the Weather Widgets for the Mac OS X Dashboard!

The best part is: it didn’t require much technological know-how, just an awareness of Safari’s Web Clip feature in Leopard. For the real Windows users: no worries, there’s something in this for you too, cos I’m a very inclusive person 😛 You might wanna try this Singapore Rain Map Yahoo! Widget, or keep your eyes peeled for NEA to develop its RSS notifications, which you probably might be able to convert into an SMS notification… Somehow. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Good things must share.

Fri, 6 Mar 2009
2 min read
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Good things also meaning The Internets, which includes Shared Items but more importantly, Internets access.

The trainee teachers at Saint Gabriel’s Secondary have been using the I & E (Innovation and Enterprise?) Hub on the third level, far, far away from the staff room, which is on the second level.

It means that we have the room to ourselves most of the time, which is quite a good thing, since all the other trainees are fun people too, so we share many good chucks and food.

But it also means that we are suffering from a dire shortage of LAN access points, which translates to a semi-Internet famine, where five people share two cables (one person is using M1 wireless broadband).

SO HOW?

Dunch worry – I have the Mac, so I is having the power. I’m using the Internet Sharing function to act as a router for everyone else *cough* Windows users *cough*. We had some hiccups initially, but everyone has fair use of the Internets now, so all is well again in Trainee Teacher Land.

Instructions to configure your Windows computers to connect to the Internets from Mac computers here, courtesy of Google which found this original forum post.