So, I started learning BSL in September 2006 when IBM put on courses for employees at Hursley. We had two hours of teaching every Wednesday morning for 30 weeks, which culminated in being CACDP BSL Level 1 certified.

Jeff, our tutor, is Deaf and taught us using a combination of signing, speech, writing on whiteboards, slides, and humour. Different tutors using different communication methods - for instance, BSL tutors don’t have to be deaf themselves, and some use speech and some don’t. Jeff doesn’t really lip-read so we got lots of practice at signing when talking to him during tea-breaks.

During the course, Jeff taught us a bit about Deaf culture as well as the language. This built on the deaf awareness workshop that we had attended early on in the course. In the workshop, another man (also deaf but deafened later in life; he speaks, uses a hearing aid, and lip-reads) taught us about what it’s like to be deaf, how (as hearing people) to communicate with deaf people, what the Deaf (signing) culture is, and attitudes of deaf people to their deafness.

I really enjoyed the course. It was difficult at first to deal with learning something without being able to write it down (BSL notation is a skill all to itself!). So learning to rely less on written notes was useful too. Learning BSL has been really useful, in particular in talking to my friend Ben at work who is profoundly deaf (without speech) and whose first language is BSL. It’s also handy in meetings or in the noisy canteen to be able to sign to colleagues.

I think it’s really cool that we could learn BSL at work. Aside from the actual language, learning about the Deaf culture and deafness in general has given me a different perspective on things and broadened my understanding of other people. In terms of my day-job, I have a better understanding of the issues around Accessibility.

For instance, here’s one of them….

Did you know that if BSL is your first language (and, therefore, English your second), written transcripts are not necessarily sufficient for a Deaf person to understand an audio recording? The concepts and grammar of BSL are so different from English that moving between the two can be very difficult. That’s why you get BSL interpreters signing on TV (eg BBC News 24) instead of just providing subtitles.

A lot (a *lot*) of people don’t know that.

His focus in the talk was on cross-platform free software - that is, free software that can be used in schools and runs on Windows, Linux, and (usually) Mac. He gave four examples of free software that he thinks is great in schools:

GCompris (award-winning software for younger end of primary school children) (www.gcompris.net/-en-). Having since met a 5 year old at LugRadio Live USA whose favourite activity on her OLPC laptop is GCompris, I’ll happily recommend it too.

StopMotion (for older end of primary school) (I’ve just been hunting for the URL for Windows but can’t find anything about it - can only find the page for the LInux version developer.skolelinux.no/info/studentgrupper/2005-hig-stopmotion/index.php - will let you know if I find the Windows one cos it looks really cool software)

OpenOffice.org (for secondary school level) (www.openoffice.org) - He made a point of saying that we shouldn’t inflict office skills on young children cos it’s boring. But at secondary level, this is a great alternative to paying for Microsoft Office. I use it all the time at work and at home. It’s free now but used to be a product from Sun Microsystems who sold it as Star Office. Much better now and is compatible with MS Office documents (eg .doc, .xls, .ppt files). Just download it and have a go.

Firefox web browser (all ages) (www.mozilla-europe.org/en). Again, I use this all the time (alternative to Internet Explorer) at home and at work.

If you’re a Windows user and want to know more about free software in education, there’s more free software that will run on Windows here: www.schoolforge.net

Having been involved in trialling the Current Cost monitor recently, I’m interested in not only the company’s green credentials (which the Guide addresses) but the actual Wii’s green credentials, specifically its power consumption (which the Guide doesn’t seem to address). I think this kind of information would be useful to consumers - even if it doesn’t influence whether or not to buy the Wii, information about standby consumption etc would help consumers know whether they’re happy to leave the Wii plugged in 24 hours a day..

I’m interested to know because (like 6 million other people in Europe) I have a Nintendo Wii. So the other night I had a look at the Wii system settings. And found the WiiConnect24 option, which I hadn’t come across before.

In there, you can set your Wii to be:

• Always connected to the internet (via the wireless connection that you’ve set up previously) regardless of whether you’re using the Wii or not (when in Standby, the orange light shows)
• Always connected to the internet while you’re using the Wii but not when the Wii switches to Standby (when in Standby, the red light shows)
• Not connected to the internet at all, even when you’re using the Wii

By default, after you have set up the wireless connection and enabled WiiConnect24 (which is required to be able to visit the online shop etc and which I must have enabled at some stage), the Wii is set to the first option–connected to the internet always, even when the Wii switches to Standby when you’re not actually using it. A benefit of being always online is that the little blue light on the front flashes to alert you that you have received a message (from a Wii friend or from Nintendo) or that there is an update available for you to download. Personally, this is of no interest to me.

So, anyway, AndySC took his Maplin power meter to his Wii and found that when being used (green light), the Wii draws about 15 Watts, which isn’t too bad really - considering that a laptop can take anything between 20 and 50 Watts, I think. And you’re actually making use of that 15 Watts.

In Standby without an internet connection (red light), the Wii draws less than 1 Watt. Again, not bad. You could unplug it if you wanted to save that Watt but 1 Watt on Standby is pretty good (this is based on a meter for which 1 Watt is the minimum reading, I think).

The bit that seems silly is if you leave your Wii in Standby with the WiiConnect24 internet connection enabled to be always on, the Wii is drawing about 9 Watts of power (over half of what it draws when you’re actively playing on it). Okay, I can see that for some people being alerted with the flashing blue light when you have a message is useful. And maybe it’s useful to be alerted that there’s a new update available so that you can download it when you’re not actually wanting to play on your Wii. What I don’t agree with is having the always-on option as the default setting.

From a usability perspective, having everything enabled by default is good in that the user isn’t prevented from doing any of the things that they might want to do (like receive message or update alerts). But if that wasn’t enabled, would many people actually miss it? It’s not like they wouldn’t still receive messages and alerts - they’d just find out about them the next time they switch on the Wii to play - and, presumably that’s fairly regularly if they’re into using the messaging and updates regularly.

Okay, so 9 Watts doesn’t seem a huge amount of electricity, but even if I use my Wii for 8 hours a day, every day (which is a long long way from the reality), that’s still 16 hours a day that the Wii is sitting there doing nothing at 9 Watts. And it’s that ’sitting there doing nothing’ that really adds up against the environment and my electricity bill.

I discovered a couple of other features that require WiiConnect24 to be always on are the News and Weather channels but I think this requirement might be a bug - afterall, why should the Wii need to check the news and weather while you’re not using the Wii? When you open the News or Weather channel, I’m sure it checks for the latest information anyway. If anyone from Nintendo reads this, can you check this out?

So, the upshot is that while WiiConnect24 might be useful to some people, it’d be a bit more environmentally friendly to set it so that the internet connection is disabled when the Wii is in Standby. Let that red light glow!

I agree with Greenpeace that it’s important to know how environmentally friendly the company itself (Wii consumption aside) is so I’ll be interested to know what they conclude when Nintendo actually do provide them with data. Will Nintendo be able to overtake the dawdling Microsoft and Phillips?

Here are the details (listen out for the trailer on your favourite Linux/OpenSource podcast, such as Linux Outlaws)…

LugRadio Live UK 2008
The Lighthouse Media Center, Fryer St., Wolverhampton, WV1 1HT

LugRadio Live UK 2008, the most popular community Open Source event in the UK takes place in Wolverhampton on the 19th and 20th and features three stages full of 25+ speakers including:

• Chris DiBona (Google)
• Max Spevack (Red Hat)
• Steve Lamb (Microsoft)
• Robert Collins (Canonical)
• Benjamin Otte (GNOME)
• Rob McQueen (Collabora)
• Edward Hervey (Collabora Multimedia)
• James Hooker
• Kevin Sandom
• Barbie (MessageLabs)
• Daniel James
• Emma Jane Hogbin
• Bruno Bord
• Ben Thorp
• Rufus Pollock (FFFI)
• Sam Birchall
• John Carr
• William J Giddings
• and many more…

In addition to this the show will feature over 20 exhibitors, special debate sessions, the legendary Gong-a-thong Lightbulb Talk Extravaganza (read: a series of small talks chaired by a man in a very small pair of pants and a very large gong - not to be missed!), parties on the Friday and Saturday evenings and much, much more.

All of this is just £5, and there are even a raft of hotel deals available to make your trip simple and cost effective. Head over to www.lugradio.org/live to find out more.

The killer bit of the Firefox browser, IMHO, was the ability to open multiple Web pages in separate tabs within the same browser window. Of course, internet Explorer now does multiple tabs (in a rainbow of shades) but back in my Windows (pre-IE7) days, I frequently did parallel browsing of websites by simply opening each webpage in a new window. The advantage of multiple tabs is that you don’t end up with a clutter of browser windows all over your taskbar.

I suspect that multiple tabs in browser windows, and (in Firefox at least) being able to bookmark all the tabs at once, has slightly altered how people browse.

Opening in a new window set me off down the path of parallel browsing but multiple tabs ensured I got there. Especially as websites got more interactive and state-sensitive (meaning that you can’t switch to another website then click ‘Back’ to return to your internet banking session). And I got less patient waiting for pages to load (ironic seeing as connection speeds have increased).

So now I’ve started using my OLPC to browse the web occasional when my other laptop is unavailable. This is an interesting, and slightly frustrating, experience.

The Sugar interface on the OLPC basically does away with the idea of windowing environments. That is, you don’t have a desktop on which to drag around and switch between windows. instead, each application (known as an ‘activity’) runs moreorless full-screen, like this:

This means a return to linear browsing. in some ways it’s a liberating experience in that I read what I want to read of the current website or page before moving on the the next. And when reading blogs and the like, I can always click ‘Back’ later. In many ways, though (and i’m a great believer in computers supporting user-behaviour, and not the other way round), it’s just frustrating.

For example, in writing this blog-post, I couldn’t easily open my blog or Andy’s OLPC tips page to check that I used the correct URL in my links. Nor could I quickly check my usage of a word in dictionary.com. I can, and sometimes do, open other instances of the Browse activity - essentially opening in a new window but with a little more effort - but more than three instances, I’ve found, tends to crash the whole lot.

Now, the OLPC and its software isn’t designed for me; it’s an education tool for children in developing countries. On the other hand, how soon before the older or more tech-savvy children start to want to browse in parallel - especially when internet access gets more ubiquitous?

I have resisted putting Firefox on my OLPC but tonight I’m sorely tempted…

For example, in my blog post It’s here, it’s green, and it’s got ears! a couple of the phrases in the post have acquired dashed underlines and Snap Shots icons, like the term ‘One Laptop Per Child’ in this screenshot (the link ‘XO (or OLPC) laptop’ has a Snap Shot icon because it’s a link that I created):

(click the picture to see it more clearly)

I’m not sure that I like this. I don’t want to be advertising random companies that I know nothing about. I was aware that the Snap Shots windows that are added to my links contain small ads in addition to the preview of the target website. But the preview of the target website is why I include Snap Shots on my blog and the ad is smaller than the preview and I can live with that. But I’m less keen on Snap Shots identifying phrases in my blog posts purely to add adverts.

I had a look at the Snap Shots website which explains that the adding of Snap Shot icons to non-link phrases is a new technology called Snap Shots Engage. It also describes the Snap Shot Shares scheme, in which I can get a share of the advertising income (I guess from both Snap Shots and Snap Shots Engage ads).

I’m not against people making money out of their websites - though I don’t choose to right now as that’s not the purpose of my website - and the Snap Shots Engage method is fairly non-intrusive compared with, say, Google ads. My objection is to a third party inserting adverts into my blog without me knowing and explicitly agreeing to it. Also, while the normal Snap Shots ads are obviously ads below the preview of the link target:

the new Snap Shots Engage ads are less obviously ads that have been chosen by someone else:

and in this particular instance, the tone of the text in the ad jars slightly with my enthusiastic OLPC post.

I’ve had a look at the Snap Shots FAQ page to work out how I can opt out of them putting ads on my blog but they just say:

“At this time, Snap offers advertising exemption to educational and governmental institutions. If you feel that your web site fits these criteria and would like to apply to be exempted, please send an email to customerservice@snap.com and we will review your application and get back to you shortly.”

And I’m neither an educational nor governmental institution. So, I’m going to disable the Snap Shots Wordpress plugin and lose Snap Shots completely.

So, this Spring, I’ve started collecting toilet roll tubes (also in the spirit of Blue Peter) so that I can stick them in the ground around my small sunflower seedlings when I first plant them out. Hopefully, that’ll fool those pesky slugs.

In the meantime, I’ve bought a couple of packets of seeds (hoping that if one is so tasty that the toilet roll tubes fail to foil the crafty slugs, I can try again). I’ve planted the first packet into small pots on the windowsill and the first few seeds have germinated nicely:

That’s despite me mixing in too much of the water-saving crystals with the compost so that every time I water them, the soil expands so much that it starts to climb out of the pots!

I’m hoping these ones work because I want to see what they come out like. They’re not your usual yellow sunflowers. They’re a species called ‘Moulin Rouge’ and the heads are a dark red instead of yellow. If they work, I’ll post a photo here.

In case you’ve been living in a cupboard for the past couple of years (this is mainstream, afterall), the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project’s aim is to design a small, cheap, lightweight but robust laptop as a tool to support education in developing countries. The XO (or OLPC) laptop is the result of that effort.

So what’s it like? Well, I’m typing this blog post on it. The width of the laptop is 22.5cm (I just measured it) so the keyboard is quite small. I can’t touchtype on it but I can work up to a fairly efficient multi-finger typing. It’s a bit like typing on the Psion palm-top but the keys feel nicer because they’re rubbery and press easily.

The screen on the XO is amazing. It was designed especially for the requirements of the OLPC project. Many of the children that will use the XO laptop are schooled, or spend a lot of time, out of doors. Therefore, a typical laptop screen would be no good - bright sunlight would render the screen unreadable. There are two modes to the XO’s screen: a full-colour mode which is

pretty readable in sunlight as it is, and a monochrome mode which actually gets clearer to read the brighter the sunlight. Why aren’t all laptops made like this? Working at home in the summer would be so much more fun!

What else? Well, the ‘ears’ are actually the wireless antenae which will still work, apparently, even if you snap one off (they’re actually slightly flexible and tougher than they look in photos). I can connect to my home WPA-encrypted wireless network (but not, sadly, to my work LEAP netwok). There’s no ethernet port but you can, i think, get an ethernet USB dongle to work.

It has a built-in webcam. It comes with 1 GB solid state storage but I’ve put an 8 GB SDHC card in the slot beneath the screen to have more space than I’m bound ever to need. It has a built-in microphone and speakers, with mini-jack sockets for plugging in an external mic and headphones. Or, alternatively, you can plug in different inputs (eg a temperature sensor) to the mic socket.

And there’s ‘ebook mode’… You know how you can get some highly-priced regular laptops that have a screen that swivels round into ‘tablet mode’? Well, the XO does that too. To be fair, the XO doesn’t have a touch-sensitive screen but then its screen swivels so that you can use it to read ebooks. At the press of a button, you can rotate the display by 90, 180, 270, or 360 degrees. And if reading an ebook isn’t your thing, you can play games using the game buttons on either side of the screen.

I know I’m sounding like a commercial break now but it really is that cool. And rather sweet for a inanimate object. And it has a handle. And it fits in my handbag.

Oh, and did I mention it’s green?

And it has ears.

A while ago, I wrote a blog post (Carbon off-setting) in which I described my current view (or near lack of) of carbon off-setting schemes. When I booked the Virgin flights, I didn’t immediately go for the carbon off-setting option because it pointed to a company I’d not heard of and, in a world of dodgy carbon off-setting schemes, how do I know they’re any different?

So I did a bit of research. I remember last year the UK Government (specifically Defra) identified four carbon off-setting companies that were kind of recommended but kind of not. Which is a reflection of the state of confusion customers are in. While I used Climate Care last year because that’s what The Co-op uses (and, apparently, The Guardian too), Climate Care isn’t one of the companies on Defra’s list, which means that it doesn’t meet Defra’s guidelines. But are Defra’s guidelines really that good?

I came across an interesting article in The Guardian from last summer. At the end of the article, it mentions a not-for-profit Gold Standard method which accredits carbon off-setting projects (renewable energy and energy efficiency projects with sustainable development benefits). This rang a bell with what I’d seen on the Virgin website.

Virgin Atlantic have set up a scheme with myclimate, a Swiss not-for-profit foundation, that customers can use to offset their flights. myclimate have several projects, including some that have already achieved accreditation by the Gold Standard, which is supported by several groups, including Greenpeace.

You can be cynical about an air travel company providing this kind of service - obviously it’s great for their image - but it does look as if Virgin have spent a fair amount of effort on it. They even provide a page explaining how Virgin calculates the carbon emissions of their customers (we’re travelling Economy - hence my titular smugness).

So, having read around a bit about the Gold Standard method of assessing projects’ effectiveness, I decided to go with Virgin and myclimate’s service. And I’ll probably use myclimate in future too (although there are other companies and not-for-profits that have Gold Standard-accredited projects as well).

I was privy to a pre-release airing last night and I was very impressed, having sat through hours of recording time on Saturday…

The show now has its own Twitter ID (@uupc) so that you can follow its progress from recording, through editing, to release.

Enjoy!