Several important meetings today.

This morning saw the Departmental Duties Meeting which is the annual event at which we divvie up the departmental teaching and admin duties. Nothing much changed for me as none of my colleagues were clamouring to teach what I teach or administrate what I administrate ;-)

I was about 15 minutes late for this meeting since the train I was travelling to work in broke down temporarily. As there's currently an emergency timetable in place due to the knock-on effect of the Potters Bar accident I have to change trains. I missed the first connection by 30 minutes and 10 seconds, the second connection by 10 seconds. So I was running an hour late. The only consolation is that I had time to buy the Millie's Classic Coffee special offer of a muffin (I chose blueberry) and a coffee for £1.30. Mmmm!

The 2nd meeting today was this afternoon at Glasgow University. As Undergarduae Admissions Selector for the Department I'll be going along. Here's the programme:

Computing across the interface:
Supporting student transition from school and college to university.

1.30 Arrival and coffee

 

1.45 Welcome.

Professor Ray Welland, Head of Department, University of Glasgow

2.00 Key issues at the interface. 

Phil Gray, Senior Lecturer, University of Glasgow

2.15 What is happening in schools.

David Bethune, Development Officer, SQA

2.45 Discussion: What universities are looking for?

Chair: Alison Mitchell, Student Recruitment Officer, University of Glasgow.

3.30 Break

 

3.45 Breakout Discussion Groups

• What is good preparation for further study in Computing?
• How can a student's pre-university experience best be developed at university?
• How can we effectively communicate across the interface
• (These are possible topics. We will agree on relevant topics at the meeting)

4.30 Plenary/ next steps

 

5.15 Cheese and wine

 

6.00 End of meeting

 

[Note: I wrote the following on the train and in the future tense assuming that I would have time to post it before the meeting. As you can see I didn't ;-)]:

This looks like it'll be an interesting meeting/discussion. Apparently, there has been an excellent response to the original call for participation with at least one representative from each Scottish university along with teachers from different parts of the country. There will be about 25 participants altogether.

I wonder if there'll be any students there? If not then I think that's a missed opportunity. If any of my students are reading this then feel free to contribute your opionions/experiences of your transition from school to university and what support you (would have liked to have) had.

I'll write a follow-up about the meeting later but here are some initial thoughts prompted by the above programme:

What universities are looking for?

I can't speak for the others but at Strathclyde (UoS) incoming students need a good grounding in maths. I guess this will be the same for the 'old' universities. UoS does not require a formal computing subject - such as a Higher in Computing - for entry. UoS entry standards are amongst the highest in Scotland. I get a lot of applications from HNC/HND students in FE but invariably they don't have a maths background. The assessment regime in FE - mostly continual assessment - is also at odds with the regime - traditional exam with some coursework contribution - in most(?) HE institutions.

What is good preparation for further study in Computing?

At UoS the only absolute requirement entry qualification is maths. I am sure this is going to be a bone of contention and I suspect will split the universities into two camps: "Yes - a must have for Computer Science", and "No - we teach IT rather than Computer Science".

Of course, we expect our students to have the necessary study skills and the self motivation. We would like them to have an interest in the subject. 1 in 4 don't according to a survey we did some years ago. Have others surveyed their intake(s)?

[At this point the thrain pulled into the station. I'll add more thoughts to the follow-up.]

The latest from the DevShed - Zope series - Using Zope With Apache:

"Over the next few pages, I will be discussing the myriad ways in which Apache can be connected to Zope, together with my experiences on how easy or difficult each technique is. I will assume here that you're working on a Linux box, and have a working Zope 2.5 installation with super-user access."

via The Register - EuroGamer - The Empire Strikes Back

Microsoft has cut the price of Xbox in North America to $199 this morning [15 May], confirming the suspicions of industry observers and analysts. The price cut puts the console at a rough £137.

I wonder just how much Microsoft is losing on the sale of each Xbox? At that price, and with its inbuilt capabilites, I would imagine that the Xbox would make quite a nice compute node for a cheap Beowulf-type cluster.

The Xbox Linux Project ;-)

I am very surprised that a Google Search: haXbox only gets three hits, only one of which seems to refer to a genuine use of the word - it's a beverage control (i.e. drinks dispensing) product. Given so few hits it's not surprising that a Google Search: haXboxers gets no hits.

I am seriously giving some thought to some future student projects that would look at the possibility of using the Xbox as a general computing engine. Hence the tentative project title - haxBox. The one concern I have is the question of how protective Microsoft is about technical details of the Xbox and, if they are very protective, how aggressive they would be in pursuing that protection.

I've not researched the issue at all and have no idea of the technical or legal issues that may arise. The project(s) would be totally above board as the emphasis is on 'converting' the Xbox to be a general compute machine rather than as a games machine.

However, given the fact that Microsoft loses money on the sale of each Xbox - and hopes to recoup this loss by the sale of games - I suspect they'd be anxious to make sure that 'converted' consoles don't appear.

But is there anything Micrsoft could do if the 'conversion' is simply achieved by loading software off a CD-ROM? Corollary: Microsoft has no comeback on people that boot their PC into Linux? It's an interesting question.

Also noteworthy is bunnie's adventures hacking the XBOX

[Update: Google Search: haxXbox gets no hits so I think I'll be using this as my project title.]

X-Box to be built in China

"MICROSOFT IS TO BUILD X-BOX IN CHINA. The software giant and its manufacturing partner have settled on a facility in Doumen, according to reports. Flextronics of Singapore, maker of the console for Microsoft, is to transfer manufacturing from its site in relatively-cheap Hungary to super-cheap mainland China."

AMD demos Slegehammer running windows.net

"AMD has been wooing system builders with a demo of a two-way Sledgehammer running a 64-bit windows .net OS."

vnunet.com Lindows ruling smashes Windows:

"Microsoft has lost its court case against Lindows, leaving the small company free to sell its Linux-based operating system capable of running Windows applications.

The Redmond giant had been pressing the judge to shut down Lindows.com and prevent the company from selling its product under the name LindowsOS.

Microsoft claimed that the name trod too close to its Windows trademark, but this week the judge threw the case out."

Woo hoo! Seth 'pre-announces' the availability of Conversant. In fact, this is one of the main reasons I'm de-junking my office (and iBook) - my reward to myself is making the time to become more Conversant ;-)

Lots of good stuff linked off the O'Reilly Network Emerging Technology Conference Coverage Page. Must... get.... on... .with... de-junking... the... office... before... reading...

Amazon.com: Editorial Reviews: XML Processing with Perl, Python, and PHP - looks interesting. Think I may start saving up for this book. Why it's over £30 in Amazon (UK) when it's just $35 in Amazon (US) is a mystery.