Vista Shmista

I took the plunge and bought a new laptop today. Nice hardware, shame about the OS.

Windows Vista is possibly the poorest piece of commercial software since Lotus Notes - it simply will not do the basics. Unreliable wireless connectivity, completely non-intuitive UI and a stubborn refusal to talk to anything else that you might have on your LAN (er, like backup disks and shared printers). It's pish.

Anyways, I bought it as things are starting to hot up on the University front. Lectures coming thick and fast, science tutorials (yup, bunsen burners, electroscopes, microscopes, hydrochloric acid, and the old favourite Van de Graaff generator, what a hoot that was) and assignments and I can't keep bothering the Mrs for shots at her laptop (if you'll pardon the indelicacy). She has a real job to do after all.

I don't think I could even attempt to keep on top of things without a machine of my own and me old favourite Microsoft Outlook - which is perfect for keeping notes, weblinks, tasks and appointments in one place, all automatically synced with my Pocket PC. Strathclyde Uni is pretty well set up ICT-wise and I can see all my lectures on-line if I need a refresh.

So can you : here's a link to one of this week's lectures on the history of Scottish Education since the 15th Century. No really - it's actually quite interesting. Take a look and learn some stuff.

One of this week's big discoveries is that I am naturally attuned for education. I am, apparently, a Quadrant Four learner according to Kolb's learning approaches. This makes me an ideal candidate for a career in Marketing, Sales, Action-Oriented Management (whatever that might be) and (fanfare) education. I guess that puts the 22 years in IT in a kind of perspective.

I am now trying desperately to avoid a sort of maudlin reflection on whether or not I have wasted the biggest part of my "career".

Finally, I'm now a "friend" on something called Bebo, one of the hazards of working with the young folks - in this case a nice wee lassie in my tutorial group. When you're "on" Bebo it seems you have to talk in a special language (thnx, lol, pshd, shppin, k) and humiliate yourself with a photo trying to look like someone "glamourous".

In my day we had real friends.