Surprisingly for a Bank Holiday Monday, the weather was very good indeed. Blue skies, visibility for miles, and a nice summer breeze occasionally popping up….ideal for our walk through Pendoylan and the surrounding countryside.
Here are three examples from our afternoon of walking..
To see the complete set of photographs that I took on this walk be sure to visit the Pendoylan Country Walk gallery.
I’ve been testing the Backup & Restore facility of Windows 7 for the last three evenings, and have come to the conclusion that is it pretty damn good! It’s available under Windows Vista too. Using my FreeAgent Go portable USB 
Saturday night, I had a second backup scheduled. I wanted to know whether or not it would create a second backup or replace the original. Now what impressed me most, was the time it took to do this in, and that was 10 minutes! Windows Backup keeps track of the files that have been added or modified since your last backup and then updates the existing backup, which saves disk space – and time! This being the case I have adjusted the frequency of the backups to be everyday, late in the evening. (My computer is never off, so for me that the most convenient time).
Try it out for yourself, and if you need some help this Windows 7 Backup article has information to help you, and a video clip as well – I’m suitably impressed!
It’s something I always bang on about in Nightclasses – and I cannot stress how important it is to make a second copy of the data that is important to you. I’ve tried various methods of backing up my computer in the past, I’ve used CDs and DVDs, I’ve used tape drives, but by far the easiest way is with a portable USB hard disk. The model that I currently have is a FreeAgent GO from Seagate. It has a capacity of 320GB which is more than enough for me at the moment, and as an extra I also purchased the Dock for it too, which provides easy connectivity. Check out the video below for more information.
Since the video was made, Seagate have increased the capacity of the FreeAgent Go, with 640Gb and 1Tb models. I highly recommend you get one, so have a look at Amazon for the current pricing of these drives. I shall write to Santa to see if he will get me a higher capacity one for Christmas!!
This weekend I will be making slight changes to the options on the main page. Currently the Live Webcam was an idea that I was playing with a few months back, I will probably keep that as one of the options, but tailor the content to just show the one camera view, which at the time of writing this blog entry, is currently offline. It is my intention to add a link direct to this blog on the main page, so you haven't got to go to the hassle of registering a username just to read the blog.
I’m also toying with the idea of removing the need to have a username to access the Nightclass Resources section, but am unsure at the moment. Watch this space for further information. Check back in a few days to see the result!
I am pleased to say that after contacting 'iFrogz’ they have told me they will replace the cases with the new ‘tougher’ redesigned version of the case if I post back the broken ones. I didn’t like the idea of not having a case on my iPhone so I purchased a third one, and that arrived today. It is the iFrogz Luxe Frozen edition in bright green, as shown above and is the remanufactured version, and I am very pleased with it. I will still send the others back to be replaced, because it will give me the opportunity to change the colour in the future if I want.
For more information on these cases, and other products, check out their website at http://ifrogz.com/
The venue for our special taster class this evening was the new impressive Barry Library. Located on King's Square in Barry, the building originally housed the town hall which opened originally in 1908, and now is a state of the art Library and Learning Centre.
In the beautifully air-conditioned computer room, I presented what was a taster, or rather a preview to a small group of prospective students of what is to become my new class for the September 2010 term. The new class was inspired by a few of the students I had in my Autumn 2009 Digital Photography Class for Beginners. We had produced a calendar using our own photographs as an exercise, and a few in the group had expressed an interest in doing a course that created more of that sort of thing. With this in mind, and realising that perhaps running two Digital Camera classes was too much (in terms of student retention), it seemed the right choice and time to do something about it. I proposed the idea to the centre staff, and they agreed. Microsoft Publisher is the application that I will use as the foundation for this class, and it is my intention to introduce students into the wonderful world of home crafts using the product. From calendars, brochures and greetings cards, to huge oversized posters for special occasions. Although this course is heavily focused on the creation of design projects, there is still a small element of digital photography in it, as in simple advice on taking photographs in the first instance, but those how want to know a lot more about the camera side of things, or altering photographs would be better suited to coming along to the Tuesday camera class.
I am looking forward to teaching this new class, it has been about 4 years since I have changed what I am teaching, and I hope it is enjoyed by those who will hopefully sign up! If you are reading this and would like to enrol for the course then please contact Barry Adult Education Centre on 01446 738054 or the Palmerston Education Centre on 01446 733762.
We’re getting well into the the summer term, and this week the weather was amazing. This week were were hoping to go to the Hawking Centre, but they sadly had to cancel. Check back in a few weeks, because they have promised to do a show for our class on the 15th June, and it promises to be very good.
With the nice weather, we ventured to Penarth, which is more or less half way between Barry and Cardiff. Starting off in a park up on the clifftops, we photographed the pier. Then just down the road, we found a good vantage point which shows a good panoramic view of Cardiff Bay. The I might add, seemed better when I saw it in the winter, but then the trees had no leaves on them then, and you could see a bit more of the view, but nevertheless it was a good vantage point, and we all took several photographs.
Afterwards we went down the hill towards to the Cardiff Bay Barrage. Parking the cars in the car park, we walked across part of the barrage and took some pictures of the amazing ‘optical illusion’ that is painted down there. For more pictures of the Cardiff Bay Optical Illusion click here.
Just before we left we were presented with a rather pleasant sunset, which was a nice end, to what had turned out to be a rather pleasant evening!
No class next week…..School is closed for the Half-Term Holidays and we’ll be back in class at the school on Tuesday 8th.
In the plush surroundings of the new Barry Library, tonight’s taster session on PC Maintenance was to demonstrate the kinds of things that we do on this course, with the aim to get students to sign up for the new academic year in September.
The PC Maintenance Class has now been running successfully for a few years now at Barry Comprehensive School on Wednesday evenings. This years class has been especially enjoyable both for the students and myself with the arrival of Microsoft’s Windows 7 Operating System, which was released on the general public October 2009. This has given us something new to get to grips with, but realising that there is a big mixture of different versions of Windows out there, and that a tremendous amount of people still use Windows XP, we cater for Windows XP, Vista and 7 – so no one misses out!
I gave the group a demonstration on how a computer was taken apart, to be repaired, or upgraded, and introduced them to the components that make up the machine. We discussed all the aspects of the course, including how we have surgery sessions where students bring in their own computers with various problems, and that we tend to focus on current and important technology topics, such as Anti-Virus threats, and more serious matters such as phishing and various Internet Scams!
I am looking forward to teaching this new class in the new academic year, it has been my favourite class of those that I teach, and if you are interested in joining our group then you can enrol for the course by contacting Barry Adult Education Centre on 01446 738054 or the Palmerston Education Centre on 01446 733762.
I am once again grateful to the staff of the Barry Adult Education Centre, to allow me to come back for what will be my 11th year as an Adult Education Tutor, and to teach another academic years worth of courses to the community.
The schedule for the forthcoming year is:
All the classes will be run at the Barry Comprehensive School on Port Road. Further information and enrolment details can be obtained from the centre on 01446 738054. Click the photo below for details of where the school is.
This is the final option that I am testing on the Blog. Here goes:-
A.L.F was one of my favourite TV shows back in the 80s.
This is Barry Comprehensive School where our Nightclasses are held.
Here is an aerial view of the school grounds:
…and here is a road map:
Quite easy to use!
Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using Windows Live Spaces or your current blog service.
Blogging has turned the web into a two-way communications medium. Microsoft’s goal in creating Writer is to help make blogging more powerful, intuitive, and fun for everyone.
Writer has lots of features which we hope make for a better blogging experience.
