Mark Christie

Backup and clean delete a disk drive

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You or your mum might have an old computer that still works but neither of you have any use for. Unless the computer contains nuclear launch codes or bitcoin mining data, you may just want to delete all content from the hard disk to ensure any old documents or personal information don’t stay on the disc if you decide to sell or give it away.

Even if you were to take it to a recycling location you probably still want to clean the hard drive of any data. This doesn’t mean you need to take the drive out and smash it with a sledgehammer, but you do want to use a software erasure tool that will stop the majority of people being able to unerase the data that you have deleted from the hard drive.

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Shares, ETFs, Super and Crypto – a boomer’s perspective

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I’m not a finance guy and I’ve made several money related mistakes. I am risk averse and approaching what could be referred to as a retirement age. I could stop working but enjoy the questions and challenges in my day job where folks are trying to get something done. I am more comfortable talking about real estate investment, but for a student just out of high school having parents in the middle income bracket – real estate investment generally comes a few steps after other options such as shares, ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) and superannuation are explored.

In this post, apart from waffling on about some of my investing thoughts – I want to include some links from practical people with much more experience than me which might save you time if you are starting out. These couple of links might also be worthwhile to share with your children, grandchildren or anyone in general.

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Getting those Apple fonts onto your windows PC

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Sometimes I develop on a Macintosh computer. I might be using Adobe tools and when I use those tools I might select fonts which are available on the Macintosh computer. Then when I transfer that thing that I’m working on to a PC I can discover that the fonts I want are not available on the PC.

Although you can look for similar fonts to replace the ones that you used on the Macintosh, I’m going to share with you how you can download those Apple system fonts, unpack them and install them on your computer.

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Easy Video Closed Captions – 3 problems and 5 tips

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I have previously created captions for inclusion as CC (Closed Captions) for some of our educational videos. It has become easier but there are three problems I have encountered.

  1. Accuracy of the transcription. You can’t be too colloquial or mumble. Accent is another challenge for the transcriber software.
  2. Formatting and placement of the captions. There are standards associated with caption font, size and placement along with number of characters for each speech segment.
  3. Editing and republishing with captions. Many times you transcribe, edit and publish your video, only to find that mistake you missed. This results in a visit back to the captions workflow. You want it to be as easy as possible.

I think I have finally found a solution that will lead to the wider use of closed captions in our departmental videos in education and training. But first, let’s look at some of the tools and processes.

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My Chilli Hawaiian Shirts are HOT!

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Well at least I would like to think they are. That is the beauty of creativity, it can be something to share with others or something intensely personal. I, like a surprising number of people from not just around where I live, but from all over the world seem to have a special relationship with chillies.

I am here today to present a Hot Topic which I hope you can use in your schools… 

Ideation, the formation of ideas or concepts is very personal. In an education environment where we might teach ideation we should apply some structure. Ideation should come from a need, a passion something to solve, improve or replace. This presentation will walk through my ideation process from start to end. My intent is to share the process as well as how I use some of the Adobe tools in my journey. 

My idea formed when I wanted a chilli Hawaiian shirt. I couldn’t find what I wanted but over the years I had taken many photographs of chillies I had grown.

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I’ve Started a Free ICT Podcast for Teachers

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This is a transcription of the podcast that appears below and the text has been included for the same reason I created an audio version – to try and reach you in the format that you like. Sadly even though it, like most things I do is “free” – to increase “headline readbility” in my blog, the use of that one “power word” gets me from a 51% to a 73% Headline rating… But that’s a story for another day.

  • Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress; working hard for something we love, is called passion.
  • Do what you love, love what you do.
  • If it is to be it is up to me. (Ten two-letter words)

This is not a podcast about leadership or well-being or anything like that. It is an acknowledgment that you’re listening to this probably outside of working hours because you’re interested in ICT matters and you are only doing it not because you have been told to, but because you want to… and so keying in on the words of passion, love and wanting to do something because it is up to you means you have landed here because you want to.

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