Have you used Google Earth? It is a great tool for use in Geography and History lessons. have you checked out Google Mars? It is quite interesting to check out the massive volcanoes and valleys on the planet. The detail revealed at Google Moon is also amazing. You can zoom down to the landing sites of the Apollo missions!

I used the Blogger widget to make this post. It is very handy indeed. It allows me to choose between blogs as well. I guess there is no excuse now. If an idea springs to mind then I better blog it.

I am back in Singapore again to conduct another exciting round of educational technology workshops. This time the focus is upon digital still, digital video and podcasting technologies. There are photographs in the photoblog. The workshops are fully subscribed and I am having a busy yet fulfilling time at the Centre for Educational Development, NTU. Some of the participants are pictured below.

The flight on Singapore Airlines last Saturday was excellent. I must have been sick in the head to resort to British Airways for the previous excursion to and from Singapore. I have been to a Me@n meeting with local Macintosh users. It was great to meet up with Siva and the gang. I have been quite busy working on and preparing for the workshops. I did manage to buy three CDs: Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, The Velvet Underground and The Verve.

“Windows XP systems configured to auto update will be unable to prevent the downloading of service pack 2 from April 12 onwards, according to information available from Microsoft” (Sydney Morning Herald, February 23rd). Microsoft will force users of Windows XP to update their operating system. They will have no choice and will be unable to “prevent the change”. This company is an example of megalomania. Consumers forced to accept change. No choice. This is unbelievable. Time to change to another operating system. Get a Mac or switch to Linux. More.

Safari presented a mystery to me today. Look at my two emails to Dave, David, Siva and Phil and the explanation below:

“Dear all,

How are you all? Safari, Firefox and caches, etc. I have reset Safari, emptied the caches for both and even forcibly emptied the caches from the library. But tell me why… If I type “www.larkin.net.au” into the location bar I get a completely different (updated) page to the one I get when I type “www.larkin.net.au/index.html”. I get the latest page when I add index.html. But, with respect to other pages I get the older page when I add “index.html” to the url in the address bar. Is Safari over caching? Is it the proxy server? Is it safari’s memory? What is it? I am mystified. Does not happen in IE or on a PC. Any ideas?
Cheers
John”

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“Dear all,

Further on this… Running Cocktail, etc, makes no difference. Is the file stored in RAM? Restarting the machine made no difference. If one adds index.html to the url you get a different page. Why?
Cheers
John”

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Dave’s informative reply:

“Hi Guys,
Unfortunately Safari is unable to force refresh a proxy server — It has no ‘super refresh’ (option-refresh) like most other browsers. I have flagged this with some Apple Developers who claimed it would be looked at with the last Safari update, but I don’t think it is resolved yet.
Actually Windows IE can be just as bad as Mac IE (which is a dead product). On Windows IE, you hold the shift key while clicking refresh to force the proxy to reload. Other variables include the type of proxy server too. Almost all Mac browsers other than Safari will super refresh or the refresh itself forced the proxy — but still not Safari.
So until Apple do fix this, we really need a second browser to occasionally use as needed. Oh, in a classroom where kids publish web pages, only ONE computer is needed to ‘force the refresh’ (of the server). Once the server has ‘got’ the new page, others will get the same. Adding .html can be a once off request, but does NOT FIX the problem.
Regards..David”
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and Siva’s nice addendum!

“Hey Johhny boy,
What David has written sounds right. I find that in 40% of the time, I may have to type ctrl-R furiously a few times before I see a refresh. 5% of the time, it never seems to change and I switch over to Firefox or Camino. They are more responsive and usually a better idea to use when you are doing this a lot. Suspect besides Safari’s inabilities, the server or its distance may be a factor because on most days, its magnificent and all’s well. It’s a much better idea to view changes locally until 100% satisfied before upload the pages – somehow I never do this.
Cheerio!
Siva”