A Collection of Daily Wisdom by Dennis Sylvester Hurd since September 2003.

It's over. Again, all the sweat and hard work has been reduced to a few numbers on a spreadsheet. The final examination was yesterday, and I started crunching the numbers immediately. All the calculations were pretty much completed last night. Still, it must've been on my mind as I awoke very early this morning. I've emailed the results and entered the numbers into the online gradebook.

Now, I've got a whole week before it starts all over again.

Labels: BCIT, students

It was a long time in coming but I can finally plug my computer into my home theatre system and hear more than two channels.

It's now possible and simple. I bought an Onkyo HTS over three years ago and it's made all the difference in the world when watching DVD movies! I wanted to be similarly impressed by my PC. I first got a Creative 5.1 card and later a Hercules Fortissimo 7.1 in hopes of hearing stuff out of five speakers. Those companies' products offered only false promises and awful drivers. At last, today, I plugged in a new HDA Xplosion 7.1 DTS Connect. It outputs either a continuous Dolby Digital or DTS stream though an optical connector.

Whether my mp3 files will actually sound better than stereo enhanced by the receiver's Pro Logic II remains to be seen (or heard). Still, just the test function of the noisy helicopter circling inside my living room nearly brought tears to my eyes.

I may have spent a lot on my computer in the last few months. Yet as the television ad for a hair colour says, "I'm worth it."

Labels: Hardware, music

Today, I get a chance to hear the remaining half of my class give their oral presentations. The students must use primary research to prepare an eight to ten minute presentation on a business in Greater Vancouver. I encourage them to pick a small business and find a helpful employee or owner in order to ask appropriate questions. I'm seldom disappointed by the results of their efforts. More importantly, I'm always pleased by the cooperation shown towards my BCIT, pre-entry students. Their questions have, without exception, been welcomed by local businesses.

The process is much more useful than just developing organization skills and it goes beyond practicing presentation skills. My students come away with potential contacts and a better understanding of the local business climate.

I'm usually pleased because I learn new information as well.

Labels: BCIT

This is compulsion for me. I'm proud not to have skipped even a single day during the last 1018. There are times though when I feel less than zealous about adding a new entry. I really should have a few extra, completed topics just sitting around in case of an emergency or sickness.

Maybe it's enough today to merely mention that I'm free from obligation next week. It is a free week between classes at BCIT. Jay has off Monday as well. We plan on travelling to Harrison Hotsprings Resort and Spa. It's a short trip out the Fraser Valley. We'll go on Sunday and return the next day. Being completely pampered differs from our usual backpacker-style overnights. Thank you Lynne and Joel for the extremely thoughtful present. We're finally making use of the gift certificate you so kindly gave us.

Labels: Joel

I got an unexpected email yesterday. It was from a former student.

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Dear Dennis,

How are you doing and how are things with you so far? I hope everything is running smoothly and as the way you like....

If you don't remember me ... Just try to remember in BDF (Bahrain 1989). You were my teacher and we went as a group to your flat.

You have a nice day.

Yasser Mohd Alrayes

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I had to mail him back right away as he was from my initial group of Bahraini students. I did, indeed, remember and gave him the Flickr link to the following picture. In it, we both must look lots younger than today. I am anxious to hear more about his life at the present time.

Labels: Bahrain

In the 80's and early 90's, personal computer technology changed so quickly one had to periodically throw away computers. The growth in the last 10 years really hasn't slowed down but it's become possible to upgrade a bit at a time. The computer case I'm using is yellowed and probably about eight years old. My current motherboard has been running since the very first week that my eJournal and images began in 2003. My CD burner was replaced by DVD burners. I've tripled the RAM from the original 512 megabytes. I had to replace the power supply on two, separate occasions. Just last month a new, 300-gigabyte hard drive replaced a smaller 40 and 120.

In order to keep me running through next year, I need to get a better video card. The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor told me so.

So after work today, I'm going to pick up my order at my computer store. I also ordered a new LG DVD burner that was on sale to replace the older of the two that are already installed on my system.

This nickel and diming seems as though I'm always buying equipment. Maybe it'd be cheaper just to wait and go back to the old method. I could just toss the equipment every two or three years and buy the freshest technology all in one fell-swoop.

Labels: computers, software, Windows

"I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about."

- Oscar Wilde 1854-1900

The world was analog when I was a baby. Probably the largest change that has occurred in the last four and a half decades is the development of digital.

Here, I'm not thinking only in terms of photography for that's a shift in paradigm that's obvious but didn't begin in earnest until after the new millennium. I am talking about a whole mind-set. The plots of some movies from the eighties and before would fall apart in a remake. Imagine not being able to get in contact with someone! Now, we'd have explain how the cell phone batteries were dead. In another example, the phrase, a mixed tape, sounds like an anachronism.

What made me think of this topic was I am readying this week's final exam. It was easy to find the exam copies I've used back through the late 90's. They are all in C:>My Documents\MS Word\BCIT\COMM Exams\. I remember how in 1985 the English Department at the Taif Ordinance Corps Center and School didn't have a PC. We used typewriters and that's the epitome of analog.

Labels: analog, Saudi Arabia, technology