The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,400 times in 2013. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.
I think I spoke too soon in my last post. Having tried the software on several other machines, it turned out the greyed out head was still present.
After some contact with LEGO support, we still couldn’t figure out what was wrong. However, I did discover that the software did work properly on a different account on my MacBook. What was so different about that account? In the end I discovered it was because of some login scripts we had running on all the other Macs. This script moved and renamed the ~/Documents folder to trick the sidebar into defaulting the save location to the network home rather than locally. After changing this script so that ~/Documents was back in its default setting, everything seemed to work fine. Yay!
As part of Mr Gove’s wonderful new Computing Curriculum in Primary schools, we’ve invested in some LEGO WeDo kit to teach some simple robotics stuff to KS2. It’s basically a USB hub which connects to a computer, into which you can plug a motor, a distance sensor or a tilt sensor. You can then program these sensors using LEGO’s own WeDo software (or MIT’s Scratch!) to build cool stuff like a spinning top, an aeroplane or an automatic goalie.
So far so good.
Then I came to trying to install the software on all the Macs in the school using Munki. I love Munki as it means I can remotely install and update stuff on all the Macs in the school really quickly. But it does rely on software coming in a reasonably decently packaged form. Which LEGO WeDo does not. Rather than using a sensible .pkg file, it instead has an Installer App (I know!) which then asks you to choose a language, which then opens up a meta package (.mpkg) which runs 6 different installers, each with various pre and post-flight scripts that liberally sprinkle files across various parts of your system.
Lovely.
Having used Pacifist to look inside the meta-package to see what was being installed, I tried using Munki to install each of these packages remotely. Except this didn’t work – the App icon for WeDo stopped working and you couldn’t view all the build instructions (leaving the dreaded greyed-out LEGO head).
So I tried a different tack. I downloaded Packages, a brilliant package-builder for Mac, and decided to build my own package for the software. The LEGO installer handily gave a list of all the files to delete to uninstall it, so I just added those to my package. And this worked. Kinda, only the LEGO head was stilled greyed out.
[Incidently, making changes to a package and changing the version number of the package, makes it keep testing an installation on Munki. Because Munki checks package receipts, it won’t reinstall a package it’s already installed. But it will install a package with a higher version number.]
Having spent far to much time on this problem already, I decided to give LEGO support a call. They were quite helpful, and suggested I try log in with an administrator account and see if that worked. Lo and behold, it did. They then suggested I tweak permissions on different files and folders to see if that helped. I basically gave write permissions to anyone on all files and that seemed to fix it. Not ideal really.
This morning I tried getting a short video to work as part of a Keynote slide for the Christmas Show. Only it didn’t work – only the sound played. A quick google turned up a few options:
The second option definitely worked better! For those interested, in the Keynote preference file, it’s called ‘PresentationModePlayWellWithOthers’.
I finally got it to work – yay!
I stumbled across the solution whilst updating a set of iPad minis to the new iOS7 iLife and iWork, as one of the iPads already had the latest versions of the apps. How did that happen?
It seems that perhaps the elusive ‘Updates’ slider under ‘Automatic Downloads’ on ‘iTunes & App Store’ in Settings does work after all. What I think happens is that the updates are set to pending, and then when the iPad tries to install them it will ask for the password for the account you use with VPP on Configurator. However, this isn’t much use when setting up multiple iPads as the conditions for triggering a pending App update aren’t quite clear.
Here’s what I did instead:
1. Make sure that the App Store is enabled on the iPad
2. In settings, sign into the App Store using a different Apple ID than the one used for Configurator. I have one setup for each set of iPads so I used that. Make sure ‘Updates’ is turned on.
3. In the App Store, tap on ‘Updates’ and then tap on ‘Update All’ in the top left of the screen. It will ask for the password for the iPad’s App Store AppleID. But then in a few seconds, it will ask for the password for the Configurator AppleID. Enter this.
4. Done! You are now in Automatic Updates heaven.
I had quite a lot of questions after hearing all of the Mac announcements on Tuesday. But after playing around with it over the last few days, I’ve found quite a few answers too.
Does it work with Workgroup Manager?
Yes! I just installed it on one of the machines at school and all the managed preferences seemed to work fine.
Can you just upgrade it in place?
The hardened purists would insist on a clean image etc, but an upgrade seems to work fine too.
What do I do about getting the free update to iWork from an older iWork ’09 disc installation?
When you open the Mac App Store and click on Purchased, it allows you to put Numbers, Keynote and Pages onto your AppleID.
Do any apps not work?
The only app that wouldn’t load was Smart Notebook (not very surprisingly). But after updating to 11.3, it opened and ran fine.
Does Apple Configurator work?
Yes. In fact, I’ve found it much more reliable on Mavericks.
Why should I bother upgrading?
We want to upgrade for a few reasons, but mainly so we get version parity with iWork on the iPad. The new desktop versions seem a lot simpler to use as well, adopting a responsive sidebar instead of a floating inspector. But we also get Maps (yay), iBooks (handy for testing out from iBooks Author), SMB2 file shares (very big yay), Finder Tabs, performance improvements, continuous dictation, sparkly stars in LaunchPad when you upgrade an app…
Can you update using Munki?
Apparently, yes! I haven’t tried it but we’re planning on upgrading using it over half term. On Munki’s page you can download a tool to convert the installer into a package that Munki likes.
So, iOS7 is here. Here’s a few reflections on how it’s been for us.
What has your experience been?
Many moons ago, I used to be a Nursery teacher. This was fun, but the only downside was spending days of my holidays sticking little post-it notes and photos as evidence of what the children in my class had been doing into their respective profiles. Surely computers could make this all easier?
Yes indeed! This year, we’ve bitten the bullet and got a set of iPod Touches for the Foundation Stage staff to use for taking photos and writing observations on children. We’ve looked at a couple of options for the database at the back end, but decided upon using a service called Orbit . The advantages of it are that it:
The only niggling question I’ve had about it is how it’s going to make it’s money whilst being free and still be around in a few years’ time. They say that it’s through putting advertising on the parents’ section of the site. They’ve only been around for less than a year but already have 1,700 providers registered and 10,000 registered users, so I’m hoping this works for them. However, there is another catch: to make use of the evaluations and tracking part of the service, you have to have at least 50% of your children’s parents signed up in order for that part to be free, otherwise you have to pay £40 a year. Which isn’t so bad.
We had the fun job last week of typing in all the children’s details and setting up the iPod Touches, and then today we did some training with the Foundation Stage staff. Children start back this week so we’ll soon see how it all works out.
In the summer of 2012, our excellent technician spent a happy few days installing a Unifi wifi system. We needed a decent wifi system in the school, but weren’t happy paying oodles of money for a super amazing controller managed system where each access point cost hundreds and then you had to buy a managed switch and then pay for extra licences when you want to extend the network. Instead, the Unifi system lets you use any old computer to ‘manage’ your network and you are free to add as many access point as your heart (and budget) desires (and allows). We found that it generally worked really well, particularly when you factor in that each access point was only about £80 +VAT. Joy! And they look pretty as you can stick them on ceiling tiles and power them via PoE.
The initial wifi deployment was initially designed for a low-density spread of iPads, with access points installed in every other classroom. Our first iPad deployment had sets of 6 iPads in some classrooms, and then just a couple of sets of 15 iPads used across the school. It even coped fine when we gave Year 6 a class set of iPad minis.
Come the new financial year and the purchase of another two more class sets of iPad minis and we started to have wifi issues. In my mind, the iPads minis were to be allocated so that each phase (e.g. Y1/2, Y3/4, Y5/6 etc.) had a class set to use as they wished. As these year groups were at different ends of the building, the load would be balanced and one access point would, at the most, have to cope with those devices. However, I had not anticipated the desire of the iPad to be used as a 1-to-1 device… As soon as I had set up the iPads and released them into the school, teachers started booking out all three sets at the same time for one year group, meaning that all of the iPads were trying to run off one or, at the best, two access points. This wasn’t pretty. “The Internet seems to be broken on these iPads…”
Thankfully, due to the easy expandability of the Unifi wifi system, we just had to buy some more access points so that each classroom could have its own access point. And then our trusty technician had to spend another happy summer installing them!
Hopefully, this should result in a much happier wifi time for everyone. And the moral of the story is you can never quite predict how iPads are going to be used by teachers.
It’s been a couple of weeks since Apple’s WWDC, so here are some of my thoughts.
I really liked the ‘Designed by Apple in California’ video which opened the keynote. It’s clearly setting out what Apple is about and where it’s going, but it definitely feels more like an Ives/Cook vision rather than a Steve Jobs one. Jobs’s Apple was about changing the world (as spelt out in the Think Different ad), whereas the ‘Designed by Apple’ video shifts the emphasis over to design –- changing the world one device and one happy customer at a time. I like it, but it is slightly different. It’s Apple finding its voice again, demonstrated too in the iPhone photos ad. Apple is aiming at the heart, aiming at making every day lives ‘happier’ by the power of design. Or something.
Apple Stores are clearly now Cook’s baby, and he seems to be doing well with them. The creepy over-the-top store opening videos are a bit much though.
I like the new name, picking a famous place from Apple’s home, California. It ties into the whole ‘Designed by Apple in California’ thing as well, which is nice. Sea Lion would have a been a good name though…
It didn’t seem like a dramatic update sort of release, but has a nice set of new features. I’ve never heard Apple being quite so rude about their previous release (with all the jokes about not harming any cows in the making of ‘Calendar’), but they do have a fair point. Maps and iBooks are obvious but great additions, and Finder Tabs and Multiple Displays make a lot of sense.
However, it’s the interesting stuff in the Core Technologies Overview, buried deep in the Advanced Technologies page, that I like. Like how SMB2 is the default protocol for file sharing. This is (hopefully) going to make having Macs on a Windows Active Directory (even) easier and reliable.
Nice. Even the mobile-friendly page that tells you all about it as you swipe down is nice. I wonder how much one of those canisters will set you back though…
Genius. Hopefully it will work well too! In some training recently I was showing teachers how to use iWork on the Mac and then how, via iCloud, how the documents can appear on their iPads. Having the ability to edit these documents on a PC too makes iWork more and more of an Office killer.
I’ve been wondering for a while what an Ives’ iOS would look like, and here it is. It’s quite a big change aesthetically, but structurally iOS remains familiar and just as useable underneath. The crusade against skeuomorphic design has been taken to a whole new level, and I wonder what will happen when iWork and iLife get an Ives makeover.
I do like the way that the interface is more dynamic. Seeing the parallax scrolling animation on the home screen was one of those ‘wow!’ moments, making the background have a sort of hologram effect. I’m pleased that the weather app finally gets some love, making it look as cool as some of the weather apps on Android or Windows Phone.
One thing that will make my life a whole lot easier when managing carts of iPads, is that app updates are now automatic. Yay! That’s going to save me hours of my life…
We didn’t really get to see what iOS7 looks like on an iPad, but I guess you can’t have everything. I wonder if there are any exciting things up Apple’s sleeve for a bigger screen.
Primary ICT 