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Computer training in Australia

By Jon: First published in Online Currents – 20 (9) November 2005

I began teaching people about computers in 1989, with no training and no previous experience other than that of helping family and colleagues. I have been involved in it ever since, mainly as a face-to-face classroom teacher. After trying most of the alternatives, now and in the past, I still believe that face-to-face training by a competent professional is the best kind of computer training there is.

For a while in the 1990s everyone else agreed with me. I had six or seven training clients at any one time. The training industry went from strength to strength and almost any computer-related course could draw its share of students. By 1999 it seemed that face-to-face computer training was here to stay. read more

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EBooks 2004: an update

By Jon: First published in Online Currents 2004 – 19(7) 29-30

In last year’s articles on eBooks I suggested that the industry was settling down. I was wrong. Although eBook sales are increasing rapidly, the industry is no closer to a standard format or distribution system.

Hardware

Dedicated eBook readers

I predicted last year that dedicated eBook reading devices would go the way of the dedicated word processing system, and be replaced by Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), otherwise known as hand-held computers. I was partly vindicated by the collapse of Gemstar, distributors of the Rocket eBook reader (see below); but I had reckoned without the research into cheap, low-power screens being done in many Asian countries. This has been partly motivated by the difficulties involved in displaying languages like Japanese and Chinese on standard PDAs and other computer equipment. The solution is to have a pictorial display rather than one based around a relatively small number of characters like most Western scripts. read more

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Enquire within on everything: getting questions answered on the Internet

Online Currents 2003 – 18(2) 22-24

This article compares several question-answering services on the Internet: the paid Google Answers service, the free Usenet Newsgroup system, and AskNow!, a free collaborative reference system run by Australian state and national government librarians.

Introduction

During its period of massive growth, from about 1992 to 2000, the Internet was largely supported by unpaid volunteers: hundreds of thousands of people gave up millions of hours of free time to support and encourage others. Although this still continues today, there are indications that the tide is turning and that a cash-for-service expectation is developing. Where a free service and a paid service offer the same results, the economic pressure on the paid service has often resulted in its closure. Paid service providers may mount an organised attack on free services through lobbying; conversely, free service providers may look to find ways of charging for their efforts. read more