Category: Technology
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Building a Second Brain
I just finished reading Tiago Forte’s book “Building a Second Brain”. The title is intriguing but it is about a methodology for organising notes in such a way they are actionable and useful for sharing and creating things.
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Creating art with programming
I love playing with software to create interesting graphics and animations. I use a program called Processing (opens in new window) which is a software sketchpad and language for coding in the context of visual art. One of the topics I like exploring is randomness. I wrote a program which draws circles of random sizes…
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Obsolete landline telephones
For the first twenty one years of my life the only telephone in my life was the “land line” phone in my home. This telephone looked something like the one shown above. The phone was usually in the lounge room and shared with my parents and brother. I had a phone number which was my…
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Obsolete phone books
Each year our home received a delivery of the two volume White Pages and the single volume Yellow Pages. The White pages listed all the residences in Sydney as well as pages of important phone numbers such as recorded information, emergency numbers and directory assistance.
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The Vocabulary of Mobile Phones
This article is a summary of vocabulary I have taught on the topic of smart phones. [Updated May 2020 with new vocabulary] A mobile phone a telephone with access to a cellular network (3G, 4G, 5G) system so it can be used over a wide area, without a physical connection to a network. Before mobile…
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A Brief History of Social Media
Have you ever wondered when the various social media sites were launched as well as the popular messaging apps? When did FaceBook start? Whatsapp? Messenger? I created this timeline to give a high-level overview to answer your questions.
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Top 10 Inventions of the past 100 years
What do you think are the most important inventions of the last 100 years? In a recent ESL lesson I asked the students to discuss what they thought were the most important inventions. Naturally they named the mobile phone as something they couldn’t live without. I showed the following video, but before you watch it…
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Text message abbreviations – which ones do you use?
How many of these abbreviations do you use in your messaging? Which abbreviations are not on my list? TNX M8!
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Ten Favourite Websites
I was asked to list my 10 favourite web sites. This is difficult to answer as the World Wide Web is an integral part of my professional and personal life. I have many favourite and interesting sites so here is a selection of ten sites for your exploration.
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How I use Instagram as my photo gallery
Instagram. Isn’t this some sort of social media thing that young people use to share photos of their food, browsing the latest fashions or posting daring selfies? I like using Instagram which may come as a surprise to younger readers as I am a Baby Boomer and much older than the typical teenager or 20-something…
The Blog of Charles 