Group of Zero

I bought a new netbook yesterday. I ordered it online and picked up the box in the store. I tried to start it up. It was trying to installing Windows. Then… in less a one minute it stopped and rebooted itself. “File XXX missing… please reload Windows… ” It did not come with any install discs. It is a netbook. It does not even have a CD drive! How can I reinstall the OS? It  is nothing but an expensive paper weight. I telephoned the store. All they could say was to bring it in and have their techie check it out. I just want a refund. It is time to switch to a Mac!

It took me more than 24 hours to install Adobe CS4. My desktop has never installed any Adobe products except Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash Player (the free stuff). I decided to use CS4 for all my photo editing, web page construction and page layout. The installation process stalled when the progress bar reached installing Adobe Acrobat. It just hung, stopped, nothing. I restarted the installed by quitting and reinstalling the suite. Two hours later, the installation finished.

Then the fun part began. All the programs in the suite worked except Acrobat. It asked me for the serial number. I typed it in but Acrobat refused to accept it. I phone Tech support. A person with an Indian accent and very noisy background answer the phone. He told me my serial number was correct but my Adobe Reader interfered with the installation. I could not believe an Adobe product would interfere with another Adobe product. I uninstalled Reader but that was no help. He then told me to uninstall CS4 and reinstall. He said he would phone back in 20 minutes. He never did.

I phoned back to Tech support. The other person told me to do the same thing. There was just no help.

Next day, I reformatted my C drive and used my image backup to revert my computer to half a month ago. I tried to install again. The same thing happened again. The installation just stopped when it was installing Acrobat. I phone tech support again. The person told me a different way to remedy the problem. He told me to download a CS4 clean script from the Adobe web site. I had to uninstall all Adobe products. Then I used that script to scrub to clean all the registries that had anything to do with Adobe. I had to clean level 1 to level 4 of CS3 4 times for each level. WOW!!! I never even had CS1 installed. Why are there so many junks in my registry from Adobe? I did all that. Then I had to create a new Adobe user to install Adobe CS4. This process took me more than five hours! I finally had CS4 installed. So far it is still working.

The whole process took me three evenings and one afternoon. Adobe, this is NOT acceptable. I googled yesterday to see am I the only one who experienced this problem. I was glad that I was not the only one. Adobe, it may be a good job creation project in India. It is not good for business. Why does Adobe have to put so much junk in the registry? Does anyone have the same experience?

Finally I broke down and switch to digital photography. I resisted to change because I do not want to let go all my good Minolta lenses. The cost of film and developing them is just too high. Also, I do not want to scan all the slides and negatives anymore. Time to change to nerw technology. It was  rainy and windy at Peggy’s Cove. I did not want my new camera to get wet. I took only a few pictures. I am still learning to get use to the new focal length of the lenses and all the new controls.

“Get a degree if you want to go somewhere!” This is the conventional wisdom most parents give to their children. That is the main reason why most students in high schools take advanced courses and prepare themselves. It is a noble idea. Universities do provide many disciplines where people can further their education. However, universities are not the only post-secondary institution where young people (or older ones) can go after high schools

Most universities students complain about the raising tuition cost. They (or their parents) never consider colleges that offer technical training. Colleges are always considered for underachievers. “If you cannot go to university, then go to college and learn a trade.” That is the attitude many high school counselors tell the students. Today’s colleges are very different from the vocational schools a few years ago. They offer education and life skills (not just job training) to students. The tuition cost is usually lower. Graduates are usually employed soon after or even before they finish school. In some cases, they have better facilities than universities. However, they do not have the prestige of universities because they do not have many Ph.D’s. in their faculty.

Many of my students already have gone to university. They have their degrees and discovered they cannot get a decent paying job but they have a huge student loan. They have to get another loan to go to college and get some real job ready training.

I heard a joke about degrees:

Someone presented his invention to a group of university graduates.
The graduate with the science degree asks, “Why does it work?”
The graduate with the Engineering degree asks, “How does it work?”
The graduate with the Accounting degree asks, “How much will it cost?”
The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, “Do you want fries with that?”

Unfortunate, but often true.

We all talk about it, but few have done anything about it. I am not talking about global warming. I am talking about the lack of math skill of high school graduate when they enter college or university.

Colleges and universities screen out applicants that are weak. Even for those who have decent marks in high school, many of them fail their first semester math or calculus. This presents a big problem. What are they going to do next? They cannot continue with their science or engineering major.

We can blame the high schools. The blame game does not help the students. Those who failed are all disillusioned already. We know that there is an inflation of grades in the high schools. High schools should not pass students if they cannot do the work. However, the elite educators deem failing a student may damage their self esteem. They lower the standard so most can pass with minimal effort. Once they enter universities or colleges, they are not the problem for the high schools or school boards.

The universities and colleges can see this phenomenon not as a problem, but a huge opportunity. They can increase their income by offering upgrading or bridging math courses. Free education can give you a piece of paper that is worth what you paid for. You have to pay dearly for real learning.

Summer 2006 is coming to a close. It is back to school time. I am glad that I am taking a leave and work on a project. I am still working, but just not teaching.

A student left a thank you letter. He is one of the top in his class. He thanked me for teaching him. It made my day. It is rare for student to write me a personal letter. Usually, if a student writes a letter, it is usually a complaint. Not that I am dying for recognition, it is always nice to be appreciated.

Teaching mathematics, especially calculus and differential equations to a group of people who does not like (or hates) mathematics is a challenge. I am their public enemy before they even come to class. The attitude of the society does not help either. The high schools offers advanced, academic, general and foundation level of mathematics in the same grade. The guidance counselors persuade students to take a lower level of mathematics course if they feel anxious. Usually, most students take the easy path. They do not realize the general and foundation level of mathematics courses do not prepare them for any technical and trades training. What a shame! The students were sold a bag of goods that are worthless.

This is closed to the end of term. I am busy marking. No matter how often I tried. There are always students who could not do well. What are the reasons?

I think one major reason is fear. I do not know why, but mathematics is a fear factor for lots of students. The decision makers in the education department emphasized much on touchy feely subjects such as “reflection”, “sensitively”, “self esteem”, “life management”… Those topics sound good. Topics like mathematics, language, sciences were pushed aside. With these core skills, the students do not meet the need of today’s advanced technology development.

When politicians complained about the foreign workers in China and India took away jobs from Canadians, they should look at the education standard in this country. No one is talking about that in this election so far.

The lesson I learn from the events last week about the hurricane:

No matter how rich and powerful a country is, nature wins all the time. The US has the most powerful military force on earth, but she is no match with a simple force of nature. She can send its troops to Iraq, overthrow any government she does not like, send people to the moon… The force of nature will bring her to its knees. There is nothing the US can do to stop the hurricane. No technology can stop the wind and the rain. The best technoloty we have can only calculate and predict when the hurricane will destroy the land. We can build a faster and more powerful computer to determine when and where we will be destroyed. It cannot save us from destruction. People may think they can get out of the city to aviod the hurricane. The result is massive travel jam. The more we plan, the more the chaos. No matter how powerful we think we are, nature is the ultimate humbling force.

It took me the whole afternoon to install Fedora 4. I am running it on a Pentium 2 machine. I am surprised that it could even run and the speed was not bad at all. If I have a choice, I would run all my applications on a linus machine. It is just cool to have a better looking interface and I am working on a less demanding OS.

I got interested in CMS. I installed Python 2.4, Zope 2.7 and Plone 2.0.5. I never heard of Zope and Plone 2.0.5. a week ago. I read about them from a British Linux magazine. The version of Python given by the web host is very old, 1.x.x. I have to install the newer one manually. It was not an easy task since I do not have root access. I cannot change the permission of a few folders. I have to install Python on my home directory.

Installing Zope is not easy. First of all, I have no idea what Zope is. I read some information from their site, zope.org. I have no idea what it is all about. I downloaded it and followed the instruction for installation. After some trial and errors, mostly errors, it was up and running. I had to specify the paths in order to work. I still do not know what it can do.

I then installed Plone. Their home site said “Plone is easy to use.” “Plone is easy to install.”… If it is the standard of “easy”, I do not know what “hard” would be. I ordered some books from my friendly book representatives for Plone and Python. I wish those books can help.

I am no computer science pro. I just want to play around with what new server applications are out there. What out there are scary!!