Make Your Own Speakers

If you want to start with super basic electronic device manufacture, with an end result that’s really also useful in lots of situations, why not learn how to make some speakers? You might be used to seeing speaker systems with a fair amount of zeroes in their price tag, but for this little gadget you’re talking a few pence. Take an old pair of headphones – like the ones you got with your i-pod and don’t use anymore – and cut the ear buds off so as to leave an exposed wire. Cut some small holes in a pair of paper plates and stick the wires through, then tape that wire to a smooth, stretched piece of tin foil so the wire is touching the foil. Secure the foil to the paper plates, keeping it nice and tight – voila: plug in for a pair of speakers.

USB Charger

Small battery powered USB chargers might not be that expensive to buy, but if you want the satisfaction of building one yourself, and ending up with a cool steam-punk product at the end of it, check out ‘ladyada’ online. Here you’ll discover a set of instructions for turning a tin of mints, some batteries and a USB connector into the perfect on the go power supply. This will require a tiny bit of basic soldering, which makes it a good way in to more complex projects.

Chapstick Flashlight

Similarly you can check out ‘instructables’ online for a step by step guide on how to make portable flashlights from pretty much anything. The best thing about this is that you get the feel of having made a little gadget for yourself. The chapstick flashlight for example is the perfect concealed source of illumination: much more interesting than using your smartphone as a torch anyway.

Have Fun, But Take Care!

So there you have it. There might be a little effort involved on your part, but that’s part of what makes DIY electronic engineering fun. Once you’ve progressed from these there are lots more rewarding challenges to get your teeth into.

Thanks to Brian Wilmslow from McKinlay Electrical Ltd for this post. Brian blogs regularly on the topics of science and engineering.

License: Creative Commons image source

Accreditation. These days, there are a lot of schools out there offering graduate business degree programs, and not all of them are reputable. This is especially true with correspondence programs, which are not as well regulated as more established schools and programs. Be sure to verify that your school of choice is accredited as a recognized institution by an organization like the AACSB, as this indicates that the program’s curriculum is in line with industry standards.

Faculty. Your mentors have a great impact on your educational success, and you therefore need to research the faculty of any business program you are considering. Who are the people who will be teaching you? What is there experience, and what are their accomplishments and affiliations?

International rankings. Where do the schools you are considering fall in terms of business program quality? You can easily research international rankings online and compare schools side by side to determine which are statistically the most successful at graduating students.

Employability. In addition to ranking high in regards to graduation, a great graduate business program will graduate students who are able to acquire employment upon graduation. A program that is recognized as high quality will naturally produce better employability options for its students, so research the statistics.

Corporate recruiting. Generally speaking, schools that offer graduate business programs are involved in a network of corporate entities that continuously recruit employees from their student population. If you have a particular career field and/or company in mind that you’d like to work for, then you should find a school associated with that company.

Alumni network. Are the alumni leaders in their industries? On top of that, how available are they to you for mentorship and opportunity. A great business program will have a system in place to involve you in the alumni network, and high quality alumni at that.

Flexibility. As more and more adults with families return to school while juggling employment, more and more colleges are offering flexible schedules to meet the needs of adult students with scheduling limitations. Find a program that offers the type of scheduling you need, according to your lifestyle.

As you can see, there are a number of things you need to consider when choosing a graduate business program. Follow these steps to find a great fit for you.

About the Author: Fidel Mobilia just went on his third graudate program interview pending the results of his GMAT preparation and exam. He hopes to graduate with his MBA and start his own technology business.

Oh no, wait, there are several things:

1. Discovering that the administrator will make $50,000, with the senior making $19K for 60 hours work.

2. Realising that the liquidator will make a further $30,000.

3. Knowing that the administrator and the liquidator are one and the same.

4. Finding out that YOUR money is, in industry parlance, unable to be recovered.

There are several lessons I’ve learned from this short foray into admistration territory:

1: ALWAYS pay on a credit card or with Paypal. The creditors who did this were able to recover all or most of their cash.

2: Just because it’s a company with a fancy website, good-looking apps and great testimonials doesn’t mean it can’t go under. No company will ever tell you that they are about to go bust.  There were several creditors who put down a 50% deposit on the Friday, to be told the company was bust on the Monday.

Apparently, all the directors are above suspicion.  However rumour has it that one of them went on several overseas holidays and bought some nice furniture too. Karma is now on the top of my “To Believe In” list …

3. Administrators are vultures. They administrate a company for the same reason you do business: to make money.  And they will take as much as they can.  It is apparently standard for the administration and liquidation costs to be coincidentally identical to the amount of cash in the company’s bank.

4. Just because your developer of choice is based locally doesn’t mean that their coders are. I found out recently that the coders The Developers were using were from Belarus.  I thought that the account manager had said La Perouse…  The point is, if the coders are not local, and your developer’s prices are, then the developers are charging a premium.  Which means you’re getting screwed.

5. If it seems to you that nothing is getting done on your project, then that’s probably the case.

The Developers had my account for about six weeks, and all I received during that time was wireframes.  They had quoted me twelve weeks to release.   As this was my first time I assumed that this is the way projects go, and that things must have been happening that I didn’t know about.  The administrators then told me that nothing had been started on my project.

Actually not a bad thing, as the administrators then sold the creditors the IP that they had already paid for.  Vultures.

6. Being a director of a company means that you can ditch your company to administrators and walk away scot-free. So what if there is $100K worth of unfinished business that your clients put their hard-earned into.

7.  DO YOUR RESEARCH. Hindsight can be a hard pill to swallow.  I know why I made the decisions I did.  I decided on The Developers because they got back to me in a courteous manner, gave me a detailed quote, called me up to discuss the quote, and they had designers and coders under one roof.  I didn’t want to submit to analysis paralysis, so I made my decision fairly quickly.  And let’s be fair, if the company didn’t go bust, then it would have looked like the right decision.  But now I have a much, MUCH better idea of what research is.

Nate Hunter is living the dream-slash-nightmare of startup land, balancing full-time work, child-rearing and an oversized head with the entrepreneurial rollercoaster. Fun times, fun times.

FILLIM.com and TheNerdologist have 2 double passes for award-winning Venezuelan film ‘THE ZERO HOUR’ to giveaway. Simply email us festivaltix@fillim.com with “I Love Latin America” in the subject… Include your name and contact details – comp closes 6^th of September only winners notified.

Competition for the coveted ‘Golden Yowie’ has been high this year with entries coming in from as far as Canada & New Zealand.

The three evenings of this October’s festival kick off with the Opening Garden Party at Cafe Bon Ton in Leura on the 11th. Guests will then travel to the first night’s screenings at the Scenic Cinema at Scenic World via the Blue Mountains Explorer double decker bus & a Skyway cable-car ride past the Three Sisters.

The festival wraps up on October 13th with the finalist screenings & ‘Yowie Awards’ hosted by Bob Downe, followed by a trip to the Awards After Party at the Leura Garage.

Tickets are now available for this October’s events. For all festival details & ticket purchases see www.bluemountainsfilmfestival.com

With wider adoption rates of mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets, people are embracing mobile learning more than ever before. Once frowned-upon, online college degrees are now available from some of the most prestigious schools, and many schools offer at least one degree with predominately online classes.

According to the Survey of Online Learning, in 2011, over six millions students and almost 1/3 of all higher education students took at least one online class.

As daily life becomes more and more reliant upon our mobile devices, it is no wonder that students are turning to mobile learning. Those who need to work in order to afford school no longer have to choose one or the other every semester; they are able to attend classes around their work schedule.

Additionally, mobile learning means students can complete courses wherever they happen to be, something that is increasingly important. In a time when email can be checked on the go, and many employers expect their employees to respond to email even after work hours, why shouldn’t education be available on the go as well?

K12 students are even joining in the mobile revolution. Many districts, as well as a few private companies, offer K12 students the ability to complete their schooling online, without ever having to attend a traditional school. Gone are the days of homeschooled children learning from their parents by day while the parents learn the lesson the night before. Online courses can supplement a home-schooling parent’s knowledge.

But why is it that tablets and smart phones are able to change education in a way laptops failed to? For one thing, people rarely leave the house without their phone. For another, tablets and smart phones are much more portable and convenient to use than laptops.

Laptops are difficult to use in small spaces and require a surface of some sort to place them on. Have you ever tried to use a laptop on an airplane? It can get very cramped. Alternately, smart phones and tablets are ideal for small spaces, and can easily be held in your hand while you work.

Tablets and smart phones also provide the distinct advantage of immediate access. With the push of a button, users are able to begin browsing the internet and completing lessons in seconds. While the few minutes it takes to turn on a computer may not seem like much, when you are in a hurry, it can seem like ages. Of course, many students still turn to laptops for long written assignments.

All of these factors have contributed to the rise of mobile learning. And for now, it is safe to say that mobile learning is here to stay.

Megan Veschio is the marketing coordinator for Inventive Technology/MediaCAST, a digital content management and video streaming solution for schools. Learn about using technology in education at www.mediacastblog.com or follow Inventive Technology/MediaCAST on Twitter – @MediaCASTstream.

In an effort to actually make a difference to the world we have built an amazing app that makes these things possible. One of the areas that we are really interested in is film. The reason for this is that film is a medium that allows amazing people to communicate with the world in a really engaging way. It is an excellent way of telling stories, sharing knowledge and inspiring people.

We realised that the current funding and distribution paradigms are not working as well as they could for film makers and by and large online opportunities are not being taken advantage of.

So we created www.fillim.com At Fillim We are determined to make a difference to creatives and producers in the film industry to ensure that the lions share of profits goes back to them allowing film makers to have the financial independence to create their next film! We have structured Fillim so that we do not limit other distribution sources for the films. This way film makers and producers can increase the exposure their films get, and Fillim works really hard to push films out to our rapidly growing networks of film obsessed viewers.

We love online streaming because it is secure for the film makers and allows for worldwide distribution. The film viewers don’t need to store the films locally but retain access to the films so they can enjoy them when they choose. We encourage film makers and producers not to grant exclusive video on demand rights to any one distributor because it means that they end up with only one group advocating their films. This is contrary to the potential of online platforms as it severely limits exposure. We have also made it totally feasible for the film maker and producer to become the distributor so that they don’t lose a big chunk of revenue to distributors who may or may not push the films hard.

At Fillim we have leveraged social media… Film makers now have the ability to embed their own social capital into film distribution so that they can carry this over to future projects and have a ready made audience who will become the advocates of their films. This way they can communicate with audiences right through the entire process from conception to execution.

We are so excited to see where Fillim.com and other similar platforms takes the industry. We will soon see films that are made for platforms like ours because they will soon be recognised as the most important distribution models for film makers. Cinema release will always be wonderful as will festivals however there is another way that has huge revenue potential for film makers and more importantly means that films will be viewed by much bigger audiences across the planet.

But the argument is flawed. Since 2006 Afghanistan has had 27 PRTs (Provincial Reconstruction Teams) and each of these are foreign military led. They have a commander and between eighty to a hundred-and-fifty army personnel and only three or four civilian advisors. This is the development we are sending in. Soldiers. What does the Afghan see coming? Soldiers. What does the Afghan hate most? Soldiers.

As I walk around Afghanistan this past two weeks, unarmed, dressed like a local, the same comment keeps coming up. ‘If you want to help us, we will die for you. If you come with guns and shoot us, we will fight to the last man.’ While this Afghan war is undoubtedly complex, with various powerful players bearing their own agendas, for an ordinary Afghan it is also very simple. If you want to help, don’t destroy. If you want peace, then talk to the enemy. Instead we are making the Afghan people swallow the pill of progress at gunpoint, which they will not do. PRTs in southern Afghanistan are still too busy defending themsleves to actually build anything.

Staying in Herat, the safest place in Afghanistan, with only one security incident or so a month, I have come to ask myself what ‘aid’ has followed ‘security’ here.

This question arose in my mind today after an incident on the Islam-Qala Road near the minarets of Herat. Ahead of my taxi, a three-wheeler driving at speed lost control trying to negotiate a pothole. (Now let me just interrupt my story here to reflect on the Afghan potholes. Almost every road is severly afflicted by them, perhaps the worst being the roads of central Kabul, headquarters of every NGO and foreign army running PRTs. Broken roads are the first thing you notice after arriving in Afghanistan, made no better by all those expensive Toyota Land Cruisers driven by everyone from the UN to private contractors. I guess it’s hard to notice potholes and mud-pits the Afghans have to negotiate on foot or in their beat-up cars when you’re in your Land Cruiser). Anyway, returning to the pothole in question.

On the open back of the three-wheeler, two young boys were sitting in grubby clothes, probably halfway through a day of heavy work in order to feed themselves and their families. (On that note, wasn’t it our objective to create conditions here allowing children to attend school? I’d wondered this only an hour before while, on a school day, another young boy spent twenty minutes scrubbing my sandals. He did this for 50 Afghanis as I sat in the park of roses by the Blue Mosque).

When the three-wheeler swerved around the pothole, it flipped over before my eyes and ejected the two boys. One skidded through the dust, his body kicking up a cloud. The other boy was airborne for a moment before landing head first on the road. Calmly I asked my driver to pull over. Through the front window I saw the first boy get up. I left the taxi and walked over to the second boy who was curled up in a ball, facedown and unconscious, with noisy breathing. Blood covered his face and hair. I carefully rolled him over and opened is airway with a jaw lift. His pupils were wandering left and right and blood was escaping from both ears.

Other people ran over. A crowd formed in less than a minute. No one spoke English, and I couldn’t understand their yelling. ‘Ambulance!’ I demanded, ‘Ambulance!’ All around me people were shaking their heads. Through a man’s legs I saw my taxi driver putting his cab into reverse and backing away. ‘Bring taxi! Taxi! Taxi! My taxi!’ But no one was listening.

The boy’s brother, covered in abrasions, was sobbing beside me. I lifted the unconscious child in my arms and carried him to my taxi. The driver looked frightened. ‘Open the door!’ I barked at him. ‘We’re going to hospital.’ The driver did as I asked and the unconscious boy was lying in the back seat, me sitting beside him and the other boy crying and begging Allah to save his brother. All I could do was take a pulse, check his pupils and keep his airway open while making sure his head didn’t loll about.

At Herat’s city hospital I lay the boy on an emergency bed. The room was crowded with injured from a normal day. There were beds pushed up close, no sanitation and minimal equipment. I handed over to a friendly, English-speaking doctor. ‘Do you have CT?’ I asked him. He laughed a little. ‘No, sir, nothing like that in Herat.’ Then I asked him about a public ambulance service, you know, if they had one for next time. He said, ‘Sorry, friend, not have.’ And that was that.

I washed my hands at a sink and went back to the taxi. As we drove through the traffic of Afghanistan’s third-largest city, I reflected on what just happened. Here is an Afghan city I can stroll around in, alone, without keeping my head down. It is a city now completely controlled by local police and ANA. It is a city secure!

And yet… Herat – a city of dangerous roads and child poverty, a city with no ambulance service and a barely-coping hospital.

The motto ‘security first, then aid’ is hollow. Afghans know it, and we don’t even need the example of Herat in 2012. The first three years after America’s invasion were the most peaceful, with almost no fighting anywhere. Why? Because Afghans – even the Taliban – were eager to see the aid we promised. They waited, and they waited, and they waited. But all that came in the end were more soldiers kicking down doors.

So I’m as convinced now as ever that if we are genuine, I mean really genuine, about helping Afghanistan, we can do it without violence. Foreign forces in Afghanistan need to stop their Taliban-hunting and work towards a political settlement, which is the only way to end this. In a democracy even the most conservative elements deserve a voice. And it makes no sense to shoot those you want to negotiate with.

Then we need to make our remaining aid expenditure work for the Afghan people, not for making foreign contractors rich. Only when we improve public services like roads and ambulances and hospitals, will Afghans truly become our partners in peace.

Benjamin in Herat, April 2012