From memory they sold for around $1000 +

There were two models – Model-A with 32k or 64k & the Model-B with 64k or 128k
(Yes that’s Kilobytes not Megs !!!!  )

No hard drives back then, just floppy drives… 

They were aimed at the Educational market & subsequently sold to mainly schools.

They were made by Acorn Computers who also produced an early personal computer called the Electron that competed against Clive Sinclairs computers, such as the ZX80/81 and Spectrum.

News item – 30th anniversary!

Wikipedia entry on BBC Computers

This YouTube video popped up on another site that I visited earlier today.
Not much more one can say ! 

Update:  I just added this link to a great article on Steve Jobs quotes (and pics!)
ABC Article on Steve Jobs

Update #2:  Stephen Fry has written an article on Steve Jobs, in his usual reflective and considered style…
Stephen Fry’s article on Steve Jobs 

catalyst 1.3 released

I’m really excited about the new release that came out last night…

Eric Hann the developer of Catalyst has really created some great new features…

Rather than cover them here – best to read the release blog post, which includes a couple of videos.
The second one (The Overview) is probably best as an intoduction…
Catalyst 1.3 released

For those not familiar with Catalyst – it is a Theme Framework for WordPress – DJ Software uses this framework for designing WordPress web sites…

There is a great video on the front page of the Catalyst Theme web site…

Catalyst Theme Home Page

“Perth-headquartered telco Amcom has won a $9 million deal to provide hosted services to the University of Western Australia ( UWA ), in a deal which will see the telco deliver hundreds of servers and over 400 terabytes of storage to the institution.”

Delimiter News Page – Amcom-wins-uni-of-wa-cloud-work

Official Release @ Amcom

Amcom’s Home Page 

Introduction:

The Thunderbird email client from the makers of Firefox (Mozilla) is an excellent alternative to mainstream e-mail programs such as Outlook.
It offers some excellent features including proper multi account handling & intuitive and easy to use search capabilities.
It is also available for a range of operating systems, including Windows, Mac & Linux.
Thunderbird has a very active community of programmers designing ‘Add-On’ facilities to provide extra functionality.
It is one of these add-ons called ‘Stationary’ that this document is now about to discuss.
Read the full article in the attached thunderbird-stationary PDF File

This zip file has two example stationary documents, business.html and personal.html

Thunderbird-Stationary

Useful Links:

Thunderbird WebPage

Thunderbird Stationary WebPage

Update:

Version 0.73 of Stationary was released on the 20th of July 2011
Bug fixes and compatibility fixes for the recent update of Thunderbird to version 5.0

The product is from Adelaide company Padac’s & is made in China.

The Keyboard is wireless Bluetooth & was easy to configure.
Because the keyboard is wireless it has it’s own battery and requires re-charging.

Because the keyboard has to match the width of the iPad, it takes a bit of getting used to – people with ‘fat’ fingers might struggle.
The keyboard features quite a few dedicated iPad keys, such as Home, ‘.com’ and other keys that iPad users will appreciated!

The initial charge is 4.5 hours and this gives around 25 days of working time (and approx 100 days on standby).

When travelling, the case folds up and magnets in the most outer flap close it up very neatly.

Including the iPad the total weight is 1.1 Kgms (The iPad is .65Kgms by itself)

It sells for $79.95 + freight.
It is currently sold out with the next shipment due May 12th!

More info here:   Padac’s web site

Early review on cNet

Images below (click for larger image!)

iPad2 with Padac's Case & Keyboard

iPad2 with Padac's Case closed

Higher Quality Image - click to view

I’ll give a more detailed review in the next week or two, but first impressions are very good. I installed iBooks and downloaded a couple of books. The speed is excellent! I installed the free TeamViewer app to try, but at this stage I’m not sure if will do the job of remotely accessing Windows machines. It’s a bit fiddly getting the mouse, keyboard and desktop all working nicely!  But I’ll persist as TeamViewer is my remote access choice for Windows.

The only thing I’m having problems with is the ‘Smart Cover’ (I purchased the Blue Polyurethane one, that is featured in the video).  It just doesn’t seem stable – particularly when the iPad is in the more vertical position.
Update:  OK, after studying the video, I worked out where I was going wrong.  I was rolling it up with the Blue side out – If you roll it up with the blue inside, it works perfectly !  Duhhh!

For travel I’m considering get the Padac’s Bluetooth Keyboard and case… It is released late next month!
http://www.padacs.com/cart/product.php?id=102

All for now!

ps Of course this post was entered on the iPad using Safari 

I really hope Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbot read this !

NBN – Critics Misunderstand Wireless

Testing out the WordPress App !

Just text this time, but you can add an image to a post…

Until next time…

Dave

And the counter is going to be reset tomorrow – so me thinks this means that 3.1 is being released tomorrow !

It has been a fair while coming, with a few issues – but will be worth the wait – it has some really nice features…

I’ll post again in the next couple of days – with a run down on the new features….

(Wordress entry at Wikipedia )