http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8205539.stm details how students will be at least £23K in debt due to studying for a degree.

Last year, I (and I know others) had students stating “I pay £… a year for this.” before starting to dictate what and how I should teach. This was difficult to manage, and reflects the financial stress that students are under. I had one student suspend studies this week, citing the cost implications in his reason for withdrawing. This is regrettable, but understandable. While we are not in a consumer product service industry, seeing articles like that above is likely to make this attitude of “service in a restaurant” more prevalent; we might not mind so much if there were tips!

Learning is a mutual activity. I think that this more than anything else should be on our lips and in their minds in September/October. Would welcome suggestions for how that can be done.

Trying to get your XBox 360 Live Vision Camera working on your PC. Well, of course it SHOULD be Plug’n’Play…

I have found the hack to get the XP SP3 PC in my office to finally recognise it, and you may have the same problem. If you go to the Device Manager and look under USB devices and DON’T see “Security Method 3” after “Microsoft Live Vision Camera” then it is likely that the camera will not be recognised by XP. Trying to uninstall or update will give you the message that drivers are up to date. However, if you look at the properties for the camera it will tell you “No drivers are installed for this device” while also telling you that everything is fine!

What I did was to choose update, but not to automatically search. This then gives you the option to search locally, or to tell the wizard that you will choose. Given that it is impossible to download the driver as an install from Microsoft – Hey! It WAS meant to be Plug’n’Play remember! So, why would you WANT to download it manually? – what I did was to choose the bottom option, then choose the only option available “USB Composite Device”. Doing this, then miraculously allowed XP to then do the Plug’n’Play magic. Now in the Device Manager window, “Security Method 3” is appended to the camera, and everything “just works”.

My guess is a problem of certification with the 360 peripheral, as there is heavy handed protection certification in place to stop people using their own cheap peripherals on the console. This seems to have been confirmed by searches. Now all I want is for Microsoft to finally produce a driver for the ChatPad, which has been out for 2 years now. Here’s hoping.

The interview I did for Radio 5’s Pods and Blogs programme about the Global Game Jam 09

Ok this is a quick and dirty experiment: if you came here from my tweet – a tweet is a micro blog post from Twitter – then reblog the link to your followers; the twitter equivalent of sneezing. THEN when you see people you are following “sneezing” make a count for 1-7 days and email me at mike.reddy@newport.ac.uk or tweet or leave a comment here. For those of you who have no idea what Twitter is, Michael Webb blogged on it a while back. My Twitter account is: http://www.twitter.com/DoctorMikeReddy/

I have a few XBox 360 controllers that have – due to work in case you ask – not been used over the Summer. They have rechargeable battery packs that have hardly been used. However, leaving them uncharged for such a long time – we are talking months – appeared to have been too much loneliness. They decided to die from neglect. That is three of the four did, as one apparently must have been left fully charged and did not expire.

Doing a quick google confirmed that these battery packs, while costing a lot of money, are perhaps not the top end cells you might imagine. Oh well. I plugged in the charging cables a few weeks ago and got the “Oh I am charged” green light almost immediately, but pulling out the cable resulted in the controllers turning off. Buggered batteries. Oh well.

But… today I noticed that one of the three bust packs didn’t quite turn off straight away. There was a tiny bit of charge! So, I plugged the cable back in… Red (charging) light comes on… then turns green. I repeat. The red time is longer. The controller takes a few seconds more before it is dead again. I repeat. And again. And…

…now the charging cable is staying red. The battery has been healed!!!

So, if you have a dead XBox 360 rechargeable battery pack and the plug and play charging cable, it might be worth your while trying this fix. Alternatively, I can pass my healing hands over it for a fee!