Microsoft Community Video Tips Channel (@MSVideoTips)

Microsoft as part of their MVP Inititative have set up a Community Video Tips YouTube Channel to help new users learn about how to use new and updated Microsoft technologies. They have completed one programme and are now on the second series.

Image source: Pocketables.com.

Anyone can submit videos up until December 16th next, I have submitted several of my own to hopefully contribute to this community.

Check out the Community Video Tips channel - there is lots of great stuff there and not just in the English language. Microsoft have their own videos, for example in their Office on-line Help, but is is also great to see them acknowledge the many teachers/trainers/instructors that are out there showing learners how to use Microsoft products. It is a great Community idea as there are so many people sharing their videos on YouTube. 

Clever idea: Shahi - a Visual Dictionary (via @tombarrett)

Here's a useful free on-line tool that combines search, photographs, and a dictionary. Shahi, is a visual dictionary created by Abdullah Arif (@abdullaharif). It is a simple, but clever idea - enter the word you want to search for: first you will get full definitions from Wiktionary, you can then have displayed alongside this user generated images from Flickr, a graphic search from Google, and a feed from Yahoo! (which was not working when I tried it). 

I looked up the word "axe", and here are the results:

This saves looking up items separately on different websites. Of course this will all depend on how content is tagged, as you can see above there are photos of an axe that you can chop things with, but also ones of a body spray. In the Flickr feed there is less accuracy with photos of people and even a tree (which presumably was about to be chopped down with an axe). Abdullah's work here show how so much stuff can be combined on the web to give very useful learning tools. But also shows that we all should be better at tagging our content.

Two more Statistics videos

This week I have added two new videos to my YouTube Channel - these are based on the Chi-Square Test and the ANOVA test.

Chi-Square Tests (often referred to as Goodness of Fit) are used to compare the difference between expected and observed results. In the video below I outline this using dice. Each dice has six sides, so if it is a fair dice I would expect each number to show up 100 times if I rolled the dice 600 times - this is the expected value. When I actually conduct the experiment, and roll the dice 600 times, I count the observed results and use Chi-Square to compare if there is a significant difference between the observed and the expected data.

The second video is about Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). This is typically used to compare the means of three or more groups. ANOVA analyses variance between the different groups of data, and within each sample Excel needs the "Analysis Toolpak" which is a suite of statistics tools. In this case it will generate an ANOVA table and an F statistic with which we can test for significance using F-distribution tables.

How To... Calculate Student's t-Statistic in Excel 2010

Part of my Business Data Analysis (Statistics) class is to cover Student's t-Test. This is a test to figure out if there is a difference statistically between two samples. Excel has the "Analysis Toolpak" Add-In that can do the donkey work for you, though curiously it is not available by default and must be switched on. It took me a while to get the video right for this as there are quite a few different ways of doing the same thing.

In the video below I compare the means of two samples and determine that there is a difference statistically between them. The video was recorded using Snagit.

Why Kevin Myers is wrong about the Niall Mellon Township Trust

First - a declaration. I am married to the wonderful Roma who this year volunteered for the third year in a row for the Niall Mellon Township Trust building blitz. I have not done so myself. I don't know nor have never met Niall Mellon or Kevin Myers.

Niall Mellon and President of South Africa Jacob Zuma.
Image source: Niall Mellon Township Trust Flickr page.

I read Kevin Myers' article, "We're addicted to house building, but why indulge it in South Africa?" in yesterday's Irish Independent, and have come to the conclusion that he is talking through his arse. Myers rejects the idea that it is a good thing for hundreds of Irish people to go to South Africa and build houses for people who live in the township slums. Over 100,000 people have been housed by the NMTT, all who would still be living in cardboard huts if Myers had his way. 

The NMTT is a charity which raises money through its volunteers, but Myers rubbishes this (and shows off his prose writing skills at the same time), when he thunders "Just about all the grisly, patronising pieties that have bedevilled Irish life down the years are embodied in the Niall Mellon Trust" because of Ireland's "frenzied addiction" to building. He wonders why Africans can't build houses themselves (they haven't got the money Kevin), insults President Zuma by referring to his penis (not much NM can do about this), curiously refers to the number of white farmers and their wives "butchered in their homes" (NM not responsible for this either), and the number of unemployed people in the RSA (again, not much NM can do about this).

Kevin Myers is a bitter and grumpy old man, who clearly gets annoyed when other people try to do some good. He clearly was stuck for something to rant about yesterday and thought why not have a go at Niall Mellon. Myers should read the Parable of the Good Samaritan and see if he recognises himself in either of the first two people to pass the beaten traveller.

Judging by the comments on the article, a lot of NMTT volunteers disagree with Myers as well, one writes "unlike most of you begrudgers in Ireland sitting on your back sides doing nothing Niall Mellon actually did something which has proved extremely successful". Well said!

Graduation at NCI

Yesterday was Graduation Day at the National College of Ireland at the Convention Centre Dublin (CCD) and it was great to see former students dressed up in all their finery and academic gowns. The CCD is a super location for the ceremony which can be a bit stiff at times with all the Latin and formality, but it is one of my favourite occasions of the academic year.

Image source: gradireland.

Graduation comes at the end of a long road for most students. It is a proud day for all graduates as they accept their scrolls in front of their families. All have worked hard to get their degrees and diplomas, and to reach the end of this particular road on their life's journey. I wish all my former students the very best of luck with the rest of their lives, I am glad to report that almost all students I met yesterday had found jobs or were in postgraduate study.

Graduation Day is also a proud day too for all the staff of NCI. Seeing our students graduate makes me feel that the work we do is worthwhile, and that we live up to our Mission Statement:

To change lives through education.

Study - "Students prefer good lectures over the latest technology in class"

Now here's a report that I'm not sure I agree with: Léo Charbonneau, writing for the Canadian University Affairs website states that in a survey of "15,000 Quebec university students shows they’re “old school” when it comes to teaching technology". The full research study by Venkatesh and Fusaro is only available in French, so I can't delve into the detail.

A packed lecture theatre in Singapore.
Image source: Yahoo! Singapore News.

Charbonneau's article tells us that students "want to listen to a professor who’s engaging, who’s intellectually stimulating and who delivers the content to them". Lecturers on the other hand think that their students "feel more positive about their classroom learning experience if there are more interactive, discussion-oriented activities". This creates a dilemma as students and lecturer's perceptions are not the same on what the best way to learn is.

Most lecturers in the survey reported using some kind of technology in the classroom (presentation software being the most popular). I too use a lot of technology in the classroom - in fact when our network goes down or Moodle is unavailable, I am quite often stuck for what to do in the class. I feel students almost expect some kind of technology use in my classes, and I will not be dropping it in response to the above survey.

Of course there is a difference between "good lectures" and bad ones. I remember some excellent lecturers from my College days who did not need technology to make them better. As for some of the poorer lecturers that I've had - give me technology first any day!

Visit to Google Offices, Dublin

Yesterday evening I attended and event for NCI postgraduate students at the Google Docks building in Barrow St. It was a very interesting evening that was well attended by over 100 NCI graduate students. We were given ppresentations on how Google search works, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), AdSense, and AdWords. All very informative and delivered by people actually working on each project for Google, we were not given a sales pitch. It was nice to see that one presenter is an ex-student of NCI, while two otheres are current students. Surprisingly (to me), none of the five presenters was Irish.

Image source: Wikipedia.

I have heard a lot about the Google offices and they certainly are colourful and cool. It was 6.30 when I arrived and a lot of Googlers were leaving work for the day, I was stuck by the diversity of the (mostly young) employees as they were leaving - I'm certain this is a great place to work. I wished I was about 25 years younger so that I could have blended in a bit better.

Panis Angelicus

No - I have not gone mad and suddenly become a Latin scholar. Panis Angelicus (Bread of Angels) is one of the best known hymns/songs in Latin and our Church Choir performed this for the first time today. I was a bit nervous as there was just two men in today and though both of us are basses, we had to sing as tenors for part of the hymn. It's difficult to reach the high notes, but we managed to belt out a few lines, and we were pleased with our efforts. Quite how it sounded to the rest of the people in the church I do not know.

Count John McCormack was one of Ireland's most famous tenors during the 20th century, and he was particularly known for singing Panis Angelicus at the 1932 Eucharistic Congress held in Dublin. Below is a YouTube video with photos of him singing this song (there is about a minute lead in before the singing begins) - this is how it should be done:

I like Twitter, but....

Every morning while I am having a cup of tea and still trying to wake up I do three things on my iPad: I check personal email, the Irish Independent front page, and Twitter. I see what all the early risers in Ireland, such as @topgold and @brianmlucey are up too. I also listen to @morningireland on the radio, and like to see what is happening around the world with @storyful. 

Image Source: Twitter.com.

However, I am not a very active person on Twitter. All my blog posts automatically go out on Twitter (Facebook and Linkedin too), so this creates at least some activity. Occasionally I re-tweet what others say. I also do not have Twitter on at work - it is quite addictive and very distracting.

There are many Twitter statistics available and I was interested to fine out that I am the 36,973,895th registered Twitter user out of a total (as I write) of 637.4 million Twitter users. This makes me on Twitter longer than 94.20% of all other Twitter users! This information is from Twopcharts.com.

I have seen how some educators, such as Jane Hart, use Twitter for educational purposes and I would certainly like to explore some possibilities with this tool. Students also follow me and I (mostly) follow them back. There may be endless possibilities for using Twitter in third-level education, but its flaw is that to do this you also can't help seeing tweets from the likes of @stephenfry, @DustinOfficial, and @RossOCK!

Office 2013 - First Thoughts

I have just heard about Microsoft Office 2013 (I think this is the same as Office 365?) and checked out the video below to find out some more about the next generation of office tools. I use Office 2010 at work and Office 2007 at home - so I'd like to upgrade to 2013 if I can. The general theme seems to be to make "things" easier to do. I like that idea, because sometimes easy things are made difficult when there is no need to do so. I'll keep an eye on this and hope to get Office 2013 soonest.

2,000 Subscribers to Learn with Dr Eugene O'Loughlin YouTube Channel

Yesterday afternoon, my YouTube channel recorded a new landmark when Odeisk from Algeria brought the number of subscribers to the channel to 2,000. Once again I am astonished and humbled by this number of people who want to watch my educational videos, and I thank each and every one of the 2,000 people from all over the world who I hope get some value from the channel.

As I've mentioned before on this blog in relation to the views figure, 2,000 subscribers is way more than the number of students that I have taught here at the National College of Ireland since I joined the Faculty. This is a nice way to reach beyond the classroom in to the world outside NCI.

Roma in South Africa - @IrishTownship

Roma is with the Niall Mellon Township Trust's 2012 building blitz in Capetown, South Africa. It is her third occasion to volunteer and as you can see in the photo below she has already got into the swing of things! Yesterday she was helping out with roofing and ceilings - I must find some jobs like this for her when she gets home. More Grey Team photos on Facebook here.

You can see on the T-shirts some evidence of the great work that the Niall Mellon Township Trust has being doing - over 100,000 people housed in the 10 years since the Trust started its work. This is the last year the Trust is working in South Africa, next year I believe there is a plan to change to building schools in Kenya. 

Way to go Roma!!!

Careful with that Nail Gun, Roma!

Blood Donor Awards - @Giveblood_ie

On Friday evening Roma and I attended the Irish Blood Transfusion Service Awards ceremony at the Northbrook Crowne Plaza hotel in Santry where I received a gold drop to mark 50 blood donations. In all there were 166 people receiving this award - a process that took quite some time. We had a nice meal and got to meet some other donors from around the Dublin area. I look forward to the 100 donor ceremony in a few years time.

Yesterday I went down to see Mum and Dad in Ballingate and I thought it would be a nice idea to get a photo of myself with my Dad Joe and my brother Joe - both of whom have gold drops as well. Dad told me that he started to donate when his own father (PJ) got ill with leukaemia and needed many transfusions. The transfusions kept him alive for a lot longer than he would have done without them. Dad felt that he should "give something back" and kept up the blood donations for many years. He introduced both my brother and myself to donating blood.

You too can donate blood - visit www.giveblood.ie for details. New donors are always made very welcome by the Transfusion Service staff. There is no longer a free bottle of stout, but you can get a nice cuppa and a delicious scone (plus some free pencils!!!).

Obama Wins!

Congratulations to US President Barack Obama on his re-election victory today. I'm sure that most Irish people are pleased that he won, given that he is "one of us" from Moneygall!

Image source: Hyperallergic.com.

I watched the early results come in, but when I saw the exit polls for Florida, Ohio, and Virginia shading it towards Obama I felt that he had done enough to win and went to sleep. I was interested to see that the exit polls were a very good match for the actual outcomes (something we talked about when discussing sampling in Statistics class today).

Perhaps the most telling comment I heard of TV news this morning was an analyst on FOX News saying that Romney "ran out of white people to vote for him". The Republican Party must dump the Tea Party and right wing policies if they are to win back the middle ground. If Sarah Palin or Rick Santorum had been the Republican cancidate, Obama would have won by a land-slide. The next election in 2016 will be interesting as there will be no incumbent President. The choice of candidates will be important - the search is on for an African American woman with  Latino blood!

America Chooses

Today is Election Day in the United States of America, when voters choose their President for the next four years. I have been following the campaign closely and am fascinated by how close the race is. I am also fascinated about how just a few so-called swing states will decide who wins the election.

Image source: Business Insider.

There is no doubt that if I was an American and had a vote that I would cast it in favour President Obama. While he has had a lot of difficulties with the economy, I feel that he is better for America, and the world, that he continue. My sense of Romney is that he talks tough, but that when/if he gets to the White House that he will find it impossible to create 12 million jobs and to do something about Iran's nuclear capabilities. I think Obama is less likely to plunge the world into the threat of nuclear hostilities by doing something stupid like attacking Iran.

A real feature of the campaign has been the negative advertising - both sides producing vicious tales of indecision and lies about their opponent. I'm not sure that I would like to see that in Irish elections, but it would make for a more interesting campaign. Expect to see respect and humility from both men once the outcome is decided.

Flaws and all - this is democracy at work. Obama proved in 2008 that you do not have to be rich to win the Presidency. Romney may be about to prove that money can't buy the Presidency. Whatever happens, who the next President will be is rightly decided by the people. 

Good luck to all Americans today, and that whoever you choose will be the inspiring President that not only America, but the World needs.

Hopify Obama and Me

Figma is a Facebook app that allows you to add your photo to the famous Hope-style photo of President Barack Obama. It's simple and fun to use - it's a great app to cut out background and is very ingenious in how it works. So I thought I'd publish the results of my "work"! Needless to say if I was American I'd be an Obama supporter...

Some Good Advice from James Caan about Job Interviews

Looking for work and taking part in interviews is one of the toughest things I've ever had to do. I don't think I ever felt 100% happy with my performance and in many ways I didn't see too much difference between the last two successful job interviews I had (here in NCI in 2003, and in CBT Systems/SmartForce in 1989), and other interviews where I did not get the job. In my time I have been the interviewer on many occasions and have seen people perform great in the interview, as well as others who were dreadful.

James Caan (not the actor!) offers some tips and advice on job interviews, especially to graduates - I wish I had his advice when I finished College, I might be Professor of Zoology in a University by now? In the video below, Caan gives us "Two killer questions to close the deal on a job offer", and some other advice. 

His videos are a must for any graduate seeking employment.

Monkstown Pharmacy - 21 Years in Business

Congratulations to Roma and all the girls at Monkstown Pharmacy on reaching 21 years in business today. It seems like only yesterday when Roma told me she wanted to take over King's Chemist on Oliver Plunkett Road in Dún Laoghaire. She has built this into a great community pharmacy serving the people of Monkstown Farm and beyond. There are cup cakes and other goodies available in the Pharmacy today to help celebrate the occasion.

Roma looking good this morning outside Monkstown Pharmacy.
(How did that bike get in the photo?)

How To... Edit a Basic Gantt Chart in Excel 2010

The most popular video on my YouTube Channel is "How to Create a Basic Gantt Chart in Excel 2010" - as I write it has 183,042 lifetime views. A similar video for Excel 2003 has 89,089 views. I get a lot of questions in the comments fields about other things that Excel can do with Gantt charts - usually I suggest to the viewer that they try a "proper" project management software tool like Microsoft Project.

Today I tried to see what else I could do based on feedback received on the channel. In the new video below I show how to link end dates with the start date and duration, change task colours, assign resources, and add labels to Gantt chart tasks. It's a bit of a mish-mash, but hopefully people will find it useful - check out for yourself:

Careful With That Axe, Eugene (with apologies to Pink Floyd)

Courtesy of @pj_wall I have found a new title for my blog that I like. It is "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" which is the title of a 1968 song by one of my favourite bands, Pink Floyd. According to Songfacts.com, this song was released as the B-side of the single, "Point Me At The Sky." The title is a reference to the first line of that song: "Hey, Eugene, this is Henry McClean". There are very few lyrics in this song, but it features a scream by Roger Waters which is also used at the beginning of Floyd's biggest hit "Another Brick in the Wall". Here's a version taken from Superstars In Concert at Earl's Court on 18th May, 1973:

Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album was played constantly in the Common Room while I was at boarding school in Roscrea, iconic songs like "Time" and "Money" are very familiar to me. But I must confess to not being aware of the Axe song.

I hope that Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and Syd Barrett don't mind me stealing their song title. It's a cool line and gives me a much cooler title to my blog than "Eugene's Blog".

One and a Half Million Learners - Wow!

Yesterday my YouTube channel Learn with Dr Eugene O'Loughlin passed the 1,500,000 views mark - WOW!!! I still can't believe that my modest efforts at creating a few handy videos are being watched by so many people, I am both humbled and astonished by these figures. The channel has grown a lot since I set it up in April 2006. I now have 81 videos in my "How To..." and "Problem-Solving Techniques" playlists. The "How To..." videos are by far the most popular. Below is a graph from YouTube Analytics:

The first half million views mark took 4 years to achieve, the second half million took six months, while the third half million has taken six months as well. Another interesting fact is the estimated 4,676,030 estimated minutes watched - this is the equivalent of 8.9 years! On 17th October last was the record day at 5,330 views. While the trend above is upwards, I have noticed a slow down in the rate of growth over the past week. I also expect a dramatic fall off at Christmas/New Year time, this happens every year. Nevertheless, if this keeps up the channel can look forward to hitting the 2,000,000 mark sometime next March/April.

Thank you so much to all my viewers!

Amazon Author Central Launches in UK (and Ireland)

Amazon have released a version of their Author Central today for Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Fire HD - they have allowed book authors to set up an "About Me" profile for some time, I had already updated my profile as author of An Introduction to Business Systems Analysis. What I hadn't done before is check out some of the new features that are available to authors. Author Central provides "Sales Info" details - so far this is just the bestseller rank, no doubt in future it will provide more detailed analytics.

For my own modest single book publication I can see today that my booked is ranked #288,328 on the bestseller list today, that's down a whopping 58,137 places since yesterday. On drilling down a little deeper I can see the ranking for all of 2012 and that the ranking jumps up and down quite a lot. The highest position in 2012 was at the dizzying high of #46,523 on February 8th last (#779,025 was the lowest). I suspect that each peak is a single sale of the book, there are 25 peaks which indicates I've sold 25 books through Amazon over the past year!

Image Source: Screen shot from Amazon.co.uk Author Central Page

The Amazon page indicates that there are over 6,239,000 books in the bestseller rank list. At least my book is in the top 5%, which also tells me that an extremely modest number of sales gets you high up the list, and also that Amazon list an awful lot of books that don't sell very much at all.

Expect Amazon to step up their publicly and author available analytics in the near future.

College Faculty Survey Finds Their Use of Social Media Has Evolved

Pearson Higher Education and the Babson Survey Research Group conducted an annual survey of nearly 4,000 teaching faculty from all disciplines in higher education which examined both the personal and professional impacts of social media (via PRWeb).

The key findings of the survey (quoted below from the PRWeb report) include:

• 64.4 percent of faculty use social media for their personal live, 33.8 percent use it for teaching
• 41 percent for those under age 35 compared to 30 percent for those over age 55 reported using social media in their teaching
• Faculty in the Humanities and Arts, Professions and Applied Sciences, and the Social Sciences use social media at higher rates than those in Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science
• Blogs and wikis are preferred for teaching, while Facebook or LinkedIn are used more for social and professional connections
• 88 percent of faculty, regardless of discipline, reported using online video in the classroom

Faculty are becoming "more comfortable" about the wider adoption of social media, and are getting less and less concerned about the use of social media. The top two concerns are "privacy and the integrity of student submissions" according to the report. As you can see below Facebook is the most used Social Media tool for personal use, while Linkedin is the most used for professional use:

Chart source: How today’s  higher education faculty use social media by Pearson Learning (click to enlarge).

I'm delighted to see such a high percentage of Faculty using online video in the classroom. But I am also struck that with such high rates of adoption of Social Media among Faculty, and the near total adoption by students, that more effort is not put into trying to use the likes of Facebook and Linkedin for learning. There's a business opportunity for some young entrepreneur here.

"How to get hired in IT" presented by Tom Bentley (SAP)

Here's an excellent video from GradIreland TV featuring Tom Bentley of SAP who is speaking about the recruitment process and what graduates should do when applying for jobs. It's aimed at IT graduates, but much of what he says can be applied to job applications in general.

One quote from the talk that I really liked was "Every time you apply for a job, change your CV". Bentley states clearly that each job is different and he gives some examples of how and why you would change your CV depending on the job you are applying for. The video is nearly 14 minutes long, but worth watching the lot if you are looking for a job in IT.

A Shout Out for Carnew TDC (Meet Bob)

It's great to see organizations like Carnew Training and Development Centre (TDC) using innovative ways to promote themselves using YouTube. Carnew is a small town in South Co Wicklow. I grew up three miles from Carnew and it is where I went to school until 1971. Carnew TDC have created a video about Bob, someone who left school early but returned later to upskill at his local Training Centre. This is a super video and worth checking out. It is also entered into the Better Together Make a Difference to your Community video competition. You can vote for Carnew TDC here - I think this is well worth supporting.

The Changing Role of the Business Professor

There was an interesting interview on Morning Ireland on RTÉ Radio 1 during the business news with Joe Haslam who is professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at the Instituto de Empresa (IE) Business School in Spain. While the interview was about the economic situation facing the Spanish Government, I was most interested in his comments towards the end of the interview where he pointed out that the role of the professor is changing.

Image source: Joe Haslam Google+ profile.

Haslam (pictured) makes sense when he tells us in the interview that a list of publications "as long as your arm" is not what "business schools look for" anymore. To appear to be "relevant", professors have to be "actively in the market" and "doing the same things that the students are doing" - this makes his business school different to a University environment.

Well "Here, Here" I say!

My last journal publication was in 2005. Since then I have published a book, one other book chapter, and a few conference papers. In short, my academic research output is dismal when compared to what is expected of other third-level lecturers. This should not be a surprise to anyone as I do not conduct any research, nor do I have any research students. Most of my non-teaching related activity is in YouTube and Blogging.

I can see this idea trending a bit more. Soon academics will be judged not just on how many journal papers they have had published, but also on what their personal web site looks like and does, what their Twitter activity is, what subjects they are blogging about (and the frequency of posting), and what third-party blogs they read and are subscribed to. All this is easy to track with analytics. It can take months to research and write a paper, and more time for publication to take place - easily leading to a year or more before your work can be read by your peers. With a blog, you can publish instantly. You can even write your own book and publish it yourself whenever you want. 

Keep up!

How To... Use the HLOOKUP Function in Excel 2012

Following up from my post of yesterday about a new YouTube video relating to the VLOOKUP function in Microsoft Excel 2010, today I have added another new video - this time about the HLOOKUP function. In VLOOKUP the "V" stands for vertical (data in columns), while in the HLOOKUP function the "H" stands for horizontal (data in rows). Both functions operate in the same way with almost the same syntax.

By total coincidence both the VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP videos are exactly 5 minutes and 29 seconds long! Here's the HLOOKUP video...

How To... Use the VLOOKUP Function in Excel 2010

My newest video on my Learn with Dr Eugene O'Loughlin YouTube channel is about the VLOOKUP function in Microsoft Excel 2012. Up until today I had never used this function before. However, I am getting students to create a simple Expert System in a tutorial tomorrow and it involves using the VLOOKUP function. If you have two tables in a spreadsheet, VLOOKUP allows you to "look up" values from one  table to another. It can be used for calculating items like tax rates, commissions, mark-ups, etc.

In the video below, I use two simple tables and assign the price of books based on the type (paper/hardback, or eBook) sold. This simple example should explain how to use VLOOKUP at its simplest. 

This is the 80th video on my channel, and I hope that eventually it will clock up a good few views and also make a few euro from advertising. Check it out:

Open Day at Manchester Metropolitan University

Yesterday, my daughter Vicki and I headed over to Manchester for the day as MMU were hosting an Open Day for prospective students. Vicki wanted to check out some courses and I came along to see MMU too.

Image Source: mmu.ac.uk.

Ryanair got us from Dublin to Manchester - flights were cheap as there was no United/City game on in town this weekend. A train from the airport got us right to the MMU campus - at least the College is easy to get to.

We attended the first "Welcome" event for the School of Arts and there is no doubt that some very talented people went to MMU. We were shown some wonderful ideas and work, it sounds like an ideal College for artistic people. We found the staff very helpful - there was a small army of student "Ambassadors" to point us in the right direction. The academic staff were very helpful and easy to chat to - everybody made us feel very welcome. The facilities are great, though we could not see into the new Arts Building as it will not be finished until the end of this year. My overall impression was very positive, and Vicki liked it too!

We met my brother Brian who was also in Manchester for lunch in Revolution on the Oxford Road. It was good to see him as we don't meet up that much given that the Irish Sea is in the way. Revolution has a love of vodka and I had a delicious burger with a vodka salsa that didn't really taste of vodka. We had a great table at the window looking out onto what we were told is the busiest bus route in Europe.

Manchester is a very cosmopolitan city with up to 80,000 students based there. It was my first visit there and all I can say is that I wish I was 18 again and starting out in a University like this.

The World According to Eugene

I am experimenting with new names for my blog - "Eugene's Blog" is a bit boring. Having written before about how most of the blogs that made the list of finalists in the Blog Awards Ireland 2012 list had such cool names, I have decided to try to come up with a different name. Maybe I might even come up with a cooler name?

I first thought of "Eugene's World", but that is already taken in Dr Who (see Wikia) - similarly "Eugene's Web" is already in use. As I rant a lot on this blog I wondered about "Ranting for Ireland", but somebody beat me to it and created a blog with the same name (there are no posts on this blog).

I also thought about taking a line from a song or a poem - but nothing seems to come to mind yet. I'm just not good at thinking up names. My first effort I know is a bit tame - "The World According to Eugene". Expect to see the name change over the next few weeks as I try to come up with something I like.

New - YouTube Minutes Watched

Following on from my previous post earlier today, I note that this afternoon YouTube has introduced a new set of analytics for "Estimated minutes watched", and once again I am astonished that not only are so many people checking out my videos, but that they are obviously spending a lot of time doing so. The chart below covers the same period (38 days) as the one in my earlier post (slightly higher number of views since it was captured later in the day). The figures for "Estimated minutes watched" are only available since 1st September this year.

415,149 minutes translates into 6,919 hours - an average of almost three minutes per view. This is also the equivalent of 288 days (in a 38 day period)!

#astonished

My YouTube Channel passes 5,000 views/day for first time

I am addicted to YouTube Analytics!

Yes I know, this is a sad state of affairs - every day I check out my Learn with Dr Eugene O'Loughlin statistics provided in great detail by Google. This morning I noticed that on Tuesday (9th Oct) last the "Views" figure for the first time passed 5,000 for a single day. Since the 1st Sept the views have been steadily increasing and I have been expecting to hit this milestone for a while. The chart below is a screen grab from YouTube Analytics showing daily views from 1st Sept to 9th October during which time the channel received 138,906 views in total. You can also see a clear pattern where the figures rise during the middle of the week and drop at weekends. The lowest points are all Saturdays.

Click image to enlarge for detail.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think this would happen when I set up the channel, the lifetime views are almost up to 1.5 million now and the channel is the 96th most viewed in the world in the Life Long Learning Partner category in YouTube EDU. Today I have no classes, yet I will have close to 5,000 learners on-line from all over the world using my educational videos. 

YouTube takes aim at TV stations’ audience with 60 new channels - Irish Independent

YouTube is taking over the world - according to Monday's Irish Independent, maybe they are.

YouTube is planning lots of new channels and will become the medium of choice for viewers of shows and programmes - they are going to grab this space, but it will be over the dead bodies of the TV and movie studios. The Internet is fast becoming a source of TV programmes and movies - I can even watch Sky on my iPad.

In the Indo article, a YouTube spokesman is quoted as saying that they want to “lure television advertisers and viewers” from traditional TV. The article goes on to state that "YouTube’s 800m viewers watch a total of 4bn hours of footage on the platform each month, and while the top 25 US YouTube channels each attract more than a million viewers a week". YouTube may soon be the market leader - what are the consequences for TV companies?

Already in my house the computers are watched more than the TV, renting a DVD or video is a thing of the past. We don't have Netflix (yet) because of the shit Eircom service that we have in Blackrock - but this could replace Sky Movies.

We are seeing another revolution my friends - and as an evangelist for YouTube in education, I embrace this technology and hope that it becomes the future soon. Well as least for a few years until the Next big Thing comes along!

Drama on Stillorgan Road

This morning I came upon an accident on the south-bound side of the Stillorgan Dual-Carriageway outside the RTÉ offices - it was a big pile up involving seven cars. I must have just missed it happening as the traffic behind had not yet built up. 

Image source: Irish Independent.

The traffic heading into Dublin was (as usual) static and I'm sure plenty of people had a ring-side seat to this accident from the other side of the road. Four people were injured, and all the cars looked to be in a right mess to me.

There is a fascination with accidents - passers by are often accused of "rubber-necking". WTF else are we supposed to do - speed on by without a care in the world? My own reaction was to keep on going, and at the same time hope that nobody was hurt. The fire-brigades and ambulances heading to the scene soon indicated that people had been hurt.

But another reaction was that I wished I could whip out my iPhone and shoot some photos and/or video. I was already wondering how many people had tweeted the scene, and how much action the accident triggered on social media. Coming home later there was a collapsed elderly man being tended by an ambulance crew on the Blackrock bypass. Tonight I hope that all involved are safely tucked up in bed and that tomorrow will be a safer day on our roads.

My Best Birthday Cake Ever! #Harley-Davidson #spoilt

Normally I keep quiet about my birthday, but Facebook sent me several "Happy Birthday" messages this morning from family and friends - so the word is out.

However, I could not keep it quiet after seeing the birthday cake my daughter Vicki made me last night - I was banned from the kitchen so did not see it until today.

All I can say is WOW - it looks fantastic and delicious!!! Almost a sin to eat it! I think this is the best birthday cake I have ever had - thank you Vicki!

Check out also the new shirt - also a birthday present! I feel very spoilt today.

Yesterday I heard an ad on the radio for the over 55s, and a horrible thought struck me - in less than three months time I will be able to say "Next year I will be 55". 

Something weird is happening to broadband in Blackrock

Some time ago I was informed by an Eircom engineer who came to my house to fix a connection that the  8 Mbps line that I pay for is only capable of a max of 4 Mbps. 

Today, after moving my router to the centre of the house I did a quick speed test and have seen the highest ever figure that I have recorded - 4.28 Mbps. How is this possible on a 4 Mbps line? Are Eircom finally doing something about their shitty broadband service in our area? I have discovered via Twitter that Eircom are rolling out fibre broadband in our area - indeed it is available at the other side of the road at the end of my garden. Will they beat UPC? On 14th September last I wrote about UPC installing cable on our road, but nothing has happened since. 

The race is on between UPC and Eircom for customers in Blackrock!

50 Years of "Love Me Do" - #LoveMeDo

On 5th October, 1962, The Beatles released their first single "Love Me Do". I have no recollection of this momentous event in music history as I was just about to turn three years of age a few days later. It was probably another 3 or 4 years before I even noticed it as the radio in our house was rarely tuned to anything but RTÉ. Later, we did have a record player and we were given a Beatlemania 45" record which had six Beatles songs on it including "Love Me Do". We played it over-and-over and John Lennon's harmonica is one of the sounds of the 60's for me. Since then I have always loved The Beatles and play their music all the time. 

To mark this historic date I took the photo below in front of my only Beatles poster from the 1979 movie "The Birth of the Beatles". 

Experimenting with my Kindle

I have not been using my Kindle much of late. My daughter Claire had been using it a lot for her College work, but now that she is finished I get my Kindle back. I have recently just added a book on Statistics to help me with a new module I am teaching at NCI, but I also look at the same book on my iPad which I am using more. At the moment I am doing quite a bit of writing, so have decided not to get involved in reading any books and devote the time instead to writing.

The Amazon Kindle.
Image source: Amazon.co.uk.

Last evening I experimented with the Kindle. I use Microsoft Word for all writing that I do (apart from this Blog). I knew that the Kindle supports documents in Word and I had in the past uploaded work documents to bring to meetings, (using the iPad's Kindle App instead of the Kindle itself). I have written before here about the Kindle format and how easy a book is to read on the Kindle device. So I wondered what my own writing efforts would look like as an eBook on the Kindle.

Uploading any document to a Kindle is very easy. I logged on to Amazon.com and simply added the book from my desktop to my Kindle Library by emailing it to my Kindle account. Amazon takes care of the rest - it was almost immediately available on my Kindle. With a little excitement, I read my own writing on a Kindle for the first time.

This whole process is a symptom of the change that is taking place in Publishing, which has been revolutionized by Amazon. Authors can for the first time "see" what their books/articles would look like long before they are considered for publishing. For the only book I have published, An Introduction to Business Systems Analysis, it was not until a camera ready copy in PDF format was created by my publisher (The Liffey Press) that I was able to see what my book would look like. The Kindle now gives me an opportunity to see what my own book looks like to potential readers, and this allows me to make changes that may not be so obvious in a Word document. I spotted some typos and formatting issues, but also read some text that did not make sense or could be written better. I now plan to upload my script after completing each chapter and read it as an eBook to help improve it even more.

Who stole our Iris? #iLost

Apple have come in for quite a lot of slagging and criticism for their new Maps App - much of it justified. Here at the National College of Ireland there is more evidence that the Apple App is not quite as it should be. 

Image Source: www.ncirl.ie.

Outside of the front of the College is a sculpture called "The Iris". It was created by leading Irish artist Vivienne Roche, engineered by ARUP Consulting Engineers in Cork, and fabricated by Steele & Co based in New Ross in 2006. It is 14 metres high and is impossible to miss if you are in Mayor Square - unless of course you are Apple!

Apple have decided to dump Google from their iPhones and iPads, and at great expense have created their own Maps App in a deal with Sat Nav company TomTom. Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak does not think that the problems "are that severe" and that "there are a lot of complaints about one little thing people spot, but it’s not that hard to deal with in life".

So it's not a big deal that the NCI Iris is gone from Apple Maps, but what I'm wondering is how did they miss it? What software used rendered this out? Are there any other sculptures and monuments missing from Apple Maps? Tweet with the #iLost hashtag if you know of one! Below are two screen shots from my iPhone: one of Google Maps clearly showing the Iris in the middle (including a shadow!), while the other from the Maps app shows an empty space where the Iris should be!

Apple's Maps App	Google Maps