Johannes’ Blog

Last weekend we went to the Fieldays in Mystery creek, Hamilton. They were biggest ever this year with more than one thousand exibitors and around half a million people. This was also the 40th time they got held and they are now the biggest fieldays in the southern hemisphere and the third biggest in the world. I was there from eight till seven but still only saw half the things there, I didn’t really like that. I also thought that the field days were a bit too big and I often couldn’t find the places where I wanted to go. But after that day I was glad that we could go home  because I had really tired feet. Click here for some more info

I found this on the PC World website - Toshiba on Tuesday launched a new ultraportable laptop that it claims is the world’s lightest, putting it in contention with vendors including Apple and Lenovo.

The company said the full-featured Portégé R500-S5007V weighs just 2.4 pounds (1.08 kilograms), compared to Apple’s MacBook Air, which weighs 3 pounds, and Lenovo’s Thinkpad X300, which weighs around 2.93 pounds. The laptop measures 0.77 inches at its thinnest point, according to Toshiba.

The company also claimed that the new laptop was the first to include a 128G-byte solid-state drive (SSD) to replace the hard drive. Laptops to date have had 64G bytes of storage, though both Lenovo and Apple provide 128G bytes of storage through two 64G-byte modules.

SSD has no moving parts like a hard drive, so it consumes less power that can give the battery more runtime. The laptop can run for an eight-hour runtime on a single battery charge, according to Toshiba. The company did not respond immediately to questions about the type of battery in the laptop.

Battery life is also preserved by the laptop’s transreflective 12.1-inch screen, which can shut down the LED (light-emitting diode) backlighting by reflecting the sun’s rays to illuminate the screen, according to Toshiba.

For US$2,999, users can get a laptop powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo U7700 processor at 1.33GHz, with 2M bytes of cache and 2G bytes of RAM. It will come with Windows Vista Business OS, which is also downgradable to Windows XP Professional. The laptop includes a SuperMulti optical drive that can read and rewrite DVD and CD media, wired and wireless 802.11 a/g/n networking, Bluetooth 2.0 support and built-in safety features to protect laptop data during falls.

Toshiba said the laptop includes a specially built motherboard that can provide the same functionality of boards found in 15.4-inch laptops, but is one-third the size.

The laptop will start shipping in the third quarter this year, according to the company. The company wasn’t available to comment on worldwide availability.

I found this on Yahoo!

It’s finally here: Firefox 3, the open-source browser that I overwhelmingly recommend for all users from novice to expert, arrives on Tuesday. Here it is.

I’ve been using the final beta for a few days now, and it’s really an impressive upgrade. Some thoughts. …

Most importantly: The browser is fast, renders accurately, and (so far in my testing) doesn’t crash. Multiple tabs or windows, complex pages, lots of embedded content … Firefox 3 can handle it all with no fuss.

In fact, it actually renders some pages better than Firefox 2, specifically some pop-up forms that I regularly use in our Yahoo! publishing tool, which didn’t display with the right width under Firefox 2. With Firefox 3 they execute perfectly.

I’m still getting used to the new URL history and search system. when you start typing into the address bar, you no longer just see the beginnings of URLs in your history file. Now Firefox searches your history and your bookmarks for any text that matches what you’re typing, not just the URLs but the descriptions, too.

When I type “tech” into the URL bar, for example, I not only get popups for tech.yahoo.com and techmeme.com, but also Wired and Valleywag, because they have the word “Tech” in their site descriptions.

On one hand this is very useful, but it also clutters up the drop-down box. Having two lines for each entry instead of one also adds to the overwhelming nature of the display. Like I said, it’s got pros and cons, but I’m getting used to it slowly.

Most plug-ins work well so far. I had one lingering problem with one, not-critical, add-on that I ultimately had to disable. I’m hoping the developer patches it soon.

The interface is freshened up but is largely the same as before. Unlike IE7’s changes, you won’t have trouble finding things in the menu system or the toolbars. There are some small changes to the way text selection works (which I won’t go into here); very minor bugs that will likely be addressed in upcoming versions.

The malware prevention system really seems to work well. It took me some searching, but I finally managed to find an infected site. Rather than load the page, Firefox 3 threw up a huge, red warning page urging me not to visit. No one’s going to miss this alert.

Overall: No matter what browser you’re using, there’s really no reason not to upgrade.

Elephants are the largest and second tallest land animals. They are fully grown in 25 years but may live up to 65 years. That is for both the African and Asian Elephant.

The African Elephant is bigger than the Asian Elephant, it is 2-4 metres tall and weighs up to 7500 kilograms. The Asian Elephant has smaller ears whose upper edge is curled forward and as opposed to the African Elephant, only the male has tusks. An elephant’s skin is 2-4 centimetres thick grey and quite sensitive. It also has deep wrinkles in it which assist in cooling the elephant. Its 1.5 metre long ivory tusks are virtually teeth. They are continually growing, weigh up to 45kg and are used for digging, fighting, feeding and lifting stuff.

Elephants have small brown eyes protected by long eyelashes. They are also colour blind and have limited vision in strong light. Elephant’s ears are unique just like our fingerprints and are also used for cooling as elephants have the ability to flap them. An elephant’s trunk is really its nose and is its most important sense. With it an elephant breathes, picks up food, sucks up liquid and most importantly smells.

Elephants eat grass, leaves, roots, oats, hay, potatoes and occasionally meat.

Elephants sleep only two-four hours a day and can sleep lying down or standing. They communicate either by trumpeting, bellowing, crying or snorting or they touch each other or move parts of their bodies for example: they touch trunks and if there is danger they flap their ears and the herd gathers. Elephants live in groups also called herds and all family members protect the young. An impressing fact is that elephants swim well. They actually swim underwater and use their trunk as a snorkel.

Elephant’s habitat is in
Africa,
India and southern
Asia. They live in the desert, tropical forest and even mountains. They are endangered due to the fact that their habitat is being destroyed.

There was a toaster that could toast two slices of bread at a time but only one side at a time each side takes 30 seconds. You want to toast 3 pieces of bread which would normally take two minutes. Find out how to reduce this time to one minute thirty seconds. Answer is in the comments section

From Monday till yesterday I went on a music camp to Totara springs. The first day involved getting everything into the cabins which slept eight each and setting everything up for where we were going to practise,which for me was the auditorium, for senior band the lecture theatre and for choir the chapel. Then we started practising for about two hours until it was time for afternoon tea. During that time I went for a swim in the mineral pool and had afternoon tea which was on all days either (you could choose) an apple a banana or an orange. after that it was more practise until dinner. Again I went for a swim but I can’t remember what was for dinner. Then more practise then another swim and bedtime at ten o’clock.

The next day I got woken up at six and had breakfast at seven thirty then I went for a swim and we started practising again till morning tea. I had another swim but then while we we were practising my face started hurting so I had no more swims that day. then it was lunch then practice then afternoon tea then practise and then the big concert and then bed.The next day was our fun and last day where I went on the hydro slide and when i get photo’s I will put them on here. Why I went was because I play the trumpet.

Every autumn we make apple juice with our friends. They get apples in big bins from sunfruit. First we get the tractor to carry the apples to the dairy shed on their farm.Then all the apples go through a garden shredder and into big bins. We then load the shredded apples into a pneumatic press which can press about 600-700 litres of juice from one ton of apples. Then we pump the juice in to some big 200 litre (50 gallon) drums for storage. We then pour the juice into a heated drum where it gets heated to 78′C and from there we pour it into 14 litre (3.5 gallon) bags. After that we take the bags home and drink it and I can’t wait till we make apple juice again next year.

1. To reach group three in maths.
2. To work on my time management skills.
3.  To make more friends.
4. to learn some french and japanese
5. To make my work neater.
6. and most of all to learn something.

Squished between two tree trunks a brown weathered door squeaks in the silence as I push against it. It opens a little and a beam of light illuminates the world around me. I step through the door and close it behind me. The click it makes echoes in the well lit room in front of me. I take a few more steps into the room. There is an old fire place with orange and yellow shafts of heat bursting from the wood. Over the fire a pot full of steaming water is hanging from the chimney. An old wooden table and a comfortable rocking chair are placed quite close to the fire.  I take a seat in it to warm myself up. A few minutes later with a cosy feeling inside me I spot a bowl full of delicious fruit in the middle of the room. I can’t resist taking an apple and eating it in front of the fire. I go to the door to throw the core of the apple away. The door opens and instantly everything goes dark, as if some one had blown out all the candles and the fire as well! Outside everything had changed, now the sun is shining and I can see trees and plants. Birds are flying amongst the trees and everything appears lush and exciting. 

And so I continue with my life and I’m looking forward to opening the door again…

The book I am reviewing is titled ‘MY STORY: Journey to Tangiwai-The diary of Peter Cotterill, Napier, 1953’. The main characters are: Peter, Mum, Dad, Tom, Uncle Hugh, Uncle Adam, Mr Mason, Mrs Mason, Barbara Mason, Howard, Stafford Bell, Rua and Dick Finlay. The book is about Peter Cotterill’s life leading up to the Tangiwai accident. He talks about scouts, his paper round, his dyingUncle
Hugh,
School and other day to day activities. The diary starts on the 1.1.1953 and finishes on the 31.12.1953.  One of the strengths of the actual book I found was, that because the book is written in diary form it takes the reader on the journey in Peter’s life during that year as well. The book also gives a good in depth description of his and his relatives’ daily life. I also thought the book has a good sense of humor and I learnt a lot about how people lived in 1953. For example how Peter’s family was saving up to buy a car and how Peter was talking about it two weeks before they actually got it. One of the weaknesses I found was that it is a bit repetitive. I guess this is because daily life is a bit repetitive too. Therefore this is virtually unavoidable when writing a diary.  I think this book is suitable for children nine and over who like history books but don’t just want the facts but some characters as well.