Day 1 at St. Florence

it's been a long time since i've posted about the cool stuff kids say. now that i've started my placement at St. Florence Catholic elementary, i can do so once more. i'm working primarily with grade 1s, so it is going to be great for quotes.

when asked to suggest ways we can be better "stewards of God's creation" (make Earth greener and cleaner):
"don't light schools on fire."
"no throwing beer bottles, or else the glass might get into your shoe."
"no setting fire to houses."
"no spraypainting walls."
- all from the same kid.
i am really glad he was taught such important family values.

as i was leaving: "Mr. Chan, is your dad's name Jackie?"

--

also worthy of note: every morning, following the national anthem and announcements is an exercise time. a pair of older students (i assume gr.5-6) come into the classroom and lead the kids in a fairly involved dance routine to the music of "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" by the Buckwheat Boyz. the kids really love it. i kid you not -- i couldn't make this up even if i tried.

thanks

it is the end of yet another chapter in life, and if my life really were to be a substantial novel, this would be the end of BOOK I: the early years (or something to that effect). the following is a list of the teachers i have had the privilege of learning under, as far as i can remember. i had to hit up ratemyteacher.ca for some of the names that i did forget.

Lynngate Junior Public School:
JK: Ms. Young
SK: Mrs. Lawrence
G1: Miss Anderson
G2: Mrs. Thompson
G3: Mr. MacAfee

Churchill Heights Public School:
G4: Mrs. Reid + Mr. Charles (Music); forgotten: French teacher (Mme. L)
G5: Mr. Billinghurst + Mr. Charles (Music)
G6: Mrs. Steinberg + Mr. Foster (Math), Mr. Charles (Music)
G7: Mrs. Lorimer + Mr. Gibbons (Math), Mr. Gorman (Social Studies), Mr. Titchener (Science), Mme. Moore (French), Mr. Charles (Music)
G8: Mr. Taylor + Mr. Gibbons, Mr. Gorman, Mr. Titchener, Mme. Moore, Mr. Charles, Mrs. Thomas (Vocal Music)

Woburn Collegiate Institute:
G9: Mr. Mohamed (Science), Mr. Thomson (Phys. Ed.), Mrs. Blasko (English), Mr. Grigg (Geography), Mrs. Houghton (Music), Ms. Bellstedt (Math), Mrs. Lloyd (Business Studies), Mr. Kachur (French)
G10: Mr. Windfield (Science), Mr. Shearer (History), Mrs. Houghton (Music), Mr. Scott (Computers), Mrs. Billinghurst (English), Sr. Kosta (Spanish), Mr. Dick (Civics), Mr. Chan (Math); forgotten: Career Studies
G11: Mr. Bell (Physics), Mrs. Houghton (Music), Mrs. Billinghurst (English), Mr. Chan (Math), Mr. Carson (Phys. Ed.), Mr. Balasingam (Computers), Mrs. Russell (Chemistry) [edit] Mr. Rickard/Mr. Man (Biology) [/edit]
G12: Mrs. Houghton (Music), Mr. Bell (Physics), Ms. Mohamed (English), Mr. Acomb (Phys. Ed.), Mr. Man (Biology), Mr. Moliotsias (Calculus), Mrs. Russell (Chemistry), Mr. Wright (Geometry and Discrete Maths)

University of Toronto Scarborough Campus
1st: Prof. Olaf-Buschwietz (MATA30), Prof. Shepherd (ASTA01/2), Prof. Price (EESA01), Prof. Cherydeko (MATA23), Prof. Grinnell (MATA36), Prof. Quick (PHYA10), Prof. Lee/Prof. Tawfiq (PHYA21), Prof. Joordens (PSYA01), Prof. Bassili (PSYA02)
2nd: Prof. Moore (MATB41/2), Prof. James (LINA01), Prof. Shepherd (PSCB75), Prof. Lee (PHYB21), Prof. Tawfiq (PHYB24), Prof. Campbell (HUMB01); forgotten: STAB22, PHYB23
2nd summer: Ms. Ralickas (ENGB01), Ms. Wilder (ENGB04)
3rd: Mr. Adams (ENGB02), Dr. Peat (ENGB03), Prof. Artymowicz (ASTB21/C22), Prof. Quick (PSCB01), Prof. Brown (ENGB42/3), Prof. Gough/Prof. Tawfiq (PSCD02), Prof. Djordjevic (ENGC10), Prof. Patenall (ENGB10)
4th: Dr. Goldman (ENGC02/3), Dr. Rose (ENGC20, ENGB24), Ms. Papoutsis (ENGB75), Prof. Cormack (PSCD02), Dr. Peat (ENGB34), Prof. Boughn (ENGB35), Prof. MacRae (ENGB08)

Not Forgotten: Mr. Seville (-1997) and Mr. Shearer (-2003) who both passed away during my time in CHPS and WCI respectively.

not included in this list by name are the family and friends that have taught me, encouraged me, fought for/with/beside me all these years, whom i've been blessed by God with since before i knew Him.

to you all i give my sincerest thanks.

Question: what kind of bear is best?

The Browser Wars: Episode II Attack of the DOMs

i found this 40-minute video back in March (from Opera Watch) filmed at a Yahoo! hosted convention of Web developers. presentations were given by representatives from each of the big 3 Windows web browsers (IE, Firefox, Opera) detailing their vision, touting their product and what they plan to do in the future. technically, Opera commands a 0.87% market share, so i would hardly consider it as BIG in that sense. as evidenced by the nerd-audience reaction to the Opera representative (Hakon Wium Lie), however, market share means diddly-squat.

the video is pretty long, and probably filmed by someone without a tripod. the editing is nearly a hack job in terms of aesthetics, but that makes it seem more authentic (a la Blair Witch Project). the only funny/interesting bits are from the introduction by the moderator (the first 10 minutes) and the last presentation (the last ten minutes). i think maybe 3 of my readers would be interested.

Nerd Corner: Opera 9.20 revisited

Speed Dial
i've been using it for a few days now (4) and for all its redundancy, it has started to grow on me. every time i open a new, blank tab, my eyes are met with convenient links i can either click on or swiftly ignore. occasionally, it will remind me to update myself on something that i haven't read yet.

Fig. 1 - My current Speed Dial links
my current set up only has 6 links: Google Reader, Gmail, Hotmail, Blogger, Notebook Review Forums, and Metagame. Reader is my RSS aggregator of choice, so all my news bits and blog updates are funneled through that. Email is obvious. the other three are really just filler. NBR forums and Metagame do not come with RSS feeds so i dropped them into Speed Dial as a visual reminder to waste my time. i set it up as a triangle because a) i didn't have enough to fill all 9 spots; b) my eyes follow left to right, top to bottom, so the triangle tracks better. note how the interfaces of most applications have next to nothing going on along the bottom-right corner.

the Ctrl+# shortcut really is a time-saver (so i can waste time more efficiently) when i remember to use it. it will open up a new tab and load the page without my having to manually open one.

Tab Thumbnail Previews
i've only used Opera v9.x, so i can't speak for its previous versions, but Opera 9 (and i suspect 7+) have thumbnail previews for the tabs. i think this is available in Firefox through the Tab Mix extension. in 9.10, they looked like this:


Fig. 2 - Tab Previews in Opera 9.10
Opera 9.20 improved on this neat feature by removing the extraneous information and boiling the thumbnail preview down to its essentials.


Fig. 3 - Improved Tab Previews in Opera 9.20
as you can see, the preview is now url independent so the preview box is no longer stretched to wizzle-wazzle when you preview hotmail or something. Encoding, MIME Type and Security have been completely excised because no one really cares what that information when previewing a site you are already visiting. page title and url are moved to the top and bottom respectively to remove the extraneous whitespace. all these changes make the preview a whole lot more attractive than before.

Tab Cycle Preview
this is not a new feature in 9.20, but it's something i found recently and thought i'd share/proselytize. Ctrl+Tab will cycle through your browser's tabs the same way Alt+Tab (or Win+Tab in Vista) will cycle through windows in your taskbar.


Fig. 4 - Default Tab Cycling Interface
a slightly hidden preference allows you to preview the tabs as you cycle through them,


Fig. 5 - Tab Cycling with Thumbnail Previews
making it a whole lot easier to see which site you're scrolling to. with the text only interface, it is easy to select a similarly titled tab, especially if you are cycling through them quickly.

to enable this preview, go to the address bar (or Ctrl+L) and type opera:config to access hidden browser preferences (yes, this was inspired by Firefox's slick about:config, which makes the average user feel like a hacker. opera:config is categorized and slightly less imposing at first glance). in the search field, type 'tab' to quickly find the right toggle. under User Prefs > Use Thumbnails in Tab Tooltips, check the box and click Save.

on a slightly related note, you can cycle through tabs in Opera with a mouse gesture: Right-Click + Scroll Wheel.

Note from me:
moyee thinks this is shaping up to be an epic battle between me/Opera and carl/Firefox on account of our recent posts, but i don't think so. my last summer job asked me to write some instruction manuals for the employees on how to use new software (screenshots, step-by-steps, etc). it was quite fun, so i've continued this here (starting with keyword bookmarking in Firefox, which, by the way, exists in Opera too). i think i prefer teaching by writing, rather than speaking -- not that i am certain anyone is trying out Opera now on account of this. in any case, it's worth a shot if you have time or simply want to learn something new. there are lots of reasons why i (and some others) prefer Opera to other browsers, but i won't get into that tonight.