Honours project research

Ok, since the most important thing about these posts is going to be the content, I'm not going to worry so much about how the information is presented and how I choose to form my sentences I'm just going to write stuff down before ideas fade.

Kiddix:
First up is the Kiddix operating system, from what I can tell, this basically a modified KDE environment made by a company in the US. The bad thing about this is that it costs $75 in spite of being built mostly upon GPL software. This means I can't exactly try it out, another issue is that there isn't exactly a huge amount of information on it. But still, it's useful to know of it's existance, I could possibly even try emailing them to find out more.

Debian Jr.:
There really isn't so much to say about this right now since what I really need to do is download the test live CD and give it a whirl. From the looks of things this isn't being actively developed anymore since the last news entry was towards the end of 2003

Edubuntu:
I don't know why this thought didn't occur to me before. While searching I came across this article which opened my eyes to this option. I always thought it was for older kids. I'll need to find out what it's goals are and try it out on one of my machines.

Research:
So far I have found that I'm not the first person to have this idea for a project, however the project paper [*.pdf link] I have found is using ideas completely different to my own. Can use this in my literature review?

This article contains useful information about Interface design for children.

Here is an interesting part of an interview with Dr. Madelon Evers, Managing Producer at Human Shareware.

Kevin:

What differences are there between your design for childrenand your design for an adult audience?

Madelon:

In general children are much more critical --
They have no patience.
They click before they listen and often (especially boys, we've noticed) need to come back to something a number of times before they really get it, not because they are unintelligent but because they are trigger happy.
They don't read (not counting if they are too young to read).
They want clear responses and intelligent systems.
They need a lot of feedback and like to have a lot of interesting instruction and encouragement when there is a learning challenge.
They need reinforcement of their experience on the computer in the classroom or outside / beyond the computer; we make this a central part of the concepts we create since it also keeps the teachers happy!
Kids never ask why do I need this programme; adults are much more sceptical.
The computer is a huge motivator for kids; our work with dyslexic kids showed they solved alot of learning and concentration problems through the computer simply because the dynamic is different and the computer is patient with them, day in day out.

Full interview here.

This link will be useful for ideas for software to include in my repackaged distro.

The layout requirements in this *.pdf [*.pdf link] Could be extremely useful. This paper is about the same project.

This article is very interesting [*.pdf link] but I am not sure if it is relevant.

This blog post has a video which shows how the Sugar UI works and an interesting post to go with it. Although the Sugar UI is represented with a "Mac OSX" style, this is how the Sugar UI is used. Really, I'm still torn between trying to use Sugar for this project, or modifying gnome. More info on Sugar here.

A note on using gnome, Glade could be useful for developing interfaces to control shell scripts.

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From Edited

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Too introverted even to blog?

Increasingly I'm starting to think this is the case, you know I've half written about 6 or 7 posts for this blog I simply haven't published. Every time I write something I worry about sounding like an idiot. To be honest, as much as I read stuff on the Internet, I don't often communicate back. Sure I use messenger to keep in touch with some friends but I don't really do that so often these days either. Having said all this I don't think I'm the kind of person most people like, I'm quite lazy, unattractive and my only real passions are computers, video-games and music. I'm not saying there is nothing to like about me, just that most of what there is to like about me lies beneath the surface I guess.

I should try to talk more, I just don't know who to or what about :-/

//Xi

So it takes you over 2 months to make a post?

It has been a while since I started this blog and I've yet to really write anything meaningful, I did start to write a some entries over the last couple of months, but to be honest with moving house and everything this blog hasn't been very high on my list of priorities. It's been an eventful couple of months but I've settled in to the new flat and my flatmate and I are very happy with the place. It's a little smaller than we would have liked since it only has one bedroom, but we've sectioned off part of the living room and my bed is behind it so we both still have our own spaces but we still have a living room. It's also meant that I can get back into my favorite pastime, video games.

It seems there is at the moment a very large focus on Bioshock but the game I've been playing most recently is The Darkness. Put simply I think it's the best first person shooter I've played since Half Life 2, it has a very engaging story, fantastic gunplay and environments that are incredibly detailed. Jackie, the main character in the game, acquires various "darkness powers" throughout which can be used to devastating effect in battle. My personal favorite is the ability to use the creatures' talon to pick up objects, smash lights and impale enemies. These abilities add to the experience however sometimes it can feel like they are making up for the rather dull collection of firearms you gather while playing.

The dark is very much your friend in this game since the light hurts the creatures which provide you with some extra shielding while you are using them. The game seems to take place during almost perpetual night so you can darken areas simply by shooting out sources of light. There is a limited period of time you can spend in the light while using the creatures but during this time they loose their darkness energy which means you can't use their powers if you stay in the light for too long.

For most of the game I used a combination of the darkness powers and pistols, however I don't see this as a bad thing. The weapons are quite well balanced and you find more powerful weapons such as SMGs and assualt rifles as you progress, I just like the accuracy of the pistols. Jackie always dual wields his pistols, the left and right triggers are used to fire the appropriate weapon, however while the appearance of the pistols changes as different guns are retrieved from downed enemies, the differences are entirely cosmetic. During the reload animation these pistols sometimes change which can be really confusing at the start of the game but after a short while you get used to it.

The strength of the enemies in The Darkness doesn't really change, two shots to the head with pistols generally kills most of the enemies in the game, hence using the pistols so much. For some reason, this is a style I have grown to prefer, instead of fighting tougher and tougher creatures situations are made more interesting by having more enemies in harder to reach places.

One of the things I really liked about The Darkness was that there are people walking around who you can help out if you choose to do so. I don't think it has any impact on the story but it's a really nice touch since it also helps to flesh out the universe a bit and make the game's world feel more alive and filled with people. I don't want to give too much of the game away to anyone who hasn't played it yet, but if you haven't I would thoroughly recommend it if you like first person shooters with a focus on story.

//Xi

"Hmm, a blog, what are you planning to do with that?"

Well, to be honest, I'm not sure I know the answer to that question myself yet but I thought I would try and write about things I come across on the 'net, video-games, things that happen to me as days pass and other random things that really don't matter so much. You see I forget a lot, and as I get older I wish I could remember more about what happens from day to day. I guess what I'm trying to say is I will write about various things probably with little context to tie the whole thing together, but then again I'm not writing this for anyone specific, I'm writing this for me mostly ^_^ If you know me, or if you're just curious feel free to have a read and leave comments. Please also have a listen to some of the music I've created.

//Xi