We don’t need no Education
I am a student. I have been as long as I can remember and I will be as long as I can keep remembering (stuff). I am also the son of a teacher, tutor and language specialist.
You see, I was born and raised in a multi-cultural, sometimes-traditionally European family. My parents hail not only from different countries, but from different continents and as such, I had the privilege of being able to immerse myself in a number of other cultures at a rather young age.
Through that very immersion, I was (and, indeed, still am) not only able to understand other cultural traits and traditions better, but I also gained a lot of insight into how my own culture is being thought of by outsiders.
This kind of understanding of course, is not only limited to cultural items but also expands into areas such as education and success and that is indeed what I am going to talk about today.
Before we start, I should probably give you some background information on my (educational) past, simply because I believe that this way, you will be able to see where I am coming from:
In the past decade, I attended five different high schools and one college. I have taken part in a number of non-secondary education related events such as language courses both in-country and on-location and have seen and, of course, experienced more different learning / teaching methods than most people can shake a stick at.
Note that I am not saying that my experience is beyond exhaustive, but I do believe that I have gotten a fair amount of information on this topic.
Now, after two years of college and various talks with students and teachers from around the world, I have come to the conclusion that us Europeans don’t need no education, or at least not like it is now anyway.
Education, without a doubt, is important, very important in fact and while I am not going to go as far as saying that people without proper education are less important members of a society, we all know that the better educated you are, the more options your future (and present) has for you.
I think we can all agree that educational systems were put in place to prepare you for life, to enable you to become a good, heck, great, member of society and contribute as good as you can to the greater good of the whole.
But, I ask you, what good is education that fails to do the one thing you really require: prepare you for life?
The most important part about, well, just about everything, is being able to present yourself, your product, your project, your team, … your anything and not just presenting it, but presenting it the right way.
I have been to a couple of (international) conferences in the past years and if there is one thing that I noticed it is that those speakers and hosts that know how to “work” the audience, generally are able to sell their product, be it a service or a thought or simply an idea, are always more successful than those that have no clue about giving a presentation.
Funnily enough, it seems that eight out of ten times, the bad speakers are of European descent and the great speakers are, most of the time, of American descent or at least have found a way to rid themselves of the European way of presenting and it makes me wonder, why is it like this?
I have talked to educators in the past and I am still talking to educators on a daily basis and many of them seem to be deadlocked in their ways, not realizing that not only they are keeping themselves from learning something new, but also are putting unnecessary obstacles on the road to success of us European students.
The problem is that our education system is, dare I say, hell-bent on training students to become hive-workers, there is little to no incentive to teach us, or at the very least, show us the ways of being a hive-queen.
In the Netherlands, for example, there are exactly two universities that teach classes around the subject of entrepreneurship. During high school, students, in general, give no more than five, maybe six presentations in front of a group of other students.
Translated into numbers, this means that only 8%, that is, less than one tenth, of all Dutch students are thinking about creating a start-up, the other 92% are, more or less, looking toward a job that provides safety until the age of 65 and a good pension.
Only a handful of students are willing to take a chance and there is a deep set angst of risking some (human, financial) capital and either succeeding or falling flat on the floor and that is the problem.
Europe, all in all, has very few failing economies, most countries are stable and provide good working environments. The man even stimulates many new companies with financial contributions and, if need be, even with the right knowledge that is needed to start a company.
Yet, whenever I have heard people asking for or giving advice business advice, it always comes down to “go for the stomach”, which means nothing else than to shoot for the market that everyone is going for, because there is little risk involved and a moderate chance of small-time success, “one would not want anything else…“.
Eight per cent, you really have to stop a minute and think about that number. Now take into account that approximately half of those eight per cent will not make it past the three year mark and we end up with less than one twentieth part of the student populace.
This prompts the question as to why are we not taught to go for the throat, take that long shot with a big chance of missing and a small (tiny?) chance of actually hitting it off big.
The answer: social environment. Family, significant others, friends, coworkers – all of them are conditioned, by our educational system, to tell you that following through on a brilliant idea simply is not done, well, not done in Europe anyway.
On the other side of the pond, your friends would most likely encourage you, tell you to go through with it, heck – the worst thing that could happen is that you burn a bit of money and have to go look for a new job or return to your old day job.
The problem is the mindset of the bigger part of Europeans: The views are simply black and white, you either win, or … you fail. There is no “you may have failed but you gained valuable insight” option. Annoying, to say the least and dangerous to the economies of Europe at best, dangerous because it robs Europe of many talented people, basically turning Europe into one big classified.
Fast Company, already presented one part of the bill to us Europeans this summer with their Fast Cities listing:
Out of a listing of thirty cities, only five are part of the European Union. The reason for this low number is simply that people with the right ideas would rather move overseas (that is, the United States) than to spend their time here, because, again, it comes down to the social environment issue.
And honestly, I can not blame but one of them. I, too, would rather move to a country where the whole “thing” is set up to enable me to create something amazing from scratch. A place where I do not have to shell out twelve large ones only to get a company started.
In closing, let me say this: If you are a student, do yourself and those that come after you, a favor and beg, no, FIGHT for changes that will enable you and your peers to compete with the American economy, but most of all: do not be afraid to shoot to kill…
Take a minute to think about what you want to be able to look back upon at the end of your life - “a sheltered and risk-free life” or a life full of accomplishments?
This article was first posted on NachoTalk in August 2007 and has been reposted here for posterity’s sake
Base, we have a 10-78 (Sprite Backup 6)
For a long time now, the guys (and, of course, gals) from Sprite Mobile have protected your data. As the veteran developers that created Symantec Ghost, this company has all the knowledge in-house that is needed to create a working backup solution.
The Goold Old Days
Right from the start, Sprite Backup has presented itself as a powerful, yet easy to use solution. Sprite Backup stems from a time when there was no Persistent Storage available and OEMs included a (good) backup solution with every device.
These days, Pocket PCs come without any backup solutions; neither Active Sync 4.x nor Windows Mobile Device Center include any kind of backup facility and while Persistent Storage is capable of backing up (most of) your PIM data, for most users, this simply is not enough.
Enter Sprite Backup 6, a no-nonsense solution to backing up and (later) restoring your data.
Four, Five steps to safety
The Pocket PC version features an easy to use interface with items listed in order of importance. Starting out with backup and restore, the lesser needed items such as schedule and options are located on the second row.
The creation of a backup is very straight forward: first you select the data you want to backup. Logic dictates that, the more you backup, the bigger your backup will be and the longer your backup will take to finish.
While there is nothing wrong with going with the default settings, it is always a good idea to have a look through the various items and check / uncheck those that are unneeded in a backup.
The second step involves some basic (meta) information. By default, Sprite Backup creates files with a naming scheme of “Backup_
In order to create a backup, Sprite Backup restarts your device. This is done to clean up the RAM of your device and remove any temporary files. Once the backup starts, you will see a timer and some more status information.
Part of that information is the size of the backup and while that information is certainly useful, it would be better if users would be presented with that information prior to starting a backup. The reason for that is that, should you choose a location without sufficient free memory, you will get an error message and will have to start over.
With today’s storage cards, this should not be a real problem, but it would nonetheless be nice to be presented with this information prior to actually starting the whole process.
After completion, Sprite Backup once again presents the user with various bits of information. Unless your backup fails, this information is really just statistical data without too much value.
Operation: Restore Hope
The idea of making a backup is to have access to important data if (and when) disaster strikes. Time is money they say and so it only makes sense to be able to get to your data quickly.
Sprite Backup offers you the option to create self-running backups, which means that, even if you do not have Sprite Backup installed (for example: after a hard-reset), you can still use the backup file and get your data back.
Once the correct backup file is selected, you are given access to a selection screen which allows you to selectively restore data. The application reboots and proceeds with restoring your data. The amount of time that is needed to (fully) restore your device is largely dependent on the amount of data your backup contains as well as the compression level that was used.
Consider your options
Even though Sprite Backup 6 is powerful enough by default, there is a good chance that you are missing out on an array of great extras if you do not take the time to go through the various options.
For the lazy (or overly cautious?) users, Sprite Backup includes a feature that lets you schedule backups; in combination with the Desktop version, these backups can be stored on a (non-Pocket) PC and provide you with a selection of restoration options in case the need arises.
The scheduled backup option is especially handy when you are too busy to backup data yourself. Once set, your device will continue to create backups at the pre-set times and you will always have access to your latest data - a great fire-and-forget solution.
Another thoughtful feature are the options to limit the amount of space that is used for backup files as well as limiting the amount of individual backup files.
In case you are one of those users that needs to restore their device often, the Backup Card function is something you should take a look at. With it enabled, an autorun setup will be created on your storage card of choice which will automagically start Sprite Backup whenever the card is inserted.
There are a couple more options which definetely are worth looking at, such as encrypting the backup or selecting the upgrade mode, but these items are outside the scope of this article.
One option that is, however, worth mentioning is the Phone SIM Unlock option. The way Sprite Backup is set up requires your device to be restarted at least twice during a backup process and if you are on a Pocket PC Phone Edition device, that means entering your PIN multiple times. With the Phone SIM Unlock option, you can store your PIN and have Sprite Backup enter the PIN for you.
This feature is particularly handy when you use scheduled backups and do not want to come back to a device that did reboot but was not able to sign in to a mobile phone network.
Upgrades and Updates
Mobile Devices have become disposable products to many people. In general, a life-cycle lasts between 14 and 18 months and moreover, during this time, there will be at least one ROM update for your device.
Usually, when you create a backup on one device and then either replace said device or upgrade your ROM, your backup will be useless. Sprite Backup 6 however, includes a feature that will allow you to keep using your backup, no matter what. The feature in itself looks very simple, but the looks are deceiving. Luckily, there is a good explanation in the help section.
Location independent data
A wise man once said that only wimps use backups, real men just upload their important stuff to a FTP server and let the rest of the world mirror it. While I neither agree with the first, nor second statement, there is some truth in mirroring your data off-site.
Sprite Backup 6 offers you just that; the new version includes a built-in FTP backup option which is very easy to use. Considering that every ISP offers a bit of webspace with every subscription and many people have dedicated webspace, this is a great way of making sure that your data stays safe.
The great thing about this options is that, no matter how your FTP server is set up, you will be able to use the FTP backup option because of the high customizability.
On a related note: storing backup data in a different geographical location is one of the best ways to ensure that you still have access to whatever files your backup includes, even if disaster strikes.
One More Thing
… that deserves to be mentioned is the very detailed help file. For example, the functionality of the Phone SIM Unlock feature might not be obvious to someone right from the start, so take a minute to read through the included help file and you will understand the feature a lot better.
The cost of data
Good things don’t come for free, but they most assuredly come at a very affordable and seemingly unchangeable price. In fact, the price of Sprite Backup has not changed since as long as I can remember and that goes back to 2003.
Starting at $20, you can get your hands on the Lite version, which has all the above mentioned features except for the Desktop conduit.
For $10 more, you will get the full(er) version, which includes the Desktop conduit and excludes some extra sorrow on your part by means of automatic, off-device backups.
For the curious: the title of this post refers to the police radio code for “backup / assistance” needed.
Feest.je - Recap!
Yesterday evening, the guys from The Next Web, Fleck, Wakoopa and Twones invited a select audience to Feest.je in order to celebrate their recent successes with the respective companies and introduce a couple of new features.
Wakoopa launched a new design and Fleck showcased a couple of new features and the guys from Twones provided some interesting insight into their upcoming release.
Getting to know the right people is not impossible at such parties, but it certainly is harder if you do not own a company that is in the news every other day. Getting to know the people that matter is even harder, especially if you do not have some kind of (paper) business card.
While I do not like the idea of a (paper) business card on its own, simply for the fact that the information can not be updated easily nor can you decide who gets which information (it is: all or nothing), I do understand that even though it is called a Web 2.0 community, paper still sways its scepter over the way contact information is shared.
Since I do not own a fancy company or work for someone that plays in the Web 2.0 scene, I figure that there is little to no information I could put on a business card that would make it worth the paper.
Something I am happy with, however, is my LinkedIn profile, because it showcases some of the things I have done and I personally enjoy staying in contact with my contacts on a serious platform which just works a lot better for me than, say, Facebook.
With LinkedIn, if you want to connect with another person, you only really need two things: a name and an email address and that is exactly what I put on my hand-outs:
I do not have any stats yet, but I think the cards worked pretty well. Mostly because of their unusual format and because they are a no-nonsense way of communicating those bits of information that are important.
The product in itself, unfortunately, is no official LinkedIn item and not sanctioned by the powers that be, but I figure that this could be of interest to more people.
Naturally, “pimping” yourself is important, but one should never go to a party without bringing at least something, some kind of gift, for the host(s).
Truth be told, I had have a gift for the hosts, the only problem is that it was delivered today, on the day that Feest.je was originally slated to happen and not yesterday, the revised date for the party.
That said, what do you give someone who has a beautiful wife partner and kids and more web properties than you can shake a stick at? Exactly, something he does not have and the answer to what it actually is will follow soon.
Introductory Camp - Recap!
I got back from the introductory camp a couple of hours ago and there is only one way to describe it: “it kicked ass”.
Just about everyone I spoke to was very happy with how it all worked out and how great the group of students were. We (as “crew”) have helped set up camps before, but this one was probably the most successful: no broken limbs, no fighting and not even any alcohol abuse, the only thing we had plenty of was good times.
The first day we were treated to music from Destine and after that, we got creative with some STOMP’ish music.
Although no prizes were awarded, it is rather safe to say that my team won, not only because our performance looked hot, but also because everyone genuinely enjoyed the 90 seconds of entertainment we created. For a group of people that has never worked together before, it is amazing how well we did.
The second day was all about playing (and winning) games and even though my group was missing two students, we still aced just about every game with ease.
During the off-times, I managed to get some quality time in with our new students and it is amazing to see how motivated some of them are and how content they are with the choice they have made.
Jeroen, Lotte, Jasper, Tim, Mirte, Nils, Flore, Luuk, Martijn, Rik, I wish all of you the best of luck for the coming four years. At times, you will face seemingly insurmountable problems and then again, you will go through classes with an ease that amazes even you.
Access to higher education is, sadly, still a privilege for many, so you should try to make the most of it. Go out, expand your horizon, re-think the way you think, meet interesting people, learn cool stuff, make experiences that will last you a life time and most of all: never be afraid to deviate from the traditional path and try something new.
As Robert Frost put it so aptly:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Update:
For some visual impressions of the camp, have a look at my gallery. Video clips will be added later.
On standing up people you value
It is said that one should treat his friends well, for they are worth much more than any wealth or property in the world.
There is a lot of truth to be found in the proverbs of the Bourgeoisie, because these figures of speech are tried and time-tested and thus still hold true in this very day and age.
If I were the dramatic kind of person, I would say that today marks the first day of a different life for me. The reason for that is that I stood up a friend and person I respect a lot, a person I look up to and a person I have had the privilege of sharing a great amount of things with together.
I pride myself in being the loyal kind of friend, the person that you can rely on when things start hitting the fan at light speed. I normally am the person that will stand by you, even if others abandoned you long ago and yet, here I am, looking back at three weeks of utter stupidity, immature behavior and very un-me-ish actions.
In today’s world, it is hard to find the rare ones, the ones that are willing to teach you, tutor you and show you the stuff that you would normally have to pay for, fight for and beg for.
I have managed to find one of these rare ones and I treasured it for a long time now, in fact, I still do but at the end of the day, not everything is mutual.
It is said that one should treat his friends well, for they are worth much more than any wealth or property in the world.
It is also said that, given time and space, friendships can overcome hardships and problems and issues can be solved, made to disappear and cease to exist and to be honest, there is nothing in this world that I would like to do more.
I have grown attached to you, to you as a person, to you as a friend, to you as a tutor and to to you as a contact. You made me cheer when I felt bad and you provided perspective when I needed it. You, my friend, made me do a great amount of things I would not have done, or even considered, without your gentle prod.
In return, you received zilch, nothing, nada. Just an unthankful, short-sighted and incredibly stupid person.
This is not how friendships work and I realize that. I also realize that saying “I learned my lesson” does not cut it here, in fact, it does not cut it all - it does not even scratch it.
My actions were crazy, disrespectful and plain shitty, period. I hope that, at some point, we can reestablish our friendship and that you will be able to trust me again. I would like that, I would like that very much.
For those that were expecting juicy bits in this letter, I apologize. I feel that there is no need to involve my contacts, simply because this is not about their name(s), but about honesty and remorse.