Rough Cuts Ltd Blog

So for Christmas I bought my Mum a computer book from a very well known (slightly insultingly titled) series of books that allegedly make computing simple. Absolutely 100% up to date, with everything about how to make her Apple Mac do exactly what she wants. Initially the gift was well received, but from conversations I had, it appeared to be draining. Too much, and perhaps not written the way normal people read or talk. In the same way if someone bought me a ladybird book about gardening or er, ladybirds, regardless of how well it was written, I'd likely struggle after page 4. It lacked engagement. I am very privileged to teach and support in 2 schools in sunny North Wales. With groups of both 6-10 year old's starting out with computers for the first time, and more mature teachers, some of whom are totally stuck in their traditional ways of using a computer. Both groups of computer users, make  similar mistakes though, fall into the same pitfalls, or simply don't know, e

So a couple of days ago, I posted about Zoom being a risk. For being 'zoombombed', to having your personal identity stolen, installing malware on your machine, passing your browsing habits on to facebook and other serious and legitimate concerns for users. On the back of that, today we tried our first Skype Meet now with 13 people. In a nutshell, and by comparison (to Zoom) it was very poor. While it only took people a few moments to grasp the interface and no one seemed to have too many issues getting onto the call. People also seemed to like the 'blur background' option. The chat window and the peculiar bubbles that people disappeared into were odd, but ok. Swapping people into the four visible windows worked ok. But not having full grid view was odd. (There is only the option to view 4 at a time, but streams should have been live in the bubbles). People's video feeds kept dropping out (although the sound seemed to be connected throughout), and it was differe

Zoom has been getting a lot of stick recently and not all because of one fault. It seems that there are a number of problems facing the company and after investigating these issues, described below (with links to the source) I've uninstalled the software and will be urging my colleagues to do the same.  There are better alternatives available without the hassle and worry that comes with Zoom. So what are the problems? One group that has had a shock using Zoom is a Norwegian School class who's online lesson was interupted by a naked man . This happened because, by default, Zoom meetings aren't password protected and they're not encrypted. He guessed the meeting number and hey presto, he's naked in a class full of school children. Not good. If that isn't bad enough Zoom yesterday announced that they accidentally allowed their traffic to pass through chinese servers . China has a tempestuous relationship with internet freedom and because Zoom calls aren't