The Community Engine

take me to the mall

This article praises Walmart.com, Amazon, Apple and eBay for high online holiday sales. It’s interesting because actual results aren’t released until January, but predictions are made based on the amount of traffic between these sites and their shipping sites. If web users are browsing items and clicking on links to ship, they’re probably buying. Online shopping is predicted to grow about 24% this holiday season. That doesn’t surprise me, but I don’t think I’ll be included in that statistic. During the rest of the year, I do sometimes appreciate the convenience of online shopping - even though actually seeing/touching my purchase is a lot more fun. But during the holidays - I think it’s more than seeing the items, it’s actually experiencing the stores. What’s Christmas shopping without all the decorations and music surrounding you at the mall? That’s my opinion - and I’m sure it isn’t shared by all, especially those who hate the crowds more than they love the atmosphere.

The article makes a good point about a different use for online retail sites: research.

…retailers such as Target Corp. and Best Buy Co. may be coming up short in terms of converting traffic into Web sales. It was not clear, however, if this was due to some other dynamic — whether shoppers were simply looking at products online that they would later buy in stores, for example.

I do this all the time - and it can really make your trip to the store easier. Especially when you have to learn a significant amount about the purchase before you buy - like computers or other electronics.

In jb's blog, 12/20/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Merry Christmahununkwanzakah

As the blogging portion of the class comes to a close, it also signifies the end of a semester. People are starting to slow down a bit as finals time runs down, and the holiday spirit begins to set in. I want to wish everyone the best Christmas, Chununkah, Kwanzaa, or whatever you may or may not celebrate this holiday season (yeah, that’s about as PC as you can get. ). It’s been a great semester and I wish everyone the best of luck next semester and beyond.

In Matt's Musings, 12/20/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Can you hear me now? Umm…no.

A while back Supriya blogged about a possible migration of cellular companies from CDMA to GSM. PinkFootsie commented on the prevelance of cellular players outside of the US.

I’m a recent convert to the GSM camp. For years I had Verizon, followed by Sprint, and then Nextel. They all operate on CDMA networks. The each had various levels of call clarity (from high to low as listed), however I was never satisfied with the level of services offered. Then this summer I switced over to Cingular. While my call quality is definitely not as high as it was with Verizon or Sprint, I am a much happier cusomter. GSM phones use SIM cards, so transfering data from phone to phone is much easier, plus the GSM providers tend to offer a greater array of services.

However, lately it seems as if the GSM providers (Cingular, T-mobile) have been resting on their previously superior laurels while the CDMA providers have been upgrading their networks like crazy to reach 3G land. So I’ll give the throne at the moment to CDMA.

At this point, I don’t think their is a clear winner between the two technologies. Both have their pros and cons and from what I can tell, one isn’t necessarily better than the other. However, I think the cellular market would benefit from a unified standard (take a look at DVDs vs the Betamax/VHS fiasco). A unified standard would allow cell technology to advance and explode to unprecedented levels across the globe and very well may pave the way for a truly global communications network. However, CDMA towers aren’t easily converted over to GSM technology, so I don’t see the CDMA providers switching over anytime soon. They’ve spent billions of dollars on their current networks to change now.

So I’m not holding my breath for a change. But I CAN NOT WAIT for US carriers to get with the program and approach the level of technology currently enjoyed by the European and Japanese populace. I can not wait…until then, I’ll just drool at the phones I run across on Gizmodo.

In Matt's Musings, 12/19/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Would you like no ‘ or two ‘’ ?

After reading Kevin’s post about Requirement 6, I checked out that SQL script he suggest.

It seems to be exactly what we’re looking for. However, when I tried to implement the script via the X-team, I ran into some syntax problems. In order to select a specific table, the script required that the table name be between apostrophes. However, the bind variable ? does not work when placed between apostrophes, ‘?’. Does anyone know how to get around this syntax error?

In Matt's Musings, 12/19/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Server Side Up

In a recent post by Shady she comments,

“We would input information for a retailer through the web and it wouldn’t show up, out of the 5 - 10 times we tried to input, 2 or 3 would actually go through and show up on the website. It wouldn’t work, and then it would work, and then it wouldn’t work.”

Supermatt adds to Shady’s comments with,

“We have had similar issues were our code partly works, but never inconsistency when we update data. Although we have not inserted much today.”

Without knowing exactly what you were inserting I can’t say for sure, but I would bet that you were running into problems with non-escaped characters. With many databases, characters such as apostrophes and quotes can cause an insert statement to fault. This occurs because of the coding language uses these characters to delimit statements and so when it encounters when of these characters in your statement, it thinks it has reached the end of the statement and the insert fails. So when inserting things such as apostrophes, ampersands, quotes and such use HTML ASCII codes such as ” or &. Or escape the characters with a \ as in \&.

In Matt's Musings, 12/19/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Opinion of BIT 320

I think that this course is extremely valuable and will be useful for a long, long time. I think that Bud provided a good high level overview, so that even the non-techie, non-programmer could understand how each language and step in the process linked together to provide the ultimate functionality that we were trying to obtain. I also think that the books were useful, especially with the course notes that gave good summaries of the chapters. I feel like I have a good enough knowledge that if a company came to me with a problem like Denali’s, that I would be able to figure out what steps to take to solve their problem and with the class resources as a guide, I could implement them. This is an extraordary amount of knowledge to learn in one semester.

In future classes, I would recommend a little more focus in class of what the function of everything is as if it were explained to the lamen. When people didn’t understand what the goal of learning how to do certain coding was, I believe that they lost the high interest level that they had when they understood clearly why it was important. As Pink Footsie said in her last blog, there are not many techie classes taught in the business school, so it is important to make the understanding simple for students who take this course. BIT301 prepared us for the first half of the course, so I am referring more to the second half.

In general, I would recommend that anyone who asks me should take this course. My biggest complaint about B-school classes in general is that they do not provide actual skills and specific knowledge that will be useful. They are usually filled with b.s. and ways of talking around situations with business jargon like ‘brand equity’. This class provides interesting, important, and useful skills that will help anyone with a career in business and especially with a focus in technology.

In musings of william h, 12/19/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Advice for improving your interviews with BIT320

At a recent interview for an IT focused consulting firm, I was asked to describe some previous work that I’ve done in courses or a job that related to this type of work. I went into detail about the Denali project, and I recommend that you do the same at your next IT related interview. It provides a perfect story for them to hear the qualities and experience that they are looking for in a candidate.

Tell them about Denali, what the problem to solve is, then explain you decided to solve it (project 1) and how you have learned to implement the solution (project 2). This will put you far ahead other candidates, because it IS a real consulting project. I recommend that you flesh the story out and give yourself credit for devising the solution. I would even recommend using this for a job in a couple of years. This project is legitimate to use in an interview for any level job you’ll encounter in the next 5 years and it discusses technology and languages that will still be useful for a while.

In musings of william h, 12/19/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Server Problem??

Following up on Shadywater’s question:

We couldn’t decide if it was our code’s problem or as we recently discovered at bud’s office, could be a server issue. What does everyone else think? Does anyone else run into the same problems?

We have not found this problem to be true. We have had similar issues were our code partly works, but never inconsistency when we update data. Although we have not inserted much today. Yesterday we added lots of data without problems. If it is a server problem please let us know.

In SuperMatt, 12/19/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Servering Inconsistancies

So, as we were wrapping up our project 2 and just trying to our last minute testing to make sure everything works and we ran into some inconsistancies.

We would input information for a retailer through the web and it wouldn’t show up, out of the 5 - 10 times we tried to input, 2 or 3 would actually go through and show up on the website. It wouldn’t work, and then it would work, and then it wouldn’t work. We couldn’t decide if it was our code’s problem or as we recently discovered at bud’s office, could be a server issue. What does everyone else think? Does anyone else run into the same problems?

In Shady Waters, 12/19/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

More RSS help

In addition to the helpful hint Kevin suggested. Another resource that I found helpful when learning RSS are two books from the library:

“Developing feeds with RSS and Atom” by Ben Hammersley
“Content syndication with RSS” by Ben Hammersley

If you were looking for the books I currently have the checked out from the Art, Architecture and Engineering library so if you are looking for them email me and I’ll get them to you. Good luck and happy coding.

In SuperMatt, 12/19/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Helpful Hint

Requirement #6 asks us to generate a “show all tables and columns” report. At first we weren’t quite sure what this meant. After some exploration, we discovered the list_column_info_for_all.sql in our SQL directories. This should pull together all the tables and views.

Hope this helps!

In Kevin's Blog, 12/19/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Update Forms

In class we’ve mainly been focusing on how to add new data via forms — but what about updating data? What if the sales representative enters the wrong information? Or what if one of the stores changes phone numbers? The trick is to use the update command instead of the insert command. You also need to use the attribute axis (@) in place of the bind parameter. You should end up with something looking like this:

xsql:set-page-param name=”id1″ value=”{@id1}”

UPDATE tableName SET id1 = ‘{@id1}’
WHERE id2 = ‘{@id2}’;

Hopefully this helps the other teams out. Good luck with the projects!

In Kevin's Blog, 12/19/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

RSS - Team Goes for Bonus

Matt and I have been working on the RSS feed all night and we think we finally got it working! The feed is located at the following URL: http://elab-linux4.bus.umich.edu:8080/%7Ekevlers/RSS/testRSS.xsql (Bud - can you tell us if we’re all set with the feed)

The purpose of the feed is to notify customers of new store additions to the database. This is especially important to customers who do not have any stores in their immediate area. They can use the feed as a watch-list to see if any stores start carrying Denali Flavors. The xsql file pulls the information directly from the database, so it should be a valid feed, as opposed to just a well-formed document.

If any other teams are attempting to get the RSS feed working, I would recommend looking at this web site.

In Kevin's Blog, 12/19/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

The End is Near

As the semester draws to a close, I’m sure one question on everyone’s mind is what’s going to happen to http://www.thecommunityengine.com/bit320? Is the site simply going to close or will our posts live on? Will we be able to post once the course is over? Maybe Bud can let us know what he’s planning on doing. I absolutely think it’s worth keeping and would be beneficial to show future classes how we were able to develop a successful information community.

In Kevin's Blog, 12/18/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Responding to Aga

Aga, saw your two posts. I was unaware of the jEdit problem. You can log into two separate hosts under different user names, i.e., thecommunityengine.com and elab-linux4.bus.umich.edu. I guess, per your report, not the same host though.

As for your other issue, I fixed it. We should talk. The general strategy is what I outlined here, but a few of the details were missing in your effort. You were right. You almost had it.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 12/18/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Almost there: Please help

We’re getting the query form to work and we’re almost there. I got it to work (it’s simple, but the big complicated baby is being born tomorrow). I got everything to work except for the data to show up as a table. I’ve been trying to figure out what’s not working with connecting the simpleTable.xsl to the final output file and the only thing I could come up with was the templatematch command which refers to the rowset-element. I think everything is right so I’m out of ideas. Something’s missing and I’m determined to make this work. Please help. The files that interlink are on Kevin’s account under webapps/XSQL5/XSQL5TEST called createStoreInsertFormAGA1.xsql, customerHTMLAGA.xsl, insertStoreHTMLAGA.xsl, insertStoreAGA.xsql. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

In Pink Footsie, 12/18/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Disappointment with jEdit

One of the shortcomings with jEdit I noticed while working on this project is the inability to have several windows opened under a couple accounts. We’ve stored some things on my account, some things on kevin’s and others on matt’s because sometimes we had login problems when we worked simultaneously on someone’s account. Now trying to look between accounts either requires us to save it under somebody else’s account or opening and closing one person’s account and logging into the next person’s, searching for what we need and then closing that account and reopening the other person’s. Probably the easiest thing would be to transfer all of it to one person’s account (which we will have to do anyway) but this is definitely a shortcoming of the program. When you have two or more jEdit windows open it clears both into one person’s account. It’s something the designers could work on.

In Pink Footsie, 12/18/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

RSS Project Question, SuperMatt Goes for Bonus

Matt references an RSS question Aga raised last week. Frankly, I confused this one with a bookmark someone had made about RSS resources they had found for the project. The bookmark sounded like people were charging ahead. Matt and Aga want some ideas for how RSS could be used for Denali. Here’s a couple of ideas:

A feed of the most recent flavor requests from customers. Maybe the zip code could be a category element (i.e., a tag). You could easily aggregate requests by zip. Flavor might be another category element.
You could also have a feed of salesperson updates.

Basically, the ideas is to use RSS as a notification format. Categories give you convenient ways to aggregate the information in the feed.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 12/17/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

RSS Question still not answered

A week ago Aga wondered:

We’re wondering what kind of functionality would you like us to have involving RSS? We have a couple of ideas on how we could feed, but we’re wondering what are some options or preferential ways to feed into (let’s say we have a website…what do we feed it to? is there anything else we should consider?). Though we haven’t gotten to it, we’d like to attempt this portion though we may not get it to work. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

We still haven’t resolved this issue and now I am trying to decide which data I should try to transform into valid RSS feeds. Any ideas or thoughts are welcomed. Thank you

In SuperMatt, 12/17/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

GSM technologies

Supriya recently wrote about Sprint’s possible move to GSM technology. I also researched wireless technology (we are in the same group in CSIB) and that’s good news for T-Mobile who shares a huge GSM network with its parent company, Deutsche Telekom. It is still the most reliable network and it is the most popular and widespread network globally. This might be why some companies might still be interested in investing in it. The economies of scale and the ability to expand your business into emerging markets might seem like a gold rock. Moreover, companies have to compete on many different fronts, and though Cingular, Verizon and Sprint are the mac daddy’s of the US market, it’s Vodafone, Bell and Deutsche Telekom that fire away in Europe (where cell phones are even more popular, and the market more saturated than in US, if you can believe it) and quickly forcing their way into China and other fresh markets. I guess what will happen remains to be seen, as network effects can be gained by moving to more popular technologies but US has always been the leader in technological movement but also not wanting to fall in line with the rest of the world, sometime because it’s strategic defensively (US security, and you’d be amazed how quickly you can disarm a country by sabotaging its electrical or wireless networks, just remind yourself of the big outage 2 years ago). The cards are to be dealt within the next 1.5 years.

In Pink Footsie, 12/17/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

[no title]

The few comments that I got from outsiders about my blogs I really like because they have been about my Opinionslug ways. I have written a commentary on one journalist’s response to Microsoft’s Annual competition called “Don’t be so bitter”. He in turn responded back with:

Yes you are right, it is a choice. And I guess my comments might come off as bitter, but I’m trying to make a point. What the world needs is more entrepreneurs. Did you know that small businesses account for approximately 60% of the U.S. workforce? Growing the world’s ability to produce more wealth is the end result of building entrepreneurs. I believe that Microsoft should help these young technologists build their own companies, not steal their ideas with a bribe.

Another one was in reference to del.icio.us “For” feature and I got some advice:

You may want to have a look at Simpy’s Group functionality for a more robust non-tag-poluting public/private/invite/etc. version of that feature.

And one all the way back talking about Denali website characters. I think this is my favorite part of blogging, the interaction, the people who share and those who don’t your point of view. It’s a true test to knowledge management where people feed off of others’ opinions and thoughts to form an even better end product.

In Pink Footsie, 12/17/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Answering Supriya’s question from 30,000 feet

After clearly having done much leg work, Supriya asks a rather detailed but conceptual question about how to employ user input to refine a query. My best answer, given the conceptual nature of the question, is to study XSQL4. In XSQL4, we took user input into an html form and submitted it to an XSQL page. In XSQL4, this page then added data to the database, but you could very easily have had the page just ask a query substituting the form data for the bind parameters.

My best advice is to start trying to figure out how to adapt XSQL4 and start asking questions from there.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 12/17/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

jbartko panics much too soon!

Jenny notes some continuing problems using a database sequence to generate a customer ID. Her team has struggled with this, and it is indeed hard to get to work right. You have to set up a sequence in oracle. You have to use XSQL to grab a new number from the sequence and XSLT to convert the result into an html form. Finally you have to submit the form to another XSQL page that actually inserts the customer into the database.

Well, Jenny’s group got the Oracle problem solved and thought they had everything set up for the rest of the chain. But, they were still getting an error message.

However, I tried it now, and it just worked.

“How can that be?” you might ask. Well, at each phase in the chain I just described, there is caching. Oracle cashes, XSQL and XSLT cache, and your browser caches. It can be hard to get all of these caches to clear out. Waiting a little bit can fix the issue. Changing the file slightly and resaving it can also fix the issue.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 12/17/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Project Question

I have a question regarding our project. So, I am trying to create a form which asks the customer to enter the retailername and outputs the store information (address, phone etc.) for the retailername queried by the customer.

Now, I have the xsql, xsml and xml working right now. But it is setup such that when I convert the xsql to xml, I enter RETAILERNAME= MEIJER in the secureshell as per the discussions with Tigerliliy and Bud earlier. But now I want to automate the whole process so that a form shows up on the screes where the customer enters Meijer, and the information shows up. My question is that how do I remove the manual interface of entering information in the secure shell, and put it in a form instead?

Bud, I know you mentioned about FORM ACTION, and to use that in your OH. However, where do I put this command? Does it go in the XSQL file, or do I create another file (of what type?)? Is there an example of such an interface with the form that we may have done in class?

I would really appreciate some help. Please let me know if you need any clarification. Thank you.

In supriya, 12/17/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

need more help please

Follow up to Lindsay’s post:

Part 1 of our problem is solved. Create statements have been updated, sequences in there, etc.

PART 2 - we still don’t know what to do. High level problem: it is not grabbing the next number and putting it in the table. Therefore, we get a message that it cannot insert a null value for primary key (customer ID). Here’s the error message:

ORA-01400: cannot insert NULL into (”JBARTKO”.”CUSTOMER”.”CUSTOMERID”) ORA-06512: at line 2

Help?

In jb's blog, 12/17/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

sequence problems

Lindsay mentions some sequence problems. Specifically, she is getting these problems:

create sequence retID increment by 1 start with 100
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00955: name is already used by an existing object

From the message, the issue is clearly that something else has the name she wants to give her sequence. A two part solution:

Give the sequence another name that will be unique, for instance, retIDSeq giving: create sequence retIDSeq increment by 1 start with 100
When dropping tables, don’t forget to drop the sequence, for instance, drop sequence retIDSeq

In Blogonautic Solutions, 12/16/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Class Idea - Continued

Like Pink Footsie and Shady Waters, I definitely feel that there should be more “techie” classes at the business school. Personally, my experience with the BIT (once called CIS) program has been rather dissappointing. Coming into college, I wanted to do a CIS/MIS major, and pursue a career along those lines. I was deciding b/w the MIS program at Carnegie Mellon and the BIT Program here at the U of M. However, when I started with the business school here, I realized that there were not enough BIT classes or they were not as techie as I would like some of them to be, in order to get a solid CIS degree. Right now, I have enough classes to get a ” BIT concentration” but I feel that my knowledge is really not as good or thorough as some students graduating from other CIS programs. Realizing this last semester, I decided to pursue another concentration in Finance which also changed my career path.

I really hope that the business school adds more BIT classes, and make a strong BIT curriculum to match programs in schools like Wharton or CMU.

In supriya, 12/16/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Want to decode your Smile :)?

Reading news earlier this morning, I came across this article: “Computer Decodes Mona Lisa’s Smile” So, a computer engineer - Ncu Sebe, at the University of Amsterdam developed a software that can decode smiles. Sounds almost bizarre to me that a computer s/w can decode your smile and interpret your emotions!? Here is the method they used to decode Mona Lisa’s smile:

Sebe loaded average, neutral expressions of female faces into a database, which the software used to compare the painting against, says the “New Scientist” Web site.

And came up with these results:

The findings? Mona Lisa was 83 percent happy, 9 percent disgusted, 6 percent fearful, and 2 percent angry, according to the British weekly “New Scientist.”

Has technology really advanced to the level where we can use computers to decode smiles? Also, I would think that each person would have very unique ways of expressing emotion, and maynot have the same facial expression or smile when responding to a particular emotion. Hence, how can you just compare against the average smiles and come up with such findings which sound rather precise?

In supriya, 12/16/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Exersizing past technology

I found an article on Nytimes that talks about getting inshape for those who play too many video games. It runs off of the PS2 and its called Eyetoy: Kinetic. There’s a video that tracks your movements and displays it on the screen and shows you where to move next. Essentially its just a video workout for your PS2 with a little interaction on the side.

I think video games and computers have given us an easy way out of just getting off our chairs, putting on some shoes and going out and doing some exersize…by ourselves or with others. It’s just sad that instead of going out and swimming, running, playing some sport, we would rather jump up and down in front of the TV or computer and relate to a video or a game than other people. And that’s one sad thing I think we’ve lost in this digital age ;(

In Shady Waters, 12/16/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Right on the Wiki

So a few people were talking about Wikipedia and the possible lies behind it since it its a user populated database. Sorry I couldn’t find the post for some reason, our tag cloud and the number of posts we have in totally is extremely large -_-

But I ran across an article in the NYtimes, a science journal, Nature says that Wiki

is about as accurate in covering scientific topics as Encyclopedia Britannica

And that the problems regarding incorrect information is actually very rare.

students got into a debate about the integrity of Wiki because many students use it now for research projects and what not. How much can you trust this or any source on the internet. I’ve found Wiki to be wrong on certain things but for the most part it is a detailed source and most of the time I try to get other sources that back it up or take it with a grain of salt.

In Shady Waters, 12/16/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Will del.icio.us be as del.icio.us?

Yahoo had an article about their recent acquisition of del.icio.us. Del.icio.us users are worried that their social bookmarking expereince will not be the same. They worry that Yahoo will “wallpaper del.icio.us with banner ads, force users to obtain a Yahoo ID and change the user interface.” Toby Padilla said:

“I’m very happy for the del.icio.us team for their successful exit, but as a user I’m a bit saddened by the fact that they aren’t going to try to go it alone. I think there is a certain amount of opportunity cost when an acquisition like this happens. I think their innovation will slow as they have to contend with the baggage of existing Yahoo services and general corporate bureaucracy.”

I truly hope that del.icio.us doesn’t change because I like it the way it is.

In Tigerlily's Blog, 12/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Is CDMA dead?

“Will US carriers switch mobile standards?” I read this rather shocking article which talks about how the US Wireless industry is moving from CDMA to GSM technology. I was shocked because I have been doing a lot of research on CDMA since I am writing a CSIB paper on Sprint which is a leader in CDMA technology. From the articles that I have read earlier, I got an impression that CDMA is still a leading technology in the US, and Sprint is further developing it by adding additional data features to it like the EV-DO technology and 3G networks. Also, there were discussions on how Sprint, after its recent merger with Nextel, will be able to combine its CDMA technology with Nextel’s WiDen services and lead the industry with the best networks.

However, this article talks about how there is a migration from CDMA to GSM. The article reads:

“CDMA is losing market share globally as the new mobile phone users live mostly in the areas where GSM is the leading technology”

From earlier blogs, I realize that our class has a good knowledge of different networks and the wireless industry since many of us are researching it for CSIB. What are your opinions? Is Sprint going to convert to GSM, and will GSM really take over CDMA?

In supriya, 12/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Cheater cheater pumpkin eater..

Shadywaters recently posted about the big problem of cheating which seems to be surrounding B-School lately (First year BBA’s may I add *ahem*). I guess I never understood the point of cheating in college. I mean cheating shouldn’t happen period, but when you’re in high school and you’re forced tot ake certain classes, you will do anything to get an A so it doesn’t look bad on your transcript for HS. College isn’t about just getting that A anymore,I mean yes it is a large part, but the big difference is that in college, you CHOOSE what you want to do! DOn’t like a class? Drop it! Take classes you enjoy, and let me tell you, that the classes I’ve enjoyed the most are sometimes hte ones I get the worst grades in! There should beno reason to cheat, we’re all here to build our skills for our future careers or further education. I guess I don’t understand why someone would compromise learning for a cheap A.

In zee124, 12/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Project Questions

Zeenah and Pink Footsie have been having a conversation about this clause in the project requirements:

justify the choice of functionality you implement

Zeenah’s cut:

Is this just telling us to explain the level we took our project to, in the aspect of how it serves customers and Denali, and why we took it to the level that we did?

Zeenah, you hit the nail on the head. Remember, you cannot do everything. Your group did a great job nailing the problem and proposing a solution. That’s a good way to define your focus, what you will and will not do.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 12/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Happynews.com

I came across a very interesting website called happynews.com. This website is the brainchiled of Byron Reese, who also has published several advice websites.

Media today is increasingly focused on accidents/ mishaps or exaggerating misery. Hence, I thought this website is a great way to learn about the happy or constructive events happening around the world and cheer yourself up from the dull and depressing media news.

For example, one of the stories talked about how Japanese are making the penguins exercise to stay healthy as they gain weight in the sever winters. Some other stories include: “Emily the stowaway cat is coming home”, “man decorates his house with synchronized lights” etc.

Even though some of these stories may sound lame or not as important, I think its a wonderful way to spread cheer and happiness and make people away of the good things that go on in this world in addition to the misery or war which is on media perpetually.

In supriya, 12/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

CSI and Katrina

While we all know that most of the deaths were caused by the actual Hurricane itself, it has been 21 mysterious encounters. These deaths came from unexplained gunshot wounds to stabbings and fatal blows to the head. These unidentified victims are now the main characters in a real-life version of Crime Scene Investigation. While I’m not an avid CSI viewer I will be tuned in to see if they can indeed get to the bottom of this and the resulting actions. I don’t know how CSI’s current ratings are but I think that they will attract a host of new viewers when this is set to air. The dates of the shows were not given at this time but I’m sure they’ll be released shortly.

In The Blogstar, 12/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

I sympathize with Shady & Pink Footsie

The recent post by Shady and Pink Footsie about grades and the competition behind them sparked a few thoughts of my own. Pink Footsie made a comment saying,

What I’d really love, and this is definitely idealistic, is to be able to go to college and go to class without feeling the pressure to turn in an assignment, or to participate more than person X or regurgitate information at an exam (without being ranked, graded, evaluated).

While yes this is very idealistic, I think people tend to work better thar way. (or at least for me that is) It’s something about having the option to do something that takes a load off of me, and typically brings out a greater effort or the given assignment.

Besides that, when we are in competition with others concerning grades a lack of effort can derive from that at times. For instance, if you notice that you not at the top of the grading scale you made put forth just enough effort to get by knowing that you no longer qualify for the A, A+ in the course. None of us like to see our work overshadowed, but at times that may be the case b/c of the way the grading system is set up.

In The Blogstar, 12/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

And You Thought Your Toilet Seat Was Comfortable

Check out the latest investment of the Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. This 1.3 million dollar toilet seat is getting rave reviews. This high-end, high-tech potty plug-in that bathes its user’s undercarriage with warm water and did I mention, it’s also wireless-enabled. It’s part of the mission “to create a better bathroom experience.” All of it’s features including the warm water wash and the heated seat operate at the push of a button. The Swash 600 model even has a warm air dryer and wireless remote control. While critics in America are skeptical of its potential success a similiar brand has already been proven to be worthwhile in Japan. According to WIKI they’re already in almost half of Japanese homes. We’ll just have to wait and see how Americans catch on to this top of the line toilet.

In The Blogstar, 12/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Life as a Musical

So I said I would, we were talking about this one day in class when we just had a random thought, what if life was a musical? And everything you did had to be sung and have a little dance attached?

It’s a little easier doing it when you actually have a movement but I don’t know about having a musical in a computer room. You would definatly have to get up and do a little dance and swing around in the rolly chairs.

For awhile there, I tried to push my group to do a song and dance presentation for class, but I think the time crunch got in the way. Really it did!

So Matt, suggested that I post about this and then post a question at the end. And I was thinking, as the last major on this remix, what do we think about cheating in the business school. It has been the recent hot topic with all the cheating going on, but what does everyone else think?

I kind of feel that, if you are at the bschool and you cheat, you have to be really REALLY obvious to be caught. Which is unfortunate because cheating shouldn’t be acceptable but often times, maybe because I am a student also, it seems more obvious to me? Who knows yet again

In Shady Waters, 12/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Techie Focus

Pink Footsie posted on the topic of class options and I have to agree with her whole heartedly! The number of BIT class options is just not enough in the bschool. I think part of is that the school isn’t focused on it. They are more focused on finance and accounting.

But really, I wish there were classes for the tech applications to business. It’s something that would be useful as we go forth and necessary and the fact that the bschool doesn’t focus on it past excel and database really means that we aren’t going to be fully prepared for entering the business world.

But I guess if you look at it from another perspective, if the focus of the bschool isn’t technology managment, then can you really blame them? Instead we might have needed to go to a school that did have such a focus. who knows!

In Shady Waters, 12/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Hi-Tec City

I’m finishing up my packing to be on my way to India. It’s been four years since the last time I went and I can’t imagine how much has probably changed. But what I do remember was the commotion over the Hi-Tec (Hyderabad Information Technology-Engineering Center) City. Bill Gates had just come over and young Indian software engineers were given the chance to work for such a big company in their own towns. The buildings were still in construction, but had high expectations. I am definently going to go back there in this trip to see how much technology has really changed India. I’ll post pictures of the buildings as soon as I can!

In zee124, 12/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

I sympathize with Shady

I sympathize with Shady’s argument about grades mainly probably because I used to be very competitive but I’m less now. I don’t know if I really changed because of something or I have always looked at this issue differently (though I’m no saint and have my moments). I think we all have different personalities and the reason we are in this school is because we do have some competitive nature to us and we do want to be the best we can be. We also want to be recognized for the hard work we put in and sometimes grades look more at genius/experience than at effort mainly because effort is so much harder to see and evaluate. I think professors do their best to reward us based on what we really devoted to their class.

What I’d really love, and this is definitely idealistic, is to be able to go to college and go to class without feeling the pressure to turn in an assignment, or to participate more than person X or regurgitate information at an exam (without being ranked, graded, evaluated). Obviously there’s a purpose to this, repetition and effort encode things in your brain. I would love to go to a class and just sit and observe, volunteer information at will and go home pleased about the experience itself. I know this sounds very philosophical and perhaps wouldn’t work in practice, but some day I hope people will want to go to the classes they enrolled in because they want to, not because they have to (or need to for X purpose). Maybe it’s only a dream.

In Pink Footsie, 12/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Zeenah’s question

Zeenah says:

justify the choice of functionality you implement
Is this just telling us to explain the level we took our project to, in the aspect of how it serves customers and Denali, and why we took it to the level that we did?

I think you are correct. That is what we are planning

SQL, XML, & Ice Cream

A remixable web learning project at Michigan's Ross School of Business

BIT320 Remix