BIT320 Remix: Opinionslug Archives

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mobiles: New ball and chain

Study finds cellphones are interfering with family life

In del.icio.us/rasheff, 12/15/2005 | Original | Archive

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

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 on doing. In addition to a thorough description of the business problem, we are supposed to justify why we chose to implement what we did and why we thought those things to be more important than others (why some things are just a mock up). Obviously some things we don’t know how to do, but I think this is an exercise in being able to justify why let’s say Denali should go with your version of the project than their professionals’. I think it’s just selling your idea and being able to explain why X and not Z. I hope this wasn’t too confusing and that it helps.

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

Class Idea

As I was perusing this year’s courseguide and editing my schedule I realized that unfortunately there aren’t many options as far as BIT classes and Operations classes go. I realize we have a very strong accounting and finance program and that maybe the lack of class offerrings is due to students focusing on those two areas. I, however, (because I like to be different as you know) would like to see more choices on that spectrum. Finance and accounting are foundations of business, but who cares about them at this time and place without strong operations and technology base (they’re all interdependent). Afterall it is the overall picture the world wants us to get, and even if we’re not an expert in X or Y we should know more about it.

I am not technically savvy but I’ve been prodding along in this class for hours, trying to get things to work. Whenever Oracle does NOT spit out: error…I do a little dance to the weird looks and laughs of the other business students. I’m proud of myself, though what I’ve done may not be much. Which brings me to an idea: I would love to see a class that focuses more on the software side of things. Now I know that engineering offers some introductory coding but I think Bschool could bring forth a course that could employ that subject as well as others, targeting it at the business professional. Now we all know Word, Powerpoint, there’s even an Excel course (some better than others). Though I think there might be ppl who are “familiar with” Dreamweaver, Photoshop, FrontPage, I could bet that there are few who would profess to be experts on it. I think it would be cool to take a class (perhaps a sequence) that teaches students the tricks and trades of programs like these, and maybe one on the hardware side as well. I know I’d take it.

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

Project Presentations

I think all of the teams did an excellent job presenting on Tuesday. It was great to see the course material really start coming together. I also enjoyed seeing the different groups apply what we’ve learned to solve a real-life business problem. I’m really motivated now to go back and improve on what Bud thought was weak with our project. Remember, the presentations were more of a check point than a final product. The presentation feedback was meant to inspire confidence and also to encourage us to continue developing our projects.

In Kevin's Blog, 12/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Building your Own Search Engine

There’s been a lot of talk about search engines and Google’s domination. We discussed in class how MSN is even thinking of paying people to use its search engine. Amazon is changing things areound. It’s offering to lease a complex internet search service so people can build their own search engines. It will provide access too ver 5 billion webpages. In essence

“Instead of a map of the world, Amazon has a map of the Web—a database of the Web and map of the relationships between them. And [the company] expects people can do interesting things with that information.”

I’m not sure if people will utilize this service. Even if you have access to over 5 billion webpages, will it really be as effective s google? I’m not seeing the benefits of having your own search engine built to your needs.

In zee124, 12/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

At the End of the Show

Recently, there has been a bit of flurry on the communityengine regarding the project presentations, the level we should attain, and each groups feelings regarding it. JB, Matt and Matt, Tigerlilly, and Bud have all commented extensivly.

There has been a general concern regarding the comparison between groups because each group has different levels of ability and that directly effects the output of each group and also the grades each group gets. I think they are all valid concerns. Bud has address this concern by saying:

I’m willing to give up to the allowed 60% As in the class and, after today, see that as the likely outcome. However, for that to happen, you need to continue to sell me on why your project is good, not on why you cannot achieve as much as your peers.

But I think another interesting point to make is, why are we all so competitive? Is just a trait that business school students have, develop when we enter the bschool community, or maybe it isn’t competitiveness at all? I am as guilty as any other of competition and the desire to win. And this type of question leads directly to our reward system, grades, and what it actually encourages.

We’ve talked about this issue off and on here on the Remix. But its always an interesting questions to bring up. Because in it’s basic, education should be about learning…our desire to learn and ideal, we should be able to motivate ourselves regarding learning as much as we can. But its not ideal, and sometimes if there wasn’t something on the line for me at the end, I know I would have trouble motivating myself to learn and finish learning certain things…especially in the time crunch as students we are in. Actually, it’s not I know, it’s I do.

Just some thoughts on the issue. And Bud, its ok, you don’t have to say anymore ;D

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

Don’t write more in your blog than it takes to solve the issue

Matt observes:

HOWEVER, he went on to say:

Their problem description needed a little work, but their solution was spot on and well thought out.

This was a little disappointing to hear. Obviously, it is not a hard problem to solve, but the lessons that are behind it are important.

You guys are doing fine, just sharpen that objective. Your other points are good, but I really just meant for you to sharpen things a bit.

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

I can mildly sympathize with this point

JB remarks:

I’m not bitter or anything. I still love the class and it makes me feel smart. We’ve been trying hard and doing great. But it’s just frusterating when our hardest work looks so little next to someone else’s.

I can mildly sympathize, but several points keep me from becoming fully sympathetic:

Projects will always have different strengths. While JB’s project may not have had wizardry, it did have a solid grasp of the basics, and the busines objective was the best stated. This type of project is more likely to produce an effective result than one with wizardry and no business objective. In other words, Jennie is underrating her accomplishment.
The project with “wizardry” actually only adapted XSQL5. In other words, they just used the callow strategy of changing some words in an already existing example. Therefore, the logic that I only know how to change words, thus I cannot produce technical “wizardry” just does not add up. The word changers were smart, leveraging their word changing skills with a good, though poorly stated, understanding of the problem.
I have students coming to me with no technical background, making great progress. Some of today’s “wizardry” came from just these students. Not years of experience to show what was shown today. Two months and a will to do it.

I walked away from today’s presentations thinking everyone had made great progress but also that everyone still had some work to do, some more than others.

Recall that grading is competitive. I’m willing to give up to the allowed 60% As in the class and, after today, see that as the likely outcome. However, for that to happen, you need to continue to sell me on why your project is good, not on why you cannot achieve as much as your peers.

I’m not going to say anymore on this topic. I’m willing to help people who want to make progress.

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

Project Feedback - My thoughts

I was happy that many people complemented the effort and technical success that my group has achieved. Bud was kind enough to say:

All groups should aspire to the technical level that Kevin, Aga, Matt Ruprecht, and Supriya achieved.

HOWEVER, he went on to say:

Their problem description needed a little work, but their solution was spot on and well thought out.

This was a little disappointing to hear. Obviously, it is not a hard problem to solve, but the lessons that are behind it are important.

The first lesson is understand the level of comprehension of the problem on both sides of the table. For this project we are IT consultants, we are given a real business problem from a customer and we are expected to have the business and IT knowledge to solve. For any of us that are going into consulting, IT consulting, or any technical field it is important to understand more than just the problem. We need to understand how the other person understands the problem A funny example of this actually happened to me this week at Merrill Lynch. My boss at work has a dual display for his computer. He has very little understand of computers and so to keep things simple for himself he keeps Outlook open on his left monitor and Merrill software on the right monitor. When I was at work this week his Outlook (on his left monitor) froze. Since he has such a limited understand of computers, he thought there was a problem with his left monitor. Now of course this is such a simple example, but when things get technical these problem could easily exist.

The second problem is we need to understand how the person wants the problem solved. For example, we all assumed that Denali flavors would want to use html insert forms to enter data into their database (of course this assumption goes along with course materials and project requirements). The truth is that John never mentioned that he wanted us to use web form to input data. If he only wanted data to be added at the main office typing in ugly SQL language, we would have wasted our time, and not really solved the problem the way the client wanted.

The third problem is over doing it. Bud told about an experience he had in his professional career about how sometimes doing more doesn’t always help. As students we barely have enough time to do all of our required assignments let alone time to over do it. It is something to remember that extra work isn’t always worth it.

As much as doing extra work is a bad thing. I think there is value in explaining to customers the full potential of their database. For example, in my part of presentation, I made many demands for my database, and I bet that when our projects are done ALL of the groups well have solved the problems I “demands” I listed. One lesson that Bit301 taught is the value of information and databases, now in Bit320 I’m learning how to make them, I want to harness their full value. So while I will state the problem in the project that Denali wanted a well-formed normalized that database that would allow customers to search for and find their favorite flavors in their local stores. I will know and make a database that can do much more.

In SuperMatt, 12/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

I want a cell phone with a camera and a planner and a mp3 and a…

Tigerlily23 brings up many topics for discussion in her articles about movies on Cell phones. I want to take it into a new direction. Cell phones are starting to offer more and more features: cameras, planners, mp3 players, etc. However these Swiss army devices are thought of as phones with other features. Mainly because these secondary features do not measure up in quality to devices that specialize in these features. For example the 1 mega pixel cameras in cell phones do not come anywhere close to the 3-8 mega pixel that are on the market, and I don’t think a cell phone could ever complete with Apple’s Ipod. The reason I feel this way is not because of technological reasons but for business reasons. If Apple wanted to they could partner up with a cell phone manufacturer to produce a great cell phone / mp3, but what would be Apple’s motivation all this would do is a cannibalize Ipod sales. I think that this ultimately hurts the consumer because I would rather have a cell phone/Ipod/camera in my pocket as opposed to all three separately. I searched for articles about this on the net, but couldn’t find what I was looking for. What do you think? Are there reasons for firms to collaborate? What would be the long term implications for the industry? Have you seen any articles about this on the web?

In SuperMatt, 12/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Project Talk

Let me jump right in to the discussion. I liked the presentations today: everyone had some great stuff going on. I did share Lindsay’s concern in that I fear our team is lacking a “wizard.” I read Bud’s response and I know that we’ve all learned the same things in this class… but I still maintain that 2 months of looking at this material does not put us on the same level as a person who may have been looking at it for years. Even if you haven’t been learning the X-men exactly, learning about anything related to in-depth html, databases or any kind of code does put you a little ahead of others. But - don’t get me wrong - I’m not bitter or anything. I still love the class and it makes me feel smart. We’ve been trying hard and doing great. But it’s just frusterating when our hardest work looks so little next to someone else’s.

And I also agree with Lindsay’s great point about why it would be helpful to write something like SimpleTable. I know it’s tedious and probably not appropriate for BIT320 - but can you imagine how much easier it would be to “debug” a file if we knew exactly what every line in that file actually does? Sometimes when we have to figure out an error I feel so lost just staring at the screen. So, while BIT320 is excellent for the “big picture” - at some point it would be cool to write a file like that.

I like how BIT320 is kind to business majors. We love the big picture. And like Bud said and blogged today, it seems that one of the best things our team did was identify the problem and understand what the solution should look like. So when we’re out in the business world, we can at least say “hey, maybe this problem can be solved with a nice user-friendly web interface and a giant database… here’s what it would do, now who can we hire to write that up?” Which is similar to Matt’s opinion.

In jb's blog, 12/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Time and other periodicals

I liked reading Dave’s most recent blog post of new technology. He discovers:

In the current edition (Dec. 12th) of Time Magazine, there is an extremely interesting section on tech pioneers. It has 1-2 column articles about different companies that are coming out with cutting edge technologies, services, and products. I highly recommend reading it.

ls is my favorite form of reading because they compress lots of information into a few concise paragraphs perfect for a business lifestyle and support my short attention span. Of course the major problem for me is that I’m cheap and I don’t like to spend $5 a month. My solution: Proquest. When you are on the main page click on the Publication tab. Finally search for your favorite periodical. I bet they have it.Best of all it’s free. The only downside is that it may runs on a three month delay. This is also an excellant example of a database. Maybe someday it will be on an RSS feed, so I can select my favorite magazines and then when it is updated it will come directly to me.

In SuperMatt, 12/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

What to take-away

I couldn’t agree with Matt more when he says

Will all of us go off to our next jobs and say, “Hey, I can write XML?” Well, probably not. But we will be able to say with confidence, “Yeah, I’ve seen that before.”

This class has taught me a lot about the basics behind XML and SQL and all the components, but I wish we had more time. I would have loved to go in deeper and experiment with more complex models. Sometimes the courses at the Business School go by so fast that I feel like I just get a taste of things without really deepening my knowledge of it. The BIT department should definently think about making this course longer so that students can go more in depth.

In zee124, 12/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

How to skin a moose?

Just like Bud and Tigerlily, I have to say I was quite impressed with the project presentations today. Like Tigerlily said,

“I kind of expected today’s class to be boring because I would have to listen to the same thing three times, but it wasn’t.”

The way in which we each attempted to approach the project was unique and really went to show that there is more than one way to skin the preverbial cat, or I guess in this case, the moose.

yond the slick and shiny interfaces shown off today, I was more excited about what working models mean: an understandinng of the technology. For a couple weeks, I knew I had an understanding of the X-team. But it wasn’t really until I dug my heals in and got my hands dirty that I realized that I didn’t know have as much as I thought I did, and at the same time, knew more than I thought I did. Does that make sense? On some level I think it does. Will all of us go off to our next jobs and say, “Hey, I can write XML?” Well, probably not. But we will be able to say with confidence, “Yeah, I’ve seen that before.”

Since the theme of the day is “value-added”….here’s a link to a listing of all the dairies producing moosetracks in the US. It may help you out adding real data to your databases.

In Matt's Musings, 12/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Project Presentations

First off, I liked the project presentations. Each added something. Matt Aldridge, Dave Reiss, and Ryan Sheffield had a nice thank-you screen that came up after the user did their thing; overall a good interaction design. They have some work to do in getting their initial attempts to a more complete stage so that they meet the project requirements.

Lindsay, Stephanie, Zeenah, and Jennie did a very good presentation on the web. How they set the scene was excellent. They actually did the best job of describing the problem to be solved and presented the beginnings of a solution. Their plans to add features to their solution such as a auto-generated IDs are the right next step.

All groups should aspire to the technical level that Kevin, Aga, Matt Ruprecht, and Supriya achieved. Their problem description needed a little work, but their solution was spot on and well thought out. There has been some suggestion that their solution was due to the wizardry of one person and that other groups just cannot get there. Others only know how to change a word here or there.

I don’t believe that for one minute. Nobody knew this material before taking the class, and all groups displayed some mastery of it by the end of the class. For instance, although Matt Aldridge’s group perhaps has the furthest to go in their implementation, Matt displayed a good understanding of what was going on by creating a template to display a nice message once the user had input their data. Aga, who professes to have little knowledge of html is soldiering on to get one of her XSQL pages to work.

I like determination, resourcefulness, and people who figure out how to get the job done. I’m ready to help anybody succeed who arrives at my door with this set of attitudes. That is the set of attitudes that works in today’s burgeoning and rapidly changing technology world.

You all can do well. Keep on trying. I will only consider and accept your best. Show it to me.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 12/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Presentation and Project Thoughts

First let me say how amazing it is that three different groups working on the same problem that Denali is having, can have such different interpretations and presentations. I kind of expected today’s class to be boring because I would have to listen to the same thing three times, but it wasn’t. I think we have each succeeded at “adding value,” (at least a little value) to Denali in some form or another, now we just need to make ours (my group and the group that went second) as good as the last group that presented. I only wish we had whoever knows how to do all of that stuff in my group. On that note, I hope Bud takes into consideration that some of us are not as web-design-savvy as others.

In Tigerlily's Blog, 12/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

The value of learning to write simpleTable

After speaking in class about the almost pointlessness for us to create our own templates in an effort to create value, I realized why I think it is still beneficial for teaching in class. In learning to write one, I will know what each little line does and stands for. Now, I have no idea what most of it does. All I know is that you have to change a word here and there. I think learning how to write one will give us a better understanding of what exactly we are doing that is creating value for someone else (Denali). I agree with Bud in that writing our own for this project wouldn’t add value, but five years later when I need to do it for someone else, what will I do? It is more about understanding what we are doing than just changing a word. I hope this clears up the reason for why I wish the class spent more time on teaching us xsl, xml, etc.

In Tigerlily's Blog, 12/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Seniors and Technology?

In the article High-Tech for Seniors Moves Beyond Clapper, they address a few new technologies to “help seniors and their families live happy and healthy in their own home.” For instance, there is a telephone, by Intel, that helps Alzheimer’s patients by showing them a picture of who is calling them, how they know that person and when they last talked. “No more embarrassing pauses while the person getting the call tries to remember who Christine is.”

In addition, Accenture has designed a “medicine cabinet that can be programmed to keep track of what medicine it holds and when it should be taken. A built-on camera scans the face of the person at the cabinet and a voice can remind that it’s time to take a pill. If the wrong bottle is chosen, the voice warns of the error. The medicine cabinet even has a blood pressure cuff and is connected to a scale, so it can collect weight and pressure data and e-mail the information to a physician or caregiver.”

Furthermore, the Medical Automation Research Center created floor that can track the movement. These sensors “recognize changes in gait and detect a fall.” This organization also “developed the bed that senses breathing rate and pulse.” Both of these technologies will call a caregiver for help if there is a sudden change in pattern.

There are other technologies listed in this article including:

Video games that track dexterity and speed, which helps doctors diagnose neurological diseases.
A watch that tracks the movement of people and will warn them if they have forgotten to take their pills.
If a senior falls, a robot can go to the scene (along with caregivers) and broadcast back to a doctor, who can advise the them on how to assist the patient.
A computerized flash card that can attach to a key ring and provide access to a person’s medical history.

In Tigerlily's Blog, 12/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Movies on a Cell Phone…is this necessary?

No big surprise…if you can watch videos on an iPod, why not watch them on a cell phone. The article stated:

Sprint has has made no secret of wanting a piece of the mobile digital content revolution. On Monday, the company announced plans to move quickly into video services — maybe too quickly. Sprint said that full-length movies will be available for users of many of its mobile phones. The jury’s still very much out as to whether the mobile phone providers have all the right moves in this area, though, and so far the Sprint offering doesn’t sound too compelling.

I am not surprised with this move, but I think iPods will have an edge since they are so popular. However, your iPod can’t call anyone…yet. For $6.95 a month sprint users will have access to unlimited movies, tv shows and other video content. Currently, however, they only have “Angel and the Badman, One-Eyed Jacks, Short Circuit, and Night of the Living Dead.” Okay, so I have heard of like one of those movies, and consequently, won’t be jumping at this offer. Thankfully, Sprint has announced a deal with ESPN (and Disney) so maybe the content will get better than the four movies they currently have. My final comment on this is good for Sprint, but I can’t watch a hour and a half movie on a one-inch screen. Can you?

In Tigerlily's Blog, 12/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

I’m Headed in the Right Direction

Kevin’s post about the Ancestry Map is really cool. The map shows which ancestry has the largest population in a given geographic area of the United States. I’m off to New York next year, which is already highly populated by Italians. (I know, the last name might throw you off, but I’m actually 50% Italian.)

As mentioned by Aga, this is just another example of technology connecting to everyone in every way that matters. Contrary to what some non-techies might believe, the internet is not just for techie-talk. I’m going to show this sight to my Grandpa and hopefully add to my argument for why he should do more than just email on his PC.

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

Plugged in there, Plugged out here

Matt’s comments about active-x and flash pluggins made me think about the situation. Most websites that are recently being created like, Lettuce, use flash as the only way for getting the full animation of the site. Since these are not secure, will this eventually cause webdesigners to use another method than flash. Because I bet this situation arises at other universities, high schools, businesses, and government facilities, in which people can’t access them.

Does anyone have any ideas on how this phenomena will affect future webdesigning?

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

I heart the t word

Just like Kevin looked up his roots, I decided to take a study break and look up mine. What I love about technology is that it enables you to connect to the things that matter most to you, to your family and to everything that makes you who you are today. You might have gotten so used to using email, Skype, sending pictures over the internet, that it’s value is meaningless to you except for the speed and the convenience of having everything on one piece of machinery. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But imagine how it used to be and how it is for those like me who connect to their family globally. I have an aunt in France, best friend in England, family and friends all over Poland including my dad, a cousin in Atlanta and one is Australia, my sister is in Ohio and in about 9 months I will be in Seattle, WA, 4.5 hrs by plane and 1600 miles away from my nearest relative and my closest friends.

To me, my phone, my digital pictures and my email mean more than you might possibly imagine. And to me finding out what my family is doing and what’s going on in the country I was born, which forever will be my second home, is priceless. No it’s not another Mastercard commercial, this is my life. And to give you a sneak peek into something very different, I would take a look at this website which gives you link to download just a snippit of Poland’s hip hop culture. Yeah you heard it right, hip hop culture. You probably won’t understand and you will most likely laugh just like i did when i first heard it, but at least you will connect to something you probably never heard before or didn’t know it existed, and trust me those moments for me too have made life worth living. Technology is one of those over used words like synergies, core competency and other bs but I can tell you the impact of it and the importance it holds for some people means more than any other over used word can imply.

In Pink Footsie, 12/11/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Lindsay comes clean

I like Lindsay’s honest appraisal of BIT320:

My only complaint about this class is that it is too fast. It has nothing to do with who teaches it or what the project is on, simply there is too much information packed into 15 weeks. I think it may be better to have a prereq that is a more intro level database class so that students have an idea of the basics. After taking that class, they can take this one and focus on xml, xslt, xsl and everything else we covered in the second half. I think all of this stuff is interesting, but because I didn’t know anything about it previously I have been a little lost for the last month. I think it would have been nice to learn more about how to write these templates/stylesheets than to reuse ones from class. I may be a little pessimistic in class but it is a result of my confusion.

Let me say that I agree that there is a lot of material packed in. The chief benefit of that is that we get to something that can be implemented. In other words, you get some real world bang for your buck.

I also understand the unease at using code you do not quite get intellectually. Personally, I would say that the advantage of that is that you do not have to reinvent the wheel. Also, it presents a realistic picture of what you can expect to find. The experience I had this term of helping the Corante network implement our tag cloud technology really illustrates that. The Corante guys had a high level understanding of what was going on, but did not know all the details.

My hope would be that people who are interested in a more in-depth treatment of any of these items would pursue other courses. I honestly believe that the technologies you have learned about in this course are not just in the coming wave but in the wave that is currently breaking, fundamentally changing the business shoreline. Just look at Google’s valuation.

In this regard, let me say that I appreciate Lindsay’s contributions. That superglu thing was fantastic. I blogged about it, linking to her, on my main blog and got it picked up in a few places. If I think that I helped make people in this class able to look out for that sort of thing, then my mission was a success.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 12/11/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Racial demographics of the United States

The United States is indeed a very diverse country. I was interested in finding out how my ancestry (German and Norwegian) is spread out across the U.S. Interestingly, it turns out that German is the top ancestry in the U.S., with 15.2% of the population stating they have German ancestry. The following map on Wikipedia.org maps out the largest ancestries by counties. It’s fascinating to see the effects of immigration in the Southern U.S.

This link contains a figure showing the top fifteen ancestries.

This last link shows the 2000 population distribution in the U.S – also very interesting.

In Kevin's Blog, 12/11/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Mimobots are just the beginning…

Yesterday, Supriya was talking about the Mimobots explaining:

Mimobots are little friendly data fiends! Feed the 2″ monsters all your essential data (tunes, pics, presentations, videos, etc.) and transport your files wherever you go. mimobots are what happens when designer toys meet USB flash drives - a marriage of art and technology.

hat is just the tip of the ice berg for wacky USB devices. Check out this site. It has The Top 10 Weirdest USB drivers ever. Highlights include USB drives shaped like: a duck, sushi, a human thumb, and a Barbie. If everyone is going to have a USB drive it might as well be more personalized.

In SuperMatt, 12/11/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

I’ve been mislabled…and my review of BIT 320

Recently, I have gotten the impression that I am the one person in BIT 320 that hates the class. This is not true. Coming into the semester, I had a strong interest in taking this class because I did not know much about Databases and I had never used Oracle. I am glad I am in this class because I have found the class very interesting and I have learned a lot.

My review:

My only complaint about this class is that it is too fast. It has nothing to do with who teaches it or what the project is on, simply there is too much information packed into 15 weeks. I think it may be better to have a prereq that is a more intro level database class so that students have an idea of the basics. After taking that class, they can take this one and focus on xml, xslt, xsl and everything else we covered in the second half. I think all of this stuff is interesting, but because I didn’t know anything about it previously I have been a little lost for the last month. I think it would have been nice to learn more about how to write these templates/stylesheets than to reuse ones from class. I may be a little pessimistic in class but it is a result of my confusion.

In the end, I think this class is very interesting and I did learn a lot. I just wish I would have had more time to learn the basics.

In Tigerlily's Blog, 12/11/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

VoIP over Nokia and Motorola phones next year

I read an small article in time magazine discussing the telecommunications industry. I believe that a major change in mobile voice to voice communication is on the verge of happening. Next year, Nokia and Motorola are rolling out new phones that serve the dual purpose of cell phone and VoIP (Voice over IP). Once this change happens, the cell phone providers will either have to start adapting VoIP into their product lines, or companies that offer it will start to eat away at their market shares. I wonder if the cell phone companies would think that it would cannibalize the cell phone service that they offer. Either way, the consumers will be helped as this should lower prices of cell phone providers or for VoIP if direct competition ensues.

In musings of william h, 12/11/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

SI/Soc110

With all of this talk of good techonology/computer science focused classes, I have to make a recommendation. Anyone who has space for it should take SI/SOC 110. It is called Introduction to Information, and it discuss how technology has developed since the dawn of man, with a focus on the last century and innovation around computing and communicating. It studies what happened and its impact on culture. This class was instrumental in peaking my interest in information technology and respecting the importance of the role innovation plays in how we lead our live.

The professor’s name that I took it with is Bob Frost and he is a serious thinker that enjoys discussing his views and listening to others. I highly recommend joining the class or dropping in on a lecture. I’m not positive whether he is the teacher this upcoming semester, but I would take it either way.

In musings of william h, 12/11/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Google makes good moves

In reaction to Kevin’s comments about the new Google Tranist, I think that this service is a great addition to Google’s services. I would use this site if I knew that it existed, but I hadn’t heard of sites that perform this task. Now that Google can add it, people like me that didn’t even know this service existed are sure to find out.

People are already going to Google more than any other search sites, so Google just has to keep adding things for people to do. I really think that if Google can continue to add unique or important services, the company will remain extremely profitable for a long time. The natural advantage they have from being the first site on most people’s minds should allow them to continue to be successful. Another

In musings of william h, 12/11/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Delicious competitors

Matt’s post reminded me of a question I had. Who are delicious’ competitors? Which companies perform the same functions as delicious? And what other type of services are more indirect but are used by some people for similar function?

Also, what makes one site like this popular. Is it based off of anything other than the amount of people on it and the usability?

If anyone knows this infomration please let me know.

In musings of william h, 12/11/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Do you RSS?

Hey, I was bookmarking online and started thinking about RSS readers. Does anyone have an experience with them and could reccomend a good one? I noticed that PinkFootsie blogged a bit about the Google reader. And I know that Safari has a built in RSS reader. I figured it’d be a good way for me to fully understand the RSS phenomenon. Any thoughts?

In Matt's Musings, 12/10/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Plugged In Here, Plugged Out There

Shady and SuperMatt have been talking about firefox plug-ins or the lack-there-of on the B-School computers. Yeah, I agree. This is really annoying, especially because I can’t stand using IE anymore.

However, I do understand the reason for the lack of plug-ins. Shady mentioned that:

“Bud talked about how the business school freezes programs on their computers because the more you mess with them makes all sorts of complications”

The type of missing plug-ins I run into the most while on the b-school computers are things like flash and active-x content While flash is relatively secure, I do know that active-x controls have the possibility to include nasty little viruses and what not. So I can understand b-school IT not wanting to deal with things like this.

wonder why this isn’t a standard practice around U of M. I know for a fact that the computers in the fishbowl (specifically the Macs) are slated for “full use”. Meaning any plug-ins can be installed. They even are open enough to the point where you can install programs. These computers are administered by ITCS. So it seems like ITCS has made the choice of having more open and easy-to-use yet more difficult to maintain. I personally like the ITCS approach better. Maybe with the advent of new OSes and programs we can increase security without sacrificing useability.

In Matt's Musings, 12/10/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Mars Rovers

Mars Rovers
The Mars Rovers must be running on Energizer batteries because they just keep going and going… They were originally only supposed to last for 90 days after landing on the red planet, but the rovers have proven to be much more resilient than anyone ever predicted, surviving longer than a full Martian year (687 Earth days). Together, the rovers have taken over 130,000 photos! Sadly, though, according to a recent article on News.com, the rovers are beginning to show signs of aging:

Nonetheless, signs of fatigue are beginning to show. Around 10 days ago, the mechanical arm on Opportunity stopped moving. The problem, the rover teams believe, lies with the shoulder joint of the arm. If they can get the elbow of the arm out of the T-shaped housing where the arm rests, the arm can still collect samples.

I am inspired by what several brilliant minds and some very advanced technology can accomplish. Who would have ever thought that it would be possible to send two rovers to another planet, have them drive around, take photos, and send those photos back to us here on Earth! The potential to do great things should never be underestimated. It’s a great time to be alive.

Opportunity image of outcrop called Olympia along the northwestern margin of Erebus crater

In Kevin's Blog, 12/10/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Yahoo thinks Del.icio.us is…..well…delicious

Yahoo the internet giant recently purchased Del.icio.us for an undisclosed amount of money this Friday. Similar to Yahoo’s recent acquisitions of Flickr, and Upcoming.org Yahoo is trying to generate more mass appeal and the sharing of knowledge and information. This article from Wired News explains the reasoning behind the purchase

During the past year, Yahoo has been adding more tools that promote sharing among friends and family as it battles for web traffic with its biggest rivals — Google, Microsofts MSN and Time Warner’s AOL. All of them are trying to widen their internet audiences so they can make more money from steadily increasing volume of online advertising.

Each of us are in fact 1 of 300,000 current users of Del.icio.us, and I’m sure we will see much growth now that it is part of the Yahoo network. I really hope this takes off. I know that there are so many times, that I wanted to pass a link of to my friends, and if this gain more appeal it would really help me share links. Unfortunately for the owner of Del.icio.us the transaction was “so small that it won’t impact Yahoo’s financials”.

In SuperMatt, 12/09/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Plug-in Problem Continued

Shady Waters recently mentions having problems with FireFox plug-ins wondering:

Does anyone else find that the Firefox in the Bschool always needs plug ins to run certain sites? What are the plug ins for and why aren’t they already installed? I run the sites on my computer back and how and I never have problems?

problem all the time, it seems that whenever there is more than basic content in WebPages FireFox needs some sort of plug-in to make the page function. This often requires me to load the plug in and then restart FireFox or refresh the pages. All of this is a pain especially if I am in a hurry - I know that Kevin and Aga would suggest I just stick with IE. I think that FireFox users would be best served if when installing the FireFox browser we had the option to install many if not all of the available FireFox plug-ins. If this is not possible is does anyone know of a website that exists where I can download many of the common ones, to save myself grief? Normally FireFox is the most convenient and best internet explore, however in this regard there is room for improvement.

In SuperMatt, 12/09/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Why Blogging is a GOOD idea

I talked before about the Benefit about knowing 5 languages and while don’t even claim proficiency let alone fluency it has been an interesting semester. It is obvious that learning the 5 languages is a lot like learning a foreign language. I have always felt that it would be easiest for me to learn a foreign language by being put in the middle of a country that speaks the language. The reason for this is that people learn best from multiple sources. Therefore if I was in a foreign country there would be many people teaching me, as opposed to a class room which traditionally has one professor teaching many students. Bud has completely changed this in his class. First he has basically dropped us off in the middle of a foreign country having us dive head first into XML, and just like how we would really be if we were put on a foreign land we were scared and confused as everyone around us was speaking a foreign language, but now just a few weeks later we all seem to have a much better understand of the new languages we are starting to comprehend. Also he has shifting the job of teaching from just him to the entire class. We all help each other learn, in essence making more teachers. This helps in two ways. First whenever I have a question I don’t just have to go to Bud, I can blog about it, or ask a classmate for help. Second, when we help each other or tackle questions together we solidify and internalize concepts. Another idea that makes this class exceptional is the use of the internet in the class. Most classes only use textbooks as reference, but frequently we are encouraged to find websites that provide answers to our questions, references, or further information about a topic. When students find these they post them in their blog. Which brings me to my final point as to why this is a good class. The blog. Sure it is difficult and sometimes unpleasant to post in your blog because we are busy or can’t think of a good topic, but if you look at all of my points you will see they all revolve around blog. Of course, if we were not required to blog or it was worth a little portion of our grade we would not do it, but with emphasis put on it, we are all using it and benefiting from it.

In SuperMatt, 12/09/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

The mythical power of garages in the Silicon Valley.

I just came across a very interesting article talkin about the mythical power of garages in the Silicon Valley. The world’s second largest computer maker today, HP, actually started in a 12-by-18 foot garage. Also, Google was started in a garage rented by the Google founds, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

We all have often heard about how Bill Gates started his business out of his dorm room, and is now the biggest names in the IT industry. I think its very interesting, and almost difficult to imagine how all these big firms started out in garages. HP actually bought the Palo Alto lot in 2000 and recently celebrated the complete restoration of the garage where it was once born.

In supriya, 12/09/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Check out the Mimobots

I just came across this website on Mimobots. Wondering what mimobots are? USB flash drives!!! You must check out the pictures of these USB Drives.. Rather interesting, they look like little aliens to me. There are different series like Galaxor and Jolibear and then each of these series have different characters. As the website states:

Mimobots are little friendly data fiends! Feed the 2″ monsters all your essential data (tunes, pics, presentations, videos, etc.) and transport your files wherever you go. mimobots are what happens when designer toys meet USB flash drives - a marriage of art and technology.

Inspired by urban vinyl, we created the mimobots with intentions of injecting a dose of interactivity into the designer toy movement, and to bring style and soul to personal tech devices. mimobots are available in 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, and 2GB (all Hi-Speed USB 2.0) and are compatible with Windows and Mac. mimobots are made with love in the USA.

I am pretty intrigued looking at these UBS Drives. Have any of you seen one or own one? I am curious to see one.

In supriya, 12/09/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

YAY for SQL and the X-Team!

Working on our project, and making forms to enter new data in the database reminded me of the days when I used HTML to store data, and how cumbersome the whole proces was!

HTML forms collect data, but they do not usually process it. In order for a form to be processed, it must go somewhere. To enable this you need to include two attributes in the

it the form to a program stored on a web server.

Process the form with JavaScript.

Send the form to a database.

E-mail the results of the form using mailto.

I actually used the email method when I was managing a database a few summers ago. Though its the easiest to set up, it produces results in a very crude format and sends you an email everytime a new data entry is made in the table. I had to then manually input the data in the database which was very laborious and time consuming. Moreover, it was annoying to get so many emails every day.

But SQL has come to our rescue now. YAY! I love how the insert statements automatically insert the data and one does not have to deal with a gazillion emails every day. I wish I could have taken this class earlier and learned about the X-Team which would have saved me many hours at my summer job two years ago. The class project is definitely a great way to bring together all that we have learned in class, and do it ourselves from scratch to get a hands-on-experience. I am excited to use the X-Team members the next time I have to manage a database so that I don’t have to sit there and make manual entries from HTML forms.

In supriya, 12/09/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Fido has a cell phone?

Tigerlily recently blogged about an interesting article which talked about PetCells. Though she did not seem very excited about the idea, I think its a great great invention. I am a big pet lover, and I would love for my dog tp have a cell phone.

As Tigerlily mentions, its a great way to track a lost pet. I do not know of many other systems out there which can be used to track lost pets, so I think its a very useful tool.

I specially like the idea of being able to talk to your pet if you are away on a vacation. While this might sound over the top to many non-pet-lovers, but its a great relief to be able to just say hello to your dog or listen to them bark while you are away. I know many pet-lovers who basically set their answering machine on speaker, call their home-line and talk on the phone hoping their pet is around listening to them.

I wonder how the phone network would work, as in, will it have some kind of a phone plan or will it be like a prepaid service? I am definitely excited for this new PetCell to hit the markets.

In supriya, 12/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

BIT 311- Response to JB

JB recently posted a blog, inquiring about BIT 311.

However, I’m on the waitlist for BIT 311 and can’t decide if it’s worth it to try to get in. Has anyone ever taken this course? If so, was it valuable?

I am actually taking the class right now. I think its a good class to take, specially if you want to learn about Macros and VBA. For the first few weeks, we learn about excel functionality such as creating charts, pivot tables, solver etc. Then, the last half focuses on VBA.

You can learn a lot of the topics taught in class by reading the dummies books or just trying out different features yourself. But I like watching the in-class demos, and then doing it. So, I would definitely recommend the class. I think the part on macros or even tables and VBA would be useful in future jobs. Moreover, I have heard from many Michigan Alumni, who are now in the financial industry, that they use a lot of Excel functionality learned in this class at work everyday. Hope that helps!

In supriya, 12/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Pluging in your Fire Fox

Does anyone else find that the firefox in the Bschool always needs plug ins to run certain sites? What are the plug ins for and why aren’t they already installed? I run the sites on my computer back and how and I never have problems?

Bud talked about how the business school freezes programs on their computers because the more you mess with them makes all sorts of complications, but still….can we keep updated so that we can view sites in firefox? I always have to switch to explore when I want to view certain sites and that’s inconvinient and make me wonder why I use firefox at school.

In Shady Waters, 12/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

CVcasting?

Podcasting we’ve heard of but CVcasting? CV, in case you don’t know, is the same thing as a Resume, except in Europe (and other places as well) it has a different name, often includes a personal statement and picture. It stands for Curriculum Vitae. One of the new ideas, perhaps quickly becoming a new trend, is that people are beginning to attach their CVs to different podcasting files they share with users. Monster.com is still doing really well but posting CVs might not be a bad idea in the land of iTunes, afterall it’s used by millions and it’s free. Even better, it only pops up when you click on it. To read more about this new phenomenon check out Francois’s blog at oreilly.net.

In Pink Footsie, 12/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

I’m foxy and I’m all fire

Reviews of the new Mozilla 1.5 Open Source Browser have been generally good. With live bookmarks, somewhat alike to the google reader function of automatic updating, Firefox uses RSS feeds to be your one stop to everything you could ever need webpage wise. Moreover it’s Clear Private Data button allows you to clear your history with just one click of a button, improving privacy options, especially for shared computers, if you remember to use it. It seems that with every browser and web offering, all the functionality is moving away from the toolbar to the page itself and the key seems to be simplicity and a convenient and easy to follow user interface. I’m looking forward, however, to the release of IE7…it’s coming…

In Pink Footsie, 12/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Xbox 360 beats PlayStation 3 to Japan stores

You know I'm loving this. It is key to be first to market, especially to the tech savvy Japanese market.

In del.icio.us/pinkfootsie, 12/08/2005 | Original | Archive

Crazy College Dorm Prank

Imagine walking into you room and literally every single object was wrapped in aluminum foil and there were little cups of water spread across the entire floor. I couldn’t imagine it but I found yet another crazy website with a video of a prank as such. Check it out here! Some of the videos are funny, but some are a bit extreme. I spent some time browsing and found a few interesting ones. Check out this Verizon Wireless promo (which will never hit the air) as well as a few others;

Prank

Funny Game

If there has ever been a controversial video, photo etc, chances are you’ll find it on this site.

In The Blogstar, 12/07/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

This One’s For You, Zee

Check out this gizmodo post about yet another crazy iPod accessory. This guy built a hand-cranked iPod charger and then modified it to fit a bike. That’s right - just in case you’re biking a marathon and your battery runs out, you can simply pedal yourself a re-charge.

This probably isn’t as crazy as the iPod costumes Zee posted about. It’s actually a cool invention and I’m sure this guy is pretty smart. But, honestly, how obsessed are we with the iPod?? We can’t ride a few miles without it? And why is the charger for the iPod only? Couldn’t he have just invented a bike charger and then applied it to many things, not just the iPod? Obsession.

In jb's blog, 12/07/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Dominos New Product

How many of us have ever connected Dominos with furniture? I gonna take a wild guess and say none. However with this new “Ultimate Man Cave Couch” they have caught many people by storm. This new $30,000 couch includes two swiveling LCD screens, DVD player, Xbox (OG, not 360), MP3 player, XM radio with one year of service, Nextel cellphone, mini-fridge, and two embedded Domino’s HeatWave bags. What more can I say? Oh yea, how about a delivery charge of only $5000. Here’s a link with the details of the product. Once again it’s innovation technology at its best.

In The Blogstar, 12/07/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Bundle up your Layers, Kids! We’re in for a ride!

I’m on a roll! Literally….CD’s are just rolling around in my head.

For those of you following the blue disc vs HD DVD battle going on. Latest development is that Panasonic has started their pilot production of the Blue disc. Its a double layer blue cd. The single layer has been out for awhile, which in itself holds about 25gigs. But the double layer holds 50 GIGS! Woot….they are still trying to layer more and more layers getting up to 75 or 100 gigs. Ohmi….I’m drooling just typing.

But you have to wonder…..how long does it take to burn? And why isn’t anyone working on the burning technology

In Shady Waters, 12/07/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Running on Water…Ions

As I was browsing borders, I ran across this book called “Earth from above” a fantastic book. Really it is! It takes pictures

Cleaning your clothes without water. How supurb I think one of the reasons that I love technology so much is the ability to not only improve our lives in terms of cost, effciency, and simplicity, but also its ability to improve our footprint on this world and enviornmnet.

A lot of times, in class or during a presentation, we will hear companies talking about their footprint. But their “footprint” isn’t enviornment, but more presence, brand equity in different countries, so on and so forth. I think its interesting that some companies are approaching this issue of footprint, as making it the biggest in the world, such as GM, and other companies are approaching the idea with leaving no foot print, such as Interface, a floor covering company. Their goal is to aim for full sustainability, to not have to take anymore from the enviornmnet, to tear down old carpets to make new ones or make their carpets biodegrable. I hope they make it.

The CEO’s story, Ray Anderson, is interesting. He had an epiphany after reading a book and realized that he was leaving behind mess and waste for his children and so on…he was in a sense, stealing from his children. Interesting no?

In Shady Waters, 12/07/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Gender Disconnect

Supriya recently posted about a new phone that people say are “girly”. My question would be why is it “girly” or for women? What makes it so? Just because it’s pink? Why can’t guys have pink phones?

A lot of people would blow this off as me being picky and over thinking the issue. But the things we assume and think effect what we say and think and how we create things. A perfect example is this article from the nytimes. Its about a video game competition, and in the tagline under the article it said something along the lines of men and boy’s compete. In the article they do happen to mention womyn but they make it seem so surprising that there are womyn there, saying:

about 200 young men — and women — in their early-20’s and late-teens, some wearing Fatal1ty T-shirts, gathered around the stage.

So my question would be, what makes people think certain things are for men and for womyn, is it the market, the society, maybe the people themselves? It’s a complex issue that plans a role in our lives…that’s a little more subtle than the technology invading our lives

In Shady Waters, 12/07/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Pictures make my life pink

I love finding cool websites. Today, while looking for some clip art with elephants on it (i’m organizing a white elephant game for my floor…RAing in full swing) I came across this cool page with funny pictures on it. I think it’s awesome what people take pictures of and what they can do with them. It’s sites like this that really make the internet a great technology base. Some of these are quite bizarre and others just, well let’s just say wow {no comment}. Look at the few below (I know I’m picture crazy, but you know you love it). PS. It also has its own Microsoft category (yeah Kevin, just fulfilling your request haha ) Found any cooler ones? Bring it on, let’s aggregate! That’s what I’ll look like next year.

Cute Pic

Cool Pic

Funny Pic

In Pink Footsie, 12/06/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

New Best Friends

Zee recently made a post asking the question;

Have we gotten that lonely and delusional that we consider our electronics our best friends?

I’d hate to say it but I think the answer is yes. After all we’re around our electronics and use them on a daily basis. constantly want the newest product, and as she put it even want to dress up our ipods. JB mentioned how we are even taking our ipods to the bar with us these days. I do think that people and companies are taking this a technology stuff a bit too far. It’s kind of hard to keep up with these days.

In The Blogstar, 12/06/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Just for JB..cuz I know she loves it!

So I found the perfect website for JB to hate apple even more.. http://www.iattire.net/

Yes, believe it or not, this website has costumes for your iPod, iPod mini, and shuffle! Want to dress up your iPod for Christmas? Make it into a reindeer. Going somewhere warm for the summer? Gear up your mini iPod with a hula skirt. And no, this website is not fake. There are price tags on these babies and people have accounts here. I’d have to say that this is probably the biggest waste of money I’ve ever seen in my LIFE! Who in their right mind would dress up their iPod?? Have we gotten that lonely and delusional that we consider our electronics our best friends? Pretty sad if you ask me..

In zee124, 12/06/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

A terrible site with good programmers

A popular site that I have heard of for college students is called CollegeHumor.com. This website is terribly inappropriate, uncensored, and irreverent. Therefore, I warn you before you enter that there is a high probability that you could be offended by some if not all of the content. In fact, I personally do not like the site because it makes college students seem one dimensional. So what does this have to do with Bit320? Well a major reason why students go to this website is to view pictures that other students have submitted. Most of the time, they involve anything from the college experience to funny or ironic pictures of celebrates and politicians. One thing I have noticed is their recent addition of tags and tag clouds to the pictures section. For example if you encounter a picture that has George W. Bush, there will most likely be a tag called Bush which you can click on to view pictures of him. The tags in the site make it much more navigable. And it leads me to wonder if one of the most unrefined websites in the world is offer such convenience why isn’t everyone doing the same?

In SuperMatt, 12/06/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

.XXX is not the answer to a BIG PROBLEM

After readings Dave’s blog, I started to think about the .xxx and pornography websites. I found this site which explains industry statistics on the porn industry. Some interesting facts about the online adult industry are:

1. Porn revenue is larger than all combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises.

2. US porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC (6.2 billion)

3. Child pornography generates $3 billion annually

ast fact is the most disturbing to me. There needs to be a better way to stop children from accessing these sites. However there are some major issues in doing so. The first of which is that children are often better on computers than their parents. If a parent doesn’t understand properly how to properly block their children from accessing these sites the kids will figure it out. Adding complexity to the problem is that computer are becoming completely ubiquitous in our society. When I was growing up there was only one computer in our house and it was in our family room, however with people having multiple computer in the house including laptops children could take computers to their rooms or some place more private to access these forbidden sites. For these reasons it is hard even for the most responsible parent to prevent their children from accessing these sites. I know when I am a parent I will speak directly to my children and educate them about why it is inappropriate for them to visit these sites. I think education is the best hope because with as unregulated as the internet is, it would be virtually impossible to stop a determined teenager if they wanted to find adult content.

In SuperMatt, 12/06/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

The benefits of knowing 5 languages

Kevin brings up a great point in his blog post. When I first started Bit320 I was hoping for a better understanding on databases, but that was only a start. Learning SQL, XSQL, XML, XSQL, and HTML is not only practical, it is impressive. I was in an interview a few weeks ago, and I was telling the interviewer that I was in a class that taught the basics of these languages, he was very impressed. The truth is that it is important to learn them all together. If you think about it if you want to create a database and then sharing it (over the internet) your only choice is learning these 5 languages. I know that any job I take will not require me to know these languages, but having knowledge in these areas will help me for a few major reasons.

I will understand the complicity in creating a sharing a database over the internet.
I will understand the logic if a database is created for me or my company
I will know NEVER to hit the submit button twice when placing an order over the internet for merchandise.

In SuperMatt, 12/06/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Fido has a cell phone?

I came across this article that was rather disturbing to me. For $350 to $400, dog owners can purchase a PetCell, which ”is a bone-shaped cell phone that will let dog owners talk to their best friend over a two-way speaker.” The Petcell will have its own number which when the owner dials, will be automatically answered by little Fido. Why does Fido need a cell phone?

It is a bit ridiculous for a dog to have a phone for its owners to call and talk to when they are out of town or whatever. However, I can see why some owners would want one, especially if their dog runs away frequently. Here are some other features/uses for this:

The ability to track a lost pet has most dog lovers excited. The PetCell has a “call owner” button in case Rover strays. It also includes assisted GPS, or A-GPS, which works indoors, allowing dog owners to map their pup’s coordinates from any web-enabled device or by dialing a voice-enabled call center.

The PetCell will also have an option called GeoFence that will alert owners whenever their dog wanders beyond preset parameters, and built-in temperature sensors to indicate if the dog is too hot or cold.

Additionally, the PetCell will support a small wireless camera, an application Robb believes could be useful in search-and-rescue or bomb-squad missions. But for patrons of doggy day care, it may become the canine equivalent of a nanny cam.

Okay, so maybe it is useful. Another yet more disturbing fact is that the company is trying to “roll out models for kids, the elderly and outdoor sports fanatics who enjoy snowboarding and kayaking.” Kids…elderly…and GPS. I don’t know about this.

In Tigerlily's Blog, 12/06/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

BIT 320: Two Thumbs Up

Kevin recently posted his evaluation of BIT320. Kevin says:

Most importantly, I truly understand the power and value of cutting edge database platforms. I feel that with this newly acquired lingo, I can now wipe the bead of sweat off my head and feel confident when conversing with techies at Microsoft. I definitely will recommend this course to others.

I agree. I’ve already recommended this course to many people. It frusterates me when they say “But I don’t know anything about computers.” Because I think that’s my favorite part about this class: I’m no computer expert, but I still find the material incredibly interesting and it makes me feel very confident when talking technology to others. While I might not encounter any Microsoft techies like Kevin, I still feel confident carrying on a conversation with anyone who knows what they’re talking about. For example, the other day I had to alter the back end of a software program we use at work. This program uses MS Access. You should have heard me throwing around database terms with my boss like it was nothing. The world is full of databases, and we should all know what we’re dealing with.

ition to databases and specific syllabus topics, I feel as though I’m coming out of this class with knowledge about a variety of other technology topics. The re-mix is to thank. When my classmates blog about something I don’t know anything about, I read it and I might even reference their links. Then I become interested or at least aware. Or when I bookmark I do a lot of searching on the web that I wouldn’t normally do. Now I find myself going to tech sites for news even when I’m not thinking about blogging or bookmarking. I think this is incredibly important because in today’s world technology plays a vital role and we should keep ourselves updated. I used to take a lot of things for granted; now I’m interested in how they work or what’s next.

In jb's blog, 12/05/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Boxing Out

Matt’s comments reminded me of a conversation that I had recently. My friend had just played the Xbox 360 and had complaints about glitches and certain aspects of the game “Madden”. He said that upon close inspection, the game had flaws. For example, the netting doesn’t come up behind the fieldgoal posts. Also, there were less options than in previous versions, you can’t challenge a play (as you can in the NFL) and the game has other glitches .

But, once a person has already purchased an Xbox, I think that they are locked in to the system. So even if there are some problems with the system or games, people have already spent so much to get the system, that they probobally won’t spend on the new Playstation. So, from Microsoft’s perspective, it is probobally better strategically to get the Xbox out first even if it isn’t flawless. Though, it could be seen as immoral.

Does anyone have any knowledge of problems with other games? If not, it could be EA Sports that is to blame for these flaws.

In musings of william h, 12/05/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Answer: Sprint’s Data Leadership

Supriya, I am actually right in the middle of working on a project for CSIB with Matt and Kevin on cellular service providers, so I have some insight about Sprint. Sprint gained a lot of their users from the merger with Nextel, which was the preferred service provider of businesses. Now, the new merged sprint offers the services that Nextel had offered.

These services are described on this page of their website. They offer options specific to different industries. For example, a taxi cab driver can use his cell phone to scan credit cards, so he wouldn’t need another credit card scanner.

I am not positive what else Sprint offers regular customers, but if you look at the site that I linked, you will probobally be able to figure it out.

Hope this helps.

In musings of william h, 12/05/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Boxin’ Out

So I thought I’d jump in this XBox360 circus that JB and William_h have started.

I agree, unfortunately, that their marketing strategy is valid and effective. I think just having a presence in all locations where the original XBox exists will help establish a foothold in the market for them. However, I say unfortunately mainly because this strategy is annoying and frustrating for the many would-be XBox360 owners…myself included.

I wonder how much backlash this strategy will garner if too many people become frustrated and just don’t buy one. I’d say that the backlash has started to some degree. A lawsuit has been filed against Microsoft for rushing a faulty product to the market place. This will be interesting to see how it turns out.

In Matt's Musings, 12/05/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

External Harddrive - Please Backup Your Data

There have been a lot of blogs in the pat few days, but I saw one of interest in which Dave asks:

I am planning on purchasing an external harddrive. I was wondering if anyone had any advice on which harddrive to purchase. I’ve heard that Western Digital is good. Is there another brand that is of the same quality?

Also, does anyone know if the difference in quality between expensive and inexpensive external hard drives is significant?

I think making an investment into a backup hard drive is worth while. Our dependency on the information that we store on computers is growing faster than reliability of hard drives. For that reason I would strongly suggest purchasing a full backup harddrive or atleast a key chain hard drive to backup information. If you are going to purchase a full backup here is what I would suggest.

Purchase from a reputable company. The whole reason that you are doing this is to make sure your data is safe, why jeopardize this by purchasing a no name hard drive? Western Digital is a leader in quality and one that I personally recommend.
Make sure that it is either USB 2.0 or Firewire. You are going to be transferring lots of data, and you will want as fast of connect as possible when doing so. Along those same lines make sure that your computer is compatible with which one you chose.
Think about how you will store you information on this hard drive. There are a couple different option here. First you could simply copy and paste all our important files onto the disk, or you could purchase software that creates and updates backups on the drive. Main companies give software with these capabilities with the hard drive. Since you invested the time and energy selecting, purchasing, and set up with hard drive you might as well invest the extra time, and set it up properly, and in the most advantageous way for you.
Finally, purchase it online, this should save you time, offer you more choices, and will give you a better price. I suggest newegg. I have used them for many of my online purchases and have been very happy.

There are many alternatives to purchasing an external hard drive.

FTP important files online. This way you can access them from anywhere in the world, and (assuming the server is backed up) it will be some else’s problem to make sure it is backed up properly.
Use a key chain hard drive to backup important files. Sure you don’t want to lose you gigabytes of illegally downloaded music, but when you think about it, you probably have less than 1gb of really important files.
Setup your computer on a RAID system. RAID offers a few different hard drive configuration which allows for the automatically back up of data. You can learn more about RAID by click this.

Whatever you decide protect your data! The last thing anyone wants is to lose all of your SQL/XML/XSQL/XSL scripts on December 19th.

In SuperMatt, 12/05/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Question: Sprint’s data leadership

I was just reading some articles, and came across Sprint’s leadership is wireless data services. It talks about how Sprint has 5.5 million subscribers for its data service, and also the EVDO network by Sprint.

I am not sure, but by data services, are we simply talking about wireless internet access? I know T-mobile has something called the Hot-Spot where you basically access wireless through T-Mobile and pay them. Is this the same service but provided by Sprint instead? Also, are these data subscribers using it primarily to access wireless internet from their laptops or from their phones? Lastly, what is the EVDO network?

Any help on this topic will be appreciated

In supriya, 12/05/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

.xxx domain

I agree with Zee that internet pornography and other adult sites will not be eradicated. Therefore, it does make sense to make the .xxx domains. A major benefit that I see is that parents can set preferences so children can’t visit .xxx websites. When I was growing up, it was easy as could be to search ‘adult’ sites as there was no way for parents to filter them. This at least gives parents a way to filter the content, so children can navigate the web without seeing things that they shouldn’t see and without the need for a parent to be watching over their child’s shoulder. Thus, the child will feel more freedom.

It also gives people that want to view these sites with a way of categorizing them. I suppor this as well. If people are going to look at ‘adult’ sites, they might as well be able to find them quickly and efficiently. That doesn’t hurt anyone.

What do you think about this possible move to adding .xxx domains.

In musings of william h, 12/05/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Blogs affecting hirability

Matt brings up an interesting point, in his discussion on how having a blog can affect if you will get a job. This is something to think about. If you apply for a job, run for government office, or even if you are a leader of an organization, the things that you say in blogs can come back to haunt you. I personally am very hesitant to use my real name on anything that I write and post online. I would say that this is the solution to the problem, just use a different name or spelling of a name so that you can’t be searched. This allows you to remain uncensored in your blogging and without reprecussions in other parts of your life.

In response to the comment about not wanting to work for a company like that, I disagree. You can’t judge a company by its hiring policies, because most public companies follow the same basic procedures when hiring new applicants. It’s just smart business to do checks on applicants. If you put your opinions on the web with your name and its googled, then I think that it is your own fault, as you knew that it could happen by posting to a publicly viewable area.

In musings of william h, 12/05/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Change Directory the XPath & Linux Way

PinkFootsie and Shady recently had a converation about the CD function in Linux. Shady gave some excellent advice to PinkFootsie:

“Some help might be found on this site that Blogstar found in response to a post Tiger Lilly.”

While reading Chapter 5: XPath Espresso, in the XSLT For Dummies book, they mention that the XPath commands mimic directory structure navigation commands. Things such as “..” represent the parent, while “.” represents self, and children can be accessed by “/child/child”..etc. I hadn’t made this connection until the until the book pointed it out. I think this is pretty cool and will help me remember the XPath commands now that they don’t seem so arbitrary. So just like in linux, to go up a directory you type “cd ..”, in XPath to access the parent you type “..”. Pretty cool if you ask me.

In Matt's Musings, 12/05/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

A Perfect Remix

I’m extremely impressed with how far the class has come in the blogsphere this semester. From what I’ve been able to gather, like me, most of the class was pretty new to the blog world. Most of us either had never blogged before, at least not regularly. But after a slow start while we all tested the water, we seem to all have hit a stride now.

Our proficiency in blogging became apparent to me while catching up on the back-log of blogs I had missed. Not only was it an informative read, but it was an entertaining read as well. We seem to have struck a happy medium within the content confines of the class - it’s not boring, it’s not all business, but it’s not fluffy/trival either. But that’s just my opinion. What do you all think? I’m particularly curious as to Bud’s reaction on how we as a class have done. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’d love to see this remix continue and grow once the class is over.

In Matt's Musings, 12/05/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

EECS 183: Indeed, a great course.

I was just working on my CSIB project and decided to glance at the remix site. Kevin’s post regarding EECS 183 immediately caught my eye. I took this course freshman year, and it is still one of my favorite courses. Like Kevin, we did several programs including a final project to build a virtual travel agency. I am very glad to have taken this course freshman year since it helped me get a good grasp of basic C++ skills, which have been very helpful in catching up with other languages such as HTML, SQL etc. One of the typical questions in my interviews has been:

What is your favorite course at the U of M?

EECS 183 it is!!! Even though I am a finance major, this course has set a great foundation for me, in terms of reasoning and logic which is applicabale in any analytical/quant course-work. I definitely recommend this course to everyone.

In supriya, 12/05/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

So I see here on your resume you have a blog.

While bookmarking tonight, I ran across a Dear Abby article. This article states,

“Just as employers have learned to read e-mail and blogs, they have learned to screen candidates through their sites.”

It goes on to say,
20;Googling a name isn’t difficult, and it could lead to an applicant’s blog.” I’m curious as to all of your opinions on this subject. Personally, I would like to think that my personal life would be kept seperate from my job life. What I do at home should be my business and my business alone. But at the same time, I know this isn’t the case. Employers want to know what type of people they are employing; are their employee’s “political activists, evangelizers, whiners or tattletales.” This makes a lot of sense to me. So maybe it’s ok for an employer to read my blog.

On the other hand, I wonder, “Do I want to work for a company that doesn’t want to hire me for me?” It would seem to suggest that a company that doesn’t want to hire me , soley due to an objection it had to something in my blog, would not share the same beliefs as me and would presumably not be a good fit. So maybe it’s NOT ok for an employer to read my blog.

I know SuperMatt expressed some concern about the issue of anonymity earlier in the class. What do you all think? Would you want your future employer reading your blog and possibly basing it’s decision on what it read?

In Matt's Musings, 12/05/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

External Hard Drive Question

I am planning on purchasing an external harddrive. I was wondering if anyone had any advice on which harddrive to purchase. I’ve heard that Western Digital is good. Is there another brand that is of the same quality?

Also, does anyone know if the difference in quality between expensive and inexpensive external hard drives is significant?

In musings of william h, 12/04/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

.xxx Domain

ICANN postponed approval of the .xxx Domain proposed by the online adult entertainment industry. This article is pretty interesting in that it outlines the benefits and misconceptions people have about the domain. The online pornography industry is not going anywhere as long as they have the First Amendment under their belt. So to cut down on children’s accessibility to the websites and decrease the spam involved, an organized structure must be put into effect.

Now I don’t know what this does for those advocating for the removal of such websites. An approval of the domain would increase the amount of websites and show that ICANN is supportive of the content on these websites. This is also tricky. Even though I feel as though all this should be put away, I know that in reality that this is not possible. So instead of fighting a lost cause, why not improve the bad aspects of it?

In zee124, 12/04/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

My Evaluation of BIT 320

As we approach the end of the semester, I always like to reflect on all of the courses I’m finishing up. I’ve learned a great deal of material in BIT 320, as I’m sure all of you have. If you asked me about the X-Team a few months ago, I probably would have said they were characters in an action movie. Now I feel like I have a solid understanding of not only all the X-Team members (XML, XSLT, XSL, XPath), but also ER diagrams, functional notation, SQL, Oracle databases, and much more. Most importantly, I truly understand the power and value of cutting edge database platforms. I feel that with this newly acquired lingo, I can now wipe the bead of sweat off my head and feel confident when conversing with techies at Microsoft. I definitely will recommend this course to others.

In Kevin's Blog, 12/04/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

EECS 183 and why you should take it

Chapter 7 in the XSLT Dummies book brought back fond memories of EECS 183 - Elementary Programming Concepts. If any of you are interested in learning basic programming skills in a high-level language (C++), I would highly recommend taking EECS 183 before graduating. While it may not be the easiest course to take during your last semester at Michigan, you will learn all about flow of control, data structures, good program design, testing and debugging, etc. The course has two 1.5 hour lectures and a 1 hour discussion session every week, for a total of 4 credits. You are assigned seven programming projects throughout the semester, each project getting more difficult as the semester progresses. The last few projects can be very time consuming but are very fulfilling. Some of the programs I wrote included: a Blackjack game, a program that identifies palindromes, an automated stock brokerage program… just to name a few. Having a basic understanding of programming concepts is a very valuable skill to have regardless of what field you ultimately decide to enter. For example, if you ever need to throw together a quick program to automate an arduous task, programming can help.

In Kevin's Blog, 12/04/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

A Trend towards “Girly” phones

Its interesting to see how handset manufacturers are specially making phones to cater to their female consumers. The Motorola Razr, which in my opinion is over-rated, was recently released in pink. Personally, I like how the pink Razr looks. However, the CL75 Poppy phone by Siemens is kind of overdone. Click here to see a picture of the phone. The phone is not only pink, but also has a poppy flower impression on it with Swarovski crystals. Its interesting to see the trend towards “Girly” phones. I haven’t seen any phones out there which are spefically catered to the male consumers.

I wonder how much money is invested in designing each of these handsets, as they are designed by world’s top designers and what kind of profits these companies make!

In supriya, 12/02/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Inserting Code: Thanks Kevin

Kevin wrote a really good post on how to write code on the community engine website. I remember that the first time I posted code on the remix site, I just typed it directly in WordPress, not realizing that it would execute the command. As a result, the result of my code got posted rather than the actual code I was asking about. And I felt pretty silly about it since I could not go back and edit it either as the post would not show the updated changes.

But I like Kevin’s idea:

I would recommend inserting a textbox in Microsoft FrontPage and then pasting your code into the textbox. Then copy and paste all the HTML from FrontPage to Wordpress.

Using the Front Page text box would save a lot of time and energy used by the cumbersome character codes. Thanks Kevin

In supriya, 12/02/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Microsoft to compete with Craigslist.

I read an interesting article on CNN, which talks about how Microsoft will now be competing with classified ad services like Craigslist. For a quick background, here’s a gist from the article:

Microsoft is developing an online classified service to compete with the likes of Craigslist and becoming the latest company to capitalize on growing consumer interest in buying and selling everything from cars to baby-sitting services on the Web.

I think what is particularly interesting is how MS is tying up the ad service with other products like its Instant Messaging service. For example, if someone is trying to buy a product from you, you will be alerted through you IM Service. Another feature which will set it apart from Craiglist is the high level of geographical personalization it will offer.

I think that the new classifieds service will not only be an innovative product for MS but it will also help them to cross-sell their other products. However, I was just wondering if entering into such diverse lines of business leads to brand dilution? Essentially, MS is most famous for its software suites like the MS Office. Should it focus more on its core competencies rather than entering into other business lines?

In supriya, 12/02/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

No More BlackBerrys?

BlackBerry has completely revolutionized the corporate world in the recent years. Working at a Wall Street firm this past summer, I noticed the extra-ordinary dependence of every single employee on the BlackBerry. In the elevators, formal meetings or even at the train stations - the BlackBerry viral effect cannot be ignored. However, I read an article on CNN regading the ongoing patent dispute. The article reads:

The patents being challenged by RIM are at the center of a long-running legal battle with patent holding company NTP Inc. that could force RIM to settle the case or face a court-ordered shutdown of most U.S. BlackBerry sales and service.

I almost cannot imagine the impact of no more BlackBerrys on the corporate world. In particular, continuous communication is inevitable in the Wall Street firms, and the BlackBerry has met this need exceedingly well. Here’s an interesting comment by a Lazard employee:

“The person that means a lot to me that complains the most loudly about my BlackBerry use is my wife. I realized a lot of executives were having the same problem so I came up with the perfect solution. I gave her one too, and I suggested they do the same.”

Will RIM lose this case and will it have to shut down its popular BlackBerry service? What do you think the impact will be on the corporate world? Will other competitors quickly replace the BlackBerry? Any opinions?

In supriya, 12/02/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Null indicator and why it comes in handy

The xsql:query can have many different attributes, one being the null-indicator attribute. In the XSQL2 guide, Bud asked us to speculate why adding null-indicator=”yes” is useful. When set to yes, the null-indicator attribute is used on the element for any column whose value is NULL. Without this, the element would otherwise be omitted. In some cases NULL values are essential to represent missing data. For example, the actual ship date on an order may be unknown and is left as NULL until the goods are shipped out and a date is assigned to the column. Without using the null-indicator=”yes”, we would be unable to see these elements containing NULL values.

In Kevin's Blog, 12/02/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Verizon’s new plan=Bad news

Verizon is venturing into broadcasting TV networks on mobile phones. I have verizon, and actually got a free month of their VCast service. This showed small show clips and songs which were updated weekly. It was a waste of my life. I never used it, even though it was completely free! Why?

1) A mobile phone screen is too small. You know they aren’t going to be getting any bigger. People are constantly looking for the next way to make it even smaller (may it even be implanting it in your ear)

2) It killed my battery. Watching two minutes of something basically meant my phone would have to be charged again otherwise it would die. I’m sure Verizon cell phone makers (I think its Qualcom who is going in on this venture) are aware of the battery issue, but really how much longer can they extend the battery? Is that going to increasingly raise the price of the phone itself?

3) I didn’t use it when it was free..and Lord knows I’m not going to pay $10.00 a month for a 2 minute clip of the guy from Sugar Ray on E!telling me about Paris Hilton’s new monkey. I’m sure the tv show subscription is going to cost more than $10.00.

I think more than just upping its services, verizon needs to figure out how to have better calling plans. They have the best reception of any cellphone provider, yet their plans are terrible. People are turning to lower costing providers such as T-Mobile or Virgin. (Which btw, T-mobile can totally implement this tv network service and they already have their sidekicks which are big and popular enough for people to jump on it). Verizon needs to sit back and think about what their customers (and potential customers) really are looking for when signing a contract. Here’s a hint: It’s not tv shows!

In zee124, 12/01/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Oh Wireless, Oh Wireless for everyone!

I ran across a really interesting article talking about the rebuilding of New Orleans. They are going to put wireless in the city, starting in the city center and french quarter and then slowly work its way out. They are placing points on top of the street lamps so that the signal will be faster. This is mainly to jump start the city back up and bridge the digital divide for low income families.

I know that there have also been talk of wireless also in the Seattle area and Ann Arbor, but I haven’t seen anything. I think this is going to be an interesting area in the future, not only because of the technology applications but the consequences that will come about, intended and unintended of having the ability to access the internet anywhere anytime. One such consequence is that the internet providors are complaining because it is the state governments entering the market in providing wireless.

And even at the sametime, wireless is provided so freely, if a family cannot afford to spend money on a computer that has wireless….the real question is, what’s the point then?

In Shady Waters, 12/01/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Don’t be so bitter

Imagine Cup is Microsoft’s annual competition seeking new ideas and talent. You spend months trying to come up with something new and workable in the hopes of winning $33,000 and a trip to India. Kevin Shockey, an O’Reilly blogger, seems to think that this is begrudgingly unfair. Why? Well his point is well taken that after you win you have to sign away your project to Microsoft, or any other corporation that has a similar competition, when that company could be earning millions of dollars if your product (probably much altered, since the competition is for young inventors) wins with the customer. I would say that’s fine. But (come on it’s me, there’s always a but) it’s a choice. Afterall, life is not meant to give you credit and all the benefits because you came up with a basis for an idea. If that is what you’d like to do with your life, then you become an engineer and sing your life away on tweeking your little ideas in an office setting where you can annually benefit from your inventive genius. But let’s get real, this is for young people and quite frankly they do it because they do have an idea and that’s it. They are spending the time to win the trip and win the money. If you find yourself thinking that’s not fair then don’t do it, no one made you, nor anyone has asked you to make this your career. At the end of the day it’s business and the ending product would most likely involve way more complicated inputs than what some young mind can come with as an idea. For the idea, they get a trip and some nice cash.

In Pink Footsie, 12/01/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Re-design my life

It seems like blogs are still my favorite topic so I’d like to expose you to this cool new phenomenon of design blogs. Webpages like ApartmentTherapy with cool ideas on how to spruce up your place, DesignSponge that adds a little bit of quirky and a bit of unique to your space and Funfurde which is my personal favorite that has the weirdest visual teasers that are actual furniture/accessories.

This is cool:

It’s a new movement aimed to release some creative in everyone and share some wacky to completely conservative ideas. This could be simply a diary of the imaginative paths of your brain or an outlet that could catch the right person’s attention (a way to change from your dilapidating, energy draining job that you oh so hate into the career of your dreams if you’re so artistically inclined). I think it’s simply cool to see the awesome things people can come up with and their ability through blogging to share it with everybody without the need to be a name brand of their own.

In Pink Footsie, 12/01/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

healthcare IT follow-up

For anyone who’s interested, here’s a follow-up to my post on IT in the healthcare industry. I received a comment from a healthcare/IT professional who is actually devoted to working on this issue:

Your points are well taken and folks like me are trying to solve the problem but the issues are immense and there are some huge hurdles to overcome. If you’re interested in learning more check out the health IT launch page known as HITSphere (http://www.hitsphere.com) and my health IT blog called The Healthcare IT Guy (http://www.healthcareguy.com).

I checked out his blog and the launch page, which is a network of similar blogs. It’s great to know that so many people are concerned and working on this issue.

In jb's blog, 12/01/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

After some spelunking

Zee124 mentions some issues with leftover white space in response to a post by SuperMatt. Here’s the basic gist of the story. In XSLT — Chapter 4, Matt was playing around with basic.p54-2.xsl (available here) trying to get the additional information after the <movie> element to go away. He followed my advice to use empty <xsl:template/> rules to make the elements disappear, but was left with extra whitespace. Put concretely, Matt started with this:

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl=\"http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform\" version=\"1.0\">
<!-- Sample from XSLT For Dummies, by Richard Wagner -->
  <xsl:template match=\"film\">
    <movie><xsl:apply-templates/></movie>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Then, went to the equivalent of this:

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl=\"http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform\" version=\"1.0\">
<!-- Sample from XSLT For Dummies, by Richard Wagner -->
  <xsl:template match=\"film\">
    <movie><xsl:apply-templates/></movie>
  </xsl:template>
	<xsl:template match=\"composer\"/>
	<xsl:template match=\"year\"/>
	<xsl:template match=\"grade\"/>
</xsl:stylesheet>

This got rid of the extra text but left in line feeds. There is an advanced method that will get rid of the line feeds in an element called <xsl:strip-space elements=”*”/> discussed on page 230 of the XSLT book. Here’s the final version using that element:

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl=\"http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform\" version=\"1.0\">
	<xsl:strip-space elements=\"*\"/>
<!-- Sample from XSLT For Dummies, by Richard Wagner -->
  <xsl:template match=\"film\">
    <movie><xsl:apply-templates/></movie>
  </xsl:template>
	<xsl:template match=\"composer\"/>
	<xsl:template match=\"year\"/>
	<xsl:template match=\"grade\"/>
</xsl:stylesheet>

In Blogonautic Solutions, 11/29/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Going to the bar? Don’t forget your iPod…?

This article discusses a new bar trend. People are bringing their iPods to the bar and taking turns sharing their music with the entire crowd. Brian Toro, a Chicago bar-owner says its like letting his customers play DJ.

Even Toro now brings in his music player so he can crank up rock and punk tunes for customers. He’ll also let others play just about anything — “even if it’s country” — as long as the music is upbeat.

So we’ve replaced the Jukebox with the portable music player. What I like about this is that we did not lose the idea of the jukebox. People sometimes complain that new technology leads to the death of great old traditions. But in this case, the tradition is still there, it’s just updated. We’re still choosing music with our friends and singing along with an entire bar full of people… we’re just spinning the wheel of an iPod rather than inserting a quarter into a jukebox.

In jb's blog, 11/29/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Wow! Lindsay takes charge

In a remarkable, end of semester coup, Lindsay has come up with the best site anyone has bookmarked or commented on. It’s called suprglu. My cut, it’s the 15 minute facsimile to the BIT320 Remix (one guy has actually done this with his creative writing class). It lacks some things though. Let me provide a quick list:

There is really only one way to see the tag cloud, good for recency, bad for anything else.
It does not provide an interface for using the same tags across a number of people. We need the tag cloud people can subscribe to.
The feed provides all categories in one <category> element. That’s how del.icio.us does it, but the standard has moved toward a unique <category> element per category. Let me point out in passing that this is one of the most bedeviling aspects of consuming feeds.
There appears some update latency. For instance, Lindsay’s post about SuperGlu is not on her SuperGlu site as of yet.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 11/29/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Wi-Fi: Public or Private?

What do you guys think??

I was reading this article about New Orleans going completely Wi-Fi, starting today. The city owns and operates the entire network and all of its equipment. However, the city is only allowed to do this because its current state of disaster. After that, it will have to abide by the Lousiana law and outsource the network publically. The state doesn’t allow any locality to offer an Internet connection over 144 kilobits/sec. The new network is 512 kilobits/sec.

New Orleans got around the law because it is in a state of disaster. The city has to be saved, and officials feel that this technology will play a key role in doing so. Why can’t any city use that argument? Detroit is doing pretty bad. Why can’t the Detroit government institute Wi-Fi? Is any private company really going to invest in Wi-Fi in Detroit? Private might be its only hope. I haven’t really formed my entire opinion of whether Wi-Fi should be public or private - these are just some primary thoughts.

In jb's blog, 11/29/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Tagging to Pay for Your Wedding?

A Canadian entrepreneur wants to raise funds for his wedding by listing websites on his del.icio.us account for $20 per listing. Patrick Ryan, 37, and his fiancée have been dating for 5 years; he hopes that TagDirectory.net will attract advertisers. Advertisers will be able to list their website under as many categories (tags) as they want.

I found this article on yahoo and Micro Persuasion talked about it as well. I went to the website that he is doing all of this on and currently, he has raised $360 of the $250,000 goal. I can’t believe that he has actually made money on this, but he has a long way to reach his large goal. He says:”I’ve heard that for most couples, money is the biggest cause of problems. I want Keri and I to have a very happy marriage. I’d want to be debt-free after the wedding.” This is a unique way of throwing a huge bash with no actual cost to you. It is like a dream come true for anyone in that situation, I would imagine. I wish him good luck.

In Tigerlily's Blog, 11/29/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

SuprGlu - Gluing your life together

I came across the site SuprGlu.com. Its description on the site is:

Do you already use services like del.icio.us, flickr, blogger, typepad, etc? SuprGlu is a new way to gather all your content from those sites. In a nutshell, SuprGlu:

gathers your content from popular webservices and publishes them in one convenient place.
presents your content with simple, great looking templates which you can customize.
is FREE to use!

I though it was really cool so I signed up, which is really easy. You can view my site to see how nice it is. Basically, I had to give them my del.icio.us username and the feed from my blog site, which you can find on your blogging site on the right side down where it says rss feeds (it is the post). Just copy the url (which is the main url with /feed at the end) and paste it into the suprglu setup page. The site then “glu”s the two together (and however many you add as sources) and creates one site that you can see both your posts and bookmarks at once sorted by day. If it interests you, try it.

In Tigerlily's Blog, 11/29/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Finally a way parents can stop blaming everyone but themselves

I can across this article discussing that Sony will add parental controls on games and videos for Playstation 3. It said that other console makers have made similar features. I think this is great! I am so tired of parents complaining that their son/daughter is playing video games that are too violent. I have always felt that parents are to blame (partially) for their kids doing stupid things as a result of video games (as many parents claim). Parents can see the ratings of the games on the cover of the case and they can do research to see if it is violent (all they have to do is look at the websites and see screen shots). Now, parents will have no one to blame but themselves because they should have used the parental controls feature on the consoles. I am sure that parents don’t see it my way, but there are several things that they could be doing that will prevent the violence they claim is a result of violent video games. Like the article mention:

Although parental controls could ease restrictions on the industry, some are hoping that such access also will remove misperceptions about games and their influence on real events.

That is enough ranting for me…it is just something that has always bothered me. I am very glad to see that console makers are making changes that will help stop this madness.

In Tigerlily's Blog, 11/29/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

For feature in del.icio.us, any takers?

I was updating my del.icio.us today and also looking for the new tech holiday news (ie what to and not to buy) and I noticed a cool feature that has seemed to escape me in the past. The “for” feature allows other people to post del.icio.us bookmarks for you that you might be interested in. If anyone is interested in trying this out, let me know (granted that you know what I like, just kidding).

I think it’s a nifty thing for techie dorks (myself included) that reminds me of a WishList, though it’s completely free and works in the opposite direction (wishlists ask you for what you want and then you send it to potential fillers, while the for option allows you to tag things for others and then see if they liked them). Anyway, as you can see mine is empty right now, let me know if you find anything cool and suggest it for me to look at it. I really liked the site that ShadyWaters found with the cute little drawings on photos.

In Pink Footsie, 11/28/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Screen shots

I came up on this new idea of doing screenshots (granted it should’ve dawned on me much earlier). I figured it would be much easier if we could just take a screen shot of the screen we’re getting and paste it in, so that our questions would be much more clear (or problems) and formatted correctly. I tried Ctrl+prt sc but it just won’t input it. Unless there is a URL source, the page can’t be linked to. Any ideas or ways we could change it and improve our experience?

In Pink Footsie, 11/28/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Age for Gadgets 2

Yes we have come a mighty long way with respects to our wants and so-called needs. After looking over the article Zee posted I couldn’t imagine wanting a cell phone, laptop, etc at the age of 11. But then again I would have to reflect on what was in at the time I was 11. Back then everyone wanted a pager and the same questions we are asking about the current 11 year olds responsiblity, our elders were asking about us. I surely thought of myself as being responsible enough to have one so I can’t be quick to say that the 11 years today don’t need cell phones, ipods, etc. But its does strike me just knowing the fact the they truly want all of these high tech gadgets at such a young age. I can only imagine what 11 year olds will be asking for 10 years from now. It’s kind of scary if you ask me!!

In The Blogstar, 11/28/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Age for Gadgets

I was reading an article about what’s on every 11 year olds gift list: iPod, laptop, and a cellphones. I don’t even remember knowing how to work a cell phone when I was 11! But I feel like now that everyone is catching up to owning these gadgets, it feels like more of a necessity. I know that before I got my iPod, i felt like I really really needed it just because my cd’s were overwhelming. Now after getting it, I dont know how I survived without it! But the article raises a good question: what is the right age for owning a cellphone/iPod/laptop and any other new gadget which comes out? Cellphones are tricky because it helps parents keep in contact with their kids anywhere they are, but are the kids responsible enough to have one?

In zee124, 11/28/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

White Spaces

So I tried to take a stab at Matt’s problem with the blank output in the line that he takes away. I couldn’t find the solution, but actually found more problems! I searched on blank lines in output and came across many websites addressing the issue of White Spaces. I still am not sure at the exact definition because it seems like there’s issues with white spaces in code, in output, and everywhere! I need to read a little bit more on it to understand what all the whitespace hype is about.

In zee124, 11/28/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

healthcare: need for IT

Bud and I had a discussion a few weeks ago about the lack of IT in the rec sports industry. I just read this article about an almost similar problem in the healthcare industry. While IT is pretty prevalent in back-end systems like billing and admissions, it’s pretty much missing from patient records and treatment. Instead, doctors and other healthcare workers are surrounded by paperwork. This results in lost records and errors such as mis-prescribing drugs.

Unlike rec sports, I don’t think this problem can really be blamed on generations or even people at all. I think it can almost be blamed on lack of supply. There aren’t a lot of big players out there in the business of supplying IT to the healthcare industry. There aren’t a lot of companies with enough healthcare capability in addition to IT capability. GE and Siemens may be the future of this business, which is right now very fragmented with regional companies. Both GE and Siemens have IT skills and experience in medical equipment.

In addition, the cost of IT is incredibly expensive for healthcare providers. But now, the government is getting involved in pushing for IT. This is causing some activity in the supplier business. And as IT solutions continue to become cheaper, hopefully we’ll see more of it in the healthcare industry. Can you imagine the doctor typing your symptoms into a computer program and receiving recommendations for your treatment? This is called clinical decision support.20 years from now… will we even need doctors??

In jb's blog, 11/27/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

X-Factor: why not use?

No it’s not the show. I’m talking about the XSLT editor and XML converter in one. I think it is a really useful program with a very friendly user interface. It allows for you to create XML and XSLT stylesheets and go between the two in one easy push of the button (granted that you formatted them correctly in the first place). So check it out and let me know what you think about it (all it really is, is an editor, kind of like jEdit but specifically for this type of work we’re doing between XML and XSLT). You can download it from the dummies page here.

In Pink Footsie, 11/27/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

AIMing carefully at the Target: User Interface

SuperMatt was talking about aim and its functionality. I feel like as if new and new versions came out, they got worse and worse. So I finally switched to Trillian. Trillian is super nice. Its one intergrated user interface to chat on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and ICQ. And it has other features such as being able to talk behind an away message and being invisible and still chatting. It’s my favorite.

But if you do like the AIM interface, you can dead aim. You can get it at oldversion.com. Which has very similar features to trillian but it only logs onto aim ;(.

But in regards to User interface, I think a lot of the times, the problem is that the companies are so focused on getting the software out to the consumers and if you think about it, the people who are creating the interface are the ones who created the program, so they are at a disadvantage because they know this program in and out and won’t really see how someone who has no idea will approach the program. Its not an excuse because they can make sure make up for the disadvantage. ahhh well, part of me is like, if we are going to complain we should become engineers or get in the field somehow ;D

In Shady Waters, 11/27/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

/ As a shortcut: when to use

To answer Supriya’s question on the end tag, I believe you need the closing tag just as she has inferred: there are lines in between the opening and closing tag. The difference between XML and HTML is that it is well formed and shortcuts can only be used when elements are empty (ie. no information between beginning and end tags, no extra text, extra child elements). I also like Zeenah’s stab at it: it makes it easier to look for mistakes. I hope everyone had some good Turkey and we’re all coming back a few pounds heavier: goggle goggle (not google, lol).

In Pink Footsie, 11/25/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

The New AIM

For some reason every time I was running AIM on my computer it was really slowing down my performance. To resolve this problem I decided to delete the program and reinstall. I downloaded the new version of AIM which is now called AIM Triton which is supposed to get well beyond ordinary instant messaging. However I am disappointed with the new chat program. It is not user friendly nor logical. I think that too often computer companies are interested in releasing programs that are fun or easy to create as opposed to truly understanding their consumer and trying to meet their needs. What do you guys think? Similarly, I heard rumors (from my Microsoft insider) that the next version of Office will provide users with a completely different interface yet will not provide any additional functionality. I believe this a a ploy by Microsoft to get users to upgrade. With all of these companies not worrying enough about consumers it’s easy to see how Google could come in and quickly gain prominence.

In SuperMatt, 11/25/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Congrats to Zee

Congratulations to Zee on what appears to a successful performance. I can’t dance, and I would never want to perform in front of 3,500 people so we should all be proud of her. I’m sure over time her memory of the dance routine will slowly fade, but one lesson that she was so nice to share with us is her blog about teamwork:

“Go where you need to be, and look at the people next to you, and position yourself in relation to where you are suppose to be to them”

So often in interviews they want to hear about lessons that we have learned from group work and our approach to group work, and I think this is a great lesson to share.

In SuperMatt, 11/25/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Online Thanksgiving Sales

I was so happy to see Supriya post the article about Cyber Monday. We were having a little discussion about that at the dinner table yesterday. My cousin wanted to get to Best Buy early in the morning to take advantage of the laptops for $300. My dad said that he should just buy it online as Dell is definently going to be offering a sale like that. They don’t want to miss out on Black Friday while all the retail stores are making money. But really, they are making money not from these low priced products, but by luring people into the store with these low prices in hopes they will buy other products. It doesn’t realy work the same online. I mean you see the RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS, but I never click on this. It’s different if I’m physically in the store and I feel like browsing. I don’t think I’d take advantage of Cyber Monday because honestly, its just not as fun. I mean its 7:30 am..and I’m about the head out to an overpopulated mall to stand in line for clothes I probably will never wear.. Now that experience is priceless…

In zee124, 11/25/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Supriya’s Question

Supriya asked whether just another slash would suffice as a closing tag. I actually noticed that a tag could be closed in that way after we did teh whole matching to keep parts out of our output. I haven’t tried if this works, but even if it does, I don’t think I would do it. A closing tag just is easier for you to see when things start and begin. If the specific code is only one line, that it would just be repetitive to have a closing tag, why not just enclose it within that space? But if the code is much longer and contains complex lines, I’d like to see it in the context of an opening and closing tag.

In zee124, 11/25/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Factor X

Funny that Shady Waters talks about the XBox360. Now that I’m a former employee of Best Buy and a future employee of Microsoft I must say this is an interesting topic for me to respond about. It’s probably both companies’ fault as far as availability goes. You see product availability has everything to do with forecasting: ie. the science and the art of predicting sales and inventory control. The thing is that Microsoft of course wants to sell as much of these toys as possible (with an awesome marketing campaign and great publicity with creepy videos through MTV) and Best Buy also wants to sell. But for best buy the dilemma is different because you don’t want to get stuck with too much inventory. And because this product is new the only thing you have to go on is past similar product history (ie. alike products in the past and current experts’ forecasts and opinions). It’s like selling Elmo, you’ll either know everyone is going to want it or you don’t (and a lot of people may not want it, that’s worse).

So I wouldn’t say it’s a conspiracy, if it was, it would be bad business. But it is largely a game of shooting in the dark, controlling costs, and vendor relationships (ie. where and when microsoft chooses to sell its product AND who chooses to buy it and in what quantities). Holidays can be your dream come true and they can be your worst nightmare. As far as consumer products go and retail, it’s a match made in heaven or you’re rotting in hell. For both of the companies, whom will forever be etched as part of my career path and to whom I will owe a lot, I hope it is the former.

In Pink Footsie, 11/25/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Cyber Monday

To continue JB’s and Shady Waters’ discussion on Holiday Shopping and X-Box Sales, I came across an interesting article on CNN: After Black Friday comes Cyber Monday. I was pretty surprised to read about the term “Cyber Monday”:

Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, is quickly becoming one of the biggest online shopping days of the year. According to the Shop.org/BizRate Research 2005 eHoliday survey released Monday, 77 percent of online retailers said their sales increased substantially last year on the Monday after Thanksgiving, a trend that is expected to drive serious online discounts and promotions on Cyber Monday this year.

Black Friday was a new concept to me when I moved to the US for college, but I had still never heard of Cyber Mondays. I thought it was pretty intriguing.

Are the deals on Cyber Mondays as good as Black Friday? Would more X-Boxs’ sell on eBay Cyber Monday or what will be the next “hot” product? Do any of you wait till Monday to buy your electronics, or do you prefer Black Fridays?

In supriya, 11/24/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

A basic XML question.

I was just debating whether or not to post this rather simple question. But I just wanted to clairfy something with the XML gurus out there.

I was just reading Zee124’s post which was in response to the question posted by Tigerlily. As Bud describes:

By the way, here’s the fix that Zeenah describes. You need to go from:

	 		 - Brought to you by Tumplates, 			The Template People.

mplate name=\\"CreditLine\\"> 		 - Brought to you by Tumplates, 			The Template People.

My simple question: Instead of adding the closing tag line , can we just not add a forward slash to the line . Or does that not work cause we have other lines in between the start and end commands? I guess my question is that why can we close the within the same command line but not do /> instead of adding ?

p>

In supriya, 11/24/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

On the Prowl for the Prey of the Night: Xbox 360

Building off of Jb’s story about the xbox. The Best Buy that my friend lined up at, only had 18 xboxs on their shelves. At another store, can’t remember where there were 4. And if you check on ebay, they are currently going for over 1000 bucks. That’s frightening, my friend actually sold his for cash and I can say he made a good profit margin. All he had to spend was a night in the cold.

No offense to those who have worked for Microsoft, but I think this is some sort of shady deal. That a store would have less than 20 Xbox on their shelves is insane. Microsoft has been hyping this but then they don’t hold up their end as a supplier. I’m kind of suspicious and kind of think Microsoft did it on purpose. But maybe that’s just me?

In Shady Waters, 11/24/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

In a time of change will you F-L-E-X?

In a time of technology, there are many who do not join in the growing change that is happening world and expect instead of the technology to fit around them. For example the a US Senetor made the comment

ou know what? What makes our economy grow is energy. And Americans are used to going to the gas tank, and when they put that hose in their, uh, tank, and when I do it, I wanna get gas out of it. And when I turn the light switch on, I want the lights to go on, and I don’t want somebody to tell me I gotta change my way of living to satisfy them. Because this is America, and this is something we’ve worked our way into, and the American people are entitled to it

Even though, we seem to think nothing of booting up a computer and hopping on the internet, I know many who are still unsure of what are the correct icons to get on the internet and how to use email. There are levels to the knowlege of technology out that. But I’m always suprised by how unwilling people are to change especially when it makes your life easier. But really, I can’t point my fingers since I can’t even switch from a regular planner to a PDA -_-.

In Shady Waters, 11/24/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Welcome to Secretsanta.com, Population 115

Believe it, it is true. In an article on Yahoo I read that a town named Santa in Idaho voted to change the name of the city to secretsanta.com. And Santa isn’t the only town to do something silly like this.

Santa is the latest in a lengthening list of rural communities to agree to bear the brand of a company or service. Clark, Texas last week changed its name to Dish to promote EchoStar Communications Corp.’s Dish Network. In 2000, Halfway, Oregon agreed to call itself Half.com after an Internet retailer later purchased by eBay Inc. The towns are following a tradition established in 1950 when Hot Springs, New Mexico changed its name to Truth or Consequences after a radio program that became a TV game show.

The Halfway, Oregon deal brought the town $75,000 and 20 computers for its schools. Santa changed its name in exchange for an undisclosed sum from a planned documentary on the name change. I guess this is one way you could market a product but how weird will it be for them to say I live in secretsanta.com.

In Tigerlily's Blog, 11/22/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Town votes to rename itself Secretsanta.com

In del.icio.us/tigerlily23, 11/22/2005 | Original | Archive

Teamwork

I always complain at the amount of group work that we have to do in B-School, but I notice I complain only when I’m unhappy with my group. Some groups I’d spend hours doing homework until 3 am, and still be laughing the entire time. Others I’d be complaining about before I left, while I was there, and after I left. It became clear to me, after these past few months, what made a good team: taking care of yourself and finding your position, but doing so in relation to your members.

I was recently in a dance, my first real organized one since I don’t even remember when. It was so complex as we had to make formations, which had to be crisp so that those even on the balcony could see it. Night after night we practiced, sometimes for 6-7 hours straight just to make that M or an arrow or the diamond perfect. We only had 24 people in our dance and were having difficulty, I couldn’t imagine how the band did their formations! But our choreographers always said “Go where you need to be, and look at the people next to you, and position yourself in relation to where you are suppose to be to them”. Using that rule, all of our formations rocked on the day of the show and had 3500 screaming and dancing along with us on the day of the show. People were raving about how good our formations were, even those way up on the balcony could tell what they were suppose to be.

Later I realized that the dance motto “position urself and reposition in relation to the people next to you” was really defining of a great group. You do your work, but if you notice a teammate ahead of where your suppose to be, catch up, if a teammate is lagging behind, tell them to move up, or catch up on their work. Just doing your work will get you where you need to be, but won’t guarantee you the best project as a group. So instead of just saying “well I did my work” and letting others slack, make sure that they know their place and where they should be in relation to others. Then you’ll have a rocking project (or formation..you get the analogy )

In zee124, 11/21/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Marking you A-Live

So I was passing the time looking through the guests that we have displayed on the site (actually I had gotten desperate because I am slowly running out of things to post about, so I thought I would try for some other inspiration. Desperation, not a phun thing to deal with). Anyways, I came across an interesting thing called LiveMarks. It’s actually this live viewing of bookmarking on del.icio.us. This explains the layout better, but pretty much the left column is just the most popular bookmarks recently, while the right column are the bookmarks that are occuring right this very moment.

And on the top, it says how many people are watching the page at the same time. I think these things are interesting and very similar to counters. Because the internet is actually very sterile and even though there is a lot of information on here, there’s not a lot of human interaction. And counters and live watches make the internet alive….It’s ALIVE!

In Shady Waters, 11/20/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Free your mind

For those of you who are into social justice like I am I encourage you to look at Kevin’s (no not our precious Stratvert’s blog ) blog. His mission is to report from every war zone there is within one year, though he has been blogging about this for a few years now.

” Collectively known as ‘The War Diaries,’ they capture a reporter’s first-person experiences covering U.S. military intervention, and reflections on how news is covered.”

He has some of the most interesting comments and reports that we unfortunately (the joys of American media, perhaps I’m jaded) do not get to hear much about. From Iraq to Afghanistant to raging Civil Wars and corruption wars in South America, he is able to honestly show (from what his biased human eyes by default can tell) what’s going on and our role as a country in it. These editorials are amazing, I encourage you to take a look.

In Pink Footsie, 11/20/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Templates to the rescue

To answer Zeenah’s question:

Are we going to be making our own templates to apply to project 2? Or are we just going to be given one to apply?

I’m pretty sure we are going to get basic templates that we can adjust. I do, however, believe we are going to have to do more than just cut/paste. In order to adjust functionality we are probably going to have to expand upon the templates that we are given, therefore allowing you to kind of build a template on your own. There will also be html mock ups and workable examples we will have to provide that will require a bit of creativity and workable solutions that we will have to come up with on our own.

In Pink Footsie, 11/20/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

100 Greatest, or 100 Worst Internet Moments….

Depending on how you look at it ;D

I ran across this site on NYtimes and it’s kind of phunny. Just put together personally, of 100 greatest moments on the internet. I went further into the site and it seems that the whole site is set up to take down AOL. Which I think is phunny because I never understood why people signed onto AOL, they just add another layer of user interface to the process. Oh well. Look and Chuckle.

In Shady Waters, 11/20/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

oh Matchmaker, oh make me a sibling

I ran across a really interesting article at the Nytimes.com regarding children of sperm donors and their quest for finding their half-siblings. They are connecting through sites that allow them to insert their contact information, sperm donor number and sperm bank number. Such sites as Donor Sibling Registry.com. Mothers of children are talking with other mothers and older children are connecting with their sisters, brothers, and so on.

When I hear about these kinds of stories I am always amazed by the power of the internet and how it is able to connect people from all over the world easily, crossing things that even sometimes humans have a hard time doing. I think that’s why I love looking at pictures from different parts of the world because you can.

These children are able to find some sort of connection, if they want to. It also makes me think of the high number of children that are currently being adopted from a huge number of asian countries. They will be offered a better life but at the same time, they might feel like they are missing something and want to search back. And who knows, maybe one day they will be able to do the same thing?

Sidenote: I know its a bit different because there are more anounomity issues around real adoption. But doesn’t everyone have the right to know who and where they come from, doesn’t that just add another facet to who you are in the end?

In Shady Waters, 11/19/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Playing your Cards close to your Holiday Chest

As we slowly draw closer to Thanksgiving…the day of reckoning comes even closer. The stores have already given in to the inevitable. Yet I resist the urg to buy stuff even as it is over two weeks before Thanksgiving and yet, the stores are playing xmas music and the items on the shelves are scattered with red, green and white.

But for those that are ready to shop and looking for those deals, the wonder of the internet is here to assist! Black Friday 2005, provides scans and coupons of all the major deals for this upcoming black friday. There are many other sites also

But many companies are upset and saying that many of these sites are jepordizing their business. I really can’t see how… The consumers are becoming educated on what’s out there and then they might come to your store if you have good deals right? dear me. Some people just can’t play the market

In Shady Waters, 11/18/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

More on adding Counters to blogs

In response to Super Matt’s post on adding counters to blogs, I did some web research. I was not familiar with the concept of adding counters to blogs, but I have definitely seen some on websites. Are these counters provided by online services? Like I saw several advertisements which promoted using their counters on your blogs. How does it work? I thought you could just code your own counter on to your website, as in why do you need to subscribe to these online services for these counters?

In response to Super Matt’s question:

If anyone knows how to add a counter to a blog using HTML I would be interested.

I came across thie website: http://spaces.msn.com/members/techsupport/Blog/cns!1pDN_tcfqkBZhtaAhAuEfRhA!179.entry. It seems like it should work, but I have not used it. It may help.

Another question- Do you add the counter to a blog post, or to your blog page? Thanks.

In supriya, 11/17/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Watching movies on your cellphone?

Shady Waters writes a very interesting post on how the cell phone technology is advancing, and more and more features are being squeezed on a cell phone. In regards with Video phones, she says:

But honestly, why would you watch a movie on your phone. It seems kind of lame. If you are going to watch, wouldn’t you want to watch on a huge screen, that took up a whole side of the house? ok not that big, but bigger than a cellphone screen?

I am with Shady Waters in saying that I would definitely not like to watch a movie on my little cell phone screen. I think it just too small to watch a full movie, maybe a trailer is fine but not more. Shady Waters also makes another comment:

But I don’t really feel that technology is at the level where my phone can be my mp3 player, cellphone, camera, pda, and laptop in one. If I did go out and buy a one in all, I feel like I would just be settling when I could get better service buying these things seperatly.

I have a different opinion on this one. I think technology is advancing very quickly, and is at that stage where it can integrate different products into one - like cell phone + PDA + MP3 players etc. With further improvements each day, we just see products that are more compact, faster processing and have more features. I would like to carry a phone which is small, yet can serve multiple purposes, specially so that I don’t have to carry multiple gadgets everyday. But I dont think I am yet prepared to watch movies on that little screen.

In supriya, 11/17/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Releasing Inanimation II

I just looked at the flickr photos posted by Shady Waters. These pictures are simply awesome. I agree with Shady Waters when she says:

But then the artist draws on top of them and gives these usually ordinary and boring inanimate objects lives and stories.

These are really interesting. Just by taking food pictures like fries, the artist has come up with rather meaningful scenes from life. I have never seen this form of art before. I particularly like the one which is titled Hope. But I am not sure how to interpret this picture. Like the comment below says, “In the darkness, hope shines even brighter…” But I am curios to hear other intepretations that you all may have….

In supriya, 11/17/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Ity Bitsy Tiny Whiny Little Bitty Screens of Uselessness

So I happened to run across a post on Gizmodo that talks about this new development. Sony had developed movies for….your mobile phone. Yes, your mobile. you didn’t hear wrong, or even see wrong. Movies for phones. Like there already weren’t enough options on the phone, like playing music, IMing, surfing the web, checking the weather, playing games, track your life, take photos, and smell nice etc etc. But honestly, why would you watch a movie on your phone. It seems kind of lame. If you are going to watch, wouldn’t you want to watch on a huge screen, that took up a whole side of the house? ok not that big, but bigger than a cellphone screen?

And it also leads to the question of, why are people rushing to squeeze so many options onto a phone. I know I’m not a real standard phone user, I just make calls. But I don’t really feel that technology is at the level where my phone can be my mp3 player, cellphone, camera, pda, and laptop in one. If I did go out and buy a one in all, I feel like I would just be settling when I could get better service buying these things seperatly. I don’t know, is it just me?

Talk about really great useless things. Bare your Fangs!

In Shady Waters, 11/17/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Falling behind, Falling asleep

A few people, Zee, JB, Matt, and Tigerlilly have all talked about how they have come to enjoy blogging. And I have to second it. Especially since many people have said that they hope to continue after class, like Matt saying:

At this point, I most certainly intened to keep blogging. I’ve found myself at so many times this semester saying, “I really want to blog about that.” But since it’s not in the scope of this class, I don’t. So I definitely want to start…

And I totally agree! That’s what happened after BIT last year. I just kept going, I had already started and I sent the link out to a few of my friends and let them read whenever, since I’m really bad about calling people and telling them what’s going on with me. Also, Tigerlily was talking about the benefits saying:

Plus, i think bloggin has been therapeutic in a way because we can vent all out frustration…

And I agree with that, one of my friends who’s in Med school now, his blog, its tagline use to be “bloggin is therapeutic”.

But Matt did point out a very good concern:

but I wonder if the hurdle of knowing I won’t have a dedicated audience when I start my new blog will be too much and I’ll stop after a while?

There are a few options You can open your audience wider so that more people will see it. Or we could try and keep going within this class. I think it would be interesting if we kept it up. There aren’t that many of us and it’s more personal that way. But I do know that, it is hard to keep up and not fall behind in your life when there aren’t things like grades pushing you or you don’t have a lot of extra time. I had a lot of extra time this summer and would post alllllll the time. Now I don’t post much on my other blogs, because I don’t have time, and I’m posting here…all my creativity is spent here But those are some options, yeah no?

In Shady Waters, 11/17/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Offtrack and annoying

So I posted recently about the long long talks going on about who should control the internet. Then I woke up this morning and found an article, which I bookmarked, stating that a conclusion was reached that America would keep control in managing the system. Now I come back, and see an article stating that nations are urging U.S. to give up that control to a power which upholds all nations. The entire point of these talks was not to see who was going to control the internet, but to find a way to make it more accessible and useful to poorer nations. The nations are getting caught up in red tape and forgetting the real issues at hand. I don’t think that people are going to be happy until their own countries have a part in controlling the internet. America needs to step up and show that they will be accomodating to outside nations and help them incorporate the internet more into areas in need instead of just lobbying for its power. This way we can serve the poorer countries faster and get over the power trip.

In zee124, 11/16/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Vroom Vroom with Water

Yeah! Zee124 posted about my favorite topic, hybrid cars! Actually my favorite is Hydrogen Cars buuuuuut ;D yeah!

So I would totally by a Hybrid car…but more preferrably a Hydrogen. Here’s a news source on the cars. The new Toyota just makes my mouth water *pun intended* whenever I see it Really the basic reason that I would pay that type of money is that, it makes sense. We are wasting resources, over polluting, and being unefficient. I look at it as a better option, in a world with too many.

Yeah its more expensive but think about all the cool things. This is a great site that provieds some info. But ok, basically, there are different levels of Hybridness. Such as some of the things Ford is bringing out is not really high on the level, in a lot of ways its just adding a battery for support. But there are more fully integrated levels. But like in the Prius, when you break, your system pretty much turns off and you cost. And when you press the break, the energy that is usually wasted as you do it, is instead used to juice up the battery.

With Hydrogen cars, the idea is that a hydrogen battery provide more energy and it can distributed like gasoline. And the only by product that comes from this is water. But the problem right now is distributing it and also storing it in the cars, because liquid Hydrogen is kind of dangerous. but it does help us get off our reliance own oil.

But I really feel like pollution is a big problem and if we really want to have anything to leave our children in terms of places to live that are livable….we need to start thinking now, not later

In Shady Waters, 11/16/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Hybrid Cars

I hadn’t heard any opposition to hybrid cars before someone did a presentation in LHC against buying one. His stance was that an economically reasonable person would never buy one as they don’t offset the high gas prices. I just stumbled on another article talking about whether Hybrids are worth the cost. But in my mind, I don’t think many people buy hybrids to offset their gas bills, but rather to help out the environment. I know it costs a little extra, but I always thought it was something people were willilng to spend to help out the environment. Does anyone own a hybrid or thinking of buying one? What are your reasons for it?

In zee124, 11/16/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Splogs?

In an article on msn.com by Steven Levy, I was introduced to the topics of splogs. Apparently there are some blogs out there that reference other people’s blogs and for the simple fact that it will boost their rating on search engines. The unforntunate part is that authors of credible material are being used by others to increase their presence on searches and to make money by having people click on ads on the sites. To better explain the process:

Here’s how they work: first find a subject that draws consumers who may be valuable to advertisers on Google or Yahoo, and register for the programs that let those search companies place ads on your blog. Then set up a blog that automatically sucks in items from the news (via easy-to-set-up feeds) about that subject. If you’ve done it right, Google’s search engines will identify your blog as a prime place for a high-value ad.

Then, as Sifry says, “you can pay housewives in India to sit there and click on the ads.” Because programs like Google’s AdSense pay out each time someone responds to the ad, it’s possible to make a bundle from this.

It’s said that people leach off of others. And on a side note, I have messed up the quoting thing again. If only I could remember.

In Tigerlily's Blog, 11/16/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Google: Simple does not equal Pretty

Zee comments on her experience with Google News.

“I went to Google news for the first time today and was a little surprised. It had the articles in most demand from top sources and had topics which were most read, but it wasn’t aeshetically pleasing.”

I too have wondered about Google and its asthetics. Personally I think the Google homepage is brilliant: simple, clean, and effective. However, if you take the time to delve deeper into Google’s pages or other services you quickly realize that they are masters at searching, but not so adept at aesthetics. They have grown enough now to justify hiring dedicated designers. So why does Google still look messy?

ason, I think, is because of the sheer volume of information Google returns. People expect Google to be fast and acccurate. This means that Google has to cram a whole lot of information on as few as pages as possible. People would rather sift one or two messy pages than through fifty pretty but useless pages. So this means their pages look jumbled due to the sheer volume of information. Though I question if this is the only reason. It would seem as if there were ways to better organize it and make the information more visually appealing. Maybe Google’s too busy growing like crazy to realize. Or maybe people find Google too useful to care. I’m not sure. Either way though, I’ll still keep using Google. Even if while using it, I’m hopefully cursing that they’d put a little more effort into asthetics.

In Matt's Musings, 11/16/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

BITtersweet Blogging

I agree with Zee completely.

“The longer you delay, the harder it is to keep up with the blogging. At the same time,I love getting a chance to write about things I care about. Between school and friends, I never have time to gather my thoughts and actually have an opinion on certain issues. Blogging makes me analyze articles in more detail and think of issues I probably wouldn’t have noticed before.”

Blogging has been both simultaneously rewarding and challenging. I ago about how much though I’ve enjoyed blogging. At this point, I most certainly intened to keep blogging. I’ve found myself at so many times this semester saying, “I really want to blog about that.” But since it’s not in the scope of this class, I don’t. So I definitely want to start…but I wonder if the hurdle of knowing I won’t have a dedicated audience when I start my new blog will be too much and I’ll stop after a while?

In Matt's Musings, 11/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

The Future of JB’s Blog

Zeenah says:

…I love getting a chance to write about things I care about. Between school and friends, I never have time to gather my thoughts and actually have an opinion on certain issues. Blogging makes me analyze articles in more detail and think of issues I probably wouldn’t have noticed before. I guess the question now is whether or not I am going to keep blogging after class. How many of you are going to keep up with this or actually have blogged before and enjoy doing it?

This just makes me sad. Because I’m growing so attached to the remix. I’ll miss you guys. I’d like to continue blogging, but I think the reason I like it so much is because of the little community we’ve formed. I like responding to what you all post and I enjoy awaiting your responses to my posts. Is the “real world” of blogging (ie outside our remix) like this?? Or will my posts be lost in the world wide web…?

In jb's blog, 11/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Blogging after BIT

This was the first time I’ve blogged, if you don’t count my sorry one week try at xanga. I saw some up sides and downsides. Keeping up with the blog was the hardest. The longer you delay, the harder it is to keep up with the blogging. At the same time,I love getting a chance to write about things I care about. Between school and friends, I never have time to gather my thoughts and actually have an opinion on certain issues. Blogging makes me analyze articles in more detail and think of issues I probably wouldn’t have noticed before. I guess the question now is whether or not I am going to keep blogging after class. How many of you are going to keep up with this or actually have blogged before and enjoy doing it?

In zee124, 11/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

News.Google.Com

I went to Google news for the first time today and was a little surprised. It had the articles in most demand from top sources and had topics which were most read, but it wasn’t aeshetically pleasing. I thought Google would spend more time making the site more user friendly, but the articles seem all jumbled together. Does anyone else read google news?

In zee124, 11/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Google Scholar makes me do a little dance

I must say this new University catalog on Google is making my life so much easier. Without needing to go to the Kresge databases, library, Graduate library, UGLi and I could keep going, everything is now at my fingertips. I came across Google Scholar as I was researching articles for my CSIB project on the wireless telecomm industry and next to the links I noticed “availability at the University of Michigan” now how cool is that? I love this new digitization project.

Moreover not only are there links to PDF formats of the papers in question but also the various sources of their publishing (scholarly) are all listed after a brief description of each link. But I’m not done yet. Also by the various published sources there is also a link to other scholarly articles that have cited the above research. I’m sorry but I’m just excited, it’s centralization and convenience at its best, but more importantly: it’s value that I as a customer truly appreciate.

In Pink Footsie, 11/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Elevate your Mood…with a TV

So I couldn’t find anything to link. But one thing that was interesting on my trip was where technology was and was not.

One place it always gets me is in the airports. Since I’m in so many -_-. But many of the airports outside of the US are set up differently. They aren’t backed up against the wall, and instead are extend in lines across the room and two counters are backed to back. And the conveyor belts are going between the two counters so the clerk doesn’t need to lift up anywhere.

Also, their cell phone network was fantastic. We were out about in the middle of the country side and they still got cell phone reception. We complain about our limited access and blame it on having on having such a big country but really…china’s pretty big too

And the best was the elevators. Many of the lobby areas would have tv screens there just playing random movies or tv shows. But one elevator happened to have a TV in it as you rode up and let you watched Nemo. I’m surprised no one jacks these things but there must be a reason that I don’t know about ;D

In Shady Waters, 11/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Fighting your Way through the System?

So, Supriya, Pink Footsie, and Tigerlily have all commented on the extentions of the BBA program. Supriya and Pink Footsie bring up some really good points regarding spreading out of the classes, Supriya says

Furthermore, having to crunch up all my business school classes in 2 years makes the class load very uneven. I would much prefer being able to take business and non-business school classes at the same time to get a better balance.

But I feel like Tigerlily makes a very strong point in saying

And what do you do when someone who wants to be in the BBA program decides to drop out when they realize they want to be a history major instead? I knew so many people that wanted to go to the b-school and most of them changed their mind freshman year. How will this be handled? There are just so many questions.

How many kids first came to this school with the focus of business? And how many changed their mind soon? I feel like going through at least a few years outside of the business school makes you a more rounded and interesting individual. College is a time about exploration and figuring out what your real interests are because up until this point, most students have been on a very set path through jr. high, and high school and the goal of college. It is a big risk, as Supriya pointed out, but its not a risk that will kill you. If you are at the University of Michigan, its not like if you don’t get a business degree you will graduate and only be able to flip burgers. Yeah we do get a lot more opportunities in the Bschool, but one who isn’t in the business school can still get a job in corporate american and crunch numbers to their own delight.

Finally, if you had the chance to take half bschool classes and outside classes, would you really? The business school in some ways cultivates a culture of exlusivity in some ways and a very heavy focus on business a lot of time to the exclusion of many other aspects of life and society.

In Shady Waters, 11/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

The New Ross BBA Program

Aga, Supriya and Lindsay have a good discussion going about the new Ross BBA Program. Although I think Aga and Supriya both made some great points, I’m more in agreement with Lindsay. I, too, had quite a few friends who decided against the Bschool after a couple semesters at UofM. This left room for the kids who remained focused and interested in the Bschool all the way up until the day we applied. In a program that is so small and competitive, I think it’s a good idea to give students a year or two to make sure it’s the right choice. There isn’t a lot of room to have kids who aren’t completely serious about it. The students who are in the BBA program now are definitely devoted to it - we spent two years working hard to get good grades and build impressive resumes. And our devotion to the Bschool makes our classes better and more productive as we are all interested in being here and in learning business.

In jb's blog, 11/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

The Future of the BBA Program

Aga and Supriya both brought up the new 3 or 4 year BBA program. I think they both have very good points, especially Aga when she said:

I think spreading the class load and reducing the stress of trying to get in are important points to students. But even more importantly, I would like to get a chance to take a lot more of business school classes that I’m interested in, not just because they’re required.

I completely agree that it would have been nice to have had another year or two to spread out the b-school classes. And, it is true that some do not have the opportunity to take all the b-school classes they want because they don’t have time or they conflict with other more important classes (core).

However, I don’t think the four year plan is the best. I think students should come into U of M and get a year in before applying to the b-school. This way the students could be on a level playing field in terms of comparing G.P.A.s in the addmission process. Also, do you think the overall excellence of incoming classes will be lower than what the school wants? The high school that I was at was fairly easy and I had a 4.0 but how would that compare to a person with a 4.0 from the best high school in the nation. And what do you do when someone who wants to be in the BBA program decides to drop out when they realize they want to be a history major instead? I knew so many people that wanted to go to the b-school and most of them changed their mind freshman year. How will this be handled? There are just so many questions. But I do agree that it should be lengthened to three years.

In Tigerlily's Blog, 11/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Wireless Parking Meters..I can’t wait!

IBM has developed a wireless way to pay for your parking meters before they expire, called Intellipay. Basically,when you pay for your meter, you leave ur credit card number and cell phone number. When the meter is about to expire, it will call you and you can automatically choose to pay more and keep the meter running. The only catch is that when you get the call, so does the ticket officer. If he gets to your car faster than you renew the meter, then you get the ticket.

This is genius! Imagine not having to carry around coins, or even more importantly, checking your watch every five mins to make sure that your meter didn’t run out. I definently see this technology picking up in many cities, but my question is, does the city make more money from meters or from tickets? If its the latter, I don’t know how much the city would want to put these into effect.

In zee124, 11/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Who should own the internet?

I have bookmarked a few articles about this before, but I am still intrigued by this topic. There is a debate going on about who should control the internet and be allowed to facilitate its technical maintenance. As of right now, it is being taken care of by ICANN which is based in the U.S. America is not comfortable with handing over the responsibilities to another country in fear that they may not allow freedom of speech to the extent which America does. Other countries want more power in adminstering the internet. Is there any way which there can be a centralized department handling the internet which can have representatives from the concerned countries? Just curious if anyone has any thoughts on this since I thought it was a pretty interesting topic.

In zee124, 11/14/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

I like this exchange

JB and Tigerlily had an interesting exchange regarding the ability to download programs for 99 cents vs. just using Tivo. My personal view is “Why watch the program at all?”

One issue that Tivo-ing raises is that you have to preplan what it is you are going to watch. As it turns out, Tivo owners tend to watch more TV. You don’t know if that is because they were already heavy watchers or whether Tivo made them heavy watchers.

My own view is that the move by networks to allow downloading is based on the recognition that they may not always get the attention they want for the program at the time they choose to air it, so why not allow for word-of-mouth to generate additional viewings. Tigerlily was right to remark this.

At the end of the day though, I think this move will only help some shows. Most will simply not be watched because people do not have the time.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 11/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

BBA program discussion

I have some opinions myself on the 3 year program. Supriya talks about it in her blog. I think the 3 year and especially once this becomes a 4 year program is a better idea for several reasons. Just like Supriya, I think spreading the class load and reducing the stress of trying to get in are important points to students. But even more importantly, I would like to get a chance to take a lot more of business school classes that I’m interested in, not just because they’re required. Right now our schedule is so packed (especially junior year) with prerequisites for graduation that we have truly little time to explore other classes, both business school (for our major for example) and outside.

Moreover, we hope that the offering of classes in majors beyond finance and accounting will expand (seems like it’s working for the MBAs). Operations, CSIB, BIT and Marketing offerings are small in number and makes those who don’t want to study finance or accounting disappointed in the program at michigan. It is understood that the big 4 and banking firms recruit heavily here, but it should also be known that the school in order to stay competitive should offer strong programs in other areas as well.

In Pink Footsie, 11/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Exam Question 15

Both Aga and Supriya are correct about Exam Question 15. Since a course can have many sections, C must be correct. Therefore, if you put C, bring your exam to my secretary in E2420 before Thanksgiving to get your points.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 11/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Opinions on the 3 year BBA program?

I was just wondering what you all think about changing our 2 year BBA program to a 3 year and eventually making it a 4 year program.

Personally, I would prefer a four-year program. I think the two-year program is a risk proposition for students who want to pursue business. If a student is unable to get in the business school, the situation can indeed be difficult as transfers into 4 year programs at other schools become difficult in the Junior year. I think this risk factors wards off many good students who choose to enter other 4 year programs, and the school loses a lot of good talent.

Furthermore, having to crunch up all my business school classes in 2 years makes the class load very uneven. I would much prefer being able to take business and non-business school classes at the same time to get a better balance.

I am definitely in favor of converting our present program to a four year program. What are your thoughts? Any opinions?

In supriya, 11/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Response: What attracts students to UofM campus?

Talking about the campus-wide wireless networks and flashy buildings, Matt brings up an interesting question:

Generally, it seems that U of M isn’t one to have “flashy” buildings…however, the new Ross School buildings seem to fit the “flashy” motif. So what do you think U of M does to attract people to this campus? Is it’s academic reputation enough? And are we seeing a new trend of keeping up with the Jones’s with Universities?

For me, it wasn’t about the flashy buildings or the expensive union/ rec centers. Being in India, I was not able to visit the schools I applied to, and had to make my decision purely on the basis of academic reputation, size and other factual information. I think what attracted me to UofM most was its business school as well as its large size. Having gone to a relatively small high school, I thought it would be fun to go to a huge college and experience what different communities have to offer given the diversity.

I think the opportunity to visit different college campuses is great as you can assess whether or not you would like to live in that city/campus. I definitely wish I had that opportunity before I started here, though I am not sure if that would have changed my decision!

In supriya, 11/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Contesting Question 15 - II

I like Pink Footsie also marked C-Many as the answer for Question 15. As she states:

The answer given is B. “1″ but I would like to say that the C. “Many” interpretation is true. If you read the diagram from the side of class meeting then it’s true there can only be one section meeting at that time but if you read it from the course side (course can have many sections and therefore sections can have many meetings) the maximum relationship based on interpretation ends up being many, which is the side the question is asking about. Any takers? Looking at the diagram might help clarify what I’m trying to say.

I had a similar thought process where a course can have many sections. Since the cardinality on the class meeting side is unknown, it can be assumed as one or many. Assuming this cardinality to be many, I said that a course section can have many class meetings. But another confusing point was that roomID, ProfessorID and courseSectionID are the primary keys for classMeeting, which made me think that there can be only one entry for a course section for one course. However, we can still have these 3 attributes in the primary key, and have the same courseSectionID with different roomID/ProfessorID in the class meeting table and not violate the primary key constraint. With these assumptions, I think that the answer is Many.

I understand that what I typed is quite confusing but I couldn’t figure out a better way to explain my reasoning. Feel free to ask questions or pls explain why you think the answer is B-1 and not C-Many.

In supriya, 11/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Don’t pay for that episode - TiVo it.

Tigerlily recently posted about CBS and NBC starting to sell downloads of popular TV shows for 99cents per episode, through DirecTV. Tigerlily says:

I guess I am not sure that it was a wise move, meaning I don’t think that it will be very profitable for them. What do you think? Do you think this “sales model” will bring in more money?

It doesn’t seem like this would be very popular. Why not just Tivo it? Or, if you don’t have the ability to digitally record TV (I’m not sure who doesn’t anymore) you can always use the old VCR. No one has ever paid to watch a single episode before, and I’m not sure we’ll start. ought up another great point when she said that most downloads can be found illegally anyway, so won’t people just get them for free? It would seem so. However, for some reason, Apple does make money off the iTunes store… people like the guaranteed quality. Maybe the commercial-free feature of these TV downloads will have the same effect for NBC and CBS.

In jb's blog, 11/12/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Why keep up with the Jones’s

jb and Matt brought up the idea of creating extravagant buildings on college campuses to bring people to the school. What attracted me to U of M? Well, to be honest, it was that I have always been a fan and its in the family. I never really spent time on campus and I didn’t know much about the academics. I knew before I applied that I wanted to go to a business school, but it wasn’t until after I accepted that I heard about the excellence of the U of M B-school. So, for me, I was attracted mainly because it was in my blood, so to speak. Also, on a somewhat different note, I have heard from my roommate that there are some non-business students who can’t understand why we need a new building. Even I don’t understand why it is necessary either since they are some of the better buildings on campus. But I think the b-school image, like the image of people, has a little to do with the way it looks in addition to its academics. And like Matt said:

But if it came down to comparing schools that were on par with each other and only differed in their amenitites, I may very well be swayed by the “new” and “wow” factor of a school.

If a person got into a comparable B-school to UMBS, how will UMBS get the talent if it fails to compare to the look and amentities of the other?

In Tigerlily's Blog, 11/10/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Would you pay to watch CBS, NBC shows?

I came across this article describing the new (at least to me) wave in watch shows that you missed the first time. The article says:

CBS and NBC have announced deals to offer replays of prime-time programs for 99 cents per episode, shifting television toward a sales model that gained popularity with downloaded music.

This would occur through on-demand on DirecTV. Did CBS and NBC forget that probably most of the music download is not actually paid for? I guess I am old fashion and still use a VCR to record shows that I watch every week. And there are people that I know that download tv shows that they missed (for free). I guess I am not sure that it was a wise move, meaning I don’t think that it will be very profitable for them. What do you think? Do you think this “sales model” will bring in more money?

By the way, the reason why this all looks like a quote is that I clicked save and continue editing and I couldn’t edit it back the way it was after I saw it like this. Anyone have this problem?

In Tigerlily's Blog, 11/10/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

iPod for U — II

Matt is indeed in love with the iPods. As he mentions:

Personally, I’ve gone through 4 iPods since I’ve come to come to college. I bought my first one my freshmen year. I loved it and new I was hooked on the iPod. After Apple released their 3G model 6 months later, I upgraded and sold my first iPod on eBay. I was shocked when I recouped 2/3 of it’s original value, even though it was an older, used model. Since then, I’ve lost one, and the hard drive crashed on the other one. So I haven’t had a chance to try out the used iPod market since then.

Going through 4 iPods in 3 years is pretty impressive. No wonder they have record sales every year with shopper’s like Matt watching out for the latest iPod. I am still using my traditional Nomad Jukebox which is rather big and ugly as compared to the tiny iPods out there. Its high time that I switch to a “more modern” MP3 player.

To the iPod users out there, what do you think of the iPod Nano? Are any of you guys using it, and do you like it? I have heard some complaints about its screen and such. Any thoughts on whats a good buy in the MP3 Market? Thanks.

In supriya, 11/09/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

The Jones’s? I prefer the tradition.

Matt had a great post about the recent trend for Universities to build big, new and highly modern buildings for students. These come in the form of Rec Centers, Student Unions, etc. Matt asks:

Generally, it seems that U of M isn’t one to have “flashy” buildings…however, the new Ross School buildings seem to fit the “flashy” motif. So what do you think U of M does to attract people to this campus? Is it’s academic reputation enough? And are we seeing a new trend of keeping up with the Jones’s with Universities?

Yes, I think that we’re definitely seeing a trend here. Universities are updating their buildings like crazy. Especially in the area of Rec Centers, since the trend in this country is to work out and be fit. Kids love modern Rec Centers. However, I don’t think UofM competes on the same level as schools who put all this money into these types of buildings. Much like most Ivy League schools probably don’t, either. Not only can UofM rely on its academic reputation, but it can also rely on tradition. For example, the IM Building is the oldest campus rec center in the country. Who wants to mess with that?? Look at Angell Hall, the Union, the grad library, the Law Quad. UofM is all about tradition. And I don’t know how I feel about the flashiness of the new Ross. Yes, I agree that we need to keep up with the technology of other business schools. But I don’t know how the flashiness will fit in on our campus. Does it have to look like an office complex??

In jb's blog, 11/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

IPod resale market

Supriya and Matt have both talked about Ipods and wherther buying/selling a used one is a good idea. Here’s my take. Everybody can sell and buy, it’s a free market but there’s a big BUT here. The worst part about owning an ipod is its battery life. Potentia

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