I just wrapped up my final exams for this semester on Wednesday and will soon be boarding a flight to San Francisco for a week of vacation filled with visiting friends and exploring California again among other things. I will probably have some downtime to write here but if not I thought I would put this up. Continue Reading »

Final exams are around the corner and I can’t help but think how useful Google Docs has been for me this year. They may not have implemented the print layout view (although it is surely nearby) I have been longing for, but Google has completely turned Docs around since their acquisition of Writely in March 2006. Continue Reading »

One of the all-nighters I have pulled for school work in the last week has been for the last computer science course I need to take at Georgia Tech. It’s called Design of Online Communities and while essentially a slightly toned down version of a graduate course and the most reading-intense computer science course offered here, it is also among the more interesting. Continue Reading »

That’s the name of the award I will be honored with by Georgia Tech later this month. But now that my stay at college is winding down, what will I really do beyond the campus? Contrary to popular belief, as referenced by the increasing number of emails from recruiters/head hunters I have been Continue Reading »

Last September Yahoo! announced they had acquired Zimbra, a leader in email and collaboration software focused towards businesses, ISPs and universities. It was with that same announcement that Yahoo! said Georgia Tech would be one of the first universities to adopt Zimbra’s webmail application. Georgia Tech’s Continue Reading »

After reading a quick meme post on Kevin Lim’s blog, I thought I would take a break from coding to join in on the fun and briefly show you what I take to classes everyday. Compared to Kevin, I keep things light (albeit not too light with the MBP) with primarily just my laptop and a notebook. Continue Reading »

It’s that time of year again. I will be locked away in my room studying for several finals and completing various class projects as this semester comes to an end. Naturally, it will be a little stagnant here for a while. Good luck to the students out there also coping with finals. Continue Reading »

Two weeks ago I mentioned I was writing a term paper on privacy issues that exist with the growing use of Radio Frequency Identification systems and tags. I ended up receiving an A on the paper so I figured I would share it with everyone. It explores both sides of the RFID issue - convenience vs privacy. Continue Reading »

Just a 411 - this weekend, the upcoming week and next weekend will be rather hectic for me as I write my term paper on RFID tag privacy, prepare a presentation on it, code a prototype for a redesign of a student portal for HCI class, complete other computer science homework and if I’m still alive, participate in Startup Weekend Atlanta. Continue Reading »

Michael Wesch, a professor at Kansas State University well-known for his digital ethnography studies, has put together an excellent video delving into technology and the state of education today. Prof Wesch is known for these types of videos and in my opinion he first broke out with his video The Machine is Us/ing Us that dealt with the evolving technology and how Continue Reading »

I hate to solicit things on this blog but I’ve been selected as a top 20 finalist for the $10k blogging scholarship I wrote about a while ago. If you’ve got the time to spare, I’d really appreciate your vote. Compared to last year where there were only 10 finalists, there seems to be considerably more competition this year. As I’ve mentioned in the past, out-of-state Continue Reading »

I have been trying to ignore the Halo 3 coverage everywhere online as I don’t have an Xbox 360 and the hype has started to make me want one (even though my bank account is at -$44.63). But this type of stuff is hard to ignore when you go to a tech school and campus was noticeably void the Continue Reading »

The Daniel Kovach Scholarship Foundation is gearing up to give away another impressive blogging scholarship for eligible college students (U.S. citizen, quality blog, full-time post-secondary education student). This time the check is for a whopping $10,000. I participated in last year’s blogging scholarship and took home a Continue Reading »

[Update: Admish is now in public beta.] Created by several undergrad students aiming to help out prospective college students, Admish is a yet-to-be-launched community for “college admissions that connects parents, students, guidance counselors and admissions officers.” By filling out a profile including information ranging from GPA and SAT score to household income, Admish helps students Continue Reading »

Every year around this time some large gadget or tech website makes a back to school post. Unfortunately, they are under the preposterous assumption that college students can afford very expensive gear. Containing items such as a 55-inch plasma TV, CrunchGear’s Back to School Cheat Sheet published last year was met with mess of comments stating the list was absurd. Continue Reading »

Daniel Kovach, the guy responsible for The Daniel Kovach Scholarship Foundation from which I received a $1k blogging scholarship last year, is running a web design scholarship contest. If you’re a college student and can design a WordPress template by August 13th 18th (extended), you could have $5,000 taken off your tuition. Continue Reading »

Georgia Tech was in the news today, along with other universities, regarding the national decline of students who pick computer science as their major. Georgia Tech was given $1 million by Microsoft to jump-start a new initiative to get students involved with computer science. One such way this is being done is with newer Continue Reading »

Spring semester 2007 has finally come to an end. After two weeks of completing final projects and studying for my computer science final, I’m glad to say that it’s finished and I can finally get some sleep. For some reason I thought I was borderline D in my CS class, but now that the final has been graded I might get away with Continue Reading »

As I’ve hinted elsewhere, it is indeed dreaded finals week at Georgia Tech but rather than leave you high and dry while I am consumed by computer science PowerPoints, I’ll point you to what I’ve been reading this week. Continue Reading »

Georgia Tech’s Spring Break kicks off today and I’ll be flying home to Houston in a few hours. I’m most definitely ready for it to begin after this project-filled week. I was at the College of Computing from 6pm to 8am just now attempting to finish up a computer science project. Of course, it was packed as most people had projects due today. Continue Reading »

For those of you that decided, like me, a long nap was a better way to spend 6 hours rather than watching the Oscars, you’ve missed out on the first Apple iPhone commercial. Fortunately, Dan at UNEASYsilence was able to find an HD version of the commercial for your consumption. The ad is rather simple and goes through dozens of movie clips where Continue Reading »

I mentioned a while ago that one of my courses this semester was helping out as a web intern/media manager for Georgia Tech’s Solar Decathlon. In a nutshell, the Solar Decathlon is a competition established by the Department of Energy to spread awareness about alternative sources of energy while engaging 20 teams from different universities to build energy-efficient Continue Reading »

I was just talking to Zach Hale about what we’re each taking this semester and I figured a few of you might be interested in the coursework I’m pursuing. Zach’s doing an Informatics major so he was telling me about his cool database class dealing with JSP, Tomcat and PostgreSQL. I’m taking 4 classes this semester: Continue Reading »

I just wrapped up 2 final projects for my interaction design and information design courses today, taking a huge burden off of my shoulders. I figured I would show you what I’ve been working on at Georgia Tech. The final project for my interaction design class was a group project with 2 other students. We had the option of creating a multi-player game, multi-user interactive narrative or Continue Reading »

Blackboard, maker of e-learning solutions used by many universities, is offering three $25,000 grants to institutions that currently use Blackboard products or services. Faculty and staff of these institutions are encouraged to apply for the Greenhouse Grant with a proposal to “successfully develop and deploy initiatives that promote best practices in the adoption of Internet technology in the educational environment.” The entry deadline is February 6, 2007, with the application found in this PDF.