Student Life - Term Paper

I've been quite busy with school work lately. How about you?

It's that time again when I need to write my final paper and wrap up what I have learned. Ugh! Term papers! I know that it is a necessary evil but who ever looks forward to writing them?  I am currently holed up in the computer lab on campus.  I'm well stocked with caffiene and sugar. I have a cup of piping hot coffee next to my mouse and a backup bottle of Diet Coke sitting next to my monitor. (The sugar is in the coffee)

I have music blaring into my earphones from my icloud account while I'm working on my paper. (If you are guy sitting next to me furiously typing away, sorry for the loud music and incessant toe tapping)

Ok, enough playing around on my blog. Time to dig in and concentrate on my term paper again.
Bye for now!

Twitter - Where to Begin?

H E L P !!!!  Twitter is wonderful but so VAST!

I have to admit that I haven't come close to understanding Twitter and all that it is capable of.

Where does one even begin? Where can one find a listing of  all the different Twitter applications?

Please dear reader, can you point me in the right direction?

Technology encroaching on our privacy

I just read the article, School District Allegedly Snapped Thousands of Student Webcam Spy Pics.


It was really scary.  Here's the intro from the article.

A webcam spying scandal at a suburban Philadelphia school district is broadening, with lawyers claiming the district secretly snapped thousands of webcam images of students using school-issued laptops without the pupils’ knowledge or consent.

Some of the images included pictures of youths at home, in bed or even “partially dressed,” according to a Thursday filing in the case. Pupils’ online chats were also captured, as well as a record of the websites they visited.

I'm all for the benefits of Technology in the schools but, really, someone should have known better that to allow the laptop's webcams to be used to take pictures of students.  The school states that they only used the webcam to take pictures when the laptop was reported stolen.  There, however, seem to be many students and their families that say otherwise.


I have been a bit wary of webcams myself.  Several years ago I read that hackers can gain access to your home webcam. Therefore, when it was time for me to purchase a webcam, I bought one that comes with a built-in cover that you can raise and lower.  I only have the cover up when I am actively using the webcam.  


It seems that my concerns haven't been that far off the mark judging by the above article.  Are you comfortable having your webcam's beady little eye directed at you all the time?

Apple - Evil?

There seems to be a lot of conspiracy theories out there. One such is this one.

Apple: An Evil Empire in the making?
Picture a tall man in a black flowing cape, wearing a black plastic helmet and carrying a futuristic weapon(a light saber) and you are picturing the CEO of Apple, Steve Jobbs. That is if you agree with the author, Tom Kaneshige. He believes that Apple may be purposely thumbing their nose at Adobe. As he wrote:

Three years ago, Apple launched the iconic iPhone whose mobile Safari did not support Adobe Flash. Nor does the present-day iPad. At first, Apple said it was because Flash was poorly written and drained precious battery life. Jobs even went so far as calling Adobe developers lazy.

The write-up seems to reinforce a bit of what I said in my last post about having to choose sides between the biggies of industry.

It seems there will always be those that will look for an underlying conspiracy.

Microsoft vs Apple - Do I Really have to Choose a Side?

With the advent of the Ipod coming into my life, I have become more personally aware of the clash between Microsoft and Apple.

Pretty much everything in my life, prior to my owning an Ipod, has had to do with a Microsoft product. All the computers I have used in my adult life (none of which I have purchased or maintained) have had Microsoft's operating system and Office Package installed. They have also used Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer. I never payed much attention to Apple's product line since it was never a player in my life.

Therefore, I never took part in any (heated) discussion dealing with the pros and cons of each company's products. That is until recently. As a relatively new and pleased Ipod owner, I've been drawn into several interesting conversations.

The most common thread that runs throughout these conversations is:

Which company's products do you prefer better?

Why do I have to choose one entire company's productline over another? Can't I pick and choose? Why are certain people so proud of the fact that they are company loyalists?

Just because I love my Ipod and can definitely see myself with an Iphone and an Ipad in the future, am I now obligated to ditch my home pc and go out and buy a Mac?

Spring, March Madness - And a Nun...

It's March again so that must mean that March Madness is in full swing. I'm not the biggest fan of basketball as a spectator sport, since I much prefer to play it than to watch it, but I love to read the human interest stories that lie behind sports.

What could be more interesting than a story about a nun coaching a men's basketball team? As I ran across the headline, At Xavier, Nun Works Out Players’ Academic Side, I pictured a wee, little nun in a black and white habit chasing after 6 ft tall basketball players while brandishing a ruler. It gave me a chuckle. It turns out that I was not too far off the mark. Here's the opening paragraph of the article:

"By some measures, the success of the Xavier men’s basketball team rests not with a sharpshooting guard or a ball-hawking forward. Rather, it rests largely with a 5-foot-4, white-haired 77-year-old nun not afraid to rap on dormitory doors or to call players before dawn to ask about missed classes or late assignments."

I don't know about you all, but with Spring in the air, my head is in the clouds and my mind feels free to wander. I end up surfing the web instead of working on my homework.

How are all my online friends doing? Anyone else have a good March Madness story to share?

Icloud - Beautiful Cloud Computer

I found another iclouder who shares my views on the beauty of icloud.

Icloud - Beautiful Cloud Computer is the title of his blogpost. The blogger, Matt, writes:

"I found a new website for Cloud Computing. A virtual machine computer in the web browser and I find them to be amazing. iCloud has now become the most beautifully working, and most sharp and “sexy” looking Cloud computing website I have found.

iCloud gives you a initiative 3 GB of storage space for free, and that is quite a bit. You can put alot of songs on the drive, alot of photos and all. Download documents at school and upload them to the iCloud and then download them when you get home. Much more efficient then a USB flash drive as it gives you a fun visual experience."

It's nice to read about other people's experiences on icloud. I'd love to read yours!