Scuba's Blog

GOP wins control over the House!

2010-11-02T18:50:00.000-07:00

Test

2009-02-27T07:59:00.001-08:00

Test

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If I had a magic phone

2008-06-15T06:56:00.000-07:00

If I had a magic phone I would want it to work everywhere... Around me there are a lot of dead zones where my phone does not work at all, and my house goes in and out of service all the time... Instead of adding all these amazing features why not work on increasing the cell service to the world...

I'm not complaining about the features, in fact I am a gadget geek and love them all.

Almost my entire trip up to Cobleskill I am in a dead zone... It would be nice to be able to use my phone if my car breaks down, or I am in an accident or something...

This is the Verizon Wireless Coverage map, there is a lot of dead zones on that map, and Verizon claims to be the service with the best coverage. I would hate to see what other cell service coverage maps look like...

Wall*E or Johnny 5?

2008-06-14T14:32:00.000-07:00

Has anyone noticed that the robot from Disney Pixar's new movie Wall*E resembles Johnny 5 from the Short Circuit movies?

Embracing Web 2.0 (Part 1)

2008-05-08T07:46:00.000-07:00

I am going to start a series on how I embrace web 2.0 technologies on a daily basis to make my life easier. Today I am going to talk to you about Twitter.

Twitter describes themselves as "Social networking and microblogging service utilising instant messaging, SMS or a web interface."

So whats this mean? basically Twitter acts very similar to your status on Facebook. What are you doing? tell Twitter and you can let everyone know instantly.

So why use twitter if you use Facebook? Twitter has many uses that the Facebook status just does not hit on. I like to use twitter for Micro-Blogging, the Facebook mini-feed makes this very difficult, there are a ton of other news feed stories that you would have to filter through... the Twitter feed will only show your "tweets"(Tweet being twitters word for status updates) and not all that other garbage. Twitter also allows you to place a badge on a blog, or a website showing what your current status is (as seen on the right side of my blog). As far as I know Facebook does not allow for this.

I still use my Facebook status because a lot more people are using Facebook rather than Twitter, so what I do is I take my tweets and I convert them into my Facebook status using a Facebook application known as TwitterSync. It is very easy to use, and all it requires is entering your Twitter username, and they handle the rest. TwitterSync does give you the option to add a prepend verb, such as "is", so your status is grammatically correct.

Now heres where it gets fun. :) I can update my twitter status from anywhere(as long as I have cell service, or internet access). I have set my account up so I can send a text message to twitter and it will change my twitter status which will change my Facebook status!! Pretty cool huh? not only that, but Google Talk allows me to send instant messages to TwitterIM which will change my Twitter status. AIM has an IM bot, but it has been down for an extended period of time, and I'm not sure if it will ever work again.

I most frequently change my Twitter status from my IGoogle page which is set to my home page. I will discuss IGoogle further in a future blog post. I change my status with an application known as BeTwittered.

Twitter like all successful web applications allows for third party applications to be build utilizing the Twitter API. This post from Mashable shows 60+ different Twitter tools that you may find useful.

Let me know how you use Twitter.

In the next part of the Embracing Web 2.0 Series I will discuss Feeds, and how incredibly useful they are.

Long time no write...

2008-04-17T17:22:00.000-07:00

Yes I know it's been like 2 months since I wrote anything... It's update time!!

Last time I wrote I had just gotten back from Cobleskill which I attended the Snowball... doesn't seem like 2 months ago, time sure flies...

Since my last post I really haven't done all that much... I have been searching and applying for any jobs in my field... The local job outlook isn't looking very bright... I think I will need to uproot myself and move elsewhere for employment.

Since my last post I turned 23...

Since my last post I visited Cobleskill the day of the dairy fashion sale. I went up there with Jeremy, I hung out with him for about 20 mins when I got there, and I didn't see him again till I left. I spent most the day in Prentice hall watching Kevin Prentiss from Swift Kick give his Dance Floor theory lecture... That was a good time... I had never seen the entire lecture, I had only seen about 2 hours worth at APCA... later that day I visited Grove, and Lee's house... That night I went to the Pasta Bar in Middleburgh NY with Lee, Silva, and a bunch of people I met that night... then it was time to go home...

I decided I need a job whether it's in my field or not... I put out applications to the Villa Roma, Bethel Woods, and Pecks Market. I heard back from Pecks the next day, and I had an interview this past Saturday in which I was hired to work in produce... I started this job on Tuesday... I really hope I find something soon... The job at Pecks will eat my soul, I was told my first day by another employee to slow down not work so hard, this seems to be the trend all over the store... I am really hoping I hear something from the Villa Roma... I would have better hours, and better pay if I got hired there...

I will try to update this more often, and a shoutout to Shano who I see is now blogging!!

I'm a Rock Star

2008-02-14T19:19:00.000-08:00

So this weekend I went to Cobleskill :) yeah wasn't the greatest weekend... but Saturday was a ton of fun!!!

I played Rock Band for the first time!!! it was AMAZING... oh man I wanna play it again REAL SOON!!!

I rock out with the guitar, and I think I did very well :)

Too bad Rock band is so expensive... I don't even own a 360 which also isn't cheap...

2007

2007-12-30T23:20:00.000-08:00

This will be my last post of 2007.

2007 has been quite the eventful year, but I think I'm ready to see it go.

I kicked off the new year impatiently awaiting my return to Cobleskill. Things were going to be different, I had "retired" from my RA position, and I was going to spend my final semester at Mallard Lane with a bunch of crazy kids. I moved in a week before classes started with the intention of helping Susan in the Student Life center, watching the infamous Delhi game, and do to the fact that I had class that Saturday.

So everyone comes back to school, classes start everything is going great, I really started to enjoy my final semester at Cobleskill. I took my first and final animal science class which was "Care and Train of the Working Dog". I really enjoyed myself in that class. :)

Not long after the start of my final semester was the Snowball!! that was a great week. I spent about 35 hours that week in the ballroom prepping. It looked amazing!! Pictures cannot begin to describe how amazing the ballroom looked Friday night. and so I didn't win king... I had a great time.

A few days later we had about 3 feet of snow!! we were snowed in... 2 days of classes were canceled!! and nothing to do but go crazy in that small house. Travo had the amazing idea to back out full speed and he ended up getting stuck half in the driveway and in the road... we tried for quite some time to get him out... but later that night was a rather short game of RISK... I destroyed the competition...

Most of March was rather uneventful... The end came and all the fun started up!! My final APCA conference where I realized that the people at APCA were beginning to seem like a second family... it was great walking down the hallways that first night running into so many people who knew exactly who I was. Then walking through the exhibit hall and just seeing so many people's faces light up when they recognized me!! I got quite sad on the way home when I realized that I would most likely never see any of these people ever again.

So the day after APCA Tad Dries a fan favorite at Cobleskill comes to perform in Sandellas that was a fun performance... I'm gona miss running into Tad at conferences and when he comes to Cobleskill...

The next weekend was Boston. We took a site-seeing bus around the city. There is a lot of history in Boston. way too much to see in one day. Nothing too eventful happened to list here.

I think the next weekend was Easter. We had an egg painting/ game night at Susans the Saturday before Easter, that was some fun times as usual!! then Easter Sunday we had a bunch of people over to the house for dinner, and then we played Taboo for a bit.

The next weekend was SUNY Assembly... It was a fun experience but I won't list all the details here... Ask me if you wanna hear some stories.

I am going to outline the rest of the year and fill in the details tomorrow morning... I'm tired now and wanna go to bed.... but I wanna get this posted tonight

The next weekend was the CSA vacation to Rhode Island. Fun times!!

The next weekend was the Saratoga trip and Susans party

The week that followed was Senior week Friday Senior fest Saturday Commencement

Moved to Rome NY... two weeks later moved home

A few weeks later was Silver Bay :)

End of July was Brad Paisley

Got an internship with SwiftKick

Large Gap of not much happening

End of September Showcase Weekend @ Coby

Another large gap

Thanksgiving

NYC

Internship Presentation

Christmas

Here we are today...

What will 2008 bring? well... I hope within the first month I get a job... I really want to move out of Sullivan County. No offense to this area, but theres not much here... Nobody to hang out with, and no jobs. In order for me to grow I need to leave.

Bring on 2008!!!

Bah Humbug...

2007-12-20T20:39:00.000-08:00

First of all I wanted to wish Everyone (who celebrates) a Merry Christmas!! A few days early Yes I know.. The days leading up to Christmas are very busy so I decided to post this now. Between decorating, and just getting the house ready for Santa things can get a little crazy...

Well in case you are wondering what my Christmas entails let me tell ya. Christmas Eve my family and I have a big Christmas Eve dinner which includes a large Turkey, and tons of other delicious side dishes. After dinner my family, minus my father, go to church, followed by cookies and then bed.

The next morning we wake up and do the obvious. Yes we open up Gifts :) A bit later we pick my Grandma up from my aunts house, and bring her home where we exchange gifts once again.

I have to more gatherings before we can consider Christmas officially over. We gather at my Grandmothers house with all my aunts and uncles on my fathers side of the family, and then on a separate day my aunts and uncles on my mothers side of the family come to my house to exchange gifts.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, or a Happy Kwanzaa!!

Snowboard Attempt 1

2007-12-13T13:13:00.000-08:00

Failure... :(

Too much snow out there... We have 8+ inches of the heavy stuff...

So I got up to the top of the hill, and had tons of trouble getting into my board... I had to clear a large area just to get in. Finally when I am in my board I noticed I am in a large hole so I had to hop myself out, and started my decent down the hill... or maybe not... I wasn't moving I must've had 20 pounds of snow on top of my board, and I was stationary... I had to push myself forward just to move 2 feet... it was rather tiring, and I got about half way down when I decided this wasn't any fun so I took my board off and went inside...

Maybe after it warms up tomorrow it will pack down and it will be easier...

NYC/Cobleskill

2007-12-05T20:48:00.000-08:00

I have had quite a busy week, Last Friday I left for NYC, boy was that an adventure. I was unable to see my old friends from high school Friday night, but I had some good times Saturday. I started by meeting Bridget at Penn Station, she saw me first, and she snuck up behind me and kinda scared me. Next we met Cobleskill at Bryant Park, I then set off to explore the city with Laura and Bridget.

We first walked through Time Square, and wandered around. We stopped at Starbucks, and Toys R Us. we continued to walk the city, and walked up 5th avenue towards central park. On our trek up 5th Ave we stopped at the Gap to warm up, then we stopped at FAO Schwarz which had an incredibly long line just to get into the store. but it went quick :)

We then crossed the street and went into Central Park. I was parched so I decided to go and get myself a water, and Bridget and Laura sat down on a bench. I then walked in their direction and sat down on the bench next to them, and just then some guy walked by us singing a song and shot us a smile and he was missing one of his front teeth. It was quite funny.

We continued on and walked past a skating rink where they were announcing the rules, it seemed as though there were 2 hours worth of rules, so whats the fun?

Next we walked north and we saw Strawberry Fields a memorial for John Lennon. Continuing on we Belvedere Castle which now serves as the weather station for central park. We climbed up to the top of the castle, which overlooked the Great Lawn. It was quite a view.

We winded our way back out of the park, and onto Eighth Avenue. we wandered our way back onto Broadway, and attempted to find a place to eat. We eventually found this pizza place and I pointed to the pizza that I wanted and the guy behind the counter said 2 slices of vegetarian pizza? I was like thats not vegetarian pizza he was like yes it is... it has mushrooms broccoli and spinach. I looked closely at it and I was like thats some pretty odd vegetables. he was so sincere about it somehow I believed him, and I was like no thats alright I don't want that, and he continued to put the pizza into the oven to heat it up, and I was like no I don't want that and he shot me a smile, and I realized he was only joking. I felt like quite an idiot, I don't find myself a gullible person, but he pulled it off so well.

We then made our way back down Broadway and towards 42nd street where we found our way back to Bryant Park where we hung out with Laura and met up with some other Cobleskill people while they waited for their bus. After Cobleskill Left I made my way to the bus station and headed home.

I was also very sad I was unable to see Jess Wong I haven't seen her since I graduated... but she is very busy these days :(

Today (Wednesday December 5th) I went to Cobleskill to do my internship presentation. I arrived around 12 and stopped into the Student Life Center were nobody thought it was out of the ordinary when I walked in at first. I guess I hadn't been gone that long. Well I stayed there for 15-20 mins and then got ready for my presentation.

I headed up to Warner where I sat in a classroom for 3-4 hours and watched others present. I was towards the end because it was done alphabetically I would have preferred to be one of the first, but whatcha gonna do?

Well finally I went and I was so nervous. My internship didn't exactly go as planned do to the delayed launch of Red Rover, so I didn't do much along the lines of Network Administration. It was accepted by the faculty and it went over much better than I expected. :)

I went back to the SLC to change out of my business attire, and I then departed Cobleskill. Leaving wasn't so easy, I felt really bad that I couldn't stay and visit with people longer than I did. :(

I hope to visit Cobleskill again VERY SOON...

Going to NYC!!

2007-11-30T08:12:00.000-08:00

So I am going to New York City today. I am very excited because I will see people I haven't seen in years... Also New York City is amazing especially during the holiday season. I went last year with Mary Shano Mego and JK, and we spent almost the entire day on Canal Street so the girls can find cheap handbags. There were definitely some interesting times, like when Mary and Mego went into a sweat shop and Mary took a video... haha but I am excited this year I will spend over a day in the city, so I will get to see a lot more :)

I'll write more when I get home...

Life

2007-11-16T19:42:00.000-08:00

So I don't have much to say. My life isn't very interesting right now, I am working on my internship which is ending soon then I will figure out the rest of my life. I want to get out of Sullivan County, nothing interesting happens here. I really want to move to Western New York, I have a lot of friends out there both from college and high school.

I haven't written anything in a while so I figured I would update everyone on my life lately.

Cheaters or Future Leaders?

2007-08-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

In a recent Yahoo Tech blog they discussed how students are using tech devices to cheat. Personally I think we should look at this issue from a different perspective. Read the blog and then I'll explain that perspective a little bit better.

Original blog

Colleges Battle High Tech Cheating

Tue Aug 14, 2007 12:00PM EDT

So many technologies, so many ways to use them to cheat. There have been widespread reports of kids taking cell phone photos of their exams and sending them to other students via SMS messaging. Other stories cite students using PDAs to keep their notes by their sides during a test, and online paper mills where you can buy a ready-to-turn-in paper on just about anything. Some kids are purportedly so good at text messaging that they can dole out test answers without taking their phone out of their pocket.

As students get more wily about high tech cheating schools are trying to keep one step ahead.

The best known category of anti-cheat devices can help spot a plagiarized paper. There are a number of anti-plagiarism detectors on the market—the most popular being Turnitin—but they all work in a similar fashion. These store huge databases of student papers that have been acquired from numerous sources and compare the paper that's been turned in against the database. Recently Educause ran a comparative review of seven of the most popular anti-plagiarism tools.

But that's just the tip of the creative ways schools are trying to thwart cheating. The New York Times recently covered the cheating on campus story and reported numerous examples of counterattack. "At the Anderson School of Management at U.C.L.A., the building's wireless Internet hotspot is turned off during finals to thwart Internet access." One teacher had his students turn the computers to face toward him so that he could see their screens during an exam. "At Mercer County Community College in West Windsor, NJ, students must clear their calculators' memory and sometimes turn in their cell phones before tests. At Brigham Young University, exams are given in a testing center, where electronic devices are generally banned. In some classes at Butler University in Indianapolis, professors use software that allows them to observe the programs running on computers students are taking tests on." And, according to the article, some institutions even install cameras in rooms where tests are administered.

Lest you think that America is the only cheating culture, check this one out. Even the police get involved: Chinese police detained three people for running a high tech cheating scam involving wireless microphones during the national college entrance exam.

The real question, of course, is why students cheat, and sometimes the best answers come directly from the students. In a CNN interview one student asked to comment on the use of iPods as cheating devices answered, "You can just thread the earbud up your sleeve and then hold it to your ear like you're resting your head on your hand." But that, she offered, doesn't mean you should be banned from using iPods. "People who are going to cheat are still going to cheat, with or without them."

Finally, where there are kids and cheating there's bound to be an academic study. Some of the best work is being done at The Center for Academic Integrity. Who knows, you may be able to get a Ph.D. in high tech cheating someday.

In the interest of proper attribution (a more genteel form of plagiarism), this photo comes from Textually.org.

In life everyone is trying to get ahead of everyone. Ok maybe cheating is ethically wrong, but who here can honestly say they have never cheated whether it be a game of monopoly, chess, on a homework assignment, or a test.

The individuals using this technology to get ahead are going to be the future leaders of the world some day. Look at the government, and corporate business so much corruption, and underhanded behavior.

Should we reward these individuals for cheating? no certainly not, but before you condone these "cheaters" just remember they are trying to get ahead in life. They have this ambition to be a winner.

Now I in no way encourage anyone to0 go out and attempt to cheat on their next test, or suggest that I will cheat in any way. I just think people should be a little more open minded and understand that the individuals that are creative enough to find a way out of a problem are going to be the senators, and the CEOs of tomorrow.

Moving on to bigger and better things!!

2007-07-21T22:05:00.000-07:00

This has been quite the interesting summer. Within the first few weeks after graduation I moved three times. I am currently living at home until I get a better idea of what I am going to do with my life.

Over the past couple months I have applied for internships with many different companies, and a handful of colleges. I have heard back from UAlbany, but had to decline because it was an unpaid internship, and I could not afford it.

I also applied to an organization called Swift Kick. Their mission is to increase student engagement through leadership, technology and community. Within an hour or so of my e-mail I received an e-mail back from Kevin Prentiss one of the co-founders of Swift Kick. Kevin offered me an internship working on a project testing, and helping with the upcoming release of a web application which will be used to help Student Leadership. I am not sure of my exact tasks on this project, but I will discuss them with Kevin early next week!!

I will try to write on here more frequently to keep you up to date on my life!!

Out in the real world

2007-05-22T16:49:00.001-07:00

Well now that I am out in the real world I have decided to start a blog to keep people updated and informed about my life... I don't know if anyone will actually read this, but I am going to write...

As most of you already know I graduated from SUNY Cobleskill on Saturday with a BT degree in Information Technology with a concentration in Network Administration.

I had to say goodbye to some awesome people on Saturday :( These people have touched my and I will never forget them...

I am going to miss you all :(