The Adventures of a Digital Sensei
I traveled to the outskirts of Queens yesterday to present at the 2014 York College Technology Symposium on the topic of “Enhancing Student Engagement with Open Source Software”. It was a great event featuring digitally engaged faculty from throughout the CUNY system.
I was motivated to give this lecture because Continue reading “2014 York College Tech Symposium”
The summer is the time when I brush up on old skills or take the plunge and develop new ones. The plan for this summer was to initially focus all of my time on Objective C and iOS app development. That was until Apple announced that they were migrating to a new programing language called Swift. Since the info on Swift is still in the preliminary stages I will now either brush up on my mobile responsive design and JavaScript animation or try and tackle Ruby on Rails. I am leaning towards the responsive design and JavaScript because it would better prepare me to finally get started with PhoneGap and cross-platform application development. Continue reading “Tech Training – Summer 2014”
The majority of the weekend was taken up with birthday activities for the wife so I had to wait until Sunday evening to finally upgrade my old 2009 17 inch MacBook Pro with a new 1TB solid state drive (SSD). I love the design of the MacBooks of this era because the internal component are easily accessible. The upgrade took all of about 2 hours, and that included the data migration. I did the same for my 2007 MacBook Pro a few months back but it was far more difficult to install the SSD due to the construction of the case.
I decided it was time to upgrade since the price of SSDs are dropping as their Continue reading “Mid Year Technology project: 2009 MacBook Pro Upgrade”
I am upgrading the standard hard drive in my 2007 17in MacBook Pro to a solid state drive (SSD). “Winona” has been showing her age in recently years and I wanted to spruce her up a little bit. And yes, I name my computer equipment (shout out to all of those Farscape fans out there).
The ram in “Winona” was already maxed out so the best bang for the buck upgrade in terms of price and performance was a solid state drive upgrade. Now that I have more leeway in my research and profession endeavors after receiving tenure, I am planning on doing more work with Apple related programs such as iBook Author, Adobe DPS, and xCode to develop interactive teaching applications for the students in the programs that I oversee. It will help to have a decent backup machine for basic tasks, and baring Apple Continue reading “New Year Technology project: 2007 MacBook Pro Upgrade”
The new Mac Mini I bought last Christmas is finally hooked up and added to the network. I waited because I wanted to use it in a shared dual monitor configuration with my custom built Windows system. I will be leveraging the quad core i7 Mac Mini with 16gb of ram more in the coming weeks. Because while I am more than capable of building and maintaining a Windows/Linux DIY desktop, I don’t want to spend time dealing with conflicting dll files, viruses, and system corruptions when I should be building something creative. So now I have been using the Mac Mini over the past few days and the only thought going through my mind is why in the hell did I wait so long to hook it up.
The Mac Mini can’t play games for crap because of the under powered graphics card, but everything else is great. The system is Continue reading “I shall call him…… Mini Me.”
I hate having to spend time troubleshooting system problems when I need to be working on projects. I have some type of system corruption on my PC desktop so now I have spend hours either repairing (which rarely works) or reinstalling the OS. I really hate windows right now. I have stayed away from Windows 8 precisely because of the problems with it. While it isn’t as bad as the infamous Windows Vista, it is still pretty bad. Thus when I built my newest desktop I decided to stay with Windows 7. But even Windows 7 is still Windows.
So I spent the better part of the last two days troubleshooting a problem on my PC only to find out that there was a minor glitch in the system that caused a process to over consume memory. The process was spawned as the Windows 7 OS tried to generate thumbnail previews for the mp4 movie files in my library. I disabled the thumbnail process and replaced it with a third party freeware app to generate the previews and it fixed one of the major problems in about two minutes. My system is still only able to use half of the memory in the machine, but it is a start. Oh, did I mention that I am learning to hate Windows again.
The glitch had the system trying to generate the thumbnail previews until it got stuck in a loop. The loop caused the system to continue Continue reading “I got 99 problems and this glitch is one!”
A few months back I was questioned by a writer from the New York Observer on my role as the Academic Director of the Communication and Media program at the CUNY School of Professional Studies (SPS). The writer was interested in discussing the online nature of my program and what sets it apart from other traditional and internet based learning environments. Well, today I found out that I was prominently quoted in the Educated Observer, a special advertising supplement to the NY Observer, on the work we are doing over at SPS.
A digital copy of the article, and my statements on the programs at SPS, can be found here.
Every few months the academic directors at the CUNY School of Professional Studies (SPS) have a formal information session for potential students interested in our online degree programs. The purpose of these events are to introduce these potential students to our programs, our school, and to give them a taste of what will be expected of them if they decide to attend SPS. Well at the session last night while I was presenting I ran into a former New Media Technology student that I taught at LaGuardia many years ago. He is planning on going back to school to get a BA and is applying to the Communication and Media program that I am heading up.
I guess this is what they mean by full circle.
Today was my first day at the new office. There is a ton of work that needs to be done and I am looking forward to getting underway. I have been asked to take charge of the Communication and Media program at the CUNY School of Professional Studies and to help redefine the degree in light of the recent technological and societal shifts brought forth by digital innovation.
I must say that it was kinda weird to be Continue reading “CUNY SPS – New Office Space”
I was saddened to hear that Red Burns, founder of NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, passed away earlier this week. Red was my academic adviser and one of the first people that I met when I arrived to study at ITP in the late 90s. Oddly enough, despite her small stature, she was also one of the most intimidating people I have ever met. And I say that as a person that is not easily intimidated. My first impression of Red was that she was not someone to trifle with, piss off, or just generally wind up on her bad side. Over time I was fortunate to see that there was a kinder and gentler side to her. Red cared deeply for her students, but she demanded the best from them. She was a formidable personality and utterly fearless in her approach to life.
Over the past few days my Facebook and Twitter feeds have been inundated by posts from friends and fellow ITP students who were influenced heavily by Red. She was truly a pioneer in the fields of tech education and digital expression. The overwhelming theme that comes through in all of the posts is that Red, and the program that she created, changed their lives for the better. Continue reading “You will be missed”