Tag Archives: gatech

Blog Self-Audit

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The following post is for my English 1101 class at Georgia Tech.

[insert different "24"-esque intro]
The following took place between August 26th at 2:09 PM and October 31th at 9:45 AM.

Looking back through my blog posts I find that I have not really changed too much. Well, maybe a bit more than I say. From the beginning I have always written about technological topics with the occasional aviation related topic or topic that just straight out interests me in some way or form. Since then I have stayed with that theme. In my mind, if it is interesting and I have some reason to share or comment about it, I will blog it.

Over the weeks that I have gotten back into blogging, I would have to say that my blogging style has changed a little bit. When I was out of it and just started blogging again, my posts were still kind of bland and written like an essay. In other words, they were not too personal and did not particularly sound like me. I’m not exactly sure what to account for the changes, but I guess one could say my writing changed just due to me getting back into blogging. I had done blogging before, but I could never sustain the blog for too long, so I suppose the more I blog now the more I shall get back into the idea of blogging and writing more often.

I am not particularly surprised as I go back and reread my work, though I can attribute that to blogging back in the day where I learned what is the best way to write and such. Now if we look at blog posts from my old, old blog many moons ago, I am surprised at how much I’ve changed since then. Well, not completely surprised, but it is interesting to see the changes I have made in writing style.

There exist a few ideas/topics/threads in my posts that I would like to revisit one day. One would have to be the topic of modernization of transportation as my Student Alumni Association mentor, Steve Dickerson, had something to do with the transportation tracking system here at Georgia Tech. I would really like to continue the idea of being a digital native (i.e. being born digital) even after my ENGL 1101 is over as my generation is starting to be completely different from my parents’ generation and helping document it and examine it is probably one of the most interesting things now in the world.

I value a lot out of blogging throughout the week. I like to get my thoughts out and have the possibility of people listen. If anything it is more of a way just to write about what I like. It matters not to me whether I have people reading, but whether I get something out of blogging that I enjoy. I believe that if I continue to write about technology, aviation, and other things I love then I shall be happy with blogging. I’m not sure how it shows up in my posts – perhaps the depth, length, and quantity of such posts? I do not know.

After writing this blog self-audit, I kind of like the idea that is promotes – reviewing my blog and looking at what was good and bad. Perhaps I shall do it bi-monthly in the future even after my ENGL 1101 class is over. It’s good to look back on what we have done and review what we could do better.

The Mini 500

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Today was the 2010 Mini 500 competition at Georgia Tech.

What is the Mini 500? The Mini 500 is a Georgia Tech tradition in which student clubs and organizations race mini tricycles for Homecoming. Racers are not allowed to change the bike structure in any way, though they are allowed to add extra parts to the bike. Racers must start and finish with all the original parts of the bike, even if it means carrying a wheel or two. For more information on the Mini 500 inside Georgia Tech, click here.

I attended the Mini 500 competition today. I really did not know what to expect, but I did know that it would be funny. I mean, how could college kids racing tiny tricycles not be funny? When I got there, I found 50 teams competing in the Mini 500. Once the race started, tricycles were falling apart left and right, drivers were falling flat on their faces, and teams were slowly advancing forward to the finish line.

My residence hall group had a team which I cheered on. The group did pretty good, but in the end the bike did not stand up for the entire race. Compared to some of the other competitors I think we did pretty well.

To see more pictures from the competition this year, check out my Flickr set here.

My Netbook

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I’ve never used a netbook before. They always been something of an inferno laptop to me. I saw it as a wannabe laptop. Too small, underpowered, and iffy design. In other words, not for me.

Or so I thought.

Over the weekend, Dad told me he had a small Dell Inspiron Mini netbook that I could use as he had no use for it. I said I would take it, because I’ve always wanted a little computer to load Ubuntu on and play with.

After receiving the netbook on Sunday afternoon and tiring myself out playing the finale of Humans vs Zombies, I finally had a chance to play with my netbook. I spent the afternoon loading Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.04 onto the netbook which did not take very long to do at all.

The only problem I encountered along the way is that the default edition of the Ubuntu Netbook Edition does not come with the proprietary drivers needed for the wireless module in the netbook. Yeah, I could have used a wired internet connection, though I had messed up the registration required by Georgia Tech to connect any device to their wired internet. In short, I was stuck with a internet-less netbook for a few hours until the registration figured itself out and I could connect the netbook to the internet. Due to this, I decided to call it a night and made a decision to fix the internet in the morning, which I successfully did.

After making the netbook usable, I reached a moment where I could only think “Now what?” I have had this thought before when installing Linux on an any device I own and I really didn’t have an answer for the question. Though after playing with Ubuntu on the netbook for a bit of time, I really came to notice that it was really nice to have just a portable platform to surf the web or chat with friends when I didn’t feel like bringing my full-out Macbook Pro.

In others words, having a netbook is great for when I don’t need a blown-out laptop and don’t want to use my iPhone for browsing or chatting. This may be kind of obvious, but a netbook really lays between a desktop/powerful laptop and a smart phone. I really did not think that it would be as useful.

Now, I don’t have much software loaded up on my netbook thus far due simply to the fact it is a small, portable, low powered device. Below is a list of some of the basic software/mods I have done to the netbook with Ubuntu.

Software Installed:

I do use the Gnome window manager instead of the special Ubuntu Netbook window manager. The netbook windows manager just seemed slower and very anti-multitasking. Plus I was used to the default Gnome appearance.

In the end, I’ll take my netbook to class instead of my MacBook on somedays, because sometimes I don’t really need all the bells and whistles that come with my MacBook for all the increases in size and weight. Life doesn’t have to be as complicated and advanced. Sometimes, the simple things are better.