Archive for the 'Friends' Category

Couple tips for Twitter newbs

Published
by
John Erik
on June 25, 2008
in Friends and Mobile Communication
. Comments

My friend and former Creativity professor (yes, that was a class for my advertising degree) Assaf Avni just joined Twitter [@assafavni]. I’m excited to be able to keep up with what he’s up to. So he will get the best out of Twitter, I wrote a him a list of things to do/watchout for. … here’s the list perhaps it will be helpful to yall too.

  • twit messes up quite a bit. doesnt post, late post, no sms, no tracking, etc
  • when you setup your mobile device, whether you follow anyone to your phone or not, you want to send “track assafavni” to twitter (40404). doing this will send you SMS notifications anytime someone says your name who you are not following, very handy, must do this (but beware sometimes when twitter is overloard it doesnt work and you will still miss messages)
  • Summize is a great twitter search tool and you can use it to search for your username to see if anyone was talking to you that you missed
  • setup Twitterfeed to autopost to twitter anytime you post to your blog
  • install the facebook twitter app and allow it to sync your status
  • search for people you think are cool and follow them :) then talk to them, really
  • import your gmail contact list (click Find and Follow)
  • get an unlimited text messaging plan
  • update frequently, people really do care, even about minutia
  • download Twhirl for desktop Twitter client
  • if you post often to flicker from your mobile, setup Snaptweet
  • now, go read Melissa Sconyers’ post on twitter to get the real details

Am I forgetting anything???

College Entrepreneurs Work, Live Together In Frat-Style Dorm

Published
by
John Erik
on June 14, 2006
in Friends, General, Goals, Links and School
. Comments

This is similar to what Tom Serres and I are going for at UT:

By Stefanie Shaffer, University of Maryland

[...] The Hinman Campus Entrepreneurship Opportunities Program is a three-year-old living-learning venture at Maryland’s College Park campus, jointly sponsored by the engineering and business schools. Students live and work side by side in a state-of-the-art dorm inside what can best be described as a business incubator.

The program’s home feels more like the office of a Fortune 500 corporation than a traditional residence hall; there are no tile floors, concrete block walls or raucous students in sight. Instead, the lobby greets visitors with a conference room, a professional office and a computer lab, with a seminar room just down the hall and wireless Internet connectivity throughout the building.

“Because it’s a business environment, it should have a corporate look,” Thornton said.

And a corporate look it has.

The conference room - marked by the rich scent of fine leather - features a glass-topped cherry-wood conference table, high-back leather chairs, a whiteboard and telecommunications capabilities. The room is available to every student in the program via a sign-up list for meetings and presentations.

Much of the technology availed to Hinman CEOs has been donated by Avaya Inc., including cell phone technology that links students’ cell phones and dorm phones so they never miss a call.

Executive Assistant Cindy Gilbert mans the program office and provides any services a business receptionist would, Thornton said.

“Our building is really a dorm for dreamers,” said finance major and Hinman CEO Kamana Sharma. “Every apartment has an open-door policy because we all foster the spirit of entrepreneurship and that unites us all.

“If you have a business idea, you can go down the hall and find a computer science major to write up a program, go next door to find a marketing major and then run upstairs for an engineer to develop your prototype - all within a day,” Sharma said. “An idea is just an idea sparked in one individual but is ignited and actualized as a group.”

Roommates and Business Partners
Students experience the program in a broad spectrum of ways. While some students are already running their own successful businesses and have been for years, others - especially computer science and engineering majors -use the program as a business learning tool while honing their technical skills in the classroom.

[...] Current students’ majors vary and include business, engineering, psychology, computer science, math, architecture and English. There are many double majors and one triple major. Character, integrity and drive are key traits Hinman CEOs possess, Thornton said.

“Students join because they know they want to do something different and want to grow themselves and their businesses,” she said. “They don’t know the word ‘no.’ When they see a challenge, they just see a new opportunity.”

Copyright © 2004. YOUNG MONEY®

New Radiohead CD

Published
by
John Erik
on June 11, 2006
in Asides, Friends and Links
. Comments

“Today, Thom Yorke released a site for his next album, The Eraser.” Awesome. Thanks Trey.

Telling mankind’s story through photos

Published
by
John Erik
on June 1, 2006
in Friends, Insight and Words
. Comments

I was just reading a paper titled The Narrative of Digital Photos: Time and Technology by my friend David Hoffman. The paper discusses, among other things, the importance of organizing the recent and growing flood of digital photos.

How do we organize the 1500 photos that are being snapped each second around the world? And why is it important that we do?

I love pictures. Since I was a little kid with a 110 camera I have been snapping like crazy. Anytime I had the chance I was taking a picture. I did (and do) this because I fear forgetting the past. The fun times, the lessons I have learned, the events I have attended, the people I knew, list goes on. It’s the same reason I began blogging. With each new roll, I was adding to the collection of photos in my bottom drawer back home and, unknowingly, forming my organization style: linear, chronological. This style has continued with my digital collection. Picasa does it nicely. So does Radar.

Pictures can tell the story of the world. To me, a great organization system/software would arrange images based on their time of creation and could show what was happening in the world at any moment in the past. It would be even better if you could know where on the planet each picture was taken from. Google, where you at on this one?

A problem. Let’s take me for example: I look at my collection of photos fairly often, it’s like studying, the more times I look at my pictures the better I can recall them in my mind and the better I can recall the event they are associated with. Here is the problem. What about the other events, ones that may have been more important or had a greater impact on my life. If I forgot my camera that day, are they are lost forever? As I place greater importance on my narrative photo collection and as time drives memories into the distance, I feel like they are.

On a lager scale, as David puts it:

…despite the startling excitement associated with telling mankind’s story though thousands of photos linked and chronologically detailed, the possibility for a reliance on photos to define the visualization of time could negatively distort our perception of time. The impact of a photo depends on the photograph itself as much as it depends on the person viewing the photo. If the photo, or if thousands of photos, are subjectively placed in the wrong light, the results could be an inaccurate or incomplete depiction of the human timeline.

This is why I love radar, and cameraphones. My phone is something I always keep with me. Because it has a camera, I will always have that too. Because I have internet access on my phone, I can send the photos I take directly to my collection. And, with radar I can share them and receive comments – if I choose to.