I’m on the fence about this device. If it was around $100 I think it would be a must-have if you have a good music collection. But $180 is pretty stiff for this type of functionality. I assume the LCD screen must make it pretty expensive.
Still, I want to keep it in mind. Now that we have an Airtunes, I’ll be constantly tempted by this thingy.
ThemBid.com » Blog Archive » Removing Backgrounds Quickly in Photoshop
When it comes to PhotoShop, every little bit helps. I do wonder if this method would work in GimpShop.
7 Strategies to Raise Your GPA this Semester | Pick the Brain
This caught my eye since I’ve applied for a few positions where I would be involved with helping students develop better study skills. These are pretty generic, but make for a good start. Here are a few thoughts on each:
1. Go to class: you pay $X per credit. Each credit is Y hours per semester If you divide $X/Y hours, that is the cost per hour, just in your tuition alone. Then figure how much you pay for rent, food, clothes, gas, etc… and you suddenly have a pretty large $ amount. I used to use the knowledge that I was tossing that much money away as an incentive to get my butt to class.
On the flip side, I also had a belief that if I was so ill I would be using all of my energy to just stay awake and not fall out of my seat, then I stayed at home.
2. Sit in the front row: I don’t agree with this one, but I would say sit in the front half of the room. I sometimes found the front row made it difficult to see the teacher and what they were writing if I was too far stage left/right. Think of it like the theater; as close to front center as you can get, but fail to the middle of the room before the wings.
3. Take notes by hand: absolutely. I always did a better job of recalling information if I wrote it down in class. I would also follow this up by making 3×5 notecards with the term on one side and the definition on the other (more below on why this works). Writing it all down twice really helped a lot.
4. Do a weekly review: Always helps you build on top of your pre-existing knowledge.
5. Go to office hours: We’re not perfect humans and that includes students. I was amazed how often I had questions and would go to my faculty member to get clarification only to hear them say, “That’s a good question, I can’t believe nobody else has asked that.” They clarify in class and I then find out lots of people were wondering the same thing and thought they should just know it. Sometimes profs don’t get everything to us. They, as humans, are not perfect.
6. Find smart people to work with: I would say don’t look for people who are too dramatic. And who are stable. But don’t limit yourself to the smartest echelon. They can be a bit egotistical and generate unhealthy competition. If someone is a stable person, fun to be with and trustworthy, don’t worry so much about “smart”. Sometimes it is okay to give a little back.
7. Avoid all-nighters: Absolutely. Can’t improve on that. Make a calendar and budget your time accordingly. If you want a party night, plan it as well. A late night isn’t always horrible if you can do it between responsibilities.
Rote learning to build onto a skeleton: I was a massive geek. I always had a set of 3×5 cards with me. Rote learning isn’t the best way to master information, but it builds a good structure on which to hang your theoretical knowledge. I would go through the deck, terms in front, usually about a dozen cards at a time, until I had them mastered. I would put the cards (term) I had down in a separate pile until I had each card memorized. Then start again, but this time read the definition and identify the term. Once I had these down, I would begin to shuffle them up and keep flipping them back and forth.
As soon as I had the term down, the ways the information were chunked together began to make better sense.
Finally ditched the last version of Symantec Internet Security. I had the 2004 version, which I used on my old computer. When it died, I scavenged parts to build my PVR/server and installed the software on it. Don’t know exactly what their license is, maybe that was not allowed. Â
I do know it is ridiculous when you own a valid software license and can’t uninstall it on one computer and reinstall on another. At least on a personal level. I can see it, to a degree, for corporations or large organizations, but that is because you often purchase or download one copy and install it on the network. Here, in my home, I had a valid copy and will have to go purchase another over-packaged box.
Why is this the case? Well, a few weeks ago my server’s power supply failed. It knocked out the system drive and I had to rebuild the system from scratch. I installed the OS on one of the older drives, with software, before I realized that drive was also acting up. So, I installed it on a pristine drive. I had registered Internet Security on each of the drives (the first thing I do after installing my OS is to install security). But, on the final drive, it came back with an error. I had registered the software too many times.
I looked on the Symantec site and finally got routed to start a chat conversation with an operator. I told them my problem and the response was, ‘Sorry, the server deactivated your serial number.’ That was it. I asked again and got the same answer. I finally gave up and uninstalled the software. As I did so, I realized that I have refused to buy an upgraded version since the copies were were using at work on university computers were causing lots of problems by taking way too many resources. And how the university was moving from it as well.
In the end, my server isn’t without security. I don’t really do that much with it and it doesn’t have any important information on the drives. I don’t order using my credit card on it. If they hack in and want to see the shows I record, Tivo-style, they’re welcome to it. So Windows Firewall and installed PC Tools Antivirus, free at Download.com and worth checking out in place of an expensive, resource hungry software with way too many strings attached.
With each passing week, we recognize more common places and things from the Toronto area (and Vancouver, since we’ve been there for a nice long vacation). This evening, a commercial came on and showed two people acting next to a car. In the background, a green GO train passed by. it was pretty cool, suddenly recognizing a location where you live and not having it be on the local news. Not a big thing, but it really does make one realize you’re in a major location. A place where people go to film for TV and movies.
I understand that a lot of filming goes on here as a replacement for NY. Parts of the Spiderman movies were supposedly filmed in Toronto. And some of the X-Men scenes at Xavier’s school was filmed at Casa Loma. I’m looking forward to re-watching Spiderman 1 and 2 when the 3rd hits DVD so I can watch for local scenery. How much fun would it be to see our apartment building (which we will no longer be living in by then) as Spiderman swings across the screen?