The Doppler Effect

CBS Live @ Cornell University

B. Tan — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 23:33:36 +0000

Here are some video clips of Cornell ILR alumnus, and Emmy award winner, David Price broadcasting live from Cornell’s Ithaca campus for the CBS Early Show.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Mac N00bs

B. Tan — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 02:45:16 +0000

Here’s some must-reads for all the new Mac-philes out there:

Cult of Mac: Advice for Mac-toting students
The Apple Blog: Mac Tips
TUAW: Back-to-School
TUAW: Mac 101

Back to school

B. Tan — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:22:42 +0000

Here we are again, on the eve of yet another first-day-of-school. The difference this time, is that I’m really on my own. In years past, I’ve had my parents and everything else that comes with being in the comfort of your own home. After spending the past week getting moved into my new apartment, the signs of what post-college life have already started peeking around the corners. Worrying about bills, security deposits, cleaning your own place, cooking…all things that were a mere afterthought in my (formerly) carefree lifestyle. The prospect of turning 20 in a couple months doesn’t help me feel any younger; I know that the responsibilities and bills will only pile up even higher.

I’m looking forward to an awesome (and much improved from last year) school year and wish the same to you all.

Cure for the “Butt-Brick”

B. Tan — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:15:40 +0000

All guys who carry wallets surely have to deal with the “butt-brick,” a condition where the wallet creates an unsightly bulge in one’s back pocket. It certainly annoys me because a fat wallet is also uncomfortable and according to the BBC, a serious health risk. Not wanting to live with the butt-brick and the risks that came with it, I started searching for a solution. My search lead me to Koyono’s Slimmy wallet dubbed “The slimmest front-pocket wallet on earth.” Koyono’s brand targets

The adventurers of the urban wilderness, globetrotting jetsetters and new business thrill seekers have lifestyles that demand high-performance. These people are on their own mission in the world and must maintain a high level of effectiveness with style, ease and fun.

That being said, I instantly became fascinated with the Slimmy and after doing extensive research, I found only good things being said about this little wallet. One thing that sets the Slimmy apart from traditional bi-fold or tri-fold wallets is that the Slimmy is meant to be carried in your front pocket as opposed to your back pocket. This way, you’re not reaching for your butt every time you need your wallet or more importantly, sitting on an uneven surface resulting in damage to your spine. While some people opt for a card carrier, I liked the Slimmy because it had room for cash and other miscellaneous items.

Satisfied with what the Slimmy had to offer, I opted to purchased a Special Edition Slimmy for some extra flair. Because I ordered from Amazon, processing my order took a few extra days but shipping was quick. An added benefit from ordering off Amazon came in the form of a free magazine offer in which you can sign up for a free year subscription Lucky, Teen Vogue or GQ. The subscription is totally free, in fact the publishers don’t even get your credit card information and the subscription does not auto-renew. If you’re not a fan of any of those magazines, you can also opt for a $12 credit to your account.

As soon as I received my Slimmy, I transferred contents from my old wallet to it to see how it fared. Koyono claims the Slimmy can hold 8 cards, 5 bills and a few receipts. I was able to fit 7 cards and a decent mix of receipts and business cards with no problem. It is important to keep in mind that the Slimmy is not designed to carry all of your stuff; it forces you to reconsider what is and is not essential for your wallet which is a big part of reducing your wallet’s size. For those of you who think you’ll have a hard time dealing with the reduced payload of the Slimmy, printing yourself a card from Just One Club Card may do the trick; it allows you to consolidate up to 8 store rewards cards on to just one. With all my essentials tucked in my new Slimmy, it was the same thickness as my old bi-fold wallet when it is empty and roughly the same thickness as my 80GB iPod. The quality of the leather and the construction of the wallet are both top-notch however I do find the price tag a bit high considering how simplistic the Slimmy is.

In the short time that I’ve had it, I already know that I (and my back) will throughly enjoy using the Slimmy. The Slimmy also comes in a few varieties as well as other stylish wallets and money clips. I find Koyono’s product line very tempting (espescially the Cableyoyo) as they blend equal amounts of design and functionality.

I think only Art Lebedev rivals Koyono in terms of shiny things I will likely waste my money on. Any other cool stuff you think I should know about?

Eyes on Beijing

B. Tan — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:28:39 +0000

The Olympics are finally here. Always one of my favorite events, this year’s Olympic Games in Beijing, China was one of the most hyped ever. As someone who has always been wary of the Chinese, still found myself thoroughly impressed with the opening ceremony. The artistic performance was highly creative and melded clockwork precision with 15,000 performers; the Chinese have seriously set the bar high for future hosts as well as shown the world how far China has come in the last decade. Aside from one tragic story, the games are well run so far.

As of today, China leads not only the overall medal count, but the gold medal count as well (China 9, U.S. 3). While i don’t expect the discrepancy to last for long (espescially once track and field gets under way), I strongly believe that China will give the United States a strong run for it’s money in terms of overall medals.

So far we’ve seen some epic performances, most notably in swimming, fencing and basketball but there are stil nearly two weeks of competition. I typically find myself watching two TV channels at once and stream another event on my computer. You might call me some sort of Olympics addict. Derek posted some stunning photos over on Markfive, and Gizmodo has an interesting read about the opening ceremony here. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have 3 screens worth of Olympics to watch!

Facebook Haters

B. Tan — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:54:45 +0000

So Facebook finally went live with it’s latest design and as expected, the backlash began right away. Search Facebook Groups for “new Facebook” and you’ll see results such as “I HATE THE NEW FACEBOOK (STALKER) Layout” or “The New Facebook Sucks!” or “I Hate the New Facebook”. Looking at most of these groups, it is clear that these people are misunderstanding what Facebook is meant to be.

The most common complaint is that Facebook has become more “stalker”-like. I find this claim invalid because Facebook is foremost a “social networking” website. Facebook in it’s About page says:

Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

Facebook provides the means to do exactly what it describes. Furthermore, all the information displayed on Facebook is completely voluntary. You even have complete control over who gets to see what information by tweaking the privacy settings. Beyond this, however, the concept of social media isn’t fully understood by everyone it seems. To that, Common Craft has put together a nice video that helps explain it:

So my point is, Facebook is a site meant to foster interaction, hence the Twitter-like newsfeed and wall. Another complaint I’ve seen is that people were familiar with the old layout and claim the new one leaves them lost. To this notion, people need to realize that change is always occurring. The new layout is better suited to it’s social fuctions. Even so, Facebook gives users the option to filter the new Facebook wall to show only newsfeed items or wall posts or even revert back to the older layout. Personally, I think that the new layout is much better suited to widescreen displays (which are becoming increasingly prevalent) and also, the tabbed profile pages means I don’t have to scroll through endless applications to find a friend’s wall; the user interface is much more consistent now.

All that being said, I know the Hateorade will continue to be poured. What I’m really interested in knowing is how Facebook will fare as the most of the current college students (Facebook’s primary demographic) age I’m nearly 20 and I still find myself on Facebook quite often so we’ll see what happens when I’m 25 or 30. In the meantime, what are your thoughts on Facebook?

Web Apps Galore

B. Tan — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:11:17 +0000

It seems nowadays, there is a web application for everything. In a few short years, we’ve seen explosive growth in a movement called Web 2.0. This has resulted in a shift towards spending more and more time in our browsers, and less time in standard desktop applications. With so many new web applications popping up left and right, you will invariably see clones and companies trying to best each other. It can definitely be overwhelming trying to keep track of them all. The following are the web apps that make the cut for me. Those who know me well, know that I am extremely particular about the technology I use so I hope you will find these sites as useful as I have.

I’ll start off with a name everyone recognizes. Google. Aside from Google search, Google provides a number of staggering number of services ranging from Picasa and YouTube, to Google Docs, and Grand Central. However, Google’s shining star (aside from their search of course) is Gmail. In the free webmail arena, Gmail is the clear cut winner, scoring major points for innovative features and UI and also keeping everything free (you have to pay Yahoo for anything “advanced”). Another strength of Gmail is that you can port it for use on your own domain name. Anyone who’s used the webmail interface provided by their web host can appreciate Google Apps. I’m assuming most people have already experienced for themselves the power of Gmail; and since I have enough to say about Gmail to merit its own post, those who are unfamiliar can read up about Gmail at Lifehacker.

Mint Logo

Right in line with the usefulness of Google’s apps, lies a website known as Mint. Mint is a financial tool that allows you to consolidate all your financial information presents it in an easy to understand format. It lists all your transactions across all your credit and debit cards and generates graphs of your spending trends (so you can see your financial mistakes in pie chart form ). Also, Mint keeps track of your interest rates on your credit cards, and bank accounts and suggests offers from other banks to help you save. There are also notifications (via email or SMS) that you can setup for your accounts (ex. have Mint txt you about a low account balance). Mint also recently added a feature for tracking investment portfolios, student loans and mortgages. Naturally, having all this sensitive information in one place is a reason to be wary. However, Mint does not store your personal data and uses bank-grade encryption. If you’re still skeptical, Mint has been featured in the likes of The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Time, BusinessWeek, CNN Money, The NY Times…the list goes on and on (read: Mint is pretty legit). In the future, Mint plans add feature such as bill pay making it an even more powerful tool. Like every good web app, they have demo video which you should definitely check out.

The next app, Dropbox (still in private beta but I have a few invitations available…) is one of those tools that you’ll wonder how you lived without. In my quest for a free iDisk alternative, I found this nifty app that seems to be much better implemented than services such as Box.net and free unlike SugarSync. Another plus is that the developers seem extremely in tune with the user community, in terms of addressing concerns, feature requests and being active on the Dropbox forum. It’s sort of hard to explain exactly how Dropbox operates, so I’ll just let you watch yet another screencast (I promise it’s worth it).

While those are the web apps I use on a daily basis, there are still many helpful apps out there I haven’t mentioned:

http://epassportphoto.com/ - Essentially free and instant passport photos
Pandora - Must have if you like music (who doesn’t?)
Hulu - Free, fast and legal web TV.

As you can tell, I basically live on the internet; computers do everything for me. But hey, what’s wrong with that? I hope you find these web apps useful, or if you know of any better ones I’d love to hear suggestions. Do you have any favorites I missed?

Randy Pausch, author of The Last Lecture, has died.

B. Tan — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:45:43 +0000

Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor whose final lecture inspired millions, has died of pancreatic cancer. Dr. Pausch, 47, who turned the lecture into a book, said that no one would have been interested in his words of wisdom were he not a man in his 40s with a terminal illness.

Google’s Knol: The Monetizable Wikipedia

B. Tan — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 04:20:29 +0000

Via Digg (via TechCrunch)

Today Google has launched Knol, its Wikipedia alternative that holds authors accountable for the articles they write. Each article is created by a team of authors, who receive attribution, and are allowed to take part in a rev-share for AdSense ads on their page.

I’m not entirely convinced that Knol will become that popular. This day in age, being first has a lot to do with a product’s success. While Knol address the one main criticism of Wikipedia, article integrity, that alone doesn’t look like enough to chip away at Wikipedia’s popularity and sheer volume of information. That being said, I do believe that the open editing of Wikipedia has held up better than most would expect. I’ll be interested to see how the perception of Wikipedia changes (particularly in academia) over the next several years.

The new face of Facebook

B. Tan — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:38:53 +0000

Everyone’s favorite procrastination tool is due for it’s 2nd major makeover. I’ve been playing with the new version for a little while now and evidence of other social networking sites have made their way into Facebook’s new design. The look and feel is mostly the same; the single largest change is the merging of the newsfeed with the wall reminiscent of Twitter or Pownce. You’ll also notice the ability to clean up your profile by using tabs to organize all your content; applications no longer dominate the page. With these changes, emphasis is being put more on social interaction. While I like the direction Facebook is taking, most Facebook users will probably immediately oppose the change espescially given the fact that the Twitter-like concept of the new Facebook is still largely unfamiliar to most people. I fully expect hundreds of “Petition to change Facebook back to the way it was” groups to pop up.

Below are a few screenshots I took so you can see for yourself before the change is actually launched. Please note that the Facebook Chat bar floating in the middle of the images is just a bug with the method I used to take the screenshots.

Main Page

What do you think of the new Facebook?