Confessions of an Undercover Geek

It has always been kind of a pain having to take photos off your digital camera, loading them on to your computer, and then loading them to the web. It is a lot of steps.

Michael Arrington at Tech Crunch and Robert Scoble via their blogs brought to my attention the company Eye-Fi.

Eye-Fi took a secure-digital card (what you stick in your camera that your photos are stored on) and put wifi in it. With the card, you can shoot photos and put them right up on the web if you have wifi. This is REALLY COOL. The card also has a gig of storage on it, just in case your not in wifi spot.

I hope Eye-Fi opens up their service so that I can use it on services like Flickr.

If I get a new camera, this will be a “must get” accessory.

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Last Sunday, I wrote a post asking the question about how can a blogger engage a podcaster in a conversation.

I was excited to see that dynamic duo of Chris Saylor and Josh Owens, from the well known podcast The Web 2.0 Show, talked about the post in their latest episode.

First off, thanks guys for the mention! I have been a loyal listener to the show from episode number one. It is an honor to get mentioned on your show.

They suggested, for having a conversation between a podcaster and a blogger, that you grab the time stamp in the podcast, transcribe the podcasters thoughts, put your comments in your blog, and then just make sure the podcaster gets the trackback.

I think that is a great suggestion. I just wish it was easier than that. It would be nice if it was some add-on into my blog software that only took me three clicks to do. Maybe this is a feature they can put into Flock?

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Friday night I was headed into the usability lab to do some testing with my team. Beforehand I stopped by the library, to print off the test materials. I had the materials in a Microsoft Word File on my thumb drive. My thumb drive is on my key chain.

So… I printed my materials off and rushed to the usability testing lab.

We finished our test and locked up the lab but I couldn’t find my car keys. After about a half an hour, I realized that I had left the thumb drive with my keys in the computer in the library. I ran from the usability lab to the library, hoping it would still be open. It was. Thankfully someone had turned in my keys to the main desk and didn’t steal them.

This is actually the second time I have done this. I can’t be the only one that this is happening to. So, it’d be logical to say, “Justin, why don’t you take your thumb drive off your keys?” Well because i’d lose the thumb drive.

There should be a prompt on the library computer that comes up as your logging out to remind you to take out the thumb drive.

I think this experience is just more of a reason why I am moving more and more to using Writely, Google’s online word processor, for all of my writing. Everything is just on the web and all I have to do is log into Writely.

What do you guys think? Has this ever happened to you? Ever leave your thumb drive accidentally at a public computer?

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I have had a bad cold the last couple days and I can finally seeing it starting to pass, which makes me amazingly happy.

When you are sick with whatever illness, you really don’t want to do much of anything. I am used to being at home with my parents when I am sick. It seems like there would always being an ample supply of Sudafed, Kleenex, and Orange Juice on hand.

When your in college and on your own, these are all things you have to get for yourself. It was kind of weird. I had to go to the store and look in the cold medicine aisle and pick out what of the 100 varieties I wanted to buy.

In college you also don’t really get sick days. Especially at RIT with things being so fast paced, I don’t dare miss class because I’d be afraid I’d be behind. I remember my freshmen year being really sick and still going to Discrete Mathematics. It was not fun.

I am growing up. I am adult. In four months, I won’t be in college any more and will have a 8 to 5 job. Time flys by too fast.

I have to give a lot of credit to my amazing parents. I could not have made it where I am if it wasn’t for their love, support, and passing on their wisdom.

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Man IÂ have been busy the last couple of days. Only having 10 weeks in an academic term makes things really fly by quickly.

It is the end of seventh week so the rubber has really started to hit the road. During this point in the term at RIT everyone walks around like zombies.

It hasn’t helped that I have had a cold the last couple of days. Â I think it is finally starting to go away.

I have been spending a bit of time today catching up with my blog reader. Â I also will pick up with some more writing.

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I am taking an Ethics Class. We have to write a position paper on a topic. Â I decided to write my paper on illegal file sharing. Â It is titled, “Illegal File Sharing, Nihilism, & Our Individualistic Society in the Information Age.” Â It is my first draft.

Let me know what you think. Drop me a comment!

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30 Boxes, the best online calendar, just added a new feature which allows you to e-mail events into your 30 Boxes calendar.

If you get e-mailed an invite to an event, you can just forward the e-mail invite to 30 Boxes. Make the subject of the e-mail something like, “Alumni Reception April 26th 5:30pm to 7:30pm” and it will put it on your calendar and attach the e-mail contents to the e-mail.

This is awesome and it works really well.

digg the story - E-Mail Events Into A 30 Boxes Calendar

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I am a big coffee drinker. Â I am drinking coffee right now.

John Fischer posted an excerpt of his book Confessions of a Caffeinated Christian where he talks about the similarities between his love for coffee and his love for God.

I keep coming to Starbucks because of the experience I have there. They made a promise to me—they promised me the world’s best coffee delivered in a clean environment that always invites me to stop and stay awhile—and so far they have kept it. God has kept his promises with me as well, solidifying the most difficult times in my life with his peace. I keep coming back to him because of the wholeness I have in him.

It is really good. Check it out. Â Thanks dad for the link.

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The 9Rules Network, an elite community of bloggers, is opening up their community for another round of submissions for people who want to join the community.

I think I might submit Confessions of an Undercover Geek to the 9Rules Network. What do you guys think?

One of the gentlemen who helped to found the 9Rules Network is Mike Rundle, was also in the Information Technology Department at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

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For those of you that are sitting home and wondering what kind of beer I have been drinking lately, I have been digging into some of the fine British beers.

• Old Speckled Hen (what I am drinking now)
• Boddingtons
• Bass Ale

They are all great. The next time you are at your favorite pub pick up a pint of one and let me know what you think.

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