The IT Student Blog

Just stumbled upon this lovely site, Meninos Store, where you can buy stuff for your home that most definetley will create a unique interior.

Aren’t these lamps just wonderul?

Imaging turning on the lights and having this RSS-lamp shine with its cosy, orange warm glow…

Or why not the chic black lamp shade symbolizing the F1 and F2 keys?

Combining interior design with computing is actually quite awesome.

I don’t know how many times I’ve read in glossy magazines that you always should strive to create a personal style in your home. I wonder if they would change their minds if they saw all these geeky things? Lol.

When you speak to someone (speak in the sense face to face IRL) you use so much more than words. You communicate with your whole body. You might smile, make hand gestures and nod your head in agreement.

It is often said that human communication consists of 93% body language and paralinguistic cues, while only 7% of communication consists of words themselves

–I find that pretty amazing.

However, when having a written conversation, which is basically the way people communicate today, you can never be sure of how that text is perceived, since you aren’t actually there to read any facial expressions. How do we solve this issue?

Well, as my explanatory title suggests: smileys.

If I write to you on msn for instance: “Shut up!” You might feel bad and wonder “Hey?! What have I done to you?”

But if one the other hand I write: “Shut up! ” You will instantly translate this as irony, since the funny smiley sticking out its tongue is anything but serious.

There are innumerable examples of how a smiley can totally change the meaning of expressions. Thus, one should never underestimate the power of the ugly yellow faces!

Using a background image to cover the entire slide

How should we otherwise communicate abstract and complex ideas that intrigues us, creates business, and changes the world. Most people are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the technical terms and the norms of the hacker community. It is our duty to convey intricate ideas, whether it be requirements, architectural decisions, or implementation details, in the clearest way possible.

Within the SEM programme presenting is common practice. Project work has to be presented for your classmates, supervisors and examiners. We are naturally nervous when those occasions are mandatory or the stakes are higher for whatever reason. There are many great authors and inspirational sources for making your presentations better on the Internet. Two of my personal favourites are Garr Reynolds, author of Presentation Zen, and Nancy Duarte, CEO of Duarte Design and author of Slide:ology. But I thought I share a few of my own experiences when presenting within the SEM programme, both as a classmate and occasionally as a supervisor.

First, lets look at how I remember us starting out presenting and errors that I still experience today when watching presentations.

Using fonts effectively can help your audience focus

• Too many ideas are cramped in to one slide – message becomes unclear
• Poor use of imagery and visuals – slides are distracting rather than enhancing the presentation experience
• Presenter talks to the screen and not to the audience – the slides becomes the presenter’s notes

The answer to resolving all of above is seemingly easy to envisage. Then, despite trying to lead by example is it so hard to change? And here’s the catch; preparing a presentation takes time. A lot of time.  In preparation for the latest presentation that Emil and I held for our class we spent roughly 10 hours preparing the slides. Unfortunately, due to bad planning, we never had time to practice enough and the delivery was so-so. We survived on having presented together many times before.

As said earlier, in our field of study, we constantly have to communicate abstract and complex ideas. Visualising the how a three-tier layered architecture fulfils the stakeholders needs is not an easy task. Nevertheless, by inverting the points made above we get three good starting points.

• One idea – one slide. If the idea is too complex, spread it across several slides.
• Use images to explain and enhance. Flickr’s Creative Commons library has tonnes of useful imagery. The audience listens to your words, use the visuals to focus on the idea you’re communicating at that moment.
• Write your own notes and aim the slides to the audience.

Consider staging your ideas across several slides if content is too complex

Actually, that last point should be emphasized. Your words and your visuals should be chosen to suit your audience. Presenting for geeks allows you to use the vocabulary of geeks. Presenting for customers is a completely different thing. Think about your audience, and do it early, already when you start planning your presentation. Otherwise your audience will not understand what message you are trying to convey despite how interesting your content may be.

Now I hope this will inspire a few more students to drop the boring slides and start to present their already interesting content in a fashionable and compelling manner! As Jesper says: “copy-tweak,” start small, then move slowly and experiment. Once you’re out there [in the big world] it is a lot harder to test and the pressure and nervousness might be much higher. Finally, I’d also like to recommend a short introductory presentation that the Duarte team made for (and with) PowerPoint 2010. Watch it here.

Ps. The images in this post are taken from our latest presentation. A presentation about how organisations can improve “corporate communities” by adopting practices found in the free and open source communities.

For centuries we’ve been yearning, wishing, hoping and shed tears of blood for this time to come. And for centuries we never thought it’d be more than just a fantasy. But someone heard our prayers, someone let us know we’re being loved! I can not express the joy that’s hurling inside me whenever i think about it, I feel like I’m going to explode if nothing else and I believe my fellow students, friends and geeks also will. At times like this I do feel like I am living in a dream or in a movie, as if I’ve warped into the future. This generation might live long enough to see the future come and see many parts of the so epic science-fiction movies to come true.

The item I am being so excited about is of course none the less than Epoc controller. It is certainly the next generation controller and despite it having flaws, the technology has really come a long way. Now, if only I can get one of those… The launch date will be in the end of December in the United States and it will cost $299. There’s also, sadly enough, limited examples and can only be bought in United States. So unfortunately we up here in the north will have to wait a bit longer for it. For how long I can not tell but I won’t be surprised if it’ll take at least a year. When it comes to game there’s only one game that you’re able to play with this headgear, but let us just  wait and hope that the evolution of this thing is going to be fast and awesome!

Watch here and yearn…

James Gosling keeping up appearances

They are incredibly smart.

They make a lot of money.

They change the world with their clever ideas.

But when it comes to clothing…

They

are

the

fashion

disasters.

Why is it that people with brains tend to forget how they look?

Here’s a list with some people with wits and no taste:

• Albert Einstein –Surely one of the most intelligent people ever known. All the same he never seemed to comb his hair. If he even owned a comb is a mystery.

• James Gosling –Founder of the Java programming language. He is probably well-paid where he works at Sun Microsystems. Yet, he just seems to wear geeky t-shirts that he has bought from E-bay. Come on, this guy could most likely afford anything he wanted. But still, he is happy with his utterly bohemian appearance. Oh, dear.

• Scott Guthrie –Vice president of the Microsoft Developer Divison, puts his t-shirt into his jeans, which are way too high. This look seems to be copied from the movie ‘Napoleon Dynamite’.

Do you have an explanation of this phenomenon?

When spending too much time indoors, your skin gradually decreases its defense against the sun. Have anyone heard of passionate programmers coding in sunlight? No?

Well, DIDN’T THINK SO

According to what a lot of people claim; letting your body absorb some light is utterly healthy. You should expose yourself at least a couple of minutes every day! But computer fantasts stay inside and no wonder their skin is getting white… although mine is transparent.

Personally I love working indoors, as long as the lamps are off and the room is dimly lit by natural light. Isn’t it wonderful when everything just bathes in soft shadows with no contrasts or reflections? At the university, I arrive early and take pleasure in the pleasant lightning …until someone switches the horrible fluorescents on again. Oh, I hate it! However, pure open-air sunlight is different. Even though it’s impossible to bring your laptop, as you won’t be able to see what you’re doing, it’s worth taking some time off, relaxing under a bare sky. Drinking chilled Jolt. Now is the time! Summer is here, whooaaAAA!

But take cover!

A while ago I was trying to convince all my friends that I’m not a vampire and am fully capable of exposing myself in sunlight for more than five minutes… But you can sort of figure out how that went. My skin has become very fragile.

For all you guys out there who share my life-style (studying in the dark), don’t forget sun lotion, lol.

Tomorrow it is time for the EU-election and the swedish party Piratpartiet have high chances of getting a seat. During the past weeks, the party’s brochures have been spread everywhere at the ITU. But is it true that computer geeks really vote for file sharing?

I know that many of us can’t resist downloading stuff; but does that mean that we for that reason want downloading to be legal? Or is just the possibility of downloading that brand new game, or that lovely new album too tempting?

Tomorrow is your last chance of voting in the election. And whatever your opinion might be, it’s really important that you vote. Make your voice heard!

As Dj Trexx says: DON’T LET DEMOCRACY BECOME A JOKE

There are certain prerequisites for studying IT. Oh yes, there are. You ought to know how to open a Word document and how to send an email, which everyone already knows, of course. But in reality you should be pretty clever and know how to program (although no one says so until your first Java exam is scheduled). Anyhow, there are these additional things you must know to handle social situations with computer geeks.

Therefore, take a look at this nicely embedded video! It really teaches you many good things that you would never find in a book.

YOU FAIL IT! YOUR SKILL IS NOT ENOUGH. SEE YOU NEXT TIME. BYE BYE!