Does Your Dance Crew Have What It Takes to Be Named Best...
Full Title: Does your dance crew have what it takes to be named best and...
Does your dance crew have what it takes to be named best and perform on the Quadmania Outdoor Stage? If so, send Kathryn Peria (kathrynperia@gmail.com) an email (subject: UMBCs Best Dance Crew) by FRIDAY, MARCH 19th with the following information:
- Dance Crew’s name
- Names of dance members that are UMBC students
- A link to one or more of your dance crew’s performance videos
We are accepting all dance styles! Group must have 3-6 members with at least once current UMBC student.
The event will be on Tuesday, March 30th at 7PM on Commons Mainstreet.
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Full Title: Does your dance crew have what it takes to be named best and... Does your dance crew have what it takes to be named best and perform on the Quadmania Outdoor Stage? If so, send...
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Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:27:50 -0500
Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:27:50 -0500
My first assignment was to do a clean install of the new Snow Leopard operating system. I've done hundreds of operating system installs in my life from Windows 95 to Linux Fedora 12, so I figured that installing a Mac OS from a disk would be no big deal. I was wrong. The entire process, from the keyboard shortcut that enables the Mac to boot from disk, to the not-very-intuitive partitioning process, was so alien to me that I ended up having someone from Desktop Support just do it for me. Linux looked much easier to install, and that's saying something.
Once the OS was installed, then I had to download a few updates and reboot a couple of times. The Mac's reboot process was fast, so this ended up being no big deal. Next, I installed Microsoft Office for Mac 2008, which took almost as long as did the OS install. After that was done, I set up Apple Mail, which was easy, since the icon (a postage stamp with an Eagle on it) is on the Dock at the bottom of the screen, and the two or three settings are the same as in any other mail client. Finally, I was ready to use my Mac.
Almost all of the work I do is through systems that are accessed by a web browser, in this case Apple's Safari, which reminded me a bit of the Google Chrome browser I had been happily using on my PC. Safari is fast and has the thumbnail collage view of recently visited pages and bookmarks that I'd come to rely on in Chrome.
I quickly discovered that Internet Explorer keyboard shortcuts mean nothing in Safari; in Safari, F5=Command+R, for example. Also, when a word is misspelled, I was used to using my right-click function to access the auto-correct; in Macville, this is done by Ctrl+left-click. This is where I made a neat discovery, which was that the Mac/Safari tricks worked on Chrome! One thing I don't like about Safari (or Firefox for that matter), is that the address in the address bar doesn't highlight with just one click. This means that if I want to enter a new address, I have to drag the cursor across the address; if the address if terribly long, this might require multiple attempts. (In Chrome, the address bar doubles as a Google search bar, too.)
I haven't had to use Word for Mac much, but so far, I'm not impressed. At first glance, almost all of the radio buttons I'd come to depend on in the Windows version is gone. After a little exploration, it looks like the functionality is there, but it's just inconvenient to access. Perhaps after I get used to it, I'll find that it's no different, but for right now, it's awkward.
I really like Apple Mail. It's easy to use, it highlights messages that are associated with each other (Re: 's) and when you send a message, it makes a cool "whoosh" sound. When a message arrives, there's an audible alert and a number (representing unread messages) appears over the postage stamp icon.
Another big plus with the iMac is the coolness factor. When you hide a window, the window seems to be vacuumed into the dock, where a tiny image of the window remains visible. Also the screen is bigger and brighter than my PC's, with a built-in webcam that takes still photographs with a pre-installed program. The dashboard (represented by the black circle icon second from the left of the dock) is a neat feature, especially if you find yourself using the calculator a lot.
The mouse is a bit strange. It feels small, and not having a right-click button takes some getting used to. The keyboard I am not in love with. It's like an abbreviated version of a normal keyboard, and most notably lacks the numeric keypad that I've grown dependent on.
One thing that is very nice about the Mac is that there's no tower for me to knock my knees against. Everything is self-contained behind the monitor, including the CD drive, and the only cords leaving my desk area are the power cord and the ethernet cable, which means there is very little wasted space.
So far, I really like the iMac, although some things have to be relearned and will take some getting used to. Of course, I wonder if I like it so much that I'd be willing to spend an extra $700 on it in the real world. Probably not, but that's one of the perks of working in IT, right?
I'm also wondering whether, as a Mac user, I'm required to grow a "cool-guy" half beard, like Justin Long.
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The MyUMBC team is Collier Jones, Bradley Tinney, Billy Schneider, Kevin Somers, and now - me!
As many of you know, I'm fortunate enough to be a staffer at UMBC's Department of Information Technology. And many of the folks at DoIT know that I like to write stuff, as evidenced by this blog. Now, in a wonderful synergy of two things that I love (technology and writing), I have been asked to assist the awesome team that works behind the scenes to make the magic that is MyUMBC.
Now, if you remember an earlier post of mine, you know that I'm not nearly smart enough to do what the MyUMBC team does on a daily basis. Fortunately, I'm not being asked to do any of the heavy lifting (read: coding). What I'll be doing is writing about all of the nifty and useful things that are happening with MyUMBC, and helping the UMBC community to get the most out of the great tools they'll find there. It sounds like I'll be having a lot of fun, and I'm really looking forward to it.
Last week I had my first meeting with team leader and coder extraordinaire Collier Jones, and as he gave my a quick tour around the beta version of MyUMBC, I just couldn't believe how great it looked. The Events area, for example, is designed with many clever tools and yet is is so easy to use, I find it hard to imagine how much work must have gone into making it happen. If you'd like to have a look yourself, here it is. Or, you can just admire this screenshot:
So now I get to both enjoy our new tech tools and write about them, too.
Sweet.
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Why endure an information blackout when you can be the first to know?
You can stay on top of breaking news involving UMBC’s information systems and technologies by following us on Twitter @umbchelpdesk. From security alerts to system outages and restorations, @umbchelpdesk will keep you informed about what’s going on, as it happens!
Curious? Here we are!
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