Background: I was asked by the IEEE student club at UB (http://wings.buffalo.edu/sa/ieee) to redo my lecture series on developing websites.  I know that my website isn’t the best visually designed website in the world (and I’m actively looking for talent that can help me fix this in exchange for my programming skills), but I do know a lot about how to code websites well.  Anyways, here are the videos from Lecture 3.  There will be a fourth and final lecture next week.  As always, thanks for reading!

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Part 3:

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Background: I was asked by the IEEE student club at UB (http://wings.buffalo.edu/sa/ieee) to redo my lecture series on developing websites.  I know that my website isn’t the best visually designed website in the world (and I’m actively looking for talent that can help me fix this in exchange for my programming skills), but I do know a lot about how to code websites well.  Anyways, here are the videos from Lecture 2.  As always, thanks for reading!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Now onto the topic of this blog.  This is a video blog (go figure, right?).  Actually, I was asked by the IEEE student club at UB (http://wings.buffalo.edu/sa/ieee) to redo my lecture series on developing websites.  I know that my website isn’t the best visually designed website in the world (and I’m actively looking for talent that can help me fix this in exchange for my programming skills), but I do know a lot about how to code websites well.

Being the kind of person who likes to share knowledge, I agreed to give the lecture series with updated information.  John suggested that I video tape the lectures and post them to my blog, which I thought was a great suggestion.  So in the next 5 to 6 weeks, I will be posting youtube 720p HD recordings of the lecture series to here.  Feel free to watch it and make comments about my presentation skills.  I know that I’m not perfect, so I’m always open to suggestions!

As always, thanks for reading!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

The ultimate bad design that has always slowed me down is here at the University at Buffalo.  If you have any classes in the Natural Sciences Complex (NSC), you know exactly what I am going to be ranting about.  Have you ever got caught in the after class rush hour traffic? (sorry, I had no better words).  Whoever engineered the exit door for NSC into the surrounding buildings really designed it badly.  There are two doors and a single file stair case (basically 1 lane coming up and 1 lane going down).  Trying to push about 1000 people through that staircase at the same time results in HUGE backups and it usually takes me 5 minutes to get through that passage when leaving class late.  Here is a picture of this design:

Another bad design at the University at Buffalo is the front lawn between Bell Hall and Bonner Hall.  In this case, there is a sidewalk that runs about 150 feet in a square around this huge patch of grass.  Diagonally, there is a really beaten path that is now showing only dirt.  Unfortunately, whoever designed that path didn’t realize that putting a sidewalk through the center might be a good idea since the door to a building is about 20 feet from that diagonal path and most people going to it come from the exact opposite corner of that patch of grass.  Note that a^2 + b^2 = c^2 and the hypotenuse (c) is obviously the shortest path and most people take the shortest path.

Now lets talk a little about door handles.  Have you ever sprained your wrist because a door handle looked like a handle you pull, yet at that door, you push it?  Or even yet, a door bar that you push but the door was actually meant to be pulled?  I can give you many instances of this that occur on the University at Buffalo campus and I’m sure you could give me many examples also.  Mike pointed out a really surprising but believable story.  Between the math building and NSC, there is a tunnel that connects both buildings together.  The doors open out of this tunnel and both sides of the doors have a pull handle.  Someone entered this tunnel through one door and got trapped because he couldn’t pull and didn’t try to push the door open.  This is truly a bad design and it could potentially scar people who got seemingly trapped.  This is very similar to people who get trapped in an elevator once and never ride them again.

Naturally, I could go on and on about bad design so I’m going to stop ranting here.  I am going to leave this little tidbit for you though: as you go through the day, how often do you hit a bad design such as the door handle and blame yourself for being stupid?  I know I do it quite often.  Mike pointed out that it really isn’t the case that I’m stupid, but rather, the person who designed what I’m doing wasn’t really thinking critically for real life application.  So the next time you hit a bad design, blame the designer, not yourself!

In the past, I have tried Yahoo’s VOIP (Voice over IP) and Skype’s VOIP services to call people on landline phones for cheap long distance and a few times international long distance.  Both services average the same quality and when I used them charged by the minute.  When Skype came out with an unlimited national calling plan for 2 bucks per month, I jumpped at it and ditched Yahoo.  I’ve been using skype on and off until last week.

The quality of both Yahoo and Skype are very similar, calling computer to computer is crystal clear and perfect.  When I called landlines, I’d often have a lot of echos in the line that would make using a landline (and paying a lot more) a better option for the call.  In my opinion, Skype and Yahoo are meant for computer to computer calling and calling a land based telephone line isn’t the focus of quality in their eyes.

Another bit of history that you should know about is I use Skype and Yahoo only at the University at Buffalo.  I have had satellite internet at home for the longest time and know that even on computer to computer calls, there is a massive lag (usually 4 seconds).  I know that with this lag, a normal landline would just drop the connection.  Now that I have EVDO though, I tried skype and computer to computer calls are quite clear and good sounding (just a hint of lag).

I’ve heard about the MagicJack for some time now and for 35 bucks (with a free year) on ebay, I decided to try the unit for the heck of it because frankly, what do I have to lose?  If I don’t like it, I will go back to skype.

Why did I want to even try the magicjack?  The reason is because I like the idea of using a land line phone, I’ve always liked having a landline available to me and the feel is better than using a headset or any cell phone that I’ve ever seen.  Talking to a computerized cell phone that can surf the web just isn’t my cup of tea, call me old fashioned if you’d like   In addition, I can use the MagicJack service in conjunction with a thin client or VOIP adapter (I don’t endorse the adapter method as it violates the magicjack terms of service).  I will likely setup a thin client eventually for it.

So with all that said, I plugged the magicjack in when I got it.  Like they said, it was about a 2 minute install on my quadcore and a few prompts the first time asking who I am and what number I would like for my first year of service. After all that was done, they sent me an email verifying I was real then registered me with my local 911 office.  It is nice that I can use this with 911, although I wouldn’t depend on my connection to be up all the time, a landline connection is still the best option for this.

My first call was to the landline in our house. I could hear a delay just under a second and there was an echo.  I guess that echos are typical of all VOIP services.  I then decided to call my aunt in Florida with it.  We talked for about a half hour on it.  Although it held the connection, it cut in and out during the duration of the call like a cell phone would in a weak signal area.  I’m almost certain this is because I’m using a cell phone for internet and the signal could be fluctuating between great and good.  I will be coming back to this topic in 3 months after I get back to the University to verify this and give a more thorough review.

For now, I believe that if used on a land connection with good speed and low latency, the MagicJack would have crystal clear quality except for the slight echo and slight delay.  I doubt that the connection drops would be present.  I’d recommend it to anyone with DSL or Cable as a 2nd landline for long distance calling.  I’m going to keep mine

About 3 to 4 weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to become a Teaching Assistant (TA) for the Computer Science Department (CSE) for the entry level course that teaches students Java (The programming language distributed by SUN).  I went through the interview fine and was asked to give a 10 minute presentation/lecture on what a Constructor is at the level a CSE115 (entry level course) student.

I didn’t know too much about the constructor other than it is the part of a class that instantiates that class.  I went into that lecture knowing a lot about the constructor but I did not rehearse anything.  I also know what I expect out of public speakers as an active listener, therefore, I went in with no power point and rather wanted to just experiment in the Java compiler and explain what everything was line by line from real code.  I wrote a bunch of partial examples in Java prior to my presentation to make sure that I would be prompted to not miss anything important.  Although I doubt I missed anything important, I know that I definitely did not explain anything well.  I would have done much better just reading off a slide and a note sheet (which I hate when public speakers do).

Not getting the position, I began exploring my options to become a better speaker.  I saw 4 advisors shortly after that presentation and started seeking options to better myself at presenting.  I know that I prepare my material well, I just suck at presenting it!  As a result, I will be finding out more information on Toastmasters here at my University, and I will also be taking a public speaking class next semester that is based on practice.  Since public speaking is a life skill that I don’t have, I NEED TO ACQUIRE IT!

Other suggestions about public speaking that I have acquired are, find an empty class room and a few friends (perhaps 1 to 2 friends) and practice with them.  In addition, practice to a camcorder for a while and get used to the setting.  These are both excellent options that I am now exploring and I may post a video or two that seem semi presentable.  I feel that the more I do it, the more I will get better.

In addition, next semester, I plan on giving a lecture series for the Undergraduate computer science club here at UB (Univ at Buffalo).  My lecture series will give me hands on practice at presenting how to make effective use of the webspace our University provides students with, and I will focus it more towards all majors instead of computer scientists who already understand how to use their webspace and program on it.  I am a bad designer, but this may help me learn more about design also when I give a short lecture on how to use Photoshop.

So those are the steps that I currently am taking to become a more effective public speaker.  I hope that doing this will help get the nervousness completely out of me so that I can then focus on presenting information as well as I do with a 1 on 1 conversation with someone who comes and asks me for help more privately.

One last comment, I must say that pre-made videos DON’T WORK!  If you noticed, I posted my probability final project (http://famousphil.com/schoolarchive/EAS305PROJECTSP09.wmv) to my website the other day.  I worked for a long time to make a transcript and do a complete screencast on the random number generator in probability.  The professor was looking for a 20 minute presentation to be given in 5 minutes or less.  I know how bad of a public speaker I currently am, so I made this video with John.  We both did very well in the class, but I was required to quickly skim over the video and talk about it on my own.  This didn’t go too well since I found myself contradicting stuff that was on the slide behind me.  If it wasn’t for the material and time put into it, I’m sure I would have done worse on that presentation.  I hope that in the future, I can do something that clean and precise without needing to pre-record it all!

Thanks for reading as always, and I will probably create a followup blog sometime later this year!  Comments are appreciated!