Now here’s a big win for students at Durham College, and hopefully a step for the same change at UOIT. Starting next year, the mobile learning program at Durham College will be dead, and any required computer hardware or software will be the student’s responsibility to acquire. That means no more $1500 per year fee to basically borrow a laptop and its software from the school. It means you will have ownership over what you pay for, andchoice over the laptop and software you use.

Often, the only paid software an academic program needs is Microsoft Office, and paying a one-time fee for a laptop (which you own) and Microsoft Office (which the school bookstore sells for a mere $7 to students) is far cheaper than the recurring $1500/year mobile learning fee paid now. Even in my program, Information Technology, we have made no use of any software installed by the school aside from Microsoft Office. Almost all of our students have formatted their laptops and installed Windows 7 from scratch, and in no case would any of our software require special hardware that was only offered by the university.

Although once intended to be a high-tech advantage distinguishing UOIT/Durham College from other schools, laptops have been easy to come by for years now, and the mobile learning program has just been doing the school more harm than good. Having course material online via WebCT and offering wireless internet access across campus are standard features at all universities these days, and even prospective students know it and aren’t buying the hype. I have some contacts who have worked as tour guides for the schools that found themselves constantly trying to justify this obsolete fee to skeptical prospective students.

Unfortunately, this change only applies to the few Durham College programs that were part of the mobile learning program. Every academic program at UOIT is subject to the mobile learning fee, so we can only hope a similar review of the program is made there.

The related article in The Chronicle, the Durham College newspaper, states that part of the change was thanks to work from the Student Association, so kudos to Amy England and the rest of the SA team for working on this. Now if we can get UOIT’s mobile learning fee axed, students will save $6000 over the course of four years, and we can finally say goodbye to this outdated, costly program.

The theatre has been doing pretty much nothing since it showed up, having had only a few shows over the span of a few years, and there were some legal struggles between the city and theatre owner as well. It’s a fairly new and nice looking building too, so it’s nice to see UOIT take it over.

The back lot is going to be used for a five-storey building, also used by the school for classrooms, offices, and meeting space. The school is also asking for a 99 year lease on a total of 250 parking spaces, which is good news to the many students concerned about the lack of parking in downtown Oshawa.

Making an acquisition like this is a great way to quickly expand the school, and it is not uncommon. I remember when going to Ryerson University that a deal had just been made for the school to even use parts of the newly built AMC Theatre as class space, but I think we’re lucky to have a bit of extra class with the Regent Theatre.

Source: Council OKs transfer of Regent to UOIT (newsdurhamregion.com)

Use the left and right buttons on the edges of the video to switch between my 3 videos. I have Green Eyes, a cover of Billie Jean by Michael Jackson, and a beautiful display of butterfly cut-outs falling on the crowd during Lovers in Japan.

Behold! The final shoot for the viral video “Dancing in the Streets” is completed. Directed by Wes Side Studios to promote Oshawa on oshawaisawesome.com.

I’ll be the first to admit I look pretty ridiculous. In fact, we all kind of do. Only one guy could actually dance (the one with the crazy dance solo on the sidewalk). But this really was one of those opportunities to try something new, and I don’t regret it for a minute. I made a lot of new friends who I’m going to hang out with more now, and I’m in a semi-popular online video! Ever seen the movie “Yes Man”? Although a comedy, there is an important lesson to be learned in squeezing every last drop out of life and saying yes to new opportunities.

It’s also great to see a lot of people appreciating this positive light on Oshawa. Oshawa is usually under a lot of criticism, even by it’s own residents (even me, I can’t lie!) so it’s great to see a finished product like this with so much pride for the city.

I’ve set up a set on Flickr with screenshots of each page of my apps. If you roll your mouse over any of the app icons on the page, a description of the app and link to its official website (if available) will appear.

Click here to view the set!

By: Ted Avery

This Saturday, Palm will release its new, much-hyped smartphone, the Palm Pre, into the wild on America’s Sprint Network. Many tech writers have already been given devices to review, and the results are in: The Palm Pre is an amazing, responsive, feature-packed device that has been deemed as the Apple iPhone’s biggest contender. From the beginning, this device has been built to accommodate to many of the aspects of the iPhone that people always complained about, such as a lack of multiple applications running at once, lack of copy and paste, lack of MMS, poor camera, lack of video recording, and more. In true Apple fashion, Apple has remained mostly quiet about how it plans to evolve the iPhone to remain competitive, but don’t let that make you think Apple is standing idly by. Walt Mossberg, the principal technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, just completed his review of the Pre, and in his review states “Whether the Pre is better than the iPhone depends on your personal preferences, though I’d note that the new iPhone to be unveiled next week will have lots of added features that could alter those calculations.” (source)

Yes, it has been long rumoured, and pretty much guaranteed, that Apple will be announcing a new iPhone this Monday during its keynote speech at its WWDC conference. Rumours began almost immediately after the iPhone 3G was released, and after absorbing all this news for the past year, here is my take on what I think the new iPhone is going to look like.

What we already know

A lot of improved functionality for the iPhone has already been announced and will already be arriving in the form of a software update, which will luckily be compatible with the iPhone 3G and the original iPhone as well. Features like stereo Bluetooth, MMS support, Copy and Paste, “Spotlight” search across your phone, e-mailing of multiple photos, tethering with your computer, improvements to the calendar, voice memos, turn by turn GPS directions, voice communication in apps, and more. Most of this is covered in the excellent Gizmodo article “iPhone 3.0 OS Guide: Everything You Need to Know”.

One key feature of this update will be the long-awaited Push Notification service, Apple’s answer to a lack of background applications. And honestly, it makes a lot of sense. Say you are using an app to chat with your friends on MSN Messenger, but want to go make a phone call without having to close the messaging app. Other smart phones would require you to leave the entire application running to remain signed in, but there really is no purpose in wasting your battery life like that. Instead, you can close the application while you remain signed in on the application’s server, and when someone actually wants to message you, an alert will pop up on your iPhone. This is a far more effective solution that gives all the hard work to the server, accomplishing the same things a background application would but using a fraction of the battery power.

What is pretty much guaranteed

• Increased storage capacity, Better battery life, more RAM, and a faster processor: Simple hardware upgrades are always a pretty much guarantee when new hardware is released. Even when the 2^nd generation iPod Touch was released after the iPhone 3G, it was already sporting a more powerful processor than the iPhone 3G had. Expect all the hardware to improve, with storage capacity of up to 32GB.
• A better camera: Whether it be industry analysts, picking apart Apple’s patents, or just the fact that Apple really needs to come up to speed with the other smart phones out there, all signs point to a better camera in the new iPhone. This will almost definitely mean an increase to 3.2 megapixels, but there have also been rumours
• Video recording: The new feature-packed iPhone OS 3.0 (more on that later) has already had beta versions seeded to developers to prepare their apps for compatibility with the new iPhone OS. The beta OS has been picked to pieces, and a full video recording interface was discovered within it. This is definitely coming. (source)
• The ability to download movies and TV shows from iTunes to your phone: Not only were screenshots leaked of an iPhone interface to do this, but it was actually possible to browse this interface on Apple’s web server for a short time before Apple pulled it down. This is coming, but will most likely be when connected to a wi-fi network only.

The rumours I think are likely to happen

• A front facing camera with video calling: There have been a few articles digging up patents filed by Apple showing a camera on the front of the iPhone. Combined with some (possibly fake) leaked images from Fido’s roadmap of 2009 that indicate video calling capabilities, I think this is a real possibility. It would make sense for Apple to extend the iChat brand on their Mac to the iPhone., but even if Apple doesn’t do this themselves, I think it will definitely come in the form of a third party application. Every aspect of the iPhone’s hardware has been available to all app developers so far, like the camera, GPS, and accelerometer. Since video recording is almost a guarantee, Apple would naturally make this aspect of the phone available to applications as well, opening the door to many possibilities of video chat applications.
• A cheaper lower-end iPhone model: The current rumoured model is a 4GB iPhone for $99. This is simply a rumour that has appeared so many times for so many reasons that I think it is quite likely to happen. Not to mention the fact that it would be a great way to gain an even greater market share than Apple already has with its mobile smart phone operating system.
• Turn by turn GPS with Google Street View: Here’s a rumour you won’t see anywhere else (as far as I know) and is more my own theory, but a theory I think makes very much sense. The iPhone 3G has GPS capabilities, but in a very basic form of a blinking dot on a map. It has been lacking turn-by-turn directions that you would see on dedicated GPS devices that mount to your car windshield. Additionally, Apple has placed a strange, unexplained restriction on applications making use of the GPS for turn-by-turn directions, but has already announced to lift this restriction for the new iPhone OS. So why the change of heart, and why restrict it in the first place? I believe Apple wanted to implement this feature themselves before any third-party apps would, and will deploy it in the new iPhone OS 3.0. If this does become a standard feature of the iPhone, it only makes sense to me that it would be incorporated into the maps app. The maps app is entirely powered by Google Maps and Google Street view, so what better way to incorporate 3D turn by turn directions than by overlaying the roads on actual 3D images of your surroundings? And with Google rushing to get Street View supported in Canada this year, I think this is a more than likely solution.

The leftovers

There are a few more rumours that have come up a few times, but nothing else I personally feel is likely enough to be worth mentioning. Regardless of all the rumours, Apple always seems to be able to keep some key features under wraps that always surprise everyone. So let the speculation continue this weekend, but be sure to check the news come Monday afternoon after Apple’s keynote speech for all the official details.

The Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, 1996 (PSSDA) and the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Amendment Act, 2004 were passed to make Ontario’s public sector more open and accountable to taxpayers. The Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act requires organizations that receive public funding from the Province of Ontario to disclose annually the names, positions, salaries and total taxable benefits of employees paid $100,000 or more in a calendar year.

Interestingly enough, this allows you to view the exact salaries of individual professors at colleges and universities across Ontario. You can even see how much your dean or even school president makes! Every professor doesn’t seem to be on the list, but there were more than a few that I knew by name. Turns out the president of UOIT, Ron Bordessa, made $289,499.96 in 2008. Not bad at all!

Click here to view the salaries for the profs at your school, but be warned, the document is huge and might slow down your computer a bit.

Click here to go directly to the photos and videos!

Last night (May 23, 2009) I had the pleasure of seeing Keane perform at The Sound Academy in Toronto, with opening acts Mat Kearney and The Helio Sequence. The energy at the concert was incredible, both from the crowd and the band. Although frontman Tom Chaplin expressed his love for Toronto as he probably does for every city the band visits, you could tell that the band was genuinely taken aback by how loud and appreciative the crowd was. Tom barely had a chance to fit in any words between songs because the audience simply could not stop cheering, and wild chants of the band’s name began several times.

Keane’s performance was as flashy and high-energy as ever, with Tom dancing around the stage, Tim Rice-Oxley throwing all of his weight into the keys that lay before him, Richard Hughes relentlessly beating the drums. This time round, newcomer bassist Jesse Quin joined the perfomance, a musician that recorded with Keane on their latest album Perfect Symmetry. The audience was even treated to a few acoustic sessions, the highlight of which is undoubtedly Tom’s soaring, majestic sounding voice that effortlessly reached higher and higher.

Seeing Keane is an experience that won’t disappoint. Being in a room full of fans at a concert is always a great feeling, but the high energy that already pulses through Keane’s music multiplies tenfold in a room full of fans who are highly passionate about the music.

I’m not a very good photographer and didn’t really have the best view, but I have embedded my collection of photos and videos below. The photos are often blurry but the videos are pretty decent I’d say! To see an overview of all my photos and videos, go directly to the photo set on Flickr. I also have two longer videos uploaded to YouTube of Keane performing “We Might As Well Be Strangers” and “Bedshaped” that you can watch.

Hey everyone!!!! I sent out a message alittle while ago but I dont thinkl it went out so I’ll try this again.

This is your last chance to get in on the video that will soon be taking YOUTUBE by storm!

Hopefully your all gearing up to get your dance on tomorrow, on the streets of Oshawa.

If you could all be at the studio by 11am that would be great, last i heard it’s supposed to be a beautiful day so hopefully that stays true!

Can’t dance? Thats ok, niether can Alex! And she’s our lead character!!!OH NO!!! All you need is a willingness to have fun! So bring your friends and family out and help us make a splash on the streets of downtown!

For all those who came out to the shoot last time, please wear the same clothes so that we can keep continuity.

The address to the studio is

14 1/2 King St E.
Second floor, Studio 201
Downtown Oshawa

The shoot will be going no later then 4pm, so theres still time after to get your saturday night PARTY ON!!!

Thanks again and I hope to see you all out tomorrow!

Wes

This makes sense as the Faculty of Education is currently downtown, and the school plans to move the Faculty of Business downtown in the future (to which there is a Facebook group “protest” against). The relocation was briefly mentioned in the UOIT Master Plan, but with very few details.

But who needs details when you love to complain, right? Regardless, we are all entitled to our opinions, and I choose to take the initial stance of optimism. A lot of people are concerned about parking issues, one-way streets, and a generally unattractive downtown. But if UOIT has spent all this time and money on creating such a great plan for the main campus, does the idea of them leaving the downtown campus as an afterthought make any sense? Considering it will be home to the Business Faculty, one of the largest, if not the largest, faculties on campus, I expect the downtown campus to get the same thorough treatment that the main campus has.

Not only will the downtown campus receive attention from the school, but also businesses. Downtown Oshawa can become a happening place when the right parties become involved (as proven by the success of Isabella’s Chocolate Cafe) and with high student traffic, downtown Oshawa will continue to grow in great ways. One of the things I miss most from attending Ryerson University was the sense that I was in a miniature city of students, but in reality, the school only owns a handful of buildings which are scattered amongst existing businesses in downtown Toronto. Many of these businesses thrived off the student population, like the Thai cuisine I would visit frequently with friends. There were plenty of places to hang out when at school, and I envision the same thing happening in downtown Oshawa with growth driven by an increasing student population. Currently my entire university experience takes place in about 2 or 3 buildings standing next to each other on a campus completely cut off from the rest of society — hardly the campus atmosphere that other universities experience.

So that’s my take on the issue. In the end, any opinion at this point is highly speculative. UOIT hasn’t revealed exactly how much of a focus they are going to have on the downtown campus. In fact, all the speculation is based on a few bullet points in a presentation. Nonetheless, it’s an interesting discussion, so here is a glass-half-full opinion.

…the video starts off following a girl as she wakes up in the city and as she dances down the street…her contagous dance catches on and by the end of the video she has everyone in Oshawa dancing in the middle of the streets.

People running from the stores to join in…horses, parade floats…you name it…we want it!!! The crazier the better…we want to pull out all the stops and promote this city we live in.

This is more than just a big idea. It’s really going to happen this weekend! It will be professionally recorded and will have tons of people! Come on out and have a good time, it should be a really fun experience.

If you would like to be a part of this, meet at 10:00am on Saturday April 25 at Isabella’s Chocolate Cafe (map) and 11:00am on Sunday April 26 at Wes Side Studios (map).

If you would like to see the full schedule, click here to see the message sent to the Facebook group members.

Finally this great feature is going to be coming to Canada, as stated in a bunch of news articles. Globe and Mail quotes:

“Using Street View, users can preview holiday accommodation, find meeting spots, explore neighbourhoods and properties, and look up driving directions,” the company said in announcing Street View’s Canadian version.

And if nothing else, it’ll just be cool to explore major Canadian cities in full 3D. I see myself using this when trying to figure out directions and what I should be looking for when going somewhere new. Even better, street view is supported on smart phones like the iPhone, so it is also easily accessible.

UOIT is still no further ahead in their search for a new name. But a recent news article mentions one idea I like a lot.

Another member suggested asking the government for the name University of Ontario, and if it isn’t granted, the school can run institute of technology beside the name in eight-point font.

It drops the IT part, which seems to be the main issue, but still retains enough of the name so that we wouldn’t have to try and build our reputation up from scratch again.

Sounds good to me!

Many see this as Facebook’s attempt to battle the rapid growth of Twitter. It’s well known that Facebook failed in trying to acquire Twitter before, so it obviously sees status updates as very important. But are they really?

Here’s what I think. In my experience, Twitter and Facebook users are usually mutually exclusive (give or take an occasional visit). Chances are when you read this, you weren’t even familiar with Twitter (nerds like me aside). They are different products for different needs. People that use Facebook love it for all the applications, like photos, wall posts, notes, messaging, and countless third-part apps. Many people on Twitter have left Facebook to escape the overload of applications, enjoying the minimalistic microblogging, streamlined interface.

Yet Facebook has tried to bring the minimalism of Twitter to Facebook, which really makes no sense. Nobody ever said “Hey, I want all the applications and great features of Facebook, but lets hide them all away and pretend we only have one feature like Twitter.” What a waste of such a feature-rich web platform! Ultimately the implementation has

THE BOTTOM LINE: Twitter is more about what it isn’t than what it is. Feature-wise, Facebook has nothing to compete with. Mobile notifications and status updates have been in place on Facebook for a long time. This redesign is competing with Twitter in the only way it can: by altering the focus of Facebook to status updates for every user. This in turn is sacrificing user preference and bringing a product that isn’t really Twitter, nor is it focusing on being the feature rich web platform that Facebook should be.

And to finish, here is a hilarious video that pretty much sums up my thoughts about Twitter. As you can probably tell, my preference lies with Facebook. (If you are reading this from Facebook, click here to watch it)

This publicly available board report from the UOIT website reveals the planned student fees for the 2009-2010 school year. The verdict: everything is going up.

Before you get too up in arms about this, read the background section which states that the tuition fees up to 2010 were already decided upon way back in 2006. In addition, the ancillary fees have always increased at a rate consistent with inflation.

It doesn’t lessen the pain on your wallet at all, but it’s good to note that this isn’t anything new, students aren’t having anything pulled over their heads, and as ancillary fee protocols are a provincial requirement, it’s almost definite the same thing is happening at every other school. But if you were looking to figure out how much money you need to save up at your summer job, here’s the info you need.

Help give UOIT the excellent reputation it deserves! A valid UOIT e-mail address is required.

The Globe and Mail want to hear what you have to say about your university – from teaching assistants to technology services, professors to parking, athletics to extracurricular activities.  The data collected will be published in The Globe and Mail and the results will be made available to UOIT to help identify ways to improve your overall educational experience.

Take the survey and you will automatically be entered to win:

One (1) $1,000 cash award

Two (2) $500 cash awards

The Canadian University Report takes just 15 to 20 minutes to complete – but you have to complete the survey before 12:00 midnight, April 30, 2009.

DealExtreme is a great place to buy electronics and accessories with free shipping on all orders worldwide that take about 2 weeks to arrive. Get memory cards, iPod accessories, cell phone cases/headsets, and more for a fraction of the price you pay at Wal-Mart.

However, there are a few things you should avoid, such as the cheap knockoff MP3 players and cell phones that they sell. That being said, you need to use your own discretion on what should and should not be ordered from China. Things like simple cables and cases that sell for $20 in-store are obviously very basic accessories that shouldn’t cost more than a few dollars, so those are safe purchases. Additionally the memory cards sold by DealExtreme are for the most part genuine name-brand products which are also safe.

For more electronics from China, check out FocalPrice and Kaidomain.

Besides that, most other products can be found at competitive prices on eBay, and they can be purchased immediately with the “Buy It Now” option. Health and beauty products in particular can often be found for great prices. For example, try doing a search for the usually overpriced Biore Strips.

If you have any other cheap sources for buying things online, let me know in the comments!

The Mentalists play Kids by MGMT on their iPhones and iPod Touches, using only apps downloaded from the Apple App Store. Apps used Ocarina, Retro Synth, miniSynth, DigiDrummer Lite.  I love MGMT, and I love my iPhone, so naturally I love this video. More than anything, I’m just amazed that music today can even be performed with our cell phones.