EchoD

I, technically, am a college graduate. I still have some sixty-four hours of an internship to finish before I get to see the degree I have earned, but that’s just a minor technicality. When it comes to school, I’m done. Any classes I might take from here will be for personal gain, rather than because it’s expected. An actual desire for knowledge, rather than a piece of paper that states I might know something.

I have been a college student for four years. I have been both a Computer Technology major and an Art major. I have paid too much for too little information and a silly degree. That’s not to say college is a waste and nobody should seek a higher education, but it wasn’t all that educational for me.

I enrolled as a Computer Science major with two years of training under my belt. Having been Cisco and A+ certified, the only thing that was relatively new to me was programming, and I had done enough of that on my own to pick up the basics. I really wanted to focus on website design, and I was told Computer Science was the road to take for that. After two years of teaching my peers what the instructors failed to communicate — including Programming — I took the single web design focused course they had to offer. At this point, I wasn’t surprised when I managed to teach my instructor more than she taught me. I began to notice a pattern… I know more than my teachers. I was paying them for little more than a grade.

I decided to enroll in the Erie Institute of Technology. Their Multimedia Graphic Design program focused more on the artistic aspect of things, and covered a few areas that I had no experience in. As a true opportunity to learn, I had high expectations. The truth is, I’m not an incredibly artistic person. While I’m creative, I have difficulty taking ideas and representing them visually. Some classes helped me with this, some gave me new tools to work with, and some… failed to deliver. I’m surprised at how much I actually put what I learned in Typography classes to use, even though I’m still convinced they were a waste of time. I’m surprised at how horrible I am at 3D modeling and animation, but I never expected to be great. What did surprise me is that, during the three website design focused courses, I still managed to teach my instructor more than he taught me. There is only so much you can teach somebody about the design aspect of websites, which is what I needed. When it came to programming, though — I just have a better grasp of it than anybody who has tried to teach it to me.

I suppose that’s why they’re teachers rather than programmers.

The biggest issue I ran into during my schooling was that I feel I ended up paying more money for a piece of paper than I did for an education. I picked two very vague majors. A Computer Science degree essentially says “I might know something about any of a bunch of subjects,” while a Multimedia Graphic Design degree simply means “I managed to pass the classes, but whether I’m a good artist is personal opinion” — isn’t that always the case with art? Luckily, I have my portfolio. It’s always growing, and is living proof of my skill. Employers and clients now have something to compare: my portfolio to the rest of the Internet.
Still feeling great about myself.

That ends this rambling. No clue where I intended to go with it, but this is where we ended up.

Social networking websites are some of the most popular the Internet has seen. With thousands, even millions, of other people to network with they’re a fantastic opportunity. A way to meet new people, reunite with old acquaintances, keep tabs on friends, and whatever unique features an individual community might add to these essentials. Honestly, I don’t get it.

Networking with other people does have legitimate purposes. With a little time, some business cards, and diligence, an individual can form a productive and profitable professional social network. These are great for creative professionals and freelancers who frequently work with people in other branches of their field. An example would be a graphic designer networking with a printer. You exchange business cards, talk about what you specialize in, whatever… if anybody comes to the designer looking for a printer he says “I know a guy”. That person then goes to the printer, has his job printed, and says something like “I’m really glad that designer referred me to you. This is great work!” Chances are, if that printer is asked about a graphic designer, he’s going to say “I know a guy” and the designer has a new client. It’s the old you scratch my back, I scratch yours situation—except you’re better off scratching first.

Social Networking as the Internet knows it, however, is little more than a magnified version of the popularity contest that is supposed to end with High School Graduation. It appears to be nothing more than a game of “Look at how many friends I have” with a nice little counter to keep track of score. The only thing I haven’t found on these sites is a leader board. In the end, it’s just as meaningless as aimfight.com.

That’s not to say Social Networking websites don’t do more. Beyond the popularity contests, havens for sexual predators, and a stalkers’ wet dream, there are a few who manage to rise above this and look to the future. The Internet is a great resource for employers to find additional information on you, and Social Networking sites are full of information. But, what information do you present? While I feel keeping your profile limited to career related content is a little silly, if most of the pictures of you revolve around a drunken stupor or a pile of marijuana large enough to fill a swimming pool, you’re probably shooting yourself in the foot.

Let’s face it, our generation is making a lot more information available to the public than previous generations have. With a little searching, an individual can come up with more information on you than you’re aware of. A little Egosurfing comes in handy here; find out what a potential employer can discover about you. That’s not to say Google will come up with every possible result, but it doesn’t hurt. Remember that anybody can register a MySpace account, and most profiles have their security set as loose as that college whore you, and all of your buddies, slept with last weekend (no offense if you’re said whore). There are also many organizations registered with Facebook, and the networking isn’t difficult to figure out. Facebook is slightly more private, but a lot of public information remains.

I know the chances of me making a difference are slim, but the purpose of a rant is ranting for rants sake. I’m not here to make the world happy, I’m here to tell the truth. The truth is: We need to be careful what information we make available. The Internet is largely an insecure medium of data transmission. MySpace and Facebook are considered public, and information about you can help or hinder your future.
Think about it.

If you would like to read more about the subject, see the following articles:
How to use Facebook without Losing Your Job over it —//engtech
MySpace Is Public Space When It Comes To Job Search —CollegeGrad.com

This week is my last week of classes at Erie IT. Ever. For good. Done with school.
What follows is a six-week internship with a fledgling design studio in Erie. After that, I’m on my own.

The best case scenario is that I’ll be able to pick up enough clients over the next six weeks to fend for myself. Since last July or so a feeling of homelessness has overwhelmed me. Sure, I have places to stay, but I always feel like I’m in the way—intruding. I’m not comfortable anywhere. Hopefully I can make it well enough on my own to feel I have a home again.

I guess that brings me to my next topic of rambling… the EchoDesign Studio will now be actively seeking clients. Once school is done, I’m going to have all the time in the world to, well… work. Ick. But, I have this nice plan in my head that I hope takes off. I guess everything hinges on how receptive Jamestown is to the idea. Here’s to hoping, since it will be a lot of fun for everybody if it works.

For now, I’ll just sit here and worry about the future. If only I could just make it happen…
I should have gone into Quantum Physics.

Farewell and welcome, loss and gain, end and beginning. The year of two-thousand and six has come to an end, and two-thousand and seven is in its infancy. So much has happened, so much changed, and we continue our lives.In 2006…
I lost everything I knew, and found life in hope. I found myself engaged to be married and heartbroken. I questioned life, its purpose, and meaning. I opened myself up and withdrew in to a cell—my own little world. I lost a grandfather, and watched as the sorrow united a family once divided.

Most importantly, though, is that I found things within myself that assured me everything would turn out for the best. It’s not time for me to awaken yet, and it’s best if I just drift for now.

So it’s time for a new year, a clean slate. Time to be reborn. Who knows what 2007 is going to bring? Hopefully some good music and kick-ass games, if nothing else. For the most part, 2006 sucked in both of those categories.

Predictions: Nintendo’s Wii is going to win the third generation of console wars. The music scene will experience the revolution that’s been on the brink of exploding for the past ten years. Apple is going to set itself on the path for becoming a much greater threat to Microsoft as Windows Vista fails to deliver. Likewise, Linux will also become a major competitor in the OS wars. Major scientific breakthroughs are going to be in the Medical field, especially when it comes to cures and vaccines for disease and viruses. People are going to wake up and figure out that global warming is a naturally occurring cycle, even though it may have been slightly accelerated by greenhouse gases—of which cows are still a primary contributor to.

Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

I presented my portfolio ( edahlgren.echod.net ) to a panel of four instructors(grading) and a classroom full of students(watching) at 2:00 PM Wednesday. I bombed it. Stumbled over words, didn’t mention things I had wanted to, and completely forgot to pass around the three examples of code that would have pushed my number of presented pieces up to the minimum requirement of ten. I rambled on for half an hour like this, feeling like an idiot the whole time. But, I must have been having fun or something, because time just flew.

I based my presentation around the fact that many developers today seem to be more focused on functionality and presentation than the validity of code. Writing valid code isn’t hard, and if you think about it for even a short while, you can find a way to make it do what you want without sacrificing your function or design. Besides, what’s an extra 30 minutes on a project that is already 30 to 300 hours in the making?

After I sat down and had a chance to realize just how much I forgot to mention, and then how long I was actually presenting for, I decided… as long as I pass, I don’t really care what I get for a grade. I made mistakes, it happens. I’m not the greatest public speaker. I might be able to weave my tongue in small groups and one-on-one conversation, but I go retarded in front of groups. Especially when I’m asked to change some things about my presentation the night before I have to present.

Today Dave sat down with those of us who presented this week and went over our grades, the comments the panel of instructors made, and generally told us what we did wrong and what we did right. When he presented me with my 98.4%, all I could say was “That’s it?” to which he replied “Fuck you, buddy. You broke my record” —the previous record of 97.3% was held by Dave, with the current record by James Sek at 98.7%.

I may not hold the record for highest portfolio grade, but I’m still the first to present a full Web portfolio. It seems I’ve set a standard that’s above average. Well, my family is proud of me, I’m in shock, and I still don’t feel my work is all that great. Then again, it’s my work. I’m always my worst critic.

When it comes to my work, I know the mistakes I’ve made. By the time I’m half-way through a project, I have learned so much that I know there are much more efficient and faster ways to accomplish what I’ve done. It takes a lot of my strength to complete the project and not start it from scratch. I still end up tossing a lot of projects I do just for fun because of what I learn in the process. But, learning is half of the fun.

Anyways, it’s time for me to relax. I’ll be in Jamestown shortly after noon tomorrow, so call me there if you need to get a hold of me.

— Eric “EchoD” Dahlgren

I will be presenting my portfolio to a panel of instructors within the next twenty days for grading. It’s crunch time… This means that, very soon, I need to have ten projects finished. I need to have them presentable in a hard-copy portfolio and, to meet my own personal standards, I need to have them coded to a point where they’re at least functional.

At the moment, I have the following…
[Concept] EchoDesign :: http://www.echod.net/unpublished/
[Concept] First Covenant Church :: http://www.echod.net/designs/1stcov/
[Concept] Jeremy’s portfolio :: http://www.echod.net/designs/jdahlgren/
[Concept] Jeremy’s portfolio :: http://www.echod.net/designs/jdahlgren2/
[Final design, Content in Progress] Personal Portfolio :: http://edahlgren.echod.net/redesign/

Let’s just say that I feel I have a lot of work to do in a very short period of time. If only I were more confident with my work!
Oi!

Any feedback is much appreciated! You can either comment using the link below, message me on AIM (sn: e2pw ), or send an email to edahlgren@erieit.edu.

While this is not my article, nor does it concern EchoD.net at all, I did find it humorous.  The original headline I read was “Demon for sale… any takers?” — to which my first thought was “Hell yes!”, until I saw the price tag.

http://www.uk-bug.net/Article1348.html

Demon, once the largest UK ISP is up for sale by owners Thus.

Founded in 1992 Demon was acquired by the Scottish telecom in 1998 for £6.66 million (a unique number for Demon!) but has suffered in the broadband boom and saw it’s profits fall 15 percent last year. It’s home broadband business boasts 50,000 users which contrasts to the 180,000 subscribers when bought by Thus, but still managed a profit of £27.7 million.

Analysts put a valuation of £15m to £20m on Demon’s domestic business, as Thus plans to retain the small and medium sized business customer base. It’s Dutch counterpart, Demon Netherlands, was sold to KPN earlier this year for £47m.

Quoted from the linked article.

BSOD.  That was most of my experience.  Not only did Vista lock me out of my very own My Documents directory, but it crashed when I tried to copy a large directory from one drive to the other.  In fact, to get most of my files moved, I had to boot to a Knoppix CD.  Now, I’m well aware that I was running a Beta 2 copy of the software, rather than a Release Candidate—RC1 refused to be a bootable CD, so I couldn’t install from that.

Luckily, I had a Norton Ghost backup from which I could restore.  Five minutes later and I had a fresh install of Windows XP.

I never did get the video drivers working.

Take a person, anybody, and place them in a room with no fewer than five other persons with runny noses and coughs. Now, tell your victim to accomplish something that requires concentration or you’re going to kill them.
Welcome to my classroom.

Not fifteen seconds has passed today without somebody attempting to suck the snot through the back of their skull using only the vaccume created by their lungs as they snort. This isn’t a polite little sniffle as they make their way to some kleenex—but a disgusting gurgle of mucus repeated every five to ten seconds with no regard to those around them.

I need a gun, or a box of tissues to throw at least.

I attempted an upgrade to Windows Vista Beta 2 Customer Preview yesterday. While I could have gone for Release Candidate 1, I went with what I had—RC1 comes next. I did this for a few reasons, the first being that I wanted to give Vista a try. However, I have also been needing to go through a reformat for quite some time, and keep putting it off. Since Vista isn’t quite stable yet, Windows XP is coming back before too long.

The first problem I ran into during the upgrade was Antivirus software. Windows Vista changes a lot of things, so I had to uninstall all of my Norton products. From there, the upgrade seemed to go smoothly, but I’m not sure. I set it up and went to school. When I came home, Vista was installed. So, the upgrade process is pretty smooth—or, automated, at least.

My second problem involved video drivers. I downloaded the ATi beta drivers for Vista and tried to install them. Actually, that’s as far as I’ve managed to get in 12 hours. I’m still trying to get Vista to play nice with my X800 and it isn’t happening. To make matters worse, my monitor refresh rate is stuck at 60Hz because of it. Needless to say, I’m not spending too much time in front of this flickering hulk. Hyper-sensitive eyes are bad sometimes.

The security prompts with Windows asking “Are you sure you want to do that?” are probably as annoying as Clippy from Microsoft Office. MS seems to know how to make things annoying, but I haven’t figured out if there’s a way to bypass this yet. I know under Linux you’re expected to provide a root password to make changes for security, and to make sure you know what you’re doing (and are authorized). This can be bypassed through running as root, among other methods. I don’t believe I can run as Administrator under Vista, but I have spent more time trying to get the video drivers working than convincing Windows it doesn’t need to nag me.
I see this annoying many an end user, but I also see it helping ever so slightly. If people have to deal with nag screens every time they go to screw up their computer, they might be less likely to try deleting the entire contents of their C:\ drive while the computer is running. Sadly, I can’t even open the device manager without a nag.

The new directory system isn’t bad. It’s very similar to what Apple has done with OS X. Actually, it seems that Vista has borrowed a lot from Apple and various Linux distributions. Too bad they didn’t borrow the Linux portion of it like Apple did.
Perhaps my biggest issue with new Windows releases is the bloat. It seems that, rather than starting from scratch, Microsoft builds on what’s already there. Sure, starting over takes time, but you can do things differently where you made mistakes before. When you just add steaming shit to a cold pile, you’re building on top of flawed code and several thousand patches. If Microsoft keeps this up, Windows is going to crumble under its own weight before too long. Come on, Vista requires 15GB of free hard drive space as it is. I have a copy of Linux that fits nicely on a single CD-ROM complete with an Office suite comparable to MS office—which can be run from said CD-ROM without installing a single thing. An OS under 700MB, and Microsoft is requiring 15GB.

Vista needs work, Microsoft needs to consider a few things, and people who want to give that Linux CD a try—to get a taste of Linux without making a single change to their computer—need to contact me.