Let me know what you think about it. Also, if you spot any errors/typos, do let me know (I am not the best at spelling when I was doing this at a rather ungodly hour)

I also have it available in pdf

I plan to print this on a 11 x 17 bi-fold sheet and have my “normal” resume on the back side with a simple cover on the front in time for the career fairs. Lets see if whether this gets me a job (or gets me kicked out of the room).

So far the facts are:

• Only a small segment of the 4th floor collapsed. It took down all the floors below it.
• Doing the Math: Max cars involved = 32
• No causalities reported so far. Announcements have been made in Centergy One and TSRB to account for all individuals
• Georgia Tech does not own this building.
• Centergy has announced that no cars will be leaving the lot for 2 days minimum.
• A large slab of cement fell off the 3rd floor and is visible on the grass below.
• Social Media was faster than traditional media once again.

Check out the second video below.

Apple Fans can broadly be classified into these categories, some people will fall under a couple:

Apple Heads: These are the people who own everything Apple. You can’t see them without at least 2 Apple products on them at the same time. They talk only Apple. Steve Jobs is god! (He is not guys. That would be Larry Elison)

Apple Heads tend to buy everything Apple and integrate it into their daily lives to an extant that I would classify them as the Borg. My personal thoughts on Apple Head: They are just those people doing what they like best which just happens to be Apple Products. Don’t dislike them. Do get annoyed by them when they start talking about Apple this and Steve Jobs that and will not stop. – I have also been informed that Apple Heads are referred to with an ‘i’ in front of their name as they have turned into Apple products themselves.

Mactards: These guys use Macs or have an iPhone. They will defend Apple on anything and everything. I own this and it is awesome. My personal thoughts on Mactards: They are just Apple Head Lite (as Microsoft would call them

Macaholics: These are the people who have used Macs for a very long period and are happy where they are. They used it for at least 10 years and have not actively used an other OS in that time period. So, basically these have been living in the Mac bubble. They will usually compare their current mac to their old one. Nice people in general. My personal thoughts on Macaholics: You are in my ok book UNTIL you start comparing it with Windows or Linux – you have no idea what you are talking about as by this definition, you have not used them before.

iWannabe: Prepare for a rant, these people strike a nerve. The iWannabe does not own a Mac! The iWannabe does not own a iPhone! They just want one NOW! They have probably never used anything by Apple other than the iPod and even if they have, it is only for a couple hours at best. These people are the once that Apple’s Marketing (AKA Propaganda) division makes their money off. These guys have been convince of the awesomeness of the Mac by the ads, the people talking about it and the every so awesome looks (and sometimes the exclusive price tag). Honestly, I don’t like you cause you are so easy. I am a marketing guy to an extent and seriously the fun in the hunt is in the chase. Give me (and Apple) a challenge people. My personal thoughts on iWannabes: I don’t like you. The Macaholics only fight against something they do not understand. You are fighting FOR something you do not know. Change!!! Try out a Mac from a friend for a while or go to the local library. Figure out why exactly you like it before you say you want one. I will be happy with you telling me its only for the looks if that is the reason you are getting it. —- I just wonder if an violent iWannabe will mug an Apple Head. Now trying to stop thinking of an iWannabe and an Apple Head I know fighting over Apple goodies.

Those are the 4 main categories I would put people into. Some would fall into multiple of these. Some will fall into non. There is always the regular guy and then the super regular. So, the reason behind why I did this, where do I fit in to all this.

I have used Windows most of my life before college. Was not very happy with it at all times, but never had any major issues (except for the time when I went without a computer for 2 years due to an untimely death of an old computer). I will also say that I am not a big gamer, only play games occasionally when I am bored and am not in the state for activities that require 2 or more people. One of my biggest annoyances with Windows that within a year of purchase, your anti-virus hogs up half of your system resources. And before we even continue, all this si based on XP – I disqualify Vista as Windows on the basis that Vista was so bad, that I don’t even want to bring it up – take that all you Vista lowers.

Once in college I started experimenting with Linux. Spent a year and a half with Ubuntu and it was quite simply love at first sight. Great platform. No useless .exe files running. Simple. Low on system requirements. And just about great for anything I needed to do except for design work. And that was something I was wiling to accept and walk to the CoC/Library to get on a machine with Adobe (usually on a Mac).

During the time I was tweaking with Linux, I was also dabbling with Macs mainly for design work and video editing. Me being the person who answers the interview question “Do you know so and so programing language?” with “I will when I come to work on Monday”, I got my act together and my fiddling with Mac impressed me. Everything except for the price tag was at my sweetspot. Note: I do have issues with Mac, which I can ignore they same way I used to ignore the lack of Adobe for Linux. On top of this, some problems that most Windows users have with Macs are not issues for me at all, such as the low game count – not a big gamer here.

Anyways, as I started with my summer jobs, and the money was going to start rolling in, I got myself a Macbook – which is going to become a Macbook Pro in a couple hours. Right now, I am in the position to say that I like OS X. Over a years experience and now even after 2 weeks of running my life from one, it is great. Had a couple minor issues that I don’t care about cause nothing is going to be perfect. (Had myself a fit when I realized that sudo apt-get won’t work anymore)

I have had experiences with all 3 major OSes and I will say – Don’t Like Windows but will use it if I have to – Love Linux and will use it any day unless I want to do design work – OS X Happy with it for now and it seems to have the best functionality of Linux with a beautiful GUI and front-end application collection. And my love for OS X stops at the computers. I don’t like the iPhone!

At the end of it all, what impresses me the most? The hardware! I love the trackpad on the Macbook. Illuminated Keyboard is just WoW (and before you WinHeads get started, I know Dell also offers that). I typed most of this in the dark about to fall asleep without annoying typos. And the main thing keeping me away from getting an iPhone is the lack of a physical keyboard.

So, what am I? I am ambiOSdextrous with a love for Linux, uses a Mac willingly and enjoys the experience and does not want to see a Windows computer in front of him with a passion.

What do you think?

Anyways, on to the reason for this post. As many of you know, I recently purchased a Macbook and from recent tweets, that I will be getting it replaced with the newer and better Pro. Here is the story behind it. I bought myself a Macbook with the student discount a day before they started giving a free iPod Touch with all macs for students.

I tried to get the freebie but the GT bookstore was not working with me and I let it slide. The real deal for me came on Monday while I was keeping an I on #WWDC. Not a Mac Fanboi – Long rant on why I am not will be my next post – but I will say that 4gigs of RAM and the built in battery is what I need being a crazy multitasker who never shuts down the laptop. I will probably use up the 5 year no deaths battery in 2.

Well, this was how my adventure began with customer service sometime late Monday (I had gotten off a little early from work that due to brain not being in optimal coding mode (caffeine) – Blame Kate and the weekend fun for that – Karaoke and 3 movies might have been too much). After preparing my repertoire of curse words to use at customer support ( I have found that incompetent buffoons seems to be the best fixer at Dell) and past Customer Dis-service fiascos. I would say that my first shock was the rep providing me with his phone number and extension in case we get disconnected or I have further issues after the call. A great first impression and the part of my mind that told me to social engineer my way through this convinced me to switch tactics here (I couldn’t play an angry card with such a nice guy).

The second prop to Apple will be that they only transfered me to someone else after finding out that what the problem was and the right person to handle it. This was great cause Dell usually ends up transferring me to approximately 17 people on average (I start swearing at the 5th or 6th). They guy heard me out and gave a deal I could not refuse.

They have already shipped a brand new, top of the line MacBook Pro 13″ with super-nuclear insides (should be hire tomorrow by 3:00). To make up for the whole iPod Touch fiasco, they are giving me a my AppleCare for free. Which is great cause I don’t need a Touch (would have probably given it to Mansi since she wants one and I don’t). And I need to ship the laptop I have back within a month, so it gives me time to copy all the files onto the new one.

So, over all, I am a happy trooper. Apple has been great so far. Only issue I had was the 1-800-MY-APPLE automatic transfer thingy kept transferring me and then disconnecting me. Bug in system probably but the Human Beings were great. Now I can do all my design work and multimedia stuff without going to a lab since I got hold of CS4 Master Collection.

So long folks. Be back very soon. Sometime tomorrow – I have the post half done, feeling the yawns hit me so I am off.

I was very happy to meet a lot of new people including but not limited to Courtenay Bird, Russell jurney, Chris Morrell and of course the entire gang from Mashable. I also got the time to catch up with people I had met earlier that week at the StartupChicks afterparty (Yup! I actually got invited as a Friend of Chicks) such as Jen Bonnett, Shannon Hubbell, Celia Dyer and Kristin Colier among others. I was also glad to meet some people after a pretty long hiatus including Sig Mosley, Tim Dorr and Jason Ardell. Not a list of everyone I met, but not intended to be one.

Anyways, I made a small video of the highlights of the night. check it out below. The last clip is probably the best, #courtenaybot accepting that she might be a robot.

Updated summer plans

Following my usual policy of make a plan so you have something to change later, my summer plans have been heavily revamped from the post a couple months back. I will be working this summer, not taking any classes and will be doing everything possible to make YES a success once again.

On Monday, I will start work for the College of Computing where I will be setting up some computer labs with Chris Stuckey, setting up the FIREwall Production Studio at some point in time and be coding a project in PHP. Part of my job also includes inventorying the Orgs room and making it suitable for human presence . Look forward to this.

On Wednesday, I will start my internship with Highgroove Studios, a primarily Ruby on Rails consulting firm. I will be be learning to code in Rails and be working on project for CBQ. Will post a recap of this experience in 2 weeks.

As for YES, I am working on a project that has had all my attention since last week and will be done by Monday when I will make the big announcement. I also plan to set up the speaker series and other programs and also get some sponsors so we can have the money to do what we do best.

Now, heading out of the library and then to the CoC to send out an email (the file I need to attach is on the computer there) and then home and sleep.

PS: I will be getting an award tomorrow at 11:00 in Klaus Atrium, come cheer for me.

PPS: C-5: College of Computing Community Creators Celebration is on Wednesday at 6p in Gordon Biersch. Come join me in having fun.

So on to the point. I received an email a couple weeks back and I have only told 2-3 of my friends (and my parents of course) till now. I have been selected to receive the Outstanding Sophomore Award from the College of Computing for 2009. I was truly not expecting this till I got the email, specially since I was rooting for someone else to receive it but am greatly honored. The Award will be presented to me in a ceremony on April 21st 11:00am in the Klaus Atrium. Come join me for the ceremony. 

It was at this point that Jared Fry (Fry boy as I like to refer to him after a year in Hall Council together) and I decided to find a white board on wheels. We soon found this in the storage closet with help from the facilities people and returned to class 5 minutes later towing a white board much to the surprise and amusement of both the Students and the Professor. What can I say? I live to amuse.

The class soon moved out into the grass outside the Klaus building.

Only thing I can say is that this change of setting was refreshing and shows that our prof are truly ready to try new things. It was indeed a success. No one got sick or anything and the weather was great. I even learned some interesting stuff about IP Addresses.

Summer

For the summer, I decided to finally take a break from being a lunatic with my time commitments and have decided to catch a break before I collapse from over-exertion. For those who know me well enough, basically this means try to get enough sleep every single day of the week (considering that this post is being written at 4am, you know exactly what I mean).

I will be taking 1 class during the first short semester (mini-mesters are so much more fun). This will be the Introduction to Psychology class. Should be an easy way to get that out of the way so that I don’t have any pre-requisite issues for my other classes. Being only 5 weeks long, it shouldn’t get in the way of me enjoying my vacations either. I will also be working about 15-20 hours a week for Cedric Stallworth. Not exactly sure what my job description is but I trust Cedric to make it fun. I do know that there is some PHP coding to be done and I will most probably be joined by Chris Stuckey. The job should keep me occupied (and ensure I don’t sleep all day long) and also will be a way for me to not drive myself crazy due to boredom – Me being bored is not good, things usually end up exploding or in 3 or more pieces.

On top of these there are a couple things I hope to get done over the summer for self improvement (A.K.A. cause it is fun). These include learning as much PHP and RoR as I can cram into my head. Definitely have a study buddy for RoR, looking for one for PHP. I have also been talking with an Atlanta startup to possibly work with them for a while over the summer to help their marketing efforts. Should be interesting how that turns out. I will also be setting things up for the Young Entrepreneurs Society so that I don’t have to scram at the last minute and also be fine tuning some pre-napkin stage startup ideas over the summer.

That about wraps up my summer. It might sound like a lot but should be a pretty relaxed time for me. One thing I hope to achieve is to stay awake for more time with the sun in the sky than with it on the other side of the planet. Should be fun.

Fall

Now this is the semester I am probably looking forward to the most. Just the fact that there are so many awesome new things is probably enough justification for this. Another thing is probably the return of my friends who are heading home for the summer and the arrival of a new group of freshman to make up for the loses due to “getting out” of Tech (we all in the CoC know of the one exception to that rule). There is just so much going on that I am going to divide this into sections.

Classes

First of all , registration was a breeze. Mainly cause I cheated . Due to having really great friends with time tickets earlier than mine, I was able to make sure I got into all my classes without a hassle this semester. Don’t even need a permit for anything.

Now most Tech Students who see my schedule will notice the shafting involved but I actually like it. The 9:00am classes make sure I get up (and trust me, I will be getting up for a class with Morley and I hope Nitya and Moinak will help me with the other ones). The relatively free afternoon will be optimal for me to get work done and also having Monday and Friday evenings free will help me focus on the Speaker Series on Mondays and relaxing on Fridays (its important for my sanity and indirectly yours).

My favorite part is having friends in my classes. Nitya is probably in 3 of my classes and I know atleast 2-3 people in every class. So, having people I know to keep me on track and help me out when I am going crazy is not much of a problem. So, these are my classes for the Fall: Combinatorics, Calculus 3 for CS, CS 2340 (do people actually ever use its real name), Educational Technology and Habitable Planet.

Young Entrepreneurs Society

We are done with one semester I am already looking forward to the next year. I have been informed by one of my financial contributors that our first semester was indeed a success and we will be getting a reinvestment for the second semester. I am going to be working to get the coming year set up over this summer so that this doesn’t become a stress causer in the fall. I am sticking to my original “No Officer” rule (basically, YES is run like a benevolent dictatorship which works well for me cause things just get done faster. I like to say I run it like I start-up and this is true to an extent). I am looking for people to help me make this organization a success once again.

We will be sticking to some of our successful events from the past. 16 speakers series sessions spread out over the two semesters and this time, I will be formulating a “syllabus” so that the speakers each speak on a topic that is relevant and in a structured order. That will be my major project for the summer and I am very open to any and all input. We will also be having coffee meetings at starbucks which will happen at random times yet to be determined (I don’t want to schedule 2 regular meetings every week).

I am once again budgeting for a Conference Fund that will be used for helping students attend Startup Weekend, Startup Riot and the such. The students who went to Startup Riot found it very useful and at least one found a job.

So, here is the fun part. What’s new you ask? Not one, not two but THREE new events. The first is the Startup Fair. Tentatively scheduled for mid November, this will be an opportunity for Startup companies to recruit from the best that Tech can offer. I want to connect students to the totally different world that exists within startups and also to their future partners. As I say, don’t work for big brother, work for the next big brother(and take stock options). All companies interested, contact me for more information. Next event is basically a Dinner for Studentrepreneurs and Successful Entrepreneurs (and those who are both) to interact in an informal setting over dinner. The Final event is schedule for early April and is a surprise for now. More info coming soon.

I am also working with a couple companies that like the direction this organization is going in and want to help the students out and not sure exactly how we will work them into this but we will (Hey, don’t look at me. I have a couple months to figure it all out). Any companies, organizations and people interested in helping us out, do let me know. Always looking for sponsors.

UCouncil

Most people might have notice the College of Computing’s Undergraduate Council has not been very active the last year. Some of you have also informed me that this organization has outlived its life and needs to be done with. Well, we have been working hard behind the scenes and found something a need (don’t even get me started on that) that we thing we will be suited to filling.

With the recent change in administration in the CoC and with a new Dean scheduled to arrive in August, we will need to create a voice for the undergrads. UCouncil will be transforming into the representative body for the Undergrads at CoC. We hope to serve both an advisory as well as lobbying board on matters of undergraduate concerns. Now I just have to figure out how we are going to achieve that (:P I have a couple ideas). UCouncil is looking for members for the coming year.

I am not sure what role I will be serving on this organization but I am going to be running for President a week from now. Wish me luck.

FIREwall

With my other involvements, I was originally planning on reducing my involvement from the FIREwall. Unfortunately, I made the decision of informing one Mansi Sharma of the fact. Current status on FIREwall: being blackmailed into staying on the exec board(by Mansi of course). Well, though I love this organization that I help shape into what it is today, I will definitely drive myself crazy trying to be any of the editorial positions without help from someone (one willing to do atleast half the work). Therefore, Badnews: I will NOT be running for Chief Layout Editor. I will still be active on the paper side with some help with layout editing (being an indesign guru must be of some use) and also write a couple articles once in a while.

Not to be disappointed, I still hope to be a part of the FIREwall’s leadership. Despite Mansi “Blackmailing me” into this situation, I am doing what I do best (NO! It is not doing way too much work. I meant do something that suits me and will be less work) and will be running for atleast one position tomorrow. I think I have found the best solution to my time problem and trust me, most of you are in for a surprise tomorrow.

Mentoring

Interesting is all I can say about this. A totally new program that could create a legacy or  end up a disaster. In other words, a place where I fit best. I will be one of the mentors for a group of about 10 incoming freshman and will be helping them better adjust to life at Tech and College and provide them with the resources and connections they need. Thats the official shbeel. In reality, I’ll just be their friend and a good one at that and help them the same way I do any other friend. I am not that worried about how I would do having both been a Team Leader for GT-1000 and also having played a psuedo-unofficial-mentor role to a couple incoming freshman. (They got really impressed by the fact that I was driving a golf cart and it went from there. The rest is a long story, a really long story. I could actually make a movie from everything that happened last year.)

Look forward to meeting the newbies (got to make a little fun of the younglings) and have a lot of hope in the new program.

Community and Misc

Thought that wraps up the majority of my future semester, I also plan to remain involved in the community (both CoC and Startup). For Startup, I will continue to attend S O Breakfasts on Monday mornings (There is one in 2 hours). Don’t forget to say hi to me at #ASW3, #CapitalLounge, #AWE and whenever you drop by 5th st. Starbucks.

Within the CoC, I will be rejoining (though I have been told I never left) the Student Activities Board as a regular member and all round (crazy) idea guy. Will also be exercising my honorary membership with Women@CC (one of 3 males to have an honorary membership. I am a member cause me and W@CC have the same goals, i.e. more women in the CoC and also because W@CC holds all the coolest events). And no! despite popular belief, I don’t plan to start another organization in the Fall but you never know when I will get an awesome idea.

I’m also thinking of being a TL again for GT-1000 but have yet to make my mind.