BDPA Detroit honors the participates of the 2009 High School Computer Competition

Congratulations to the Detroit team for getting second place in the HSCC this year. This news event hit the Free Press last week: http://www.freep.com/article/20091112/NEWS01/91112058/1322/IT-professionals-to-honor-Michigan-high-school-students

I attended the Banquet last Thursday and have posted the videos to my YouTube account. You can also view them below on this page.

Student Awards Part 1 from the Detroit BDPA HSCC Dinner:


Student Awards Part 2 from the Detroit BDPA HSCC Dinner:


Giving Thanks to those who helped BDPA with this event:


Closing Remarks:

Changing the Value Proposition for Urban Youth

I read this article earlier today and it really made me think about some things.
http://www.blackweb20.com/2009/11/04/changing-the-value-proposition-for-urban-youth/

Honestly if we all come together and think things through we can build the next thatguywiththeglasses.com or Revision3 ourselves based on our culture as a whole including the arts such as music to along with the tech.

Childhood Memories

Who knew the games we bought as kids would be collector's items today.
Down side is that to be Mint Condition it must still be in shrink wrap, meaning no playing of the actual game.

I actually have this Zelda game box and instructions, unfortunately I opened it :(
http://kidcrave.com/toys/kids-toys-you-wish-you-still-had/

WOW the little big computer that condemned me to being a geek for life.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/181421/inside_the_atari_800.html

Kindergarten, coming home to finish my homework, watch GI Joe and Transformers, and finally play around with my sister's Atari and Pac-Man. The 80's were TOTALLY RAD lol

No comment on the related Paramount Movies.

Tech Day 2009 Videos

Sorry for taking so long to update my Blog, but I have been busy like crazy.

Good news based on this year's Discovery and Technology Day at the University of Detroit Mercy it seems like there will be an increase in NSBE members. I have a few videos from YouTube.

Newer Versions of VMware 2 are a HUGE Improvement

After playing around with the newer version of VMware Server for Windows I can honestly say that it was well made. The random blue screens and lock ups and gone, and I can finally create and open an existing VM without everything locking up. These were huge issues in the beta version last year, which in my opinion should not have been released in the first place. There were even some people who had to reformat their computers from it. Yes the beta version, especially the early beta was that bad. Fortunately the bugs that plagued me and many other users have been fixed.

Now the biggest difference from version 1 are the new network features and web interface. As I demonstrated in my Virtualization Workshop last month the new interface and tools make creating and connecting servers and clients and breeze. However, while it is easier to create and deploy various types of servers for both the Internet and Intranet environments the over head causes performance to take a hit. Normally a web interface makes an application lighter, but here it has become slightly slower, because more system resources are being dedicated to network functionality. While the performance hit was not too bad, users of 3 year old Core Duo machines will definitely notice.

While I'm on the subject of virtualization I should also mention VirtualBox 3. VirtualBox 3 has improved desktop performance and almost anything that does not require graphics acceleration runs at full or close to full speed. It can even run some older programs that use acceleration as well, however I am talking about old school Voodoo and GeForce 2 cards (8 to 16 MEG), not 9800 GT (512 MEG) or even a 9800 Pro (128 MEG). Ironically the big down fall is network configuration which can be a pain, unless you read the instructions and tutorials first. While setting up a network is possible and feasible the fact that it become extremely difficult when you start adding multiple machines has caused many people who work with networks to look else where. However, if you need to test the performance and functionality of an application built for different user desktops across different Operating Systems and configurations, than VirtualBox is your best bet.

Finally as promised here is the video from my workshop:
http://vimeo.com/5873042

The new version of TVersity KILLS CATV on DSL and Fiber

I just downloaded and purchased the Pro Edition of TVersity and to be honest it murders what I had on cable tv before I canceled it. If you know how to work with RSS feeds and can find content online, than this program will make cable television look like an Atari 2600 trying to fight a PS3. However, inexperienced users will not notice much of an upgrade and will be frustrated at trying to add content, because the process is not straight forward. Users will also need to turn the recording on the server on to use Stereo Mix. That's right you actually need a sound card and driver loaded on the server to work. That's right a server that needs sound drivers and a card. To add content, in Joost I found out by looking at the Joost Feed sample and some experimentation, that you need to go to the page with the actual videos you want to play and from there click the RSS icon in the URL bar of Firefox. From there copy and past it into TVersity after selecting to add a new RSS video feed. Example for G1 Transformers open the G1 Transformers page with all of the videos and from there click the RSS icon and start the process from there. Likewise you can do the samething in the music video section and use the RSS feeds for each genre of music. Finally it was funny seeing Spiderman in a 1970s Power Ranger series in the Marvel videos section. OK enough of my ramblings, here's the link:
http://tversity.com/

Sorry, but the review for VMWare Server won't be until next Friday or Saturday at the earliest because this was too much fun and likewise I lost track of time. Hopefully its an improvement from 2.0, which in my humble opinion did nothing to improve from version 1 and likewise made things harder (clunky, hard to follow interface), less effiecent (took up a huge amount of system resources), and less stable (rabdom blue screens and reboots, plus it never loaded one virtual machine on my machine, nor could I even build and run one from scratch).

Mr. Steele you owe your voters and supporters an explanation

I saw this the other day and was not too pleased:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/02/limbaugh-steele-apologize/

No offense, but this IMHO was the most cowardly example of a flip-flop that I have ever seen.
First you give your opinion about the man's show being only entertainment and not a true source of information. Now you're calling it the primary source of information regarding your party. Once again in my humble opinion he should have demanded Limbaugh to apologize for the Puff the Magic Negro reference he made last year. Backing down the way he did not only placed shame on his party, but himself all at the same time. Maybe if politicians and businessmen (yeah I went there) would stop trying to get a head my kissing someone's you know what to get ahead, and instead decide to provide an actual service to their country or organization, than this country would be better off. OK now that I am done blowing off steam I am open to other opinions.