Jason Pan

Actual Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87WM1vuWbWU

Google Docs is an area that can be found in your TUMail that allows a user to create, and upload Excel documents, Powerpoint presentations, and Word documents.One of the huge advantages of Google Docs is that it is a feature that utilizes cloud storage, meaning that your files and documents can be stored online.

In this tutorial video, I show the basic functionality of Google Docs in your TUMail which includes creating a powerpoint presentation, deleting documents, and viewing presentations as well as overviewing the whole Google Docs area throughout the whole video.

Utilizing Google Docs for your classes can make your life much more convenient. For myself, I use Google Docs to upload documents that I create from home and then access the cloud storage to open them at the Tech Center and printing them from there.

Actual Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87WM1vuWbWU

In this web video, I cover the importance of Widgets for your WordPress blog. The reason that widgets are so important is that it allows the user to fully customize his or her blog. There are dozens of widgets too pick from, whether it be a Twitter application to show your viewers all your latest tweets to an imitation of Facebook Chat which allows the viewers that visit your blog to communicate with each other in instant messaging style.

In this particular video, I cover how to add the “Links” widget. Many sites have blogrolls and it can be easily done with said “Links” widget. In addition, I also cover how to add a link to the blogroll and how to delete the widget — all with ease.

Utilizing widgets in your WordPress blog can wow viewers because it makes your blog unique than everyone else’s. It doesn’t take a developer to create a widget because they are already created for you. Adding and deleting widgets is simple and it may take some trial and error to really find the widget that works for you. But all in all, utilizing this area of WordPress is a necessity if you want your blog to be unique.

image credits: amazon.com

It’s the N800, Nokia’s take on the iTouch. This device falls into the internet tablet category and came out four years ago, on August 1st, 2011. I purchased this years ago because I was planning on getting the iTouch but decided to get this instead because of its open source development program for applications. Retail it was at least $200 back then but nowadays you can purchase it for a mere $100. Over the past few years, this device has really come in handy. Featuring a 4.1inch screen, two SD card slots (internal/external), built-in camera, built-in speaker, WiFi, and Bluetooth 2.0. Being one of the first pioneers of the handheld device, one of the things it really boasts is its open source development program which allows anyone such as yourself to create your own application for the N800. In the past few years, developers have created tons of applications. There are applications ranging from video games to useful tools such as an e-reader or Ti84 calculator.

Price: $100

Rating: 8.5/10

I’d give this product an 8.5 because it is a very useful device. Since the newest successor for this device came out, the price for this has dropped dramatically. It still does everything I want it to do, like play Pandora or Internet Radio all the time. And with a killer 6 hour battery life and up to 4 days in idle time, this brick nearly does it all. It makes everything in your life just a little bit more convenient.

image credit: jjprojects.com

Last Friday, I was informed that Facebook bought out Gowalla for an undisclosed amount of money. For my readers who don’t know what Gowalla is, it’s very similar to FourSquare where you check-in the place. Gammification also plays a huge role in this social network website because awards are given to users depending on which location you check-in at. Certain spots can be featured on the main website, so anytime you check-in with Gowalla your check-in has a chance to be on the front page.

Personally, I’m unsure how Facebook will use the Gowalla social network to their advantage. I believe that checking in will become more of an integral part of what Facebook is and people will know the places you frequent the most. What do you guys think about Facebook’s new acquisition, Gowalla?

image credits: engadget.com

That’s right, it’s the new Xbox dashboard! Scheduled to be released tomorrow, the new Xbox dashboard has a few goodies that are brand new as well as a twist with social media. As one can tell by the image above, the dashboard gets a completely new makeover that looks extremely similar to the tiles that were featured with the Windows 8 Slate. The categories that comprise of the whole dashboard experience have been much more simplified.In addition to a whole new slew of applications such as HBO, Comcast, MSNBCToday, etc.. will be added to the application library.

image credit: engadget.com

The new dashboard has a cleaner, simpler look to it. One of the newest features (besides adding more applications) is Xbox’s take on being able to better interact with

your friends

. Now, there is ia “beacon” feature which allows  you to broadcast at any time whether you would like one of your friends to play wit you. If one of your friends is playing a game that you’re playing, the Xbox will notify you and try to hook you up some playing time with your friend.

It’s still in the works, but it seems like a dream come true. Flexible transparent Display that does all the things you love. The company that’s behind it is Samsung and they believe that the product will be available for launch in 2012. This technology seems groundbreaking and although we’re still at least a year away from this future product, the developers of this product haven’t hesitated on releasing a concept video. Although it’s merely a concept video, it’s a peek into the future.

World Aids Day - December 1st

I’ve been very inactive on my blog posting. This might be in relation to the amount of homework and tests that I’ve had recently. But, not too long ago was World Aids Day. Being the community service chair of my fraternal organization Chi Psi, I wanted to collaborate with other orgs on World Aids Day because the purpose is for people all over the world to unite together to raise awareness for AIDS. That’s exactly what we did. Two other organizations, Sigma Beta Rho and Alpha Sigma Rho were glad to help out with our World Aids day event. On december 1st, all three orgs stood in the freezing cold for several hours handing out free condoms, selling cupcakes, and asking for people’s donations.

The picture above is a picture that I took of our table. A bit disorganized, but we ended up selling all the cupcakes that Alpha Sigma Rho made, gave out over 400 free condoms, and raised $131 towards Philadelphia Fight, an AIDS organization located on Locust Street in Philadelphia.

Community service is something that I enjoy doing so I thought that this post would interest you guys on one of the things that I’ve been up to the past couple days.

It’s Posterous and it’s essentially a space on the internet for you to post up your photos, MP3′s and other files in a style similar to a Tumblr or a blog. Registering is super easy and takes only a few minutes (captures the basics of your e-mail, username, and password). Once you’re actually in the member’s area,the steps to post our photos and other goodies is pretty self-explanatory but the website does offer a tutorial for those who are first users of the website. The tutorial is simple and guides the user to posting his/her very first posterous post.You simply upload a picture and give it a title and a caption and it gets published.

As you can see in this post here (although not very professional), I was able to post my very first picture up on Posterous and it only took a few seconds, literally.

Most of the features on this site are self-explanatory and the website really makes sure that all of the tools and features are easy to access. For those that post tons of photos on his/her Tumblr this may be the website to migrate to.

image credits: killerstartups.com

It’s Cliqsearch, a new website that searches your social networks to give you statistics on companies that you care about.Interested in the webite, I connected through Facebook and immediately searched for two businesses that I frequent: makiman sushi and sang kee peking duck house.

The results of my tests were very interesting.

Makiman Sushi

• 1,165 Facebook Likes
• 424 Facebook Check-Ins
• 423 FourSquare Check-Ins

Sang Kee Peking Duck House

• 419 Facebook Likes
• 1,1361 Facebook Check-Ins
• 1,230 FourSquare Check-Ins

After searching your business, the end result displays three categories (cliq, stats, and buzz). For the cliq category, the computer checks to see if any of your friends on any of your social networks are affiliated with said business. Unfortunately for me, none of the businesses that I searched were affiliated with any of my friends. Next is stats, which is the amount of check-ins , likes, and any other countable measure of social media data. The results that I returned can be viewed above.Lastly, there is the buzz category which is essentially Cliqsearch’s review section of said business.

All in all, the website is very useful to determine how well your business is doing from a social media perspective. Businesses with more check-ins and likes are usually more successful in terms of the amount of customers they attract and the quality of service/food.

Below is a free animation that I created using GoAnimate. It made creating an animation easy because the tools were already there, one just needed to fill in the content. As for the topic of this animation, I decided to make the two characters talk about how to attract readers to your blog. These tips, such as embedding videos and photos in addition to your text can really attract the reader’s attention. In addition, by interacting with your blog community ensures that the people that visit your blog may continue to come back to converse with you. There are a ton of tips for blogs such as creating headers, etc… but I only pointed out a few tips in the animation.

Did you like my animation? Let me know! Also, you can create one free here. It’s super fun and easy, I promise.