eJournal
Parkour at Temple? Nice!
I’m pretty sure most of us get up and decide to check out what’s going FaceBook. Well, I decided to do that today and run into an update posted by Temple in their status talking about student(s) doing parkour (french for free-running) on campus. Here’s the link they posted: “Friday Parkour, Temple Edition!“
The video has been embedded for your convenience:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZWPRaX0z3c[/youtube]
Compared to other parkour videos I have watched, this one is a little slow because they are just practicing. But it is good to see people practicing parkour, so that you get a better idea of how individuals in the other videos (which seem flawless) make it seem easy and harmless.
I would like to thank the students who made this video for showing me what happens during their practice sessions and what really happens before the final videos become perfected.
My Philosophy on Websites
Whenever you visit a site, you want it to be user-friendly and clean. You do not want a million things posted all over the main-page and having your visitors’ lost in the rubble. For instance, take Google and Yahoo! as an example. When you go to Google, you are presented with a clean site with only a search bar with other contents of the site neatly placed somewhere else. Yahoo, on the other hand, has a lot going on its homepage. It has news, weather, games, e-mail, a search bar, and other links thrown onto its homepage.
In my perspective, Yahoo! having too much on its homepage makes it confusing for its visitors to get around. At least Google gives you the option to view the news, check your email, or shop for products; if you’re in the mood. If you’re not, then all you have is a clean homepage with a search-bar.
Occasionally, I will visit Yahoo! when I just want to know whats going on in the world. I simply type in “www.yahoo.com” and the news display in the middle supplies me with news, sometimes irrelevant and other times relevant. They usually have a limited amount of articles posted on their homepage, but Google has a section devoted to the News and is able to compile articles from different sites on different issues and easily categorize them. Google, in my opinion, does a better job in organizing news feeds (real-time updates) than Yahoo!; you never are sure as to when Yahoo! updates their news page (I guess it depends on the news).
I guess Google inspired me to make sure the homepage for my ePortfolio was simple and clean, while making sure the visitor can easily browse through the site.
Click to Zoom In
FLASHBACK – Fall 2009 (Part 1)
FLASHBACK – FA’09 (Part 1)
Enter the Campus!
Here’s a little blast…from the past!
Summer is coming to an end and I haven’t been able to do a whole lot. I have busy making sure everything that I need to transfer over to Temple goes well. I needed to make MCCC sent over my transcript in time. I need to make sure I get the loans and grants to start my semester. I went to the Ambler campus the other day to see what was where. It took me forever to find the Learning Center. The parking lot is on the other side, so I had to walk all the way over to the Learning Center (LC), which was hidden on the other side. Luckily I saw Temple Police near Bright Hall, so I asked them where the LC is. They pointed me in the right direction and I was able to find it. 
Ambler campus should update their maps posted around campus. They give you the map of the campus, but they don’t put the “star” which says, “You are here!” If they only had that on the maps, I could have easily found the LC…
This semester I have Law, Marketing, Real Estate, and Human Resources. Law, Marketing, and Real Estate are on Mondays and Wednesdays; but Human Resources is on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’m so excited I have Friday off! It’s going to be a 3-day weekend for me every week!
I just hope I got the right textbooks, I despise the feeling when you get a book after waiting in those endless lines only to get a “newer” version. Luckily, there weren’t a lot of people who came to buy books. So, I was able to get my books without any hassle.
To be continued..
FLASHBACK – FA’09 (Part 2) – Enter the Classroom!
I’m an S.A.P. Pro!
My team member and I attended the SAP workshop yesterday. Even though it was our first time using SAP and learn its functions, we were able to breeze through the assignments. Prof. O’Donnell was discussing SAP in class and how complicated things can get throughout the procedure. The group sitting next to us must have restarted their Sales Order assignment at least 5 times just because they skipped one step and/or accidentally saved when they weren’t suppose to.
The process involved in the Sales Order assignment was very time consuming and required the utmost attention. You had to carefully read the walkthrough of the assignment and triple-check the date you entered.
After completing the Sales Order part of the assignment, my partner and I began the Human Resources assignment. This assignment took us a little bit more than 15 minutes. Compared to the Sales Order assignment, the HR portion was shorter and easier to comprehend.
Now that I have gotten a taste of what SAP is, I will practice a few assignments myself to become more competent in this system.
After completing these two assignments, I feel like an SAP Pro!
SPO Update
After talking over with a few of my professors, classmates, and friends; I have decided to join these SPOs (AMIS & TTN) at the beginning of the Spring Semester. Since the fall semester is almost over with a few weeks remaining, it would make little difference if I joined now or in the Spring.
I have been talking to AMIS members and faculty advisors to see what their opinions are. They recommended that it would be better to join in the Spring semester since most of their events and activities have been done already with only a handful coming up. I will help them out if they need it as their “unofficial member,” but will become an official member in the Spring. I have only talked to a few people from AMIS, but they were all welcoming and friendly.
Real Estate on Nov. 3, 2010
I have been working on my team project in Real Estate. It isn’t due until November 8, 2010; but I wanted to get it out of the way and not wait until the last minute. We had our second exam today which covered condos, cooperatives, liens, and the different kinds of leases. Dr. Lammedola has posted the 2nd part for the team project. I’m looking forward to completing that as well.
Once you begin to understand the concepts, laws, and documents of real estate. The course becomes more interesting.
ePortfolio Complete!
I just putting the finishing touches to my ePortfolio. I am pretty excited! I was planning on making my own ePortfolio a while back, but I did not know what to include. Thanks to Prof. O’Donnell for taking the time during one of the classes to explain how an ePortfolio should like and what it should contain.
I began this project towards the beginning of October (2010) and just got finished (November 2010). Within that time period I taught myself how to use WordPress (since I never used it before) and create the ePortfolio. It was very time consuming, but it was time well spent. Now all I need to do is add new posts, update the information, and upload assignments that will be completed in the near future.
What I can’t seem to fix is the issue with the static-page for my Posts. I have asked around, but no one knows what’s going on or why it’s happening. I have tried Google to search for solutions, but most of those solutions deal with issues surrounding the downloaded WordPress software. My pursuit shall continue!
Overall, I am proud of what I have built (the ePortfolio). I have spent a lot of time to organize everything the way it should be. If anyone needs help, please feel free to contact me.
eJournal Launch
Instead of using my blog feature to strictly focus on what I do at Temple, I decided to include all aspects of life into the eJournal category. I am still having problems in terms of making my ‘posts’ page direct visitors to my posts. Thus, “eJournal” will become the parent category of all other categories. This will compile all of the posts in different categories into this one category. Visitors will still be able to view which category what post belongs to and skim through them.
To join or not to join other SPOs?
Over the past 2 weeks I have been debating if I should or should not join other SPOs. Being involved with more than one will make me look good, but I don’t want to spread myself too thin. I am thinking about writing or taking photos for The Temple News (TTN), as well as becoming part of the Association of Management Information Systems (AMIS). I have been looking over them both and carefully assessing what they have to offer.
TTN will help improve my writing skills and make me be more involved with events and activities being held around campus. That is exactly what I want to do. I seriously do not want to sit around and do nothing. I get bored too quickly and prefer to keep myself busy. Take my involvement at MCCC as an example. I helped out with SPO, college-wide, and even individual events or activities. Becoming a member of TTN isn’t that difficult and if I plan on doing the MAcc program for an additional year, it would be great to know more people other than individuals who I have classes with. Don’t get me wrong, they are wonderful people. I’m the kind of person who wants to meet new people, even if I just say “hi” and “bye” to them.
AMIS, on the other hand, lets me be surrounded by individuals who are majors and minors of MIS. They will be able to point me into the right direction if I was to run into any “walls” while doing a project. What attracts me even more is their tutoring service. I know starting next semester when I am taking Database Management we will work on SQL related databases. I have heard a lot about SQL, but have never gotten around to seeing what it was. It would be a plus for me to receive tutoring on SQL when I get stuck on something.
Does this mean I should join these SPOs?
YES IT DOES! I am pretty good with time-management and I have held multiple positions in multiple SPOs before. So why should I not join them…I already have experience handling these sort of tasks. So it looks like I am leaning towards joining these SPOs.
What are your opinions? Do you think differently? Why or why not?
Issue with the Journals Page
It appears that once I add the ‘Journals‘ page to my links on the right, it automatically redirects itself to my main page. I have set the static-page for posts to be the ‘Journals‘ page. However, I do not know why it is doing this.
Until I figure this out, the “My Life at Temple” on the right will redirect the visitors to the Archive of the “My Life at Temple” category.
I will let everyone know when this issue is resolved.
Sif Malik