Around this time, with classes just around the corner, I’m usually tempted to look up what books I need for each course and start reading them to get ahead. However, after reading an interesting article from ProfHacker, it looks like reading ahead might not always be all it’s cracked up to be. Check out the article at this link!
So if you haven’t heard yet, Facebook has teamed up with Skype to create video chat capabilities for the popular social networking site. Now you can video chat with your friends and family right through Facebook, without having to create a separate Skype account. We tried it out in the office, and it was fairly easy to use, although quite buggy right now. I believe they just announced it on July 6th or 7th, so I’m sure there will be many bugs to work out in the days and weeks to come. However, all you have to do is search for “Skype Me” on Facebook and download the app. It took me a few tries before it finally worked, but then you just download the file and Run it on your computer. After it’s installed, you can choose any friend from your normal chat list and click to open the chat. Now you’ll see a small video icon, and you can click that to begin the call. It rings on your friend’s end, and they have the ability to answer or ignore your call. Once answered, it opens a box that shows your friend’s video, with your video in a small box in the corner. It’s an incredibly simple and easy to use layout. The only downfall I’ve noticed so far, besides the timing-out that occurred while trying to access the download page, is that there is no way to choose your camera and microphone from the Facebook video window. My audio was not working for some reason, and I had to dig through the Control Panel to access my microphone and webcam settings. I would prefer it if there were a way to control it right through Facebook. Other than that, it looks like it will be a really cool feature of Facebook, and I look forward to see how the technology develops.
Do you feel like you’ve eaten at all the places around North Campus, and want to try something new? Afraid to veer away from the staples like Jimmy Johns and Pazzo’s? There are a myriad of restaurants around North Campus that offer great food that you might not have tried or even noticed. Here’s a few suggestions for the next time you’re craving something different:
Sav’s: A West African restaurant with delicious flavor and low prices, located on the corner of Limestone and Maxwell. They offer Bowls, which are a combination of rice, potatoes, and a peanut sauce, with different selections of meat. I highly recommend the goat, it’s amazing! A small bowl is only around $4, and if you’re really hungry, you’ll only have to dole out $7-$8 for a large portion. They also have Platters, with Ribs, Lamb, Hen, and other delicious meats, and they also offer vegetarian options and salads. Make sure you try some of Sav’s homemade hot sauce, which is very flavorful and very hot!
Han Woo Ri: A Korean restaurant found on South Limestone, next to Sqecial and CD Central. They offer a wide variety of menu options, and their menus come with detailed pictures and descriptions of the dish, so even if you’re new to Korean cuisine, you’ll know what you’re ordering. They offer a daily special, which is always a little cheaper than usual, and if you pay cash, you can get a free soda. I highly recommend the #1. Bul Go Gee, which is often known as “Korean Barbeque.” It’s really tender, flavorful slices of beef, served with sticky rice, lightly fried potato sticks, and kimchi. They also offer a spicy version, if you prefer that. The Steamed Dumplings are great, as well as the Pajun, a Korean style pancake with seafood and two types of onions. It comes with a really good dipping sauce, as well. Most of the entrees are usually around $7-$8 dollars, with the special being cheaper. I highly recommend this restaurant, as everything I’ve ever had has been super hot, super fresh, and super delicious.
Bangkok House: A Thai restaurant on the corner of Avenue of Champions and Rose. This restaurant always has great service and really good food. I haven’t ordered much from them, simply because the Pad Thai is so good that I haven’t wanted to stray away from it! I recommend getting the pork, but all of their meats are tasty. They can offer all levels of spiciness, from mild to Extra Spicy! They have a delicious sweet peanut sauce on the table that goes really well with the spicy flavors. I highly recommend getting an egg roll as well, as they are the best egg rolls I’ve had in Lexington. I’m sure there are other great menu options as well, and the prices are reasonable, with entrees usually ranging between $5 and $10.
King Tut: A Mediterranean restaurant on the corner of South Limestone and Pine St, next to Two Keys. The food here is absolutely delicious, and the service is always excellent. They offer a wide range of Mediterranean options, both meat and vegetarian. I highly recommend the Shish Kabob, which is the most tender and flavorful, perfectly-cooked beef tenderloin I have ever had. All of the dinner plates come with the entrée, rice, vegetables, a sauce that complements the entrée, choice of a soup or salad, pita and hummus! It’s so much food, and it’s all good! They offer daily specials, which are sometimes a combination of two of the entrees for the same price as one, or a totally different entrée, such as Ribeye steak or succulent lamb chop. If you’ve got a group of two or three, I highly recommend the King Tut Platter… it’s two of just about everything on the menu, all for less than $20. I went with one other person, and we were both stuffed afterwards and had leftovers to last for days! All of the entrees are typically $6.95, and the sandwiches (a meat, vegetables, and a sauce wrapped in pita) are $4.95. I highly recommend going here.
Hopefully these four suggestions will help you try something new on North Campus that you might really love!
Have you ever wanted to read a new book, but didn’t feel like dishing out money or driving to the library? Now, you can lend a book free of cost through Kindle’s Book Lending program, at www.booklending.com. People are able to lend out their Kindle eBooks to others for 14 days. It is free of charge for both parties, but each book can only be lent out one time, and the owner of the book cannot access that book while the person borrowing it is reading it. Once the borrower has finished the book, they can delete it and it returns to the owner, or if 14 days pass, the book disappears and goes back to the owner. One great aspect of the site is that you can login using Facebook, so you don’t need to worry about creating yet another account. The lending process is not immediate, however. I tried to lend a book after signing in, and it told me that a request has been made. I am not sure how long that will take, or if it will notify me that my book is ready to read.
I think eBook lending is a great idea, but I hope to see fewer restrictions on this as time goes on. I think 14 days is a relatively short time period, especially considering you can’t just call and extend the time period as you can with a library. I also think that the book should be able to be lent out more than once, although I do understand that it cannot be infinite or else fewer amounts of copies would be sold, as everyone could just borrow that book over and over again. It will be interesting to see what competition occurs as different companies begin a lending process, and to see if many books will just become completely open source.
To say it in short, I love the internet. I think it is a great tool for education and networking, and is just plain fun. I have even heard that playing around on the internet is actually better for your brain than watching television, so I don’t feel so bad about spending hours on “Stumble Upon” and “Tumblr.” However, sometimes the internet can also be a daunting place, especially when you realize that you have no idea how it works or how a website is made. This impacted me even more while working here at Online Ed, because I was expected to troubleshoot Blackboard and other web tools and realized that I didn’t even understand some of the basics of how the interwebs work. It may seem like something that is far too complicated for a non-techie to understand, but I’ve found that learning about web development is a fun process that is not too difficult, and can help you greatly in all aspects of your internet use.
While many facets of the internet are very complicated, the two basic tools for web development are fairly simple: HTML and CSS. I won’t go too in depth with what these acronyms stand for or how they work, because there are tons of excellent sources online explaining this. In a nutshell, HTML is the language used to write the content of the web page (what you’ll actually read), and CSS is the language used to design how it will look (what designs and colors you'll see). These are often used in unison to create webpages that range from very simple to wonderfully complex and creative. Just look at some of the examples on http://www.webcreme.com/ to see how beautiful works of art can be created on the web. Luckily, creating basic websites is actually not that difficult, and with a little hard work, I think anyone can learn how to use these two languages to build websites.
While there are hundreds of books and webpages devoted to how to build a website, I think there are two which helped me a great deal when I was learning web development. The first is The Site Wizard, found at http://www.thesitewizard.com/. It is a very helpful site that tells you everything you need to know about building your own website, beginning with how to find a domain name, how to get a web host, etc. I found this site very helpful in explaining how websites actually work, and I feel safer knowing that I understand how the internet works rather than just blindly surfing sites. Even if you don’t plan on actually building websites with this knowledge, you will at least understand the foundations of the websites that you visit regularly.
The most helpful tool for me in my learning process was a book called HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions: a Web Standardistas' Approach by Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson. This can be found as an electronic source through UK’s library website, so you can start reading it right now! There are several other books about HTML and CSS in the library that are also interesting, but this book worked really well for me. It starts with the absolute basics, and helps you set up your web domain and web host. Then it dives right into creating mark up for a sample website. If you follow along with their examples and complete all the “homework” given in each chapter, you will end up with a fully functioning website that you made completely yourself—no Dreamweaver involved! They take a “Web Standardistas’ Approach,” meaning that they try to meet web standards (see W3schools for more info on these standards) and write mark up completely from scratch, so that there are no unneeded garbage characters that editors such as Dreamweaver often add. I felt that the book was a truly great learning tool, and I was able to get a pretty firm grasp on the basics within a few weeks. The only complaint I could have is that it spends a great deal of time on the content of the website and didn’t jump right into the design, but in retrospect I do think that was a good approach. While the design aspect may be the most enjoyable part of web design, the content is really the most important aspect, and it’s good that they focus on that.
Once you’ve mastered HTML and CSS, there are many other books on other fun aspects of web design, such as PHP or Javascript. Every bit of information that I learn about these topics helps me to understand how the sites that I visit every day are working, and helps me troubleshoot and fix issues in my own websites and with issues at work in Online Ed. I highly recommend that anyone who is curious about web design or web development, or just anyone who frequently uses the internet, look into learning these valuable skills, because they are not nearly as difficult or scary as they might seem, and the knowledge is truly valuable in our highly-technical world.
