Onward State

As you can see, I haven’t written a new post for Digital Frontier for a long time.  This is because I started writing for another blog in late December 2008.  Onward State is a blog focused on Penn State news and events.  Since I started at Onward State, we have seen an explosion in the numbers of visitors to the site.

You can click here to view the articles I’ve written on Onward State.  The page updates itself when I write something new so be sure to visit again.

The homepage for the new blog can be found here.

Consumer Watch: Verizon

As a Security and Risk Analysis major, I like to keep an eye out for shady things that corporations and governments do.  While not exactly Penn State specific, I wanted to shed some light on an interesting situation with Verizon Wireless.  I’m going to try to keep this post short, as the details are slightly boring.  Here is what you need to know:

1. If you are a Verizon Wireless customer, Verizon will (or possibly already has) sent you a small brochure with lots of small, fine print that you’ll probably never want to read.
2. What the small, fine print says is that if you don’t take any action within 45 days of receiving the letter, you are giving Verizon permission to share your personal data with any companies that Verizon is affiliated with.
3. This personal data includes information about services you have purchased, info about calls you make and receive, billing information and location information.

If alarms aren’t going off in your head signaling that this is a little slimy and a breach of privacy, we should probably talk.

So if you are concerned about this (which you should be) do the following things:

1. Sign into your “My Verizon” account
2. Click on “My Profile”
3. Click on “View/Edit Privacy (CPNI) Settings” under the Phone Controls section
4. Select the button for “Don’t Share My CPNI” for all cell phone numbers
5. Click “Submit”
6. Congratulations, you are done

So tell your Friends, tell your Dad, tell your Mom.  Free Credit Report.com Seriously though, tell your family.  They probably don’t read the fine print either.

The New and Improved Facebook

Most Facebook users have noticed a notification at the top of their homepage which appeared a few weeks ago that linked to a page with information about the new layout design. For those of you that haven’t seen it, you can find the link to the information page here.

In the history of the Internet, websites have proceeded to transition from text to images to music and finally to video. Since social networks are inherently a hub of text, pictures, music and video, designers must figure out the best way to organize all of the information. Social networks must also fight to stay competitive in the packed market of social networks.

To do this, they must offer their users something that other social networks can’t. Facebook’s edge over the competition has always been a clean interface and continued expansion of features. As of the publish date of this article, Facebook has registered over 175 million active users, a staggering 2.5 % of the world’s population. With their growth, Facebook has upgraded their user interface while relying on the underlying foundation of their social network- people’s connections to each other. Most interface changes have gone relatively smoothly and have not drastically changed aspects of navigation or user experience.

Facebook is currently rolling out updates to their layout, which means that your profile will upgrade to the new version automatically within the next few days. If this layout design goes anything like the last time they redesigned Facebook, there are bound to be lots of angry people. To me, this anger is extremely unfounded. Since the beginning of Facebook, the social network has kept with its theme of a clean interface. The gray, blue and white color scheme keeps things simple while navigation between pages has remained very easy and clear. In fact, one of the main reasons I use Facebook is that I can’t stand Myspace profiles. Sure, Myspace prides itself on letting the user configure their profile, but how many Myspace profiles are truly hideous? In my experience, the answer is easy: too damn many.

Twitter & Penn State

What are you doing?  One million-plus Twitter users certainly want to know.  I discovered the increasingly popular social network after I noticed a few coworkers at my summer internship using the service.  Initially, I used the service to keep in touch with them after I came back to school.  Then things got a lot more interesting.  I began to discover people from all across the Penn State community.  It turns out that fellow students, professors, alumni and even Penn State services all have Twitter accounts.

The best way to describe Twitter is that it is like Facebook status updates- but better.  Messages are limited to 140 characters at a time, which gives just enough space for short and easily digestible information.  You can use the service from your cellphone, through a web browser and through any number of mobile devices.  To further explain the simple social network, I’ll test your SAT skills with a nice analogy: Followers are to Twitter what Friends are to Facebook.  Followers are people that have elected to see your updates in real time.  The “Following” category of your account lists the Twitter users that you follow, and therefore receive their updates.  Below you will find a list containing some of my favorite Twitter users around Penn State, as well as some other members of the Twitterverse.

Penn State People

@BlueBandSteve
Naturally, you should all follow me.  Like the name suggests, I am in the Penn State Marching Blue Band and my name is most certainly Steve.  During football games, I’ll post updates via cellphone about the score/conditions of the game.  During the Rose Bowl on Jan 1, I gave updates about the pep rallies before the game, the Parade of Roses and the Rose Bowl game.  Outside of football season, I tweet links to new blogs posts and cool stories around the internet.

@shcdean and @targuman
The Dean of the Honors College here at PSU has a Twitter account.  Although the @shcdean account isn’t really active, he does post more actively on the @targuman account.

Penn State Clubs/Services/Things

@PennStateLive
This Twitter account is great to keep up with Penn State News.  Penn State Live is the official online news outlet for Penn State.  Everything from research to events are covered on this website.  Following Penn State Live on Twitter is a great way to keep up to date on all your official Penn State News.

@PalmerMuseum
The museum you always pass on the way to class (but have never been in) has a Twitter account to keep followers updated on new exhibits and events.  Sidenote: It is definitely worth it to take a trip to the museum.  It is free and pretty cool.

@sraclub
The SRA Club (Security & Risk Analysis Club) keep followers abreast about the next cool event that they are hosting.

@OnwardState
The Onward State Twitter account updates you with the latest and greatest news and events around the Penn State community.

@IST2U
The official news source for the College of IST.

Other Great Twitter People To Follow

@BarackObama
The official Twitter account of President Obama.  This account remains the most followed Twitter account to date.  Though the account was most active during the campaign, I hope the President uses Twitter in the future as an avenue of news and conversation.

@CNNBRK
CNN Breaking News posts on this Twitter account when something groundbreaking happens somewhere in the world.

@NASA
To keep up with NASA missions, follow this Twitter account.  They post pictures, videos and other info from the space program.  If you every wanted to be an astronaut (or a space shuttle), follow NASA.

@MarsScienceLab
This account represents the mission to mars in 2011.  They were scheduled to launch a few months ago, but technical difficulties prevented a launch.  As this mission explores Mars, they will update the Twitter account on the fly.  Check out @MarsPhoenix for comparison.  When they found evidence of ice/water on Mars, the people following @MarsPhoenix heard first!  Pretty cool stuff.

A Final Note

I encourage you to sign up for a Twitter account.  To sign up, click here.  It is free and really simple to do.  Start following some of the above Twitter accounts to start your experience, and before long you will have a following of your own.  Be especially sure to follow @BlueBandSteve and @OnwardState.  If you have suggestions for cool Twitter users to follow, leave a comment below and I will update this post.  If you have questions, let me know in the comments.

This post originally aired on the blog Onward State on 2-3-09.

University Park By The Numbers

As a connoisseur of useless facts and information, I was pleased to find an OPP website entirely devoted to stats about the University Park campus.   I thought I might pass on some of the more interesting statistics for those of you that enjoy extraneous information.  You can find the original page here and I credit the OPP for all of this information.

Real Estate

•    Penn State UP resides on 15,984 acres of beautiful Pennsylvania land.
•    758 buildings
•    49 rental buildings
•    15.5 million square feet total
•    Worth about 1.921 billion dollars

Building Details

•    79 acres of roof
•    10,010 exterior doors
•    2,262 classrooms and laboratories
•    7,123 offices
•    300 elevators

Transportation

•    14,000 parking spaces
•    31 miles of paved roads and streets
•    23 miles of paved walkways
•    1,810 streetlights

Flora

•    11,000 trees
•    25,000 flowers planted annually

Utilities

•    50 miles of water pipes
•    2.7 million gallons of water are produced/consumed daily
•    17 miles of steam pipes
•    218 fire hydrants
•    2,091 fire extinguishers

You want one more interesting fact?  Here it is (with proof):
The Sergeant-At-Arms of the U.S. Senate has the power to arrest the President if he violates the rules of the Senate.

Note: This piece debuted on Onward State on 2-5-09.

Inauguration Tech Coverage

Yesterday, our country celebrated the inauguration of our 44th President.  During the entire day, a few stories popped up on some of my favorite blogs regarding the technology and security that was showcased during this historic event.  Here are a few of my favorite pieces of technology:

Bomb Containment Truck

It probably goes without saying that many of the agencies and forces assigned to protect Washington D.C. and attendees of the inauguration brought out some serious equipment.  What you see below {Source} is a sphere that can safely transport an explosive device.  What is even cooler is the fact that an explosive can even go off inside the sphere without harming bystanders.

Hi-Res Satellite Photo of D.C. During Inauguration

The following image comes from GeoEye, a satellite that takes ultra-high resolution imagery from space.  It currently orbits at 423 miles above the surface of the Earth, taking pictures at astounding resolutions of 41 cm.  The U.S. Government prevents publicly released imagery from being at that high of a resolution, so it is limited to 50 cm or worse.  Click on the image below to get an ultra high resolution version that you can pan around and see the National Mall in extreme detail.  Another interesting factoid is that Google owns the rights to the imagery taken by the high-flying satellite and plans to utilize the photos in their Google Earth and Google Maps applications.

The clumps of people are groups viewing jumbotrons displaying the inaugural events. You can even see Marine 1 (Presidential Helicopter) immediately to the right of the Capitol Building.

Bulletproof (President) Obama

The Best iPod Touch Applications Part I

Hello there.  I’ve had my second generation iPod Touch for a few months now and have been testing out different applications as they come out.  Until a few weeks ago, I hadn’t paid for a single application.  The post you are currently reading includes a few paid apps, but the rest that I talk about are free.  You’ll find applications on this list that span multiple categories/genres.  If you have a question, please let me know.  Expect to see a post similar to this periodically when I find good apps.

Facebook (Free)

Like most college students, I’m at least partially addicted to Facebook.  I had originally downloaded an older version of the Facebook app when I first got my Touch.  The original version was terrible and you couldn’t really do anything with it.  Thankfully, Facebook decided to fix the original version and release a new version with a large smattering of new features.  At the time of this post, the Facebook app can do about 75% of what the full browser version can do.  I suspect that in the coming months, we’ll see a nearly feature complete version of the Facebook iPod Touch app.  The only thing that bothers me about this version is that fact that the app reports that every update was 3 hours ago, even though I know it wasn’t.  This is definitely some kind of bug that everyone I know that has this app has problems with.  Nice thing is that it doesn’t take away any functionality.

The Best iPod Touch Applications Part II

This post is my second installment of the best iPod Touch applications category, and it covers all free apps.

Twitter Fon (Free)

I’ve become a big fan of Twitter recently and I have been itching to find the best Twitter app for the iPod Touch.  After using apps like Twitterific and Twittelator, I still wasn’t satisfied.  Thank goodness I found Twitter Fon.  It delivers a simple interface that delivers tweets in an organized fashion.  It breaks your tweets down into your general stream of tweets from people you follow, people that @ reply you, personal messages and a search tool.  Better yet, it loads fast and tells you how many new messages you have gotten since you last updated the software.  Twitter Fon has been slowly climbing in popularity, and I strongly recommend downloading this application.

Urbanspoon (Free)

I don’t really use this app a lot since I’m away at school most of the time.  The point of this application is to help you find a place to eat by selecting a few preferences.  You pick what “genre” of food you want to eat, what price you want to pay and what location is most convenient to you.  The best part is that you are able to lock any or all of these options to completely customize the search.  As I hinted at before, this app is most effective in large cities.  Urbanspoon appears to constantly update their list of major cities and metropolitan areas.  You can even go online and request that you city be included in an future update of Urbanspoon.

Mint.com (Free)

I just downloaded the first mobile version of mint.com.  Mint.com is a fantastic online tool for tracking your finances.  It takes data from your accounts (bank accounts, investments funds, etc.) and process the information into manageable chunks that are easy to digest.  Mint manages to accrue all of this data in a completely security way.  Unsurprisingly, Mint’s dedication to secure their services carries over to their iPod Touch app.  Although the functionality of this application is somewhat limited, it has incredible potential- especially building upon its security features.  Keep up with future releases of this application to see what great things they come up with.  If you haven’t tried the normal www.mint.com, I certainly encourage you check it out.

Seadragon (Free)

Seadragon is Microsoft’s first iPod Touch application.  I can’t say that it is useful, but it sure is cool.  What Seadragon touts is a substantial image library in which you can zoom into pictures near infinitely.  My favorite photos are the ones of galaxies that I can explore with the tip of my finger.  If nothing else, download Seadragon just for its coolness factor.  I would also recommend using a wi-fi connection rather than 3G since wi-fi is substantially faster.

My Trip To The Rose Bowl

I just got back from my trip to Pasadena, California for the Rose Bowl and I wanted to fill my readers in on how it was.  I am a member of the Penn State Marching Blue Band (herein referred to as the “Blue Band”) and the University paid for the entire Blue Band to fly out for the Rose Bowl.  Below, you’ll get a day-by-day account of my experience.  Spanning from December 28, 2008 to January 3, 2009, my trip to the Tournament of Roses was spectacular in every respect.

Sunday December 28, 2008

Members of the Blue Band had to return to State College, PA the day before we actually departed for California to get some rehearsal time in.  Since we hadn’t met as a group in 3.5 weeks or so, it was pretty important we got a good rehearsal in.  We had rehearsal at Holuba Hall (the football practice facility) at 4:00 PM and again at 7:30.  We were given the finalized itinerary for the trip and went over some guidelines for the trip during these practices.  In between rehearsals, Clem’s Barbecue catered a fantastic, if gassy dinner consisting of pulled pork, grilled chicken, mac n’ cheese and baked beans.  Many of you may not know that Clem’s Barbecue has a strong following in and around Penn State for it’s delicious food.  All I’ll say is that I went to bed that night a happy camper with a full belly.

The Traveler’s Video Guide To Earth’s Destruction

I first saw this video a little while ago in a computer graphics class.  We watched in on You Tube, but as most of you know the quality is pretty lackluster.  Finally, the video reappeared on my radar screen on another blog with the terrific news that it has been posted in High Definition.  The version that is embedded in this post is the standard definition version, but follow this link to the original You Tube page and click “Watch In HD” right below the video player.

In the computer graphics class that I originally viewed this in, we examined the quality of the fire and flame.  Generally, digitally rendered fire and water are impossibly difficult to make look good.  The sheer randomness and fluidity of both elements are challenging for computers to replicate.  My favorite part in the video are the ripples that occur just as the asteroid impact the Earth.  The scenes of burning cities are also pretty spectacular.

Throughout the history of the Earth, Terra Firma has actually experienced several major asteroid impacts.  Evidence can be found all over the surface of our blue planet, most notably in sites like Siberia, Mexico, Australia and the Western U.S as recently as 1908.  Such impacts are believed to have caused the end of the Dinosaurs.

So without further ado, I present the destruction of the Earth: