Technology Expertise for Mentoring Students

The Cabrini Connections "Cabrini Madness 2010" tournament raised over $23,000 for Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection!!!

The tournament brought students, volunteers, community leaders, and you and I together in the name of a great cause - tutoring and mentoring - helping students reach their full potential, in an era where school cuts and budget crises continue to undermine the value of a public education.

Many new volunteers, donors, and mentoring advocates were introduced to the cause through the tournament.

Many others, already active with the cause, got a unique chance to meet, work, and have fun with others they might not otherwise have met.

And while only one team could be crowned Tournament Champion (GUARANTEED VICTORY edged out TEAM IMPECCABLE in the fundraising $6402 to $6120 on a last-minute donation by a professional NFL football player)... at the risk of sounding cliche.... "everybody won!!" :)

Well, that's what we, Team TEMS, are telling ourselves anyway :) We fought hard but only came in 6th place. You helped us raise $1175 for the cause! Thank you!

"Team TEMS"? As you likely know by now, Cabrini Connections Tech Club entered a team in the tournament... which was named "TEMS" by the 7th-9th graders who participate each week in Tech Club. "Technical Execution Madness Squad."

An intimidating name for a tournament. But like everything we created and learned during the tournament (The kids used their ever-improving tech skills to design logos/fliers/artwork, like the one above, for the tournament... and they took the lead in organizing two "Game Night" fundraisers)...

The name "Team TEMS" will stick with us...

Team TEMS - "Technology Expertise for Mentoring Students" - will be the name all our Tech Club projects will be produced under, henceforward.

So please take a look at this quick video that reflects on all the afterglow from the first annual Cabrini Connections Tournament.

And please accept our many thanks for your donations, which helped us make the first cut and finish in 6th place with $1175... as well as for all your support and words of encouragement these past couple months... and for coming to the two "game night" fundraisers the kids organized... (action picture to the left!)

But don't forget to check in from time to time, to this blog, and keep an eye on Team TEMS moving forward.

Because the tournament kept us busy, but it did little to distract us from the development of our next "Team TEMS" production... a video game... which builds on the teamwork, tech, advocacy, and troubleshooting skills we learned while competing in the Cabrini Madness Tournament.

We look forward to sharing it with you when it is released early this summer!

CTA Bus Tracker Update

Having previously written about CTA's bus tracker, I wanted to let you know that they're expanding their list of routes. Here's the list of routes that are currently being tracked:

3, X3, 4, X4, 6, 7, 8, 9, X9, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 20, X20, 21, 22, 35, 36, 38, 39, 43, 44, 47, 48, 49, X49, 49B, 50, 51, 52A, 52, 53A, 54A, 54B, 55, X55, 55A, 55N, 56, 56A, 59, 60, 62, 62H, 63, 63W, 67, 68, 69, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, X80, 81, 81W, 82, 84, 85, 85A, 86, 87, 88, 90, 90N, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 125, 126, 129, 145, 146, 147, 148, 151, 152, 156, 157 and 165.

As of March 2nd, these additional routes will now be available on ctabustracker.com:

1, 8A, 14, 15, 24, 28, X28, 29, 34, 49A, 53, 54, X54, 57, 65, 66, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 111, 119

Photo Fridays

ALICE

Photo credit: Maximilien Brice, © CERN

ALICE, A Large Ion Collider Experiment, will study the physics of ultrahigh-energy proton-proton and lead-lead collisions and will explore conditions in the first instants of the universe, a few microseconds after the Big Bang. The photo is the ALICE Inner Tracking System during its transport in the experimental cavern and its insertion into the Time Projection Chamber (TPC) at CERN.

Technology in the Real World

In an effort to look at uses of technology in the real world, I thought we'd look at the pairing of technology and a live event such as the Super Bowl, where technology is used not only in the game itself but also to enhance the overall viewing of the fans. From the headsets coaches use to communicate, to the computers used to calculate statistics to the HD cameras that record the contest for the viewing audience, technology is now an integral part of the game.

Here's how that integration breaks down into the details:

• A Super Bowl Twitter feed was available as away to share a little bit of the flavor of the excitement gathering around the game with the fans before kickoff. Superbowl XLIII? Meet Web 2.0.


• The superbowl.com site was designed, developed and available on the web. Online viewers were able to select from five different cameras filming the event and watch the player they wanted to see speak.


• During the game, we saw 3D commercials -- well if you had the proper glasses they were in 3D. Why bother? Well, these digitally created commercials were a good test case for potentially running 3D trailers in movie theaters in the future.


• Wireless bridge technology and Wi-Fi devices to support 4,000 journalists. Wi-Fi allows the NFL to streamline their costs by eliminating running lots of cable but still provide a reliable service. And obviously someone with a knowledge of infrastructure needed to setup those routers and networks so they could support roughly 500 simultaneous connections.


• For game production and business operations, the NFL tech team built out an infrastructure with approximately 300 computers, PCs and laptops.


• To support it all, the league and IBM used a series of four IBM BladeCenter S chassis, one at each of four venues the NFL has set up around Tampa: one for general media and PR, one for the league's offices, one for game-day media and PR, and one for credentialing and in-house security. These environments don't set themselves up.

Of course not everything in the Super Bowl requires technology -- the game still begins with the entirely low-tech flip of a coin.

Netflix + XBOX 360 =$$

part•ner•ship [noun]:

An association of two or more people who take part in an undertaking with each other, especially in a business or company with shared risks and profits.

Once upon a time, two companies formed a partnership. Two months later, one million Microsoft Xbox 360 video game console users have activated Netflix's movie streaming service. One Million. In two months.

With this service, Xbox LIVE Gold members who are also Netflix members can instantly view content from Netflix on a TV via the Xbox 360 system through its Watch Instantly video service. In the two months this co-service has been available, the Xbox LIVE community has watched 1.5 billion minutes of movies and TV episodes. That's B for Billion. In two months.

Showing movies and t.v. shows over the web has been talked about ever since the debut of the web. Bandwidth finally increased to the point where it's possible and now technology has caught up to the point where consumers feel comfortable about it. The Netflix/XBox partnership may be a blueprint for the future of streaming movies. Per Reuters:

Analysts have been watching for data on the alliance as an important gauge of the emerging market for movies delivered over the Web, particularly as traditional media companies like Walt Disney this week have reported declining DVD sales and said the traditional business for delivering home video needs to be revised.

Netflix last month said its stronger-than-expected quarterly results were propelled by growth in its Web video streaming service and that streaming was "energizing" its growth.

Google Earth Gets Wet

A new version of Google Earth has just been released which now contains an undersea view of the world. This new feature includes maps of the ocean bottom, photographs and videos of underwater flora and fauna and even shipwrecks. But no pirates, argh!

Google's partners in this new venture are the National Geographic Society, the Scripps Oceanographic Institution and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. In fact, a former chief scientist at NOAA, Sylvia Earle, once joked that Google Earth should be called "Google Dirt," because it omitted a majority of the planet's surface. That is no longer the case.

{ color: red; }

Sean, Kaylin, Cazzie and newest Cabrini Connections and Tech Club member Elijah continued on with their quest to create websites.

Old pro Sean decided his text buttons were just too ugly for his site and quickly opened up Photoshop to create some cool looking graphics for his buttons. He and Steve worked on adding in some pretty neat effects and the result was worth the effort. Sean is just owning this project, which I can see as his site is moving forward.

Meanwhile, Kaylin, Cazzie and Elijah started learning the basics with HTML. We focused on an introduction to CSS, mainly taking about background and text colors. Specifically, we discussed:

background-color
background-image
color
font-size
font-family

and how to make a defined style be applied globally or just to one HTML element.

They soon had their first web page up and then spent some time changing colors and text in their code and seeing how it would display in a browser. There were some errors, but that's part of programming and after some troubleshooting, figured out their mistakes and the correct page was soon visible.

All in all I'm very proud of how quickly they've picked up on the essentials and look forward to seeing how they turn the basics into a site; and how Sean continues to build out his design vision. Tuesday nights at Cabrini Connections are very exciting!!!

Track that Bus!

Is there anything is more frustrating than standing at a bus stop not knowing when (or if) the next bus will come? I think not. To help alleviate that frustration, CTA has developed a very handy bus tracker service to let you know where the buses are on a specific route and when they're expected to arrive at their stops.

Not all bus routes have tracking on them, at least not yet, but those that are online have tracking devices on the buses that update the CTA servers with their location information. That information is then available to you so you can plan when you should start walking to the bus stop. Or if you should actually be running ... like right now!

Since CTA doesn't assume you're always sitting at a computer, you can access ctabustracker.com either from your computer or using a mobile device (such as a cell phone). So if you're already at the stop and your phone has internet access, you can check their site to see how much longer you'll be standing there. The site served up on a mobile device is text only and the navigation is very direct -- which is exactly what you need for a mobile device. You're first presented with a list of the bus routes that have tracking enabled. After selecting your route, choose a direction (e.g., northbound) and then choose a bus stop. CTA then displays the arrival time of the next bus and the one or two after that. When I used my phone to look up the #8 southbound to see when it would arrive at Halsted & Chicago, I was shown this information:

Halsted & Chicago (South Bound)
#8    To 79th    8 MIN    (Bus 1672)
#8    To 79th    15 MIN    (Bus 1226)
#8    To 79th    23 MIN    (Bus 1661)

When you access the site via a web browser, it has a much more rich interface but similar to the mobile device, you can look up estimated arrival times for a specific stop. In addition, the browser site has a very nice mapping feature where they integrated their bus tracking with Google maps. In this map view, they place an icon of the bus along the route so you can actually see where the buses are. The buses "move" along the map as their location information is updated. You can still view the estimated arrival time by clicking on a stop on the map, but in this view you can also set up a pop-up alert so you'll be notified when a bus reaches a given stop.

As someone who frequently uses public transportation, this is a great tool, and I hope it'll be rolled out to all the routes. Kudos to CTA for not only implementing ctabustracker.com, but also for creating a version for mobile devices. If you use it, let me know how you like it and how accurate you find the arrival times to be.

Protest or Facebook Event?

The New York Times Magazine has an interesting article on the rise of political activism via social network sites. In countries that restrict or outright ban such things as gathering in a public place, these sites are the perfect venue for sharing ideas and organizing groups.

From the article:

Members coalesce around a few issues — free speech, economic stagnation and government nepotism — and they share their ideas for improving Egypt. But they do more than just chat: they have tried to organize street protests to free jailed journalists, and this month, hundreds of young people from the April 6 group participated in demonstrations about Gaza, some of which were coordinated on Facebook, and at least eight members of the group were detained by police.

I encourage you to read the full article. It's a good look at how the web is being used in other countries.

Government 2.0

In continuation of his pledge for a more transparent government, President Obama is once again turning to the Internet to disseminate information to the American public. This time the information revolves around tracking how and where taxpayer dollars are spent for the economic recovery.

In his weekly address, President Obama talked about a new website that's being setup which "shall provide data on relevant economic, financial, grant and contract information in user-friendly visual presentations to enhance public awareness of the use of funds made available in this Act."

The Act he refers to is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Once the Act is passed, the new website will allow us to track the performance of contracts that are awarded to various companies, industries, etc., and see how they are doing with our money. And if we don't like how they're handling our tax dollars, the site is one way we can send in our feedback and let them know what we think.

For now, Recovery.gov is a placeholder. Once the Act passes and is signed by the President, this website will be our source for knowing who the contracts are awarded to and a means to holding them accountable for good governance. Transparency via the Internet -- that's Government 2.0.

Downadup/Conflicker worm

Since late last year, a new malicious software program has been making the rounds of cyberspace and infecting millions of Windows computers worldwide. Known as Downadup (also called Downad, Kido, Conficker or Conflicker), this Windows worm spreads in three different ways: by exploiting a Windows vulnerability (which has since been patched); by guessing weak network passwords; and by the use of autorun on network drives and removeable gadgets such as USB keys.

The infection seems to be the first step of a potential multistage attack, although as of now, Downadup's main trick is to block users from accessing antivirus sites to obtain updates or from accessing Microsoft's site to download the necessary Windows patch. However, once a machine is infected, the worm is capable of downloading second-stage code for potentially darker purposes. It might operate in the background, using the infected computer to send spam or infect other computers, or it might steal the PC user’s personal information. "Right now it's not destroying or stealing -- it's just hanging out," comments Tom Cross, X-Force researcher in the IBM ISS division. "It's building its network of hosts."

What to do? Since this worm can spread three different ways, here's the short list what you should do:

• Make sure your Windows security updates are, well, up-to-date.
  If Windows Update is set to automatically download and install security updates and patches, you should be good to go, but it wouldn't hurt to double check. Verify that the patch has been installed by bringing up Windows Update, then clicking "Review your update history" and looking for a security update labeled as "KB958644." If it's not there, then manually run the security updates. If you're just installing the patch now,
  take Microsoft's advice and run the January edition of its free Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT), which was updated last week so that it can detect, and then delete, Downadup infections.


• Make sure your passwords, especially any network passwords, are strong. The worm relies on people using weak passwords -- dictionary words such as "password", "changeme", "testtest" or sequences of letters or repeated numbers (123123). Strong passwords are lengthy with a combination of letters, numbers and symbols. As Microsoft's article on strong passwords states: "A 15-character password composed only of random letters and numbers is about 33,000 times stronger than an 8-character password composed of characters from the entire keyboard."


• Disable Autorun and Autoplay to protect the spread from flash drives. A USB storage device (typically a flash drive although any USB device can be infected) from an infected computer will have the file "autorun.inf" at its root. When that flash drive is connected to a PC, the file takes advantage of Windows' Autorun and Autoplay features to copy the worm to any machine that it's plugged into.

Network World has the details on how to deal with this potential problem along with a general article on the worm itself.

Koobface : Social Network Virus

To anyone on Facebook or MySpace or, for that matter, any other social network, you should be aware that there is a Trojan worm making the rounds of those various sites. Called Koobface, the virus spreads by having unsuspecting users log into their accounts and click on links posted in comments that are seemingly left by friends.

The links take you to an spoofed page that pretends to offer a video download from YouTube and then states that you have to update your Flash player to view the video. Clicking on that link infects your machine. Once a computer has become infected with the Koobface worm, it spams the friends belonging to the owner of the computer by leaving comments on their profiles. And so on and so on. Here is Kaspersky Lab's details on the worm.

The virus is spreading in part because we don't always have our guard up when it comes to our social networks. By now, we already know not to click on unknown links in unwanted email. But, on a social network because you believe the comment was left by someone you know, you have no reason to suspicious and not click on the link.

So what to do? If you think your social network account has recently been used to send spam, reset your password. If you have anti-virus software on your computer, keep the definitions up-to-date and be sure to run the software often. If you don't have the software on your computer, there are some free, on-line virus scanners you can use to detect any viruses or spyware: Kaspersky, Symantec's Norton Security Scan and McAfee's Free Scan.

Gaming News - Final Fantasy XIII

For you gamers out there, Square Enix has launched their official website for Final Fantasy XIII. You'll be able to get a glimpse of screenshots, game music and the characters' bios -- unfortunately, only written in Japanese.

However, details (in English) on the Final Fantasy XIII battle system can be found on this fan site.

Windows 7 Beta Release

For those of you interested, the Windows 7 beta release in both 32-bit and 64-bit was made available for general public download as of last Friday.

Based on user feedback, improvements include, among others:

• Improved taskbar so you can set the order the icons appear; plus they're easier to see
• Jump list to quickly see the files you've recently been working on
• Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 release

Normal caveats apply: If you don't know what you're doing, don't mess with it. If you do know what you're doing, let us know what you think.

TNT Leverages Apple's Final Cut Studio

I always find it interesting when I run across articles showcasing high-end, quality work that uses the exact same software available to me. I generally think of those companies achieving their results by using fully custom software, not the out of the box kind. Well, TNT's new show "Leverage" relies on Apple software for their post-production work.

From Dean Devlin, the show's Executive Producer:

"We do the entire show in Final Cut Studio. We shoot on the Red One camera, bring it back on hard drives, and put it in our Xsan. Then every department here pulls off those servers whether it's for digital effects, sound effects, sound mixing, picture editing, color correction, everything. And it never leaves our building. This is all able to happen because of Final Cut Studio."

Pretty neat. And available at your nearest Apple store -- talent not included.

NFL Meets 3D Technology.

Last Thursday's NFL game between the Oakland Raiders and the San Diego Chargers was the NFL's first foray into 3-D broadcasting, compliments of the camera technology from 3ality Digital LLC, the Burbank-based company that put on the show for the NFL. Some kinks were discovered, e.g., satellite glitches blacked out a portion of the game, a quick camera movement or a refocusing was a bit too quick for 3-D and had viewers pulling off their glasses. But overall, the audience was mostly in awe of a spectacle that in some instances gave the feeling of being on the field, especially for the opening coin toss and an interception by Chargers linebacker Stephen Cooper.

For me, it's bad enough watching the Bears fumble in 2-D; I'm not sure I really want to see it in 3-D. However, if you want to try out the experience yourself, Fox Sports plans to broadcast college football's BCS National Championship game to 150 digital movie theaters in 3-D in January. While Chicago does have movie theaters than can show 3-D broadcasts, it remains to be seen if we're one of the cities for the BCS game.

Tech Talk

Sun Microsystems released JavaFX 1.0 last week, which is Sun's first Java release to include standardized, cross-platform audio and video playback code. This release is comprised of a new software foundation, designed to run graphically rich Internet applications, and a new programming language called JavaFX Script that's intended to be easier to use than traditional Java. The development kit currently consists of the base run-time, a NetBeans/Eclipse plug-in and a set of artifact exporters for Adobe CS 3&4.

While Java paved the way in 1995 and Sun spent much of its energy adapting Java for servers, a host of other software options for building rich Internet applications sprang up in the meantime. JavaFX is Sun's bid to take on Adobe Systems' Flash and AIR and Microsoft's newer arrival, Silverlight, along with JavaScript and its more sophisticated cousin Ajax. From the JavaFX site, here is a gallery of sample code and projects.

Pan-STARRS

Staying awake at night concerned that asteroids might be hurtling towards the Earth, obliterating life as we know it? Well, fear no more. Thanks to the smart folks at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy and MIT's Lincoln Lab, Pan-STARRS is looking out for us.

The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) is the world's largest digital camera, and it's to be used to keep an eye out for asteroids heading towards Earth. This 1400 megapixel camera sits atop Mount Haleakala in Maui Island, Hawaii, and will scan the skies looking for rogue objects approaching Earth at a trajectory that's a little too close for comfort.

Finding moving objects isn't the only objective of this project: another focus is its ability to map very large areas of sky to great sensitivity thus producing the deepest and most complete survey of the Solar System so far.

Again, to all Tech Club denizens and others who have an interest in science, astronomy, or space exploration, here's another example of how your passion can translate into a career. Not only are people needed to think of and design these types of tests, but computer programmers are also needed to develop the software necessary to run the instruments to perform the scientists' tests.

A Solar Cemetery

From the BBC, I've learned that the Spanish city of Santa Coloma de Gramanet, near Barcelona, has definitely found an unusual place to generate renewable energy; to wit: the local cemetery. Like many European cities, the cemetery at Santa Coloma de Gramanet has mausoleums, and their nice wide roofs were a perfect spot for solar panels since they were one of the few open, sunny places in the crowded city.

To date, 462 solar panels have been installed over some of the cemetery's mausoleums. It's projected that these panels will create enough energy each year to supply the needs of 60 homes and keep about 62 tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere every year. Very green, very nice. The current installation covers less than 5% of the cemetery's total surface area, and there are plans to install more solar panels.

This is another in the continuing posts on interesting ways to apply technology. But before you think this is just some crazy European thinking, let me remind you that the Obama-Biden comprehensive New Energy for America plan will help create five million new jobs (that's 5,000,000):

• by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future. (change.gov).

This is expanding a whole new area for applying technology. Think about it. And then think about which classes you'll sign up for in school.

NASA's Juno Mission

Attention all fans of science and technology: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced on Monday that they're moving forward with a mission to conduct an in-depth study of Jupiter. That's right -- space exploration!

From the NASA news release:

Called Juno, the mission will be the first in which a spacecraft is placed in a highly elliptical polar orbit around the giant planet to understand its formation, evolution and structure. Underneath its dense cloud cover, Jupiter safeguards secrets to the fundamental processes and conditions that governed our early solar system.

Why Jupiter? Again, from the news release:

Understanding the formation of Jupiter is essential to understanding the processes that led to the development of the rest of our solar system and what the conditions were that led to Earth and humankind.

The Juno mission is a part of NASA's New Frontiers Program and is actually the second spacecraft designed under that program. The first was the Pluto New Horizons mission, launched in January 2006 and scheduled to reach Pluto's moon Charon in 2015. Juno is scheduled to launch in August 2011 and will reach Jupiter in 2016.

So, to all who have an interest in technology and/or science, here is an example of how following your interest can lead to a fascinating career. Oh and by the way, software programmers are needed to get these spacecrafts launched and ready to perform the tests needed by the scientists.