Uhm… help?

After my laptop + extern HD crashed I was in panic. Cause I was just about to finish my school project and we only had one week left. Right after the presentation I finally found my new laptop! Sony Vaio VGN-N21E with the new Windows Vista Premium on it.
When I came home I was just a little kid who got a new toy! I couldn’t wait any longer to start it up and Install my Desing tools and Must have Games. Not that need it but I was just looking at the “How do I install my Sony Vaio” papers. It was pretty nice designed, and very user friendly. But at the bottom of there was this series of Icons wich confused me a bit.

If you where a total computer newbie… What the hell would this mean to you? Something like:
Press “windows key” + “Function 1 key” to get a random question.
Press “windows key” + “Function 1 key” to get a suprise.
Press “windows key” + “Function 1 key” to launch a huge questionmark.
Press “windows key” + “Function 1 key” ,…. we don’t know what it’s for either.
Press “windows key” + “Function 1 key” If you are deperate for some help.
Press “windows key” + “Function 1 key” to get some random info.

The strange thing is that there where no additional explanations about these icons. Not even a title like “How to activate the help function”. They just asume that people know what this is. The fun part is, everybody (people who do know how to use a computer) think this will open the Windows Help function. You’re wrong! It’s the “Sony Vaio help function” for all your Vaio settings.

Are you taking your study serious?

I don’t know if I am anymore…
After 3 months of great teamwork, and a huge climax at the presentation, finally resulted in a simple B+! Was this worth it? I don’t know… My feeling says hell no!, but in my mind I think, “f*ck the grades, grades don’t mean sh*t, I just wanna do my thing, my way, learn alot and get my diploma so I can get a desent job.” So what is right? Sure a B+ is fine… Our teacher said: “but a B+ is a great score!” But the whole team was like: “You can’t fool us Carolien, a B+ is a score like, yeah it was fine, it was sufficient. We did not deliver a sufficient product, we did a good job! Right? So we deserve a good score.”

I know it sounds a bit over reacted, but it really was a kick in the nuts today when we got our score back. Disapointed once again by the CMD system. Anoher great example of how imbalanced the school really is. Teachers don’t know how to give grades in a consistent way so it’s clear what the system is based on. Some teachers will tell us, we look at your skills and how much progress you made, and we will give you grade acording to that. Others say, all students are equal and we expect you to deliver these minimum reqirements. Or even worse, they mix it up so it becomes really unclear what they want.

So why is all this fuss about a grade? because it’s not fair! I don’t like to look and point my finger at what others have done. But in this case I have too, it’s the only way to show that this system is broken. Here are the facts: 1 class, devided in 5 teams. 3 teams got a C or worse. 2 teams have done a “good” job. One of those two was excelent in every way. So they got a A+. ( I can agree on that, because they did a good job. That’s all good) the other team (my team) also did a really “good” job acording to our teacher, but we got a B+ because we weren’t that much experimental. If someone says that to you, you will start thinking, about the other team. Were they that exmerimental? were they that much more creative in their solutions?! (hmm another interactive world map, yeah that’s really creative, only have seen 6 other projects just like it!) And at that point something snaps in your head…

NO! they were not that much better that they deserved a whole point more than us. They did a great jod, yes they did. But we weren’t any much lesser. And the even more frustrating part is that, teachers can’t say why (not one good argument that is), and don’t see how much effort was been put in our project. Not only did we deliver a great product but the way we made it was so great. The whole process of creating something, the whole team work and the fact we did achieve all goals was something we did not see at any other project group. They look with different glasses at the teams, and they are not on one line. In class they tell us this, but ater the presentation they make a tripple back flip with a perfect landing and tell us something completely different.

So my conclusion is… I’m not gonna take my teachers that serious anymore. I do my assignments and projects the way I think they should have been done and get my ass out of there quick! Grades are just a toys for a teacher so they can show how much power they got. They will not effect me anymore from this day. It’s my study, it’s my future so it’s my choiche, how and what I learn from this.

As for my team mates, I would like to thank you all for participating and making this project to a great succes. We don’t need teachers to tell us that. We did! So thanks, for all efforts, all the fun moments and inspiration. Let’s celebrate we don’t give a f*ck!

Comic tragedy

After more than 27 years, Juniorpress is not gonna publish anymore Spiderman or X-Men comics. You could have seen it comming, because there where only a few 1000 readers in the whole country… wich is way to little. The worst part about this, is that my dad is devastated. He collected them from day 0ne. This was his passion… Walking alone to the book store and getting a new comic book of the X-men or Wolverine or Spiderman. He didn’t have a subscription because he enjoyed the moment of buying the comic in the store and walking back home with pride. Now that Juniorpress isn’t going on anymore with the marvel comics he just don’t know waht to do next. And it hurts me too in a different way.. I grew up as a little kid watching the illustrations of these great comic books. It’s really sad that they are not comming back anymore…

It was time…

Finally it happend to me too. My freakin laptop crashed and I can’t fix it. Well, shit happens, aslong as you have backups! But WTF?! My external HD crashed too! No I always get the error: “Can’t read USB 2.0 media, possibly infected or broken”.

So what can I do now?
I can’t work on my Enviu project
I can’t work on my VID assignments
I can’t work on my IAD assignments
I can’t finish my K&M assignments
And I can’t do anything except for staring at my screen loading… nothing.

F*CK!

The Burning Crusade

I wasn’t sure if I should make a post about this. But now that I’ve experienced it myself I think I should. Without a doubt, World of Warcraft is a super game. The freedom, the adventure, the whole world around you is amazing. But since 16 januari 2007 something really changed. The expansion set “the Burning Crusade” has been released. Players all over the world have been waiting for this moment. And damn was it worth it?! Hell yeah! Truly unbelieveble what Blizzard did. Outland is huge! and is great too walk around. You really get the feeling you are in a broken world and you have to survive no matter what. That’s the part for all who already had a level 60 character. But there’s more! Two new races with each his own capital city. They are not only really fun to play because they look damn good and they have some new abilities. But if you really follow the quest line from lvl 1 to 20 you’ll be supprised how much is out there. The storylines are great and really match with their faction. Too everyone who loved the World of Warcraft game but doesn’t have the expansion yet. Save up some money and just buy it! It’s really worth it and you can’t miss this. If you are still having doubts, come down and visit me mates. And I’ll be happy to let you play a bit and show you some fun stuff of the Burning Crusade content.
I can spend hours and hours talkking about it, but you have to see it yourself.

Typical CMD

Nice Banner isn’t it?
I just really had to laugh last friday. CMD isn’t known for it’s great planning skills. And time after time they prove why… This time I was just outside.. waiting for my next class. But suddenly my phone goes off. It was my class and team mate Niek who asked me if I could come up stairs directly to make a banner. And it had to be done within 1 hour. I just went up not knowing exactly where it was for or about. When Niek was there waiting for me he explaind it to me what was happening.
CMD was responsible formaking to extra banners to actract more students to their school during the “Open dag”. But the Noobs of the CMD planning, didn’t had any banners and they were running out of time. So they just ran into the lounge and asked if some students wanna help them out. And Niek awnserd: “Yes pick me! pick me!” So Niek called me to help too.
I thought it was fun so yeah let’s do it. The strange thing is, a school like CMD should have propper photo’s, logo’s and all that. But it ws nowhere to be found. So we had to improvise a bit and this is what eventually came out of it.
By the way, Niek is fuckin’ fast in flash! and he told me how to use the ease function.
Thanx mate!

(hey the banner says CDM instead of CMD! yup, it’s a new study that we had to promote. So it wasn’t even for own school! Next time please let us know a bit earlier if you need help CMD!)

Study Guide also known as TFU

Like every other school we also have a studyguide. This guide contains all the information about your study such as rules, courses, etc. etc. Now, I got one teacher who also happen to be my mentor for this year. She is a woman of (lots and lots of) rules.. she lives and acts exactly what the rules say. That’s okay by me, but she also has the habbit to redirect students without hasitation to the Study Guide. Apparently this is her holy bible of the CMD. This little book contains all we need to know according to her. But last time she said something that made me laugh, really, really hard! Our respected mentor told us that we should remember everysingle out of this god damn gift of hell. Seriously… every student probably read this little book about our study.. but nobody remembers it and nobody ever touched this thing again. There is a reason for this…

1) there is too much information wich isn’t any of our concern.

2) the given information is too abstract and there are no given examples for any.

3) The information isn’t that current as it should have been. Alot of information in this guide is already changed.

4) There is not 1 sign in this guide that this is a creative study. Not even 1 illustration or whatever… How the hell are students gonna recognize this as “their study guide”.

5) It’s a little book, and students loose anything that is small…

Possible solution: Make it an online study guide! this way you can update it and nobody will ever loose it again. Once you get all the basic info online, you can fill it up with some good examples over time.

P.S. TFU stands for Total Fuck Up

Zoo Interfaces!

This is a picture of a media booth in Artis (Zoo in Amsterdam). Looks cool and trendy… the information on the screens was about the evolution of earth and the flora and founa of it. But there’s something really wrong with this… I stayed here for a couple of minutes with my study mates. and look at their natural reaction on how to use this media wonder.That’s right! they are standing… Why the hell are those chairs down there? For people who are too tired to stand up? for comfort? because they look so fantastic? Nope… Why are they here? Nobody knows… Look at the last picture when I asked my class mate Johan to sit down on a chair.

If he sits down there he can’t see what’s going on, on the computer screen. He can’t even navigate desent because he couldn’t see what he was doing… Solution? higher chairs or lower the media booth, or just remove the chairs.

Sony’s revolution

Nope, I’m not talking about the Playstation 4 or whatever… No, this is about a new technology form, wich you might recognize from startrek or minority report. Lots of data in glass/plastic look a like floppydisks, and they don’t only carry the data but you can use them as your interface on a special board. They even communicate with each other, when you connect them.

Mobile Future

This is how Nokia sees the future for moblie devices. Ofcourse there’s alot of touchscreen and browsing miracles in this movie, but the most inspirating part is how they show, how to view larger pictures or maybe something lika a web-page. Not just by using a scroll-bar or your mobile device buttons, but by moving your phone up and down. As if you are scanning the  page for real.