Interacting with Alumni students

Since I began my studies at a university level I’ve been hearing loads about alumni-networks and how great they are. Yet, I haven’t really seen any of them being used well in practice. Why?

The other day Chalmers’s principal Karin Markides gave a talk on exactly this topic: “We have to become more interested in our alumni students” (free translation). All I got when I finished my bachelor’s degree was a blunt boring invitation. Stay in touch, get CV consultation for free, yada yada… Obiviously they didn’t manage to get me interested.

As an Erasmus Mundus student I got an invitation for its alumni network too. Except for a survey issued by the European Commission I haven’t really found anything interesting there either. Stay in touch, get CV.. you get the point. I’m better off connecting and networking using LinkedIn, Twitter or even Facebook! 

Eventually, I’ll get an invitation for KTH’s alumni network too.

For universities, the benefits of maintaining contact with alumnis are obivous: if I create something great, it’s a boost for the university’s reputation. “Hey, this awesome guy went to our university and he created a multi-billion company. Join us and you can too!” Or alternatively, “Hey, this awesome guy went to our university, created an awesome company, now we’re doing awesome research with them. Look we’re awesome too.”

A week ago my former supervisor sent me a link to SEM.connect(), an initative by a couple of students attending the same programme I did. While I enjoy and encourage their idea, they still have to work on their presentation and implementation. There is potential here however. And they have a clear advantage over any university initiative: It focuses on relations between students. And perhaps the true strength come from the fact that it is created by students, for students.

If Karin Markides and her counterpart in Gothenburg University (Pam Fredman) want to focus on alumni students, then support and mentor initiatives like that of my fellow juniors on SEM.

(Photo by xcode @ flickr)

Tethering windows

I just read a paper on ubiquitous computing (basically, you interact with a computer without knowing it - it is natural and casual) and found the following quote:

“The X-Window system, although designed for network use, makes it difficult for windows to move once instantiated at a given X server. This is because the server retains considerable state about individual windows, and does not provide convenient ways to move that state.”

Have anyone seen any developments of this that they can point to? TED talks or, even better, where it is used in practice?

Because, I can still not, as a user, “move frequently from device to device, and […] bring windows along.”

This enlightenment annoys me.

Source: M. Weiser, “Some Computer Science Issues in Ubiquitous Computing”, Communications of the ACM (1993) 36, 7

I <3 Free Software

I’m an anti-Valentine’s day kind-of-guy. I do not believe one jippo-day should be necessary to declare our love to one another. Perhaps it helps us remember the ones and things we care about. But the ones I care about I remember anyway. So I’ll dedicate this post to one thing, or rather idea, which hasn’t been so obvious lately, but is always there luring in my thoughts: Free Software.

One of my previous profs tweeted about this campaign by FSFE.

I love Free Software!

What do you feel or think about Valentine’s Day?

Creating a new web design

Since a few months back I’ve been coordinating the work of getting a new website in place for the 22nd World Scout Jamboree. Quite a different challenge. In this project I’m not directly involved with coding or designing (luckily not the latter… you should see me draw). Thus it is also a new experience for me.

Early on in this project I wanted to establish an iterative development process. Something I’ve come to see is very valuable when developing software in general. Websites are also software right? In fact, that turned out to be more of a challenge than I expected. Probably could I have done things differently too, but mostly did I not fully understand how different people attack problems. However, after a few hick-ups we’re now rolling out the second draft in less than two weeks. And this time we’re inviting the public to give feedback too. 

The draft screens are available at http://bit.ly/wsj-design-draft.

There’s still work to do, but it is better to get feedback early such that we can incorporate it into the design faster and adapt to the real needs and wants.

Please be honest!

Somebody must have thought of this

Again on the topic of smartphones.

As I’m travelling on the bus from Göteborg to Borås I cannot avoid snooping a conversation between three girls speculating around the latest technologies. Since “everyone has an iPhone these days”, to quote one of them, and everybody can connect to Eniro, there should be no need for a number presenter.

I didn’t quite get the logic, but surely, using Eniro or Hitta.se’s API somebody must have built an app that automatically gets the name of the caller if he or she is not in the person’s address book. If not, why not?!

It’ll probably be more difficult on an iPhone due to its “restrictiveness”, but should be fairly straightforward on the Android platform. Too bad everyone is using iPhones these days.

Receipt-mania

Is your wallet too fat? Mine too. Unfortunately not due to an excess of cash (who likes cash money anyway), but rather due to the ever growing amount of receipts. For each shopping instant, be it at the local grocery store or the café or H&M, we’re always awarded a receipt at the end of our purchase.

Wikipedia says a receipt is a “[written] evidence of purchase of the property or service obtained in the exchange.” Now given today’s shopping-frenzie crowd, the sheer amount of receipts is growing fast. Lots of white pieces of paper with black ink that smudge the back of the other white piece of paper seem to reproduce by themselves in our wallets. At least in mine (maybe I’m a hamster?).

One major difference between the populations of Sweden and Portugal is that here (I’m at home in Sweden at the moment) almost everyone has a smartphone. In Portugal I’m happy if I see one iPhone in a day. Anyhow, here’s my idea:

  • At the cashier (or self-checkout cashiers which is getting more and more popular) display on a screen a QR-code.
  • The QR-code contains all the necessary information that usually goes on a receipt.
  • The customer uses her smartphone app and scans the QR-code.
  • An electronic receipt is stored in the smartphone.

qrcode

Since the information is electronic many extentions to this idea are conceivable. For example, discovering where you’ve made the most purchases the last month, how much you spent on X, or what your biggest bad-habit is. As near-field communication technologies and mobile payment options are getting closer to adoption this should be even easier to realise.

What do you think? Would you use such an app? What are the biggest obstacles?

Snaps from Australia

It all started out with a few days in Melbourne. Thanks to some friends of Vanessa’s parents we got to stay in a comfy house in the suburbs not that far from the city centre. Managed to do some shopping, but with a student budget my purchases was rather limited to what really I needed. In other words, I got a tie, a pair of sunglasses, and some new swimming shorts. All set for the beaches in Lisbon! In between random siteseeing and shopping we chipped in wherever we could on the wedding preparations.

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Wednesday was Buck’s day, or stags party, or “svensexa” as we say in Swedish. Thanks to Matt, Vanessa’s brother, we spent a day in the sun on the golf court with lots of buggy driving and beer. The first 9-holes in my life passed rather quickly, and I admit, was more fun (and more difficult) than I expected!
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After the golf we headed to the closest (not so sure…) pub for more beer and some cooling down before heading of for dinner and … you figured. More beer.

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The wedding day, aka New Year’s Eve, took a slow start in the jacuzzi. With a blasting 42 degrees C it was probably the best way to prepare for a day dressed in suits. John (the groom) and the best men: Tolga, Jesus and Brett all looked very handsome. Especially with their special cufflings!

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After a long day, and relaxing weekend with an Australian BBQ, Tolga, Brigitte and I took the car and headed south. First stop in Portsea, the across the bay and towards the Great Ocean Road. John and Vanessa accompanied us for some time. The Great Ocean Road offered stunning views making it close to impossible to study (I had exams coming up the week after returning from Australia). Other stops along the road included Anglesea, Apollo Bay, and Warnambol. From there on I took the train back a day earlier to Melbourne, to… study!

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Now fingers crossed I passed the exams despite this marvellous journey. Australia has never been on my top places to visit. However, after having been there, I can safely say that I’ll make sure to return one day.

Vanessa and John, thank you for inviting me to your wedding!

Ps. For those of you interested in all photos, send me an e-mail and I’ll give you a download link.

Social life

As mentioned last time, studying is great fun. You kind of end up thinking a lot. Usually a solution to a problem requires accessing knowledge acquired during an earlier course. But it is always accompanied with a big batch of creativity.

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Then there are times when you get frustrated. Nothing works. Weird errors are appearing out of nowhere. The worst may actually be when you realise your design wont hold, and you come to a point (a depressive moment) where it is simply better to start over from scratch. Lalith and I basically rewrote our P2P project from scratch because we reached that point. Though depressive as it may seem to have to scratch hundreds of lines compiled during hours of hard work, it is this that I call learning.

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The P2P problem was re-implemented in less than two days and this time it works. There are still improvements to be made, of course, but it works. Needless to say, these are the happy moments. The joy of seeing something work is extremely rewarding and one of the reasons I study computer science. At times, it even makes us do the /happydance or engage in “strange” nightly behaviour.
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This “Erasmus life” is awesome.