PlanetUSF

Just figuring out the development of my own blog YAY!

Welcome back to school everyone! So lets get to the topic on hand. So starting this semester, Fall 2008, USF Parking and Transportation Services decided to phase out the parking hang-tag and replace it with a “re-movable” sticker. The sticker is about 3″x4″ mostly opaque white with black text and a bar-code. My guess for the change, was that the sticker is a lot cheaper to produce. Its less plastic being thinner but larger in area than the old hang-tag. The official USF PTS stance is that they had “issues” with the hang-tag and the sticker makes it easier to check tags on campus.

THE GRIPE:
The instruction from USF is to place the sticker on the DRIVER SIDE lower part of your WINDSHIELD. DRIVER SIDE! The side that I need to see through. Its hella annoying! It really interrupts my field of view. Its distracting, and its probably DOT illegal to have the sticker in the driver side windshield.

What to DO?
Why not have the sticker on the passanger side? Why not on the upper middle part of the windshield? Why not on the rear windshield? How about ANYWHERE BUT THE MOST UNSAFE PLACE ON THE GLASS, IN THE WAY OF ROAD VISION.

Legal:
Although Florida statue doesn’t have a specific law regulating stickers on the windshield, there are provisions and exceptions. So your not supposed to have anything attached to the windshield except a sunpass and/or legal certs etc. They don’t mention specifically where they can or cannot go. However, exemtion B leads you to think that you should not have stickers in the field of view. (scroll down, I copy pasted the statute) Also read CA’s statue for a better version.

From: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0316/SEC2952.HTM&Title=-

Title XXIII
MOTOR VEHICLES
Chapter 316
STATE UNIFORM TRAFFIC CONTROL
View Entire Chapter
316.2952 Windshields; requirements; restrictions.–
(1) A windshield in a fixed and upright position, which windshield is equipped with safety glazing as required by federal safety-glazing material standards, is required on every motor vehicle which is operated on the public highways, roads, and streets, except on a motorcycle or implement of husbandry.
(2) A person shall not operate any motor vehicle on any public highway, road, or street with any sign, sunscreening material, product, or covering attached to, or located in or upon, the windshield, except the following:
(a) A certificate or other paper required to be displayed by law.
(b) Sunscreening material along a strip at the top of the windshield, so long as such material is transparent and does not encroach upon the driver’s direct forward viewing area as more particularly described and defined in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards No. 205 as the AS/1 portion of the windshield.
(c) A device, issued by a governmental entity as defined in s. 334.03, or its designee, for the purpose of electronic toll payments.
(3) The windshield on every motor vehicle shall be equipped with a device for cleaning rain, snow, or other moisture from the windshield, which device shall be constructed as to be controlled or operated by the driver of the vehicle.
(4) Every windshield wiper upon a motor vehicle shall be maintained in good working order.
(5) Grove equipment, including “goats,” “highlift-goats,” grove chemical supply tanks, fertilizer distributors, fruit-loading equipment, and electric-powered vehicles regulated under the provisions of s. 316.267, are exempt from the requirements of this section. However, such electric-powered vehicles shall have a windscreen approved by the department sufficient to give protection from wind, rain, or insects, and such windscreen shall be in place whenever the vehicle is operated on the public roads and highways.
(6) A former military vehicle is exempt from the requirements of this section if the department determines that the exemption is necessary to maintain the vehicle’s accurate military design and markings. However, whenever the vehicle is operating on the public roads and highways, the operator and passengers must wear eye-protective devices approved by the department. For purposes of this subsection, “former military vehicle” means a vehicle, including a trailer, regardless of the vehicle’s size, weight, or year of manufacture, that was manufactured for use in any country’s military forces and is maintained to represent its military design and markings accurately.
(7) A violation of this section is a noncriminal traffic infraction, punishable as a nonmoving violation as provided in chapter 318.

California State Statue regarding the Windshield:
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d12/vc26708.htm

Examples from other schools:

What to do???
Call parking services and tell them what you feel. I placed my sticker right in front of my rear view mirror, essentially, where the old hang tag used to be. Everyone seems to be just as annoyed as me and have been placing the sticker there anyways. Put the sticker on the passenger side or upper mid part of the windshield.

Contact the USF PTS office:

ONLINE comments: http://usfweb2.usf.edu/parking_services/survey/comment.asp
USF PTS Telephone Number: 813-974-3990

Thanks for reading, please comment,
Chris Chow
Society of Automotive Engineers
Student President 2001-05

The USF Polytechnic will be closed tomorrow Tuesday, August 19th due to tropical storm Fay. Therefore, the Library and Open Use Lab will be closed as well. We will know Tuesday if the campus will open Wednesday.

The bookshelves have been wrapped this afternoon as a preventative measure but the books will remain available if need be, until closing time at 5:00PM.

After way to many years, we finally have a mechanism that allows Blackboard Instructors to view the course as a true student. Simply called “Create Temporary Student”, this tool creates a student account based on your own NetID and password and enrolls them into your Blackboard course.

Use the new temporary student feature in Blackboard to

• See your students’ view of your courses in Blackboard,
• Check that all of your course content is accessible to students and displays as you intend it to,
• Ensure that all assignments and associated points are in the Gradebook,
• Improve your students’ online learning experience by identifying any issues before the course is delivered.

Here’s the how to get started using Temporary Student

1. Log into Blackboard and go into a course in which you are an instructor.

2. In the Control Panel, go to Manage Tools, then click on Manage Building Block Tools.

3. Find the item Create Temporary Student, check it’s box, scroll down and Submit.

4. Go back to your Control Panel. You should now see an item in the Course Tools panel called Create Temporary Student. Click this.

The temporary student is almost ready for use. Follow the onscreen instructors for logging out of Blackboard and back in as your new student account.

Blackboard is offering Blackboard Sync, a Facebook application that delivers course information and updates from Blackboard to you inside Facebook. You can find out if you have a new assignment, grade, new forum posts, etc., without having to leave Facebook. Blackboard Sync also cross-references your courses’ Rosters with Facebook to make it easier to connect with your classmates through Facebook.

Except for Announcements, none of the actual course content is available in Facebook. Facebook users receive notifications about each new or updated piece of information, complete with a direct link to the item in their Blackboard course. Blackboard Sync will notify the student in Facebook that there is a new grade posted, and provide a link to their View My Grades page in the Blackboard coursesite. The student will still need to log into Blackboard to see that grade.

Each student can only see information specific to them for their own courses. They can’t share that information with Facebook Friends or Networks and there is no way for other students to access their information through Blackboard Sync.

Professors have the option to turn individual areas off for the Course site. If the professor does not want the students to see the Roster they can disable the Roster in the Blackboard Course Site and so on.

Students can set their Privacy options in OASIS so their email is not visible in Blackboard or the Blackboard Sync application. If the Roster is turned on and a student has downloaded the Blackboard Blackboard Sync application fellow students will be able to view another students Facebook page as if they were doing a normal search in Facebook. Students will still have the option in Facebook to set up their privacy settings.

The link to Bb Sync is on the myUSF tab. Once logged into myUSF, click on the tab and look for Bb Sync in the tools menu on the left.

UPDATE: Google has released version 0.10.1, this guide is based on the 0.10.0 code but there should not be any major deviations. As always post on the Google Gadgets for Linux message board if you run into problems.

I was never a fan of desktop gadgets/widgets as most of the ones available performed horribly and had few useful programs. Google Sidebar is considerably less obtuse, it sits on the side quietly acts how you want it to. When I would boot into Ubuntu I found myself missing some of the gadgets I had found to be handy, like Scratchpad for jotting down random notes and thoughts, and Laptop Monitor for viewing system information.

Like I imagine most Ubuntu nubs do, I quickly googled for “Ubuntu Google Sidebar” which brought up a myriad of results, eventually leading me to the Google Gadgets for Linux project page. Apparently the folks at Google want their gadgets cross platform as much as I do.

The problem is the program is still in the early development stages, which means if you absolutely need your Google Sidebar in Ubuntu you must be willing to open up a console and get your hands dirty with the more intimate parts of Linux. Its not as bad as it sounds.

You should be aware of 3 things before using this guide:

1. First, dependancies. These are the packages that you will need to install using the Synaptic Package Manager (under System -> Administration):

• libdbus-1-dev
• libmozjs-dev
• libxml2-dev
• libgstreamer0.10-dev
• libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev
• libltdl3-dev

Now you need to decide which API toolkit you want to use, GTK, or QT… this is one of those issues that Unix people like to endlessly debate but is only really important to developers. Go ahead and flip a coin, I went with GTK.

GTK:

• libxul-dev
• libgtk2.0-dev
• librsvg2-dev
• libcurl4-openssl-dev

QT:

• libqt4-dev
• libqtwebkit-dev

2. Compile time! Download the binaries from here and extract them to a folder on your desktop (although they can be saved anywhere, this makes the path to them a little easier). Now open a console and enter the following:

cd /home/[YOUR_USERNAME]/Desktop/[FOLDER WHERE GOOGLE CODE IS]

sh autotools/bootstrap.sh

Once that is done, and provided you don’t get any errors, proceed and enter:

mkdir -p build/debug
cd build/debug
../../configure — enable-debug
make

If you run into problems during this step its likely that one of the necessary packages is not installed. The log should tell you what is missing.

Finally enter:

sudo make install –prefix=/usr/local

Take a moment to sit back and feel like a l33t h@x0r while seemingly random text fills your console window.

When its complete, and provided you didn’t receive any cryptic errors, go ahead and enter ggl-gtk (or if you went with QT, ggl-qt) in the console window. You should see the Google sidebar pop up and you can rejoice.

3. One last optional step if you don’t want to have to go through opening the sidebar through the console every time.

Create a Shortcut:

• Right-Click -> Create a new Launcher
• Command: ggl-gtk or ggl-qt

Autostart on bootup:

• System -> Administration -> Sessions
• Click Add
• Command: ggl-gtk or ggl-qt

Lesson one’s read was great!

From my readings I learned how important that employing excellent web design techniques will result in a successful website. Principles of Beautiful Web Design’s website was extremely informative because it briefly describes the physical characteristics of creating beautiful webpages (layout, color, texture, etc). I also learned of the free design software that exists such as Nvu, Komposer, and several others. However, may favorite reading was on the website called “Web Pages That Suck”. This is where I gained great insight on the examples of poorly-designed webpages such as Teacher’s Express, We Sell Coffee, and many others. My personal pick of a horrible website will be craigslist.com because it is not organized, clear, and easy to use. In addition, there are NO graphics or color are used on the homepage!

Last year I was honeymooning in Australia, this year I’m in Wisconsin starting a new job and still unpacking the new house.

I hate missing this, especially since my dissertation focuses on this fabulous group of passionate placebloggers, but I’ve already promised myself I won’t miss Mardi Gras next year and I won’t miss Rising Tide 4 either!

The schedule looks great, and if you’re in NOLA, you should definitely go. Those who can’t make it, go remind yourselves of how social networking saved New Orleans by reading this article by the same name.

Sunday morning , August 17th, starting at 6:00am and ending by 6:30am, Information Technology will be upgrading the software on the two backbone routers in the SVC Data Center. For the Libraries, it means that web and EZProxy access will be affected.

NetLibrary is the USF Libraries’ largest collection of online books from various publishers. While USF has not purchased the entire NetLibrary collection, the USF collection numbers over 60,000 titles with a focus on scholarly publications with some general interest titles included. Over 54% of the titles are from university presses such as Oxford, MIT, and SUNY. Publishers with substantial content include Wiley, Springer, and Taylor & Francis. The USF instance of NetLibrary
also features online audio books of popular fiction and the Pimsleur Language Program. NetLibrary also contains a searchable collection of electronic books in the public domain including titles digitized by Yale University Press.

USF’s current NetLibrary collection was developed through the collection development efforts of librarians from noted southeastern research libraries The USF Libraries have recently added the latest collection of titles selected by this group, NetLibrary VII. Additionally, the USF Libraries acquired close to 200 NetLibrary titles in support of our Association of Research Libraries (ARL) initiative in the areas of Karst, Mental Health, and Genocide.

All available titles are now cataloged and appear in our local catalog and will also be included in WorldCat Local.

For these databases and other library resources visit http://www.lakeland.usf.edu/library. Click on “Search the databases” to begin.

Thanks to Monica Metz-Wiseman of the Tampa Library for this update.

Processing began for student enrollments for Fall courses in Blackboard. Students registered for Fall courses in OASIS/Banner should now be enrolled in those courses in Blackboard. The Blackboard course sites are available, and students are now able to view and interact with them.

Happy Fall Semester.

BTW before the spoof came out I totally called it being one that used images of The Golden Girls!

The USF Libraries is testing a new catalog — WorldCat Local. This tool delivers search results from both USF Libraries collections and libraries around the world. More information is available by visiting the USF Libraries/WorldCat Local FAQ.

Your feedback is important in the development of this new search tool. Please give us your comments and suggestions through a short survey.

Please note that this is a beta implementation and that we are working with the WorldCat Local staff to resolve a series of known problems over the coming months (see the list below).

• Links to electronic resources including ebooks and ejournals are inconsistent.
• Holdings information is incomplete.
• Connections to interlibrary loan services are pending.
• Records for digital collections such as “18th Century Collections Online” are not yet included.
• Ranking of search results for Center for Research Library records are unavailable.

The USF Poly Library will be open during the following hours starting Saturday, August 9:

• Saturdays: 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM
• Sundays: closed
• Mondays to Fridays: 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM

Regular opening hours will resume Monday, August 25 at 9:00 AM. To note the Open Use Computer Lab will follow the same hours.

There is both far too little and far too much going on right now. I just started a new job doing tech support for USF, which is turning out to be an incredibly sweet gig. The pay is horrible, but the fact that I’m doing tech support and helping people (yay) without the soul crushing stress and monotony (nay), more than makes up for it. If I had to look really really hard for a downside (aside from the pay, which actually isn’t too bad for a uni staff position) it would be that I’m confined to a desk for 8 hours a day. The flipside to that is it’s a desk with a comfy chair, dual monitors, and a light workload that has me dealing with unique and interesting problems and not with irate customers who have been sitting on hold for 45 minutes after being bounced around to several different departments.

Wow!

I won the poster competition for my poster entitled Power Management for BitTorrent.

That was completely unexpected!!!

My buddy Paolo Aguilar from Mexico won second place with his poster Trajectory Control and Reinforcement Learning (robot soccer!)

Clayton Gandy and Nicole Weber tied for 3rd place with their posters.

Congratulations to everyone in the program. All the posters looked amazing and everyone did a great job!

As always, thanks a ridiculous amount to Prof. Ken Christensen for his guidance. Also, Prof. Miguel Labrador and Daladier Jabba Molinares ran the program to perfection and were instrumental in making this experience great!