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IT professors leaving UM for Tilburg

Bad news: According to what I heard on the radio today, several IT professors of the University of Maastricht are leaving. A 5 million Euro artificial intelligence center at Tilburg is supposedly the reason for their action. And now there appears to be a shortage of professors for the fall semester of 2008.

The Personal Schedule – 2 steps forward, 1 step back

Good news everyone, we finally have a personalized schedule for all students and the faculty! My excitement, however, lasted as long as I did not actually see it. Don’t get me wrong, the schedule is a really nice tool. Yet, the layout and functionality make me want to have back the good old excel sheet telling me my group and tutor (name) explicitly at one glance.

I know we just started with the schedule and there is (hopefully) going to be some improvement. To my mind, a parallel strategy should have been followed: Introduce the personalized schedule, while still posting the old schedule as an Excel sheet. Once the personalized schedule works as it should the Excel sheet can be abandoned.

Just have a look at the picture and spot the mistakes. Okay, so, although the time is stated in the lower right corner of every box, the box does not extend to the right time, but always misses a quarter of an hour. Further, it is great that you tell me the week number (25/26), but who honestly looks at the week number?! I need a date, because I make my plans according to specific dates, not the week.

When using the “Course Timetables” (see picture), I can see all the different tutorials, but only few of mine. What is purpose of this view? And in “My timetable” I have to select week by week. Well, enjoy doing that when you have 8 weeks of classes!

Okay, so let’s say I would like to print the schedule. In Opera 9.27 I cannot even see half of my schedule – even when using the Print View, because the upper frame uses about 50% of the page. In Firefox 2.0.0.14, the individual SCREEN VERSION is better than the PRINT VERSION for printing, because it displays the schedule magnified. Using the Internet Explorer and printing only the selected frame, the view of the timetable is adequate. However, the text is so small that in order to read it, I would have to print a poster.

You can choose between three Start and End times when displaying your schedule. But if all my classes are from 13.30 – 15.30, I could not care less about having no classes between 8.00 – 13.30 and between 15.30 – 18.00. Why doesn’t the schedule only show me the timeframe of my classes? An Excel export feature would also be nice. We would also appreciate different colors for distinct classes.

This project is still in its infancy; I am aware of that. I am also aware of the fact that it takes time to implement changes and that it took a lot of effort to develop this schedule. However, if the project is still in beta status, then please do not discard the old schedule format immediately.

Multi-thousand Dollar Interactive Whiteboards for 45 Euros at UM

Sorry for not posting new stories lately, but I had been busy reading phone books. Uuups, I should not do that (Point 3). Well, I thought; and I have been thinking about the future of using more technology at the University of Maastricht. I know that not all faculties have - unfortunately - equally many beamers (not this beamer, although it would certainly be nice for every faculty to have one), yet did you know that we could get interactive whiteboards for just about 45 Euro a piece?

All we need, is the following:

- Wii Remote = 40 Euros

- Infrared LED <= 1 Euro

- Push Button Switch = 2 Euro

- Pen (case) and some easy soldering work = 2 Euros

See the Multi-thousand Dollar Interactive Whiteboard for 45 Euros in action here.

Johnny Chung Lee, a student at Carnegie Mellon University, has also some other interesting uses for the Wii remote. Check it out at his website. He also shows you how you can easily turn your screen into a Virtual Reality Display by using a Wii remote. I am surely going to try this out - and if successful post the results here, of course.

So, what else are we (not) going to see in the future?

The Future

- Aptera - the car of the future.

- The disappearing car door - This concept has been developed in the 80s, yet had been discarded. This is not fake; it is real.

- CyberWalk - one step closer to Virtual Reality Environments.

- Self-reassembling robots - if that were only possible with cars.

- The Search Engine that understands you - so far you can only search Wikipedia articles, though.

- Dmitri Gaskin - explaining jQuery.

- An Electric Car beating a Porsche and a Ferrari

- Finnish Polka 1: Loituma. People really sing that. And there are is a techno version by BassHunter and someone else available as well.

- Finnish Polka 2: Eläkeläiset - they cover almost everything, from Smells like Teen Spirit to Barbie Girl.

Not the Future

- ICat - please get a real pet.

- Flying Cars - The Moller SkyCar is a waste of energy. But hey, it's only 324,000 GBP. If you had that kind of money you would merely have to figure out how to get a license for it and where to take off and land.

- Skateboard Car

- Chessboxing

- Funky but still useless car features

In Between

- Super Icat - I have no idea what this guy is talking about, but it certainly looks interesting.

- Tresling


So, will you assemble the Interactive Whiteboards if UM agrees to buy the components?

Reduce your stress level

As a student of the Maastricht University University of Maastricht you have to read a lot. And with a lot I mean phonebooks. Reading phonebooks causes stress. Stress causes your productivity level to go down as fast the US economy. Now, to mitigate these effects you could laugh. This will not help the US economy, but according to about.com it will almost cure every itch there is.

Here are ten ways of reducing your stress level:

10. An honest college ad.

9. When war calls, it is time for a phone fight.

8. How to handle annoying bluetooth guys?

7. Survival of the fittest M&M.

6. Don't judge too quickly.

5. I will see you in h*ll Pachelbel.

4. How to greet your friends.

3. You suck at Photoshop.

2. And one more thing: The Apple I-Rack.

1. The Matrix Spoof (MTV Movie Awards).


Extras
- Spiders on drugs.
- Demotivational Posters.