Owner: Inside the Mind of Jamie Starke URL:http://blog.jamiestarke.com Join Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:50:25 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Thoughts on technology, computers, and Life Site statistics:Click here
Wiimotes, So much more then a Wii Controller 2008-02-18 08:34:47
For those of you who are not familiar with the Wii
, its the new gaming system from Nintendo. Ok, not exactly new, its been out on the market for over a year now. One of the more revolutionary aspects of the Wii is the wii mote. It is equipped with a number of sensors to detect everything from motion, to pointing direction. A while ago I came across some interesting research by a fellow named Johnny Chung Lee. Some of the research that he is doing involved Wiimotes and how they can be used in different and innovative ways. These include things such as performing finger tracking to give different a new and innovative way to interact, using a wiimote to creative low-cost interactive white boards, and performing head tracking for Desktop Virtual Reality Displays Wii Remotes. I would hav
Christmas List 2007 2007-11-03 20:23:29
Clothes- Pants: Waist 32 Leg 32- Hoodie: Zip up, color other then grey, MediumDVDs- Lost: Season 2 or 3- Family Guy: Season 6- Snatch: its a movie with Brad Pitt, not porn- Evan Almighty- Spider-Man 3- Ocean's Thirteen- Shrek the thirdElectronics- Wii?- Mario Galaxy- Mario Party 8- Wiimote and NunchuckMoney- Always helps!- Can be used to put towards books, or a new used car, or just making my life easier in general... Read more:Christmas
Hey Steve, why the Discrimination? 2007-10-03 18:09:40 I was on Facebook this afternoon and one of the flyers on the side caught my eye. It was saying that now I could get an iPhone in Canada! Ofcouse, it was some third party. What I found insane was that they wanted like $950 for them! Then I got to thinking, with the Canadian dollar soring like it is, I wonder how much the prices on the Apple Store have dropped lately. So I figured I'd check it out. I first went to the Canadian Apple Store and grabbed the link for the MacBook. I then open another tab, went to the US Apple Store and grabbed the link for the MacBook. I was a little shocked with what I found. The entry level MacBook on the Canadian Site was $1249, where as on the US Site it was $1099.This made me wonder, when the $1.003 USD = $1.000 CAD, why are we paying 13.6 Read more:Steve
, Discrimination
Canadian dollar up. Imported goods... Unchanged 2007-09-22 20:26:38
Ever feel that the local merchants are screwing you? Well, right now that would be true.At the time of the article, $1.00 CAD = $1.00 USD. But if you went to any retailers, you wouldn't know it. Most retailers still base their prices of the List price, which it seems, was made when $1.00 CAD = $0.80 USD, which it hasn't been since June 10, of 2005. Hell, even if we assume that the retailer boosts the price by an extra 5% to cover things like exchange rates, and shipping, the canadian dollar hasn't been worth $.85 USD since March 9, 2007. Lets look at a specific example. I am taking a computer science course at the University of Calgary. For this course, I have two text books. The University book store always says that they give you the best price, however, lets let the numbers spe Read more:Canadian
, goods
Owed to Amazon 2007-09-08 09:20:32
This year, I decided to try something a little different when ordering my books. I wanted to venture onto Amazon
, to see if I could save some money on my text books. This is the store of my experiences. As this was the first time I did this, I only got two of my textbooks through Amazon, as I didn't want to put all of my eggs in one basket. Meaning, if there was a problem, then I might be in big trouble.First off, here is the price comparison.Death March, Yourdon, 2nd Ed.Bookstore New Price: $49.99Bookstore Used Price: $37.50Amazon New Price: $31.49Refactoring: Improving the design of Existing Code, FowlerBookstore New Price: $74.99Bookstore Used Price: $56.25Amazon New Price: $47.24Ok, so getting both books new at the University bookstore, would cost $124.98. Getting both of them ne
University of Calgary launches emergency text messaging 2007-09-02 20:47:57
This year, the University
of Calgary
's big initiative will be to launch an emergency text message system. The system is designed to communicate with as many staff and students in the case of an emergency. The System was thought up in the light of the Virginia State masacre. Althought it can be extremely benefitial, I can also see there being some potential problems with the system. My big question is, what is considered an "Emergency"? Can we specify the level of "Emergency" we want to be notified about? There was a smilar, but somewhat slower system on campus for the last few years. With the old system, an email would be sent out to all of the staff and students of the campus in the case of any emergency. Of course, not everyone checks their email as frequentl
Video shows cars going in excess of 300 km/h 2007-08-15 07:04:43
I kept hearing on the news about some fancy cars that were driving at excessive speeds down country roads. I was reading about it on the CBC website. The article "RCMP investigate video showing cars hitting speeds of 300 km/h". Well, it took a bunch of work, but I managed to find the video. Apparently, the top speed that was hit by the group was 339 km/h. I happen to know that there is NO highway in Alberta (where the video was shot) that has a Maximum of more then 110 km/h, so this makes them approximately 230 km/h over the legal limit on Any road. Apparently, the video is designed as a promotional video for ZR Auto in Calgary. Ofcourse, now that the police are looking into the video, the story is that it was faked. By the sounds of CTV's article "Luxury cars spe
Serious Facebook Sourcecode leak 2007-08-12 09:11:50
It appears that in a server misconfiguration over the weekend, Facebook
released the frontpage source code for their website (Incase they get a takedown, I included the google cached location).So, what does this mean you may ask yourself? Well, that is a two fold answer. First off, this may make it easier for malicious users to try to take advantage of any security holes (access to private user info?). Second, lets face it, wen your getting sued by somebody, and their claiming that you are stealing their Intellectual Property (in this case, the source code), you have either made it REALLY hard or REALLY easy for them to get a court order demanding your source code. If there is any part of the code that is taken from their stuff, they'll have a really easy time proving cause when askin
I-35 Minneapolis Bridge Collapse 2007-08-02 17:15:18
I just had to comment on what a crazy situation this is. A major freeway over the Mississippi river in Minneapolis
, which collapsed. At this point, only 4 people are confirmed dead, however, that number is likely to increase quickly, as there is a number of vehicles that recovery efforts have been unable to recover as of yet. This is the best video I was able to find of the actual collapse. Somebody is gonna get sued over this, big time!
Business Time 2007-07-31 21:06:51
Ok, I know that I was planning on going on more of a professional and technical side, but I just couldn't help it. Today, I heard about a funny song from a group called "Flight of the Conchords". One of my colleges was showing me their video called Business
Time. For your viewing and listening pleasure, I have included their video.
Improving Pagerank and Site Traffic 2007-07-29 09:02:37
After doing a series of research on the Search Engine Optimization, Page Rank, and increasing website traffic, I have tried a number of things in increasing the pagerank of our site, and improving the search engine optimization and pagerank of our sponsor, Student Geeks. After reading a a lot of information on the subject, I am experimenting with if using a domain name containing the keywords will increase its page rank. One of the highest searched topics in the area is calgary computer service. For that reason, I decided that Calgary Computer Service would be desirable keywords to have in the domain name. I was lucky enough to pick up calgarycomputerservice.ca. If it works, I will report on the results.
HCI: The Next Wave of Computing 2007-01-23 20:12:14
Have you ever been working away on your computer, and just thought to yourself, this just feels so artificial? Well, I know that I have. Lets face it, working with a mouse and a keyboard isn't exactly natural. That is why it is so hard for the older generation to be able to sit down at a computer and actually make things happen. Lets face it, the user interface for most operating systems is not intuitive at all. I know from personal experience, whenever my grandmother touches a computer, she always says "Its Backwards", you know, the scroll bar, you drag it down, and the words go up. It kind of makes sense. But that is where the old user interfaces are loosing ground. There has been some increadable work in HCI (Human Computer Interaction) in the last few years. The first Read more:Computing
Microsoft's Latest Marketting ploy? 2006-12-28 22:15:45
So, I recently glanced at my Google Personalized Desktop, when something caught my eye. "Microsoft
Sends A Free Laptop With Windows Vista." I guess this is an old case of the Squeeky wheel gets the grease hey? Apparently, the way that this worked, was Bloggers that have been fairly vocal about the Upcoming Windows Vista were actually sent a Acer Ferari Laptop with an AMD 2x64 and Windows Vista. I guess the idea was, if they get "The proper hardware" then they will have a much better experience and their reviews on their blogs will reflect that. Then since they have experienced Windows Vista on an AMD powered laptop, it will help sales of AMD products as well.I have to say, from a marketting point of view, this is not a bad idea, as lets be honest here, most of the
Virus Hoax: New Virus Alert--real on Snopes 2008-04-07 06:48:08
Before you read on. Take a deep breath. Don't panic.I have received reports of messages like the following one:
Subject: virus alert !
Anyone-using Internet mail such as Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so on.
This information arrived this morning, Direct from both Microsoft and Norton.
Please send it to everybody you know who has access t o the Internet.
You may receive an apparently harmless e-mail titled "Mail Server Report"
If you open either file, a message will appear on your screen saying: 'It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful.'
Subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC, And the person who sent it to you will gain access to your name, e-mail and password.
This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon. AOL has already confirmed the Read more:Alert
, Snopes
, New Virus
Apple iPhone coming to Canada, kind of... An analysis of Canadian iPhone Rate Plans 2008-06-28 08:27:15
Like everyone else I know, I was happy when I heard that the iPhone
would be coming to Canada
, but that happiness quickly turned to reluctance when I found out that Rogers and Fido (a subsidiary of Rogers) would be carrying the iPhone. Of course, this was not really a big surprise, as the iPhone is a GSM phone, and neither of the other 2 big Wireless companies in Canada (Telus and Bell) are GSM Read more:Apple
, Canadian
, Apple iPhone
Web References to Me 2004-03-06 13:08:00
The following pages have been found on the web that reference Jamie Starke:CSUS Executives ... Jamie Starke, VP Events ...Calgary Collegiate Programming Contest results ... Lots of people to thank: ... Jamie Starke ...2008 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human Centric Computing ... Jamie Starke ...Jamie Starke - LinkedInStudent Portfolios - University of Calgary, Faculty of Fine Arts, Depa
Is Copyright Reform good for Canada? 2008-10-13 11:15:40
This webcomic () was released today, and I think it has a very valid point specifically in the context of what Mr. Prentice is trying to do to the Canadian Copyright system. Although I myself still purchase large numbers of CD's and DVDs, there are those out there that do pirate media, or purchase their media through legal means which use some kind of Digital Rights Management (DRM). The probl Read more:Reform
, Canada
Germany and Grad School 2008-10-09 16:58:25 It has been a very busy month (and a bit). I started Grad school September 1st, and I have already been to Herrsching, Germany
(a suburb of Munich), in which I presented some of my work at the Visual Languages and Human Centric Computing.I have also started working on my research, including a fun Ethics Application. Unfortunately, All of these things have left me with Very little free time to Read more:School
Shaw Student Promotion = SCAM! 2008-10-29 21:36:48
For the last year, I have been on one of Shaw's Student
promotions, which in and of themselves they are pretty good. I have been getting Highspeed internet and Basic Cable for $41.16 a month, which isn't bad. Sound to good to last? Apparently, because of a mistake by one of their Reps, I'm now facing a greater than 65% increase on my monthly bill.This Fall I decided it was a pretty good dea
And the answer is.... 2005-09-09 01:43:21
So I just happened to be catching up on all the blogs that I read on a regular basis. Its sad I know that I'm reading blogs, and myself blogging at 12:45 at night. I just happened to come across my sisters blog where she said that she had successfully finished the defence of her thesis. This raises two major questions that I'm sure are on everybody's mind.First and foremost, When are you and M Read more:answer
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