OLPC Course Overview

This Winter Quarter, instead of taking a stereotypical course that provides me the opportunity to focus on my programming skill set, I have decided to take a Special Topics Course concerning One Laptop Per Child.

Originally, I was signed up to take a JavaScript course, but after talking about the Special Topic course to friends and family, I realized that signing up for it would be a good decision. I enjoy helping people, and the OLPC course provided me the opportunity to use my skill set to help students who are learning about computers. Who would think, I would learn so much more.

The first day of the course, I was pleasantly surprised that the 11 week quarter "Craziness" of RIT would not be affecting our work in this course. Our professor stressed on producing quality work that can easily be handed off to the Open Source Community.

Speaking of Open Source Community, that was yet another pleasant surprise. We would be learning about the Open Source Community and be involved with the membership throughout the quarter.

Lastly, I learned we were going to get our hands dirty and learn a new programming language called Python. I am eager to start programming in this language, as it is a HOT language in the market.


-Wish me luck :D

LinkedIn - Is It A Fake Networking Tool?

Have you gotten a job on LinkedIn? Or, has LinkedIn effective marketing campaign persuaded you that having a profile on their website will make you appealing towards employers in your industry.

I would like to think that the latter clearly describes LinkedIn. As a college student I have opened my account and connected with friends that I have on Facebook. This social networking tool is redundant if you contact those same people on facebook.

But, in order to play devils advocate, LinkedIn does give users the feeling of being professional when posting information. It is clearly not a place to post wild drunken night pictures, or to create MySpace status's like @DMALL. But I am not sold on LinkedIn.

I will say it is a place where you can link with old coworkers who you do not want to reveal a lot of your personal life to, but in terms of jobs I have yet to obtain a job through LinkedIn. Additionally, it would be more profitable if I kept in contact with those professional coworkers instead of having them as a LinkedIn friends. In addition, a LinkedIn friend who may obtain updates on my change of profile, but would never hear from me.

In conclusion, I will keep my LinkedIn profile as it is a great way to brand myself as a professional. I will however probably only return to the site to add friends and maybe update my resume. I think employers are using this tool as another way to spy on you.

In the end, I don't expect anything great from this tool, but removed features found in facebook and myspace.

i.e: Another Limited Profile :D