When I moved to Arizona, it was my intention to get the best education I could get in the field I wanted to study (Software Engineering). I was expecting cool professors, people I could relate with, especially with regards to technology. I expected that there would be a clear boundary between mentor and student, and this is one of the many ways UAT has exceeded my expectations. My thought of just about any school includes cliques where certain people stick together keeping others out, where there are jocks or people that feel they are superior to anyone else. Herein I describe further why UAT has exceeded my most daring dreams.

The professors do not want to just lecture, they want someone they can share ideas with, and get new ideas back. It is not straight forward lecture. Much of my classes include thinking, not just critical but also other types of thinking. The professors want to challenge me, and at the same time they want to be challenged as well. They all have their claim to fame, but yet they are accepting of students and their ideas, even if they are wrong at times, or just different. At UAT one can get a friend-to-friend relationship with the mentors, where information can be shared freely and criticism is given in a friendly manner. The professors want to be here, they want to work with students.

I have heard from several other people that I went to High School with, or were College students that their professors would just lecture, would not provide help and in general were entire assholes. When I visited a school a while back that was the impression I got as well (School will not be named). That Professors did not want to have input from students, since they studied long and hard to get their doctorate thus they must be right.

The entire friendship thing is portrayed throughout the entire student body. We are all so called rejects, people that would get shoved around by the jocks, looked down upon as a book worm, we all did not fit in with what people called normal society because we liked to play computer games, program computers and read information online all day. We did not play sports, nor looked like we really could. Even then there are exceptions off course, but what all connects us is the fact that we are all passionate about technology. There are no cliques here, not a single person at UAT is critical of someone else because they look different, act different, think differently. We challenge each other through informal debates as well as trying to prove others wrong.

A friend of mine is currently attending a school up north near New Jersey and he told me that people will not give him the time of day. He does not fit in because he is ahead of the pack, dresses differently and has a different mind set in terms of what he knows. They give him a hard time because he is not like them, and they will not accept someone that is not their equal, or even worse, ahead of them. I had visited the same College when looking around for colleges to attend, and I got just bad vibes while walking around campus. Everyone was separated, no general area where everyone comes together to all do work, or all hang out and enjoy life for a bit between classes. The students were not enthusiastic when it came to presenting their school, and the entire way the staff acted did not "feel" right.

During 2004, while I was at NYLF:Tech I had the opportunity to go visit one of the universities I was hoping to go to, but never quite got my grades up for (ended up good though). This was Berkeley in California. Yes the same Berkeley that created BSD. They had a tour guide who was energetic, was full of passion about what was taught, about the professors, about campus, about the town, and it's location. I also got to meet with faculty and ask questions and they were just like I am now experiencing with UAT, down to earth, ready to be challenged by a student, and ready to challenge them to become the masters like they.

UAT has one thing going for them over the other universities/colleges I have visited, UAT staff is HOT!. Yeah, for some odd reason they have awesome staff that is very good looking. All the staff is younger as well. They have just come from universities themselves, or even if they are a bit older they are passionate about one thing as well, technology and helping us (the students) further their knowledge. Anyone that works for UAT, and is at UAT knows what the mission statement is:

To educate students in the fields of advancing technology to become innovators of the future.

Everyone at the university embodies this mission, as well as the core values:

Besides all this, who would not want to go to a school where there is an entire contest in the student body that is Ninjas vs. Pirates. Even the staff are in on it. During a presentation given by the Vice-President of the Student Government (yes, capital since they are important) enrolment co-ordinators as well as resident life staff ran into the theatre and stared throwing ninja stars at the presenters and people in the crowd. Jokes are played on students, and students play jokes on staff. It is an equilibrium. Staff and students both have the same amount of fun, and that is how it should be, since it provides a better environment to learn, get information and also be accepted by the people around oneself.

I feel sorry for those of you that actually read all this, but then again good on ya! I just needed to get this off my chest.

I seem to be getting quite a few hits on my blog regarding the Samsung T809 and it is syncing with iSync. This unfortunately does not work, and unless Apple releases a fix, so that it will use the Samsung's supported SyncML.

iSync as of the most current version in Mac OS X Tiger does not support SyncML and thus will not be able to sync contacts or data with the phone.

Luckily there are other options out there, OnSync from OnMadeSoft will sync with your phone. Set the phone in the OnSync preferences to the SGH-D500 and from there on all should be peachy. I have used this to sync my contacts back and forth.

Good luck to all using the Samsung T809, I think it is an awesome phone!

Edit: Looking further into the problem, it seems that SyncML might not be supported on the Samsung T809, and that the only way to sync it will be to use OnSync. iSync should have full support for SyncML, at least that is what people are saying, however the reason it is not universally fixed is because mobile phone manufacturers are having their phones created with flawed implementations of SyncML or require the sending of weird data characters over Bluetooth to enable the internal SyncML server.

Syncing is still not where it should be, especially between devices, unfortunately!

I have a bit of a problem, and I just don't see how I can resolve this problem, as it includes not only me, but SourceForge, and the creator of the SourceForge project. First a little history:

In 2003 I get the idea to start up the bsdPanel project to create an server control panel that was modular, simple and yet secure. It is meant to compete with cPanel, Plesk and others. I am a procrastinator, but in 2003 I had everything added to a CVS repository and started working, slowly but surely.

It is now 2006, and while I still have not come very far, it is still my project and I am still actively working on the project, fleshing out ideas, programming and other such items.

In July something pops up on SourceForge. A project by the name of BSDPanel. Guess what, SAME NAME. It is located at http://sf.net/projects/bsdpanel/ (Not a link to not add google rank stuff). This project has the following description:

Open Source Web Server Control Panel for POSIX & Windows Operating Systems written on several languages as PHP,ASP,C++,Perl,JS.

Wow, sounds very similar to what I am doing. Except I don't include Windows. The project was created on 2006-07-30. Now, since off course I don't want my name associated with a project with the same name doing the exact same thing, I contacted SF.net and they told me they could not do anything.

So I shot this email to bsdpanel@users.sourceforge.net:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am contacting you about the name of the project that was choosen on sourceforge. The name bsdPanel has been in use for a project that I had created back in 2003 and have used ever since. I feel that it is in both our interests that your name be changed to something else. I have spent very much time and money on the name, which includes but is not limited to buying domain names, getting corporate sponsors, writing code, and am currently going through the process of applying for a trademark for the name bsdPanel.

As the bsdpanel project on SourceForge has not existed for more than a few months I am asking you to please rename the project. As proof that my project has existed since 2003 I would like to point out the SVN commits made, as well as the revision history which is available from http://trac.svn.0x58.com/bsdpanel/timeline, most notably http://trac.svn.0x58.com/bsdpanel/changeset/2 which contains my initial plans.

From the description on SourceForge it seems our projects are trying to accomplish the same tasks, I however feel that with the same name people will assume wrongly that the projects are related in some way.

I hope we can come to a solution that works out for both of us.

Thank you,
Bert JW Regeer

And yes I am going through the steps to get the bsdPanel name trademarked, and no I had not told anyone before. The answer I get back is in Russian, and the free online translators are unable to translate it:

Иди нахер!

The first part means "Go", I can only guess at what the rest means. I have posted a thread on forum.osnn.net to see if anyone could tell me what that means. It seems like it would mean something along the lines of "Go fuckyerself."

I don't know what else I can do, as I can't send a DMCA notice for copyright infringement, since nothing was copied besides the name, I don't have the trademark yet, so I can't send any notice to SourceForge about that. I am troubled that someone would take the name from my project and use it, while anyone could have come up with any other name easily. A quick Google shows that I had this name for a while now, and if one does the right thing and check if the name is even on Google or other search engines before naming a project is the nice thing to do.

One does not see me creating a new project called vBulletin or phpBB?

10th Grade
As I sat there in English class, I stared at the girl next to me.
She was my so-called "best friend".
I stared at her long, silky hair.
I wished she were mine, but she didn't notice me like that. And I knew it.
After class she walked up to me and asked me for the notes she had missed the day before,
and I handed them to her. She said "thanks" and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
I wanted to tell her. I wanted her to know that I don't want to be just friends.
I love her, but I'm just too shy. And I don't know why.

11th Grade
The phone rang. It was her on the other end.
She was in tears, mumbling on and on about how her love had broke her heart.
She asked me to come over because she didn't want to be alone, so I did.
As I sat next to her on the sofa, I stared at her soft eyes, wishing she was mine.
After 2 hours, a Drew Barrymore movie, and three bags of chips, she decided to go to sleep.
She looked at me, said "thanks," and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
I want to tell her. I want her to know that I don't want to be just friends.
I love her, but I'm just too shy. And I don't know why.

12th Grade
The day before prom she walked to my locker. "My date is sick," she said.
He's not going to go. Well, I didn't have a date and in 7th grade we made a promise that if neither of us had dates we would go together just as "best friends," so we did.
Prom night after everything was over I was standing at her front door step.
I stared at her. She smiled at me and stared at me with her crystal eyes.
I want her to be mine, but she doesn't think of me like that, and I know it.
Then she said, "I had the best time, thanks!" and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
I want to tell her. I want her to know that I don't want to be just friends.
I love her, but I'm just too shy. And I don't know why...

Graduation Day
A day passed. A week passed. A month passed. Before I could blink, it was graduation day.
I watched as her perfect body floated like an angel up on stage to get her diploma.
I wanted her to be mine, but she didn't notice me like that, and I knew it.
Before everyone went home, she came to me in her smock and hat, and she cried
as I hugged her.
Then, she lifted her head from my shoulder and said, "You're my best friend, thanks!" and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
I want to tell her. I want her to know that I don't want to be just friends.
I love her, but I'm just too shy. And I don't know why…

A Few Years Later
Now, I sit in the pews of the church. She is getting married, now.
I watched her say, "I do" and drive off to her new life, married to another man.
I wanted her to be mine but she didn't see me like that, and I knew it.
But before she drove away, she came to me and said, "You came!" She said, "thanks!" and kissed me on the cheek.
I want to tell her. I want her to know that I don't want to be just friends.
I love her, but I'm just too shy. And I don't know why...

Funeral
years passed, and I looked down at the coffin of the girl who used to be my best friend." At the service they read a diary entry she had wrote in her high school years.
This is what it read:
"I stare at him wishing he were mine. But he doesn't notice me like that, and I know it.
I want to tell him. I want him to know that I don't want to be just friends.
I love him, but I'm just too shy, and I don't know why.
I wish he would tell me he loved me… "

------

I had this stored on my laptop hidden away in a file, and I don't know why but this poem touches me. Call me crazy if you want! If anyone knows the origional author of this poem let me know so I can give them credit for their work!

So, Apple has recalled my battery because it can possibly explode. This is great. Two reason:

1. My battery does not hold charge anymore, and dies after about an our of use
2. I don't want an exploding battery

By getting a new one shipped from Apple, I like SPeedY_B will be getting a new battery from Apple which should hold charge better. And I don't even have to pay the required $130 for a brand new battery.

Just hope the wait time is not as long as they think it might be (6 weeks), in which case I will be in Arizona when my batter arrives.