Archive for the 'Ideas' Category

GetchaBooks

Published on August 17, 2010 in Ideas and Tufts. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

I’m proud to announce that my textbook comparison shopping website, GetchaBooks, has officially re-launched for Fall 2010. GetchaBooks is the one-stop-shop of textbook purchasing for college students at ten select schools. If you’re a student at one of these schools, a thirty-second process of selecting your courses is all that separates you from the most informed and understandable breakdown of textbooks for those courses, complete with recommendations on where to buy them across the web.

In the last six months, the GetchaBooks team has redesigned almost every aspect of the site, adding features and crafting a user experience that finally makes the awful process of textbooks purchasing pleasurable. After hundreds of hours of Skype calls, instant messages, whiteboard sessions, code sprints, debugging spurts and usability testing, I’m happy to say that the experience is no less than awesome.

I’d like to thank my friends and family, whose understanding, patience, and feedback were crucial during the development of GetchaBooks. I can’t count the number of social gatherings I missed to work on this project. Aware that it means a lot to me, they’ve always excused my absence and even offered to help.

So, what are you waiting for? Check out GetchaBooks, and let me know what you think.

Simple

Published on January 2, 2010 in Ideas and Site News. 2 Comments

When I was learning HTML back in middle school, I discovered a Dynamic HTML snippet that let me change the user’s mouse cursor to whatever I wanted! With the power of copy and paste javascript, I had a site more hideous than a typical Myspace profile, long before Myspace hit the scene.

Unaware of the atrocity I had slapped together, I went to a forum (remember those?) to ask for feedback. I was summarily told that my site was not worthy of 1999, much less 2004. It was the Internet, so people were pretty mean, but one person’s constructive feedback has stayed with me.

Just because you can do something, it definitely doesn’t mean you should.

In reflecting over the last decade in my last post, I remembered that advice. As I conjured up the mental image of the worst website I’ve ever made in my life, I took a look at this site. I saw a useless sidebar with unnecessary graphics, confusing static page titles, and an inconsistent site methodology. I went back to the drawing board, updated WordPress and my trusty K2 theme, and hacked away at CSS and PHP until I came up with the design you’re looking at now.

I’ve thrown away as much template text, promotional material, and other crap as possible. I upped the size of the beautiful Lucida Grande that graces these pages, and completely ditched the sidebar. I’m pretty happy with it, and can’t believe I didn’t go simple sooner. In writing, design, or any other art I can think of, simplicity is king.

Reflection in Decimal

Published on December 31, 2009 in Dover, Ideas, Ricky and Tufts. 0 Comments

People have a lot to say about the upcoming year. I’ve been monitoring the #10yearsago hashtag on Twitter. If you cut through the noise, there’s a lot of interesting stuff there – examples of humanity. Collectively, we like to reflect on change and the passage of time, especially when we hit our arbitrary big base-ten milestone years. There’s no harm in that, and I am no different.

Ten years ago, I was nine years old. My family had not yet moved to Dover Plains or even to Carmel, the community I lived in before moving to Dover. I spent most of my time playing video games, and struggled in school. I had a hole in my ear drum that prevented me from taking normal showers or swimming with my friends. Never had I operated a modern personal computer. A good deal of my mental energy was absorbed by jingles on TV, some that celebrated a new millennia.

In these ten years, I studied, worked, laughed, and cried. I took hundreds of standardized tests, met many people, and spoke dozens of million of words. I grew closer to some people, and drifted away from others. I had my fair share of heartache, but publicly and unashamedly fell for a beautiful woman at Tufts University.

Although that brief story seems pretty special to me, I bet it’s unremarkable to you. With some luck, your story has similar themes of progress and development. After all, a lot happens in ten years. In these last ten, many of us became completely different people, with something still recognizable from our pasts.

I love looking back every once in a while. It’s comforting, and I benefit as a person by remembering who I was, where I came from, and who helped me get where I am; it’s that benefit that pushes my evangelism of journaling.

If you’re not already taking a few moments a day to jot down what you’re thinking, you’re not really getting the full benefit of these collective, reflective moments. Although I’m not an expert on memory formation, I know you’re missing a lot if you don’t write stuff down. To reflect on what remains in our heads over a long period is incomplete; leave notes to yourself to piece together a more complete narrative.

Entering this new year, give journaling a shot. If you’re celebrating the dawn of a new decade tonight, remember to remember it.

Not So Bad

Published on September 8, 2009 in Ideas. 0 Comments

There are few moments that draw me out in such a way as to make me wonder if people can be misled to believe anything. The controversy over President Obama’s speech to the schoolchildren of of the United States today is one of them. Avoid the hype and the analysis, and avoid being caught up in the President’s soaring rhetoric. I highly recommend reading the prepared remarks.

Those remarks are quoted after the jump…

Continue reading ‘Not So Bad’

My Favorite Video from my Childhood

Published on March 18, 2009 in Ideas, Links and Ricky. 0 Comments Tags: , .

When I was really young, like, pre-school young, I had an amazing obsession with Phil Collins, which has only resurfaced in recent years.

Today, I found my favorite video from when I was a kid – it’s Phil Collins’ final song on his Farewell Tour. He’s performing Take Me Home, undoubtedly one of the greatest songs ever written. I remember watching this video over and over again on a VHS tape. To me, it’s inspiring.

My point in writing this post isn’t to get you to listening to Phil Collins. Rather, I urge you search YouTube for things you loved as a kid. You’ll be amazed and delighted at what you find.

The Talents of Every American

Published on February 25, 2009 in Ideas. 0 Comments Tags: , .

It is our responsibility as lawmakers and educators to make this system work. But it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it. And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country – and this country needs and values the talents of every American. That is why we will provide the support necessary for you to complete college and meet a new goal: by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.

~ President Barack Obama, last night.