Just imagine leaving for class or for work and coming home to a nice clean floor. No chip crumbs. No hairs from your pets. No nose-goblins in the carpet fibers from your disgusting roommates. I poked around on YouTube and found quite a few videos. Here’s one (some of the footage is kinda grainy) that describes 7 reasons why you need a Roomba:

I looked them up on epinions.com, and most of the models got very good reviews. If you want the nitty gritty for all the different models, visit the corporate website at iRobot.com. From the looks of things, expect to pay anywhere from $130-$400 if you’re interested.

Sounds steep, but it may be worth it to free up some time to study, party, sleep, or party.

This inability to concentrate can make it VERY difficult for me to finish my homework or pay attention when a professor is giving a lecture. While I haven’t figured out how to solve the lecture problem yet, I did discover something recently that has helped me to stay focused while doing my homework. Recently Lifehacker dedicated a post to the benefits of white noise. (No, I’m not talking about this band.)

White noise has many practical uses. Wikipedia’s entry for white noise lists a few:

White noise can be used to disorient individuals prior to interrogation and may be used as part of sensory deprivation techniques. White noise machines are sold as privacy enhancers and sleep aids and to mask tinnitus. White noise CDs, when used with headphones, can aid concentration by blocking out irritating or distracting noises in a person’s environment.

I’ve tried lots of things in my headphones to keep me focused, but so far I haven’t found something that works. If I listen to music that I know, I end up singing along to the lyrics. If I listen to music that I don’t know, I end up getting distracted by the lyrics or melodies. If I listen to ambient no-lyric music, it puts me to sleep. White noise has none of those things, so I’m starting to like it. To compare it to something, it sounds like a TV or radio that’s between stations. Like fuzzy static.

I don’t turn the volume up too loud - just enough to block out any outside noise. It also helps that I found some killer headphones. (Skull Candy Ink’d ear buds. $15 at Target.com)

The Lifehacker post mentioned above suggests three different sources to get your noise on:

1. Mac users: a nifty little free download called Noise from Blackhole Media. (Also includes pink noise for a more colorful anti-social experience.)
2. Everyone: visit SimplyNoise.com for a browser-based solution. (They have also recently added pink noise, and promise to be “adding more great features…”

With Fall semester coming up, give these options a try if you’re having trouble blocking out the world around you for a few minutes of focus.

What are the rest of you doing to stay focused out there?

Share your tips (type quietly please…that guy next to you is trying to study) in the comments.

The popularity of personalization is beginning to show as the university prepares to release a new version of the myASU page that will merge three popular sites: ASU Interactive, ASU Current Students, and myASU. This will create a one-stop-shop for students to manage their academic life. According to the project website the new site will go live on July 20.

Based on student feedback that was collected last May, the University has set out to simplify the online experience for current and potential students. Leah Lommel, Director of Academic Development at ASU responded saying that:

We are trying to consolidate the ASU web experience for the students so they get the most pertinent information to be successful in school without a lot of digging around.  It is about a personalized experience pertaining to them and their ASU. We plan to continue this strategy of student feedback and more surveys to make the experience better and more integrated over time.

The current survey is asking students to review a semi-working sample of the proposed redesign. Below is a screenshot of the new layout taken from the project website:

So far, the survey results have been positive. Lommel provided me with a few  of the comments that have been received so far.

• It seems a LOT better than the student page we have now. It’s already seeming more useful.
• I really like the set up, it’s easy to understand, it’s useful and I definitely think it’s easier to understand for freshman.

It’s an impressive start and a HUGE improvement on the existing setup. Consolidating these three sites into one location will greatly improve how students keep track of their academic career. No longer will we have to search around from page to page to register for a class or to check announcements from professors. This is an enormous undertaking, so my kudos to everyone involved. I am excited that they are asking, and will continue to ask students for feedback. This is a classic characteristic of emerging web technology; get the users involved and rely on the collective wisdom of your customer base. Here is a bit of the feedback I left yesterday when I took the survey:

• Move the “My Info”/”My Stuff” tabs on the top left instead of top right.
• When student clicks on “My Info”, it would be nice to have a customizable dashboard, similar to the look of the current ASU Google start page. Students could pick and choose which info boxes are displayed on this dashboard.
• Make an RSS version of the academic calendar so that students can add it to their ASU Google Calendar or any other calendar that supports subscriptions.
• Add a link to the ASU announcements section so that students can subscribe via RSS or email to these announcements.
• More prominent links to information about tutors/LRC resources

The project is managed by Lissa Gladden. You can track its progress here if you like.

If you are interested in providing feedback to the project team, spend a few minutes and take the survey.

(Oh yeah - one more thing - the last few questions on the survey ask about mobile devices. Looks like maybe they’re working on developing a version for the iPhone/Blackberry/other mobile devices…)

UPDATE 7/22: Looks like the site is live now. Although, officially it is not supposed to roll out until next week, I was able to view the new page today. If you’re interested in taking a look, check out the new my.asu.edu. Or, you can click the myASU button under the search bar at the top of the blog. I’ve updated the button to direct to the new version. You’ll need your ASURite username and password for access.

1. Google Calendar: While they haven’t ever released very many new features, this is still one of the best calendar tools I have ever used. I love the text message reminders for events. Using Google Calendar has become essential for me stay on top of school work and exam dates.
2. iPod Touch: After downloading the January software update, this thing turned into a lifesaver for me. I almost forgot that it also plays music. Some of the widgets/tools I use most on this incredible device are: Notes, Maps, and Google Reader.
3. Jott: The most useful applications are the ones that work in the background. The ones that blend in. The ones that offer features that perfectly adapt to your lifestyle without a major learning curve. I started using Jott very sporadically, but I bet I use it at least every other day now. I rarely visit my actual Jott account. The major uses I get out of this service is the ability to add an event to my Google Calendar, to set myself a quick reminder, or to update my Twitter status. I absolutely love this simple little service, even if they don’t get it right every time.

Those are my top three as of right now. I just saw a tweet from Kelly Sutton at HackCollege. He’s back from a camping trip and looking for ideas for a post. If you’re up to it Kelly, I’d love to hear your top three tech tools you’ll be using to conquer the upcoming semester.

[Homepage photo taken from Abizeleth's "Most Interesting" photoset on Flickr.]

I think this is the first time in my college career that I have seen Blackboard move in the direction that the rest of the online world is moving. I’m excited, but still only a tiny bit excited. Here’s why:

According to the post at Wired Campus:

For privacy and security reasons, the Facebook application does not actually pull academic data from Blackboard onto a user’s Facebook page, said Karen Gage, vice president for product strategy at Blackboard, in an interview on Tuesday. Instead, it pushes a notification to Facebook users when something is new on their course Web pages, such as when one of the user’s professors has posted grades. Then the student has to log into Blackboard to see the grade itself.

Boo. Hiss. Scratch. If you’re going to extend your services and become more “open,” why not take it all the way? C’mon Karen - push it to the limit. We should be able to completely manage our classroom experience from Facebook. I think “privacy and security reasons” is a lame excuse to give. I’m not a programmer by any means, but I read a lot of news on the Internets. So far, I haven’t seen any stories about a breach in account security for Facebook. If there are any readers out there that can give reasons for this concern, please share below in the comments.

Okay - enough ranting. I’m happy to see the progress. I hope it turns into more in the coming semesters. If you’re interested, see the official press release from Blackboard about the Facebook app. Or check out blackboardsync.com to learn more.

I’ve added the application to my Facebook account. Now I’m trying to figure out why it’s not recognizing my ASU Blackboard URL…

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that ASU is upgrading to Blackboard 8 tomorrow:

If you’re an ASU student or faculty member, check out the Blackboard Wiki. There’s one for both of you:

• ASU Student Blackboard Wiki
• ASU Faculty Blackboard Wiki

(I think you have to log in with your ASURite username and password.)

UPDATE: After publishing this post, I sent a link around to a few people. I sent it to Matthew Maurer and Amy Storey from Blackboard, Inc., as well as Ruvi Wijesuriya, an ASU faculty member that has had experience with our implementation of Blackboard’s services. I haven’t heard anything back from Blackboard, Inc. yet, but this is what Ruvi had to say:

The new FB app for Bb looks pretty cool but it is still too buggy to implement at ASU.  We have been following the experiences of other universities since the pre-release and official release of the building block and many of the institutions that run load balanced systems (like we do) have experienced problems with it.  Apart from it being unstable and having connectivity issues, one bug that is a major concern is that unavailable courses (ones where the instructor has not yet made the course available to students) are showing up in the FB module and giving students access to unavailable content (for example the answer key to a quiz that has yet to be given).  So I don’t see the FB add-on going in until the major bugs have been fixed and it is stable.

That was disappointing to hear, but not surprising. Given Blackboard’s lackluster past I could have predicted spotty performance on this new adventure. Let’s hope they clean it up so that students can start using it!

(Image was taken from blackboardsync.com. Hope they don’t mind.)

Users can now access Zoho’s slew of web-based productivity applications with their existing Google or Yahoo account. Except for those of you still stuck in Hotmail land…this should just about cover everyone.

I would encourage you to give them a shot if you haven’t before.

Zoho Writer and Zoho Creator are two of my favorites.

(I saw this today at TechCrunch and the Zoho Blogs.)

After about 15 minutes, the alarm was still going off. (Kind of suspicious too…I overheard a fellow student saying that the same thing happened during the previous class this morning. Either some students are scheming, or there is a serious malfunction with the fire alarm.)

We were told to go ahead and go home. Since we were all together, there was no way to prevent people from talking and sharing answers, so it wouldn’t be fair to let us continue taking the exam. She said that she would collect all the tests and figure out a way to grade them that would be fair.

I got about 1/2 completed with still an hour left when the alarm went off. We’ll see how it turns out.

One thing is for sure - if anyone out there is currently taking or going to take Organic Chemistry - go download the desktop version of Marvin Sketch. It’s an incredibly useful software package that lets you draw molecules in 2D or 3D. There are tools to see stereochemistry, radicals, and S/R chirality. You can also have the IUPAC name of a molecule displayed after you’ve drawn it. I wrote about this program back at the beginning of the semester, and can now say that I don’t know what I would have done without it.