First of all I'd like to thank everyone that partook in my birthday celebrations.From well-wishers, to birthday huggers, to happy birthday singers . Every little bit helped make this birthday awesome.
Cutting to the chase, I'm 20 years old now and I think I've found a real happy place. I'm learning well, have amazing people around me everyday and am keeping healthy.
Hopefully that will continue.
Here's to a great 21st year.
Innovating Life
~ASKalburgi
Sunday, 8 March 2015
Monday, 23 February 2015
Meditating on the application of applying meditation to an application
There are a lot of people out there who think that meditation is going to be the next big thing in our lives.
Knowing this, someone needs to be smart enough to get rich off of it.
Maybe I'm just thinking about it from the wrong direction?
Meditation is so self, how can you make content for it? It is immersion itself, how can you make an immersive interface for it?
Who ever figures that out....
Innovating Life
~ASKalburgi
Monday, 2 February 2015
HackED 2015 - University of Alberta CompE Club Hackathon
Yesterday (and technically the day before) was CompE (Computer Engineering) Club's annual 24 hour long Hackathon.
For those of you who don't know, participants of the Hackathon had from 12 noon on Saturday to 12 noon on Sunday to start (from scratch) and complete a project of their desire. Most of these projects were software applications, but there were various devices and sensors involved in some of them.
For our project, my partner and I created a Google Chrome Extension that would allow users to Tweet directly from the Chrome Omnibox (the box where the website url's show). It took us all night because we kept running into problems authenticating users with Twitter. The reason for that is Twitter didn't like the fact that it was a Chrome Extension trying to access user's data and blocked us. Eventually we found a work-around that involved the users to give use there data directly. The extension allowed users to Tweet an average of 15 seconds faster on the desktop. And because you don't have to open Twitter to Tweet, you can post without getting distracted by the Tweets of those you follow on Twitter.
Hackathon's are kind of weird in the fact that the judging of the projects does not require you to show any of the code. Instead it's all about the presentation and the demo. My partner and I appropriately named our app "ShoutBox" (what a marketable name!) and the presentation that followed was much the same. Some how we were the last to present and immediately picked up the energy in the room with excited shouting and wow-factor. In other words I used my ridiculously loud voice and personality to amaze the judges into giving us third place. Third place! We had a really good idea, really good implementation and topped it off with a really good presentation. I'm really proud of us.
The app ran on a Node.JS server we had on my partners laptop so it's unusable now, but hopefully in the summer I can work on it to get it to the app store. After 24 hours of hacking it's clear to see what we have to do. Because Twitter wouldn't give us the proper oauth tokens, I just have to create a separate website that communicates between the extension and Twitter. Obviously it won't be as easy as that, hopefully I'll have time to do it in the summer and all of you can have ShoutBox!
Even though I stayed up all night and struggled so much and now have loads of homework to do, it feels great to have competed. Again, I'm really proud.
Innovating Life
~ASKalburgi
 |
| So happy to be in CompE Club, such a good decision |
For our project, my partner and I created a Google Chrome Extension that would allow users to Tweet directly from the Chrome Omnibox (the box where the website url's show). It took us all night because we kept running into problems authenticating users with Twitter. The reason for that is Twitter didn't like the fact that it was a Chrome Extension trying to access user's data and blocked us. Eventually we found a work-around that involved the users to give use there data directly. The extension allowed users to Tweet an average of 15 seconds faster on the desktop. And because you don't have to open Twitter to Tweet, you can post without getting distracted by the Tweets of those you follow on Twitter.
 |
| My partner and I on Saturday afternoon. |
 |
| After winning on Sunday with another CompE club member |
Even though I stayed up all night and struggled so much and now have loads of homework to do, it feels great to have competed. Again, I'm really proud.
Innovating Life
~ASKalburgi
Monday, 19 January 2015
Geer Week
Geer Week is an week long competition between all the engineering discipline clubs. There are a bunch of events which pose a challenge and in each event we, as a discipline, need to try to beat the other disciplines in getting the most amount of points. The discipline with the most amount of points at the end of the week is named Geer Week Champion!
I, of course, represented Computer Engineering club and participating in a lot of the events throughout the week. Most days there is one small event in the afternoon and one larger events in the evening (an event being bigger or smaller depending on how many points can be gained from it).
The afternoon events consist of timed races most often, such as the toboggan race, the keg race etc. These including events such as small poster and snow sculpture are considered small events.
The evening events are a lot more fun and are worth a lot more points wise and consist of activities such as a scavenger hunt, "Are you smarter than a first year", Battle of the Bands, and Dance Troupe.
It's completely fair to say I scavenged, solved first year puzzles, and danced my way to one of the best weeks of my engineering experience. And I haven't even included the best part, socializing!
I meet so many people and furthermore, became so much closer to other, older Computer Engineers. I can't believe what I was doing all last semester not getting to know these CompE's better! Most of them will be unfortunately graduating this spring but it's safe to say getting to know them was a real blessing.
I love being in CompE
Innovating Life
~ASKalburgi
PS. CompE club is the 2015 Geer Week Champion!
I, of course, represented Computer Engineering club and participating in a lot of the events throughout the week. Most days there is one small event in the afternoon and one larger events in the evening (an event being bigger or smaller depending on how many points can be gained from it).
The afternoon events consist of timed races most often, such as the toboggan race, the keg race etc. These including events such as small poster and snow sculpture are considered small events.
The evening events are a lot more fun and are worth a lot more points wise and consist of activities such as a scavenger hunt, "Are you smarter than a first year", Battle of the Bands, and Dance Troupe.
It's completely fair to say I scavenged, solved first year puzzles, and danced my way to one of the best weeks of my engineering experience. And I haven't even included the best part, socializing!
I meet so many people and furthermore, became so much closer to other, older Computer Engineers. I can't believe what I was doing all last semester not getting to know these CompE's better! Most of them will be unfortunately graduating this spring but it's safe to say getting to know them was a real blessing.
I love being in CompE
Innovating Life
~ASKalburgi
PS. CompE club is the 2015 Geer Week Champion!
Tuesday, 13 January 2015
Microsoft Interview
I got an email from Microsoft to join them in a phone interview next week!
I could go to any number of locations in the States if I get the job, but first I would have to make it past this phone interview and an in-person interview.
I'll be preparing for this!
After "Innovating Life" for so long, now life is getting more exciting.
Innovating Life
~ASKalburgi
I could go to any number of locations in the States if I get the job, but first I would have to make it past this phone interview and an in-person interview.
I'll be preparing for this!
After "Innovating Life" for so long, now life is getting more exciting.
Innovating Life
~ASKalburgi
Sunday, 11 January 2015
Website!
The first week of school is over and I was able to complete my personal website! You can check it out at askalburgi.com!
This website acts as an online resume for people to go check me out further than what they can see on my paper resume.
This allows me to finally cut down my resume to one page! The paper resume main job now is to get those who see it to look up the site; instead of it's main job being to get an interview.
I tried really hard to design it to show off my passions and interest so that viewers could really get a good look at who I am; so there is a lot of colour and imagery.
It'll need some minor adjustments in the coming weeks I think but the overall look won't really change.
I hope it'll get me a job!
Innovating Life
~ASKalburgi
This website acts as an online resume for people to go check me out further than what they can see on my paper resume.
This allows me to finally cut down my resume to one page! The paper resume main job now is to get those who see it to look up the site; instead of it's main job being to get an interview.
I tried really hard to design it to show off my passions and interest so that viewers could really get a good look at who I am; so there is a lot of colour and imagery.
It'll need some minor adjustments in the coming weeks I think but the overall look won't really change.
I hope it'll get me a job!
Innovating Life
~ASKalburgi
Sunday, 4 January 2015
A new year, but just another story
Every year I do a nice long New Years post, but this year will be just a short one.
This year's resolutions are simple, and as usual about growing. They are:
- To learn well and to get scorching grades
- To expand my personal portfolio
This semester I have pretty nice classes and schedule, so I want to really challenge myself to get really good grades.
My personal portfolio is quite limited with only two things on there currently (my job from summer 2014 and my class project from last semester). I want to quadruple that by 2016 by..
- having my own website
- designing a few chrome apps
- designing a data collection app
- attempting a computer graphics project
That's it. Short and Sweet
Innovating Life
~ASKalburgi
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