Hi, everyone, welcome back to the Fall 2007 semester. This post is a follow up to my previous post on instructions about how to get DC++ working at Stony Brook University. DC++ is a very fast and reliable file sharing client. But please do keep things legal. I do not endorse using DC++ for illegal purposes.

Please following the previous tutorial located here. The reason I wrote a part 2 to this tutorial is because after going though the tutorial, some people are getting this error.

<CroBot> This hub is running version 0.3.36 of the Shadows Direct

Connect Hub Software.

That error can mean two things:

• You are not sharing enough data, you need to share 2GB’s or more. Hash them.
• You have too few upload slots available. Go to settings and sharing and make 5 upload slots.

Doing these two things will allow you to connect to DC++ successfully!

Remember, our hub name is sbushare.no-ip.info. Use DC++ Legally!

If you keep up with my blog, you would know that I’m a regular at Digg.com. A social networking website and if you are familiar with Digg, then you should be familiar with the “Digg effect“. The Digg effect is term coined to mean the amount of digg users to visit your website to causing a server downtime.

Definition of the Digg Effect:
“Digg has grown large enough that submissions sometimes create a sudden increase of traffic to the “dugg” website. This is referred to by some Digg users as the “Digg effect” and by some others as the site being “dugg to death“. However, in many cases stories are linked simultaneously on several popular bookmarking sites. In such cases, the impact of the “digg effect” is difficult to isolate and assess.”

The Experiment
Out of curiosity, I decided to setup an experiment to see my University’s servers at Stony Brook have the bandwidth to withstand the force of the “digg effect“. The web page being used for this experiment is my personal homepage on the university student sites.

My Hypothesis
I believe that servers at a University such as Stony Brook University should be able to handle a sudden increase in traffic such experienced in a digg effect.

http://digg.com/design/Can_University_Servers_Stand_the_Digg_Effect…

I hope that this will be an successful experiment and that users of the Digg community will participate. I’m very excited to see the outcome of this!

BTW: This is my Stony Brook student page.

Okay, it’s about time I blogged to push Vanessa Hudgens down a slot. Over the past 4 days or so, blogging about Vanessa Hudgens and including pictures was a great hit, not only did I made $30 a day via Adsense but I got over 4000+ hits in that period of time. So enough of that! A little update about Vanessa though, generally Vanessa’s fans support her all the way and accepts that she made a mistake. Okay so next story…

A couple of days ago, I went to a photo shoot for my Stony Brook Blog and the pictures finally came in today. I personally wasn’t too happy of them. I initially thought that they were going to be great because they were taken by professional photographers but I guess it doesn’t make that much of a difference.

Here are some of the pictures:

So moving on, I went to the NYPIRG office in Stony Brook University for the first time today. For those of you who reads my blog knows that I’ve been canvassing for NYPIRG since May. I love the organization so much that I signed up to volunteer to work on the campaigns at school! I’m going to do voter registrations soon! Watch out!

Back to school is getting nearer for most of us, some have already started. Everyone is trying to market their products towards students, from Back to School sales to providing a list of essential needs for a students success. Most of it I think is BS! BestBuy released their annual Back to School campaign called “Knowledge for College” which is a guide to products which are recommended for college. All they want is more $$ from you of course.

Mozilla released it’s Firefox Campus Edition today, which was disappointing for me at least. It comes with the core Firefox browsing engine along with three extensions. What ONLY 3? I was expecting it to come with at least 5 NEW features or at least a new theme. The extensions that it comes with are FoxyTunes, Zotero and StumbleUpon.

• FoxyTunes – Basically a iTunes control from your browser.
• Zotero – Citing and organizing your college research.
• StumbleUpon – Internet channel surfing and social bookmarking.

I have to say all these features are pretty much useless, none of these make the Campus Edition worth downloading in my opinion. But if you prefer, you can get it here.

If you already have Firefox, you can make yours “Campus Edition” by just downloading the extensions here.

Since I left my summer job, I’ve been developing a website that my friends (Andi and Joey) and I have come up with. SBUGuide.com. It’s short for Stony Brook University Guide. I’m doing this because I realized that there was no centralized location for prospective students to get information about the university and no website to help current students out. That’s why we’re taking the challenge to bring all those missing tiers together in one website. Yeah Stony Brook’s website is great but isn’t perfect so here’s where we come in a fill in the gaps.

Everything is currently in it’s ALPHA stages, development started only a day ago. Currently Andi is working on a logo prototype and I’m working on integrating user databases for MediaWiki, WordPress and bbPress. After that’s complete, the most difficult task should be branding and customization. Joey will fill in most if not all of the contents of the website.

Visit SBUGuide’s Blog to see development notes.

See our website at http://www.sbuguide.com.

Podcast  by PBS News Hour about USA TODAY’s college  rankings:
[audio:http://www-tc.pbs.org/newshour/rss/media/2007/08/20/20070820_rankings28.mp3]

Stony Books, a bookstore that overcharges on text books for Stony Brook University students have new competition on the net! Facebook’s Marketplace is a new service that allows anyone from their own school network to sell, buy, request items such as textbooks. Too bad Stony Books had bad customer service all this time, maybe students will go back if they were nicer. Go Facebook! It’s like an effective local eBay. No more shipping! Whoo!

Here are some comments from Stony Book goers on Yahoo!:

I called Stony Books to find out their price on an organic chemistry textbook. A man picks up the phone and replies its ” 100 something.” I ask ” Do you know the exact price?” And he replies I don’t know its “100 something.” He can’t use his own time to find out the price. And not only that he sounded very rushy and rude as if he wanted to hang up the phone as soon as possible. They may have cheap books, but don’t expect quality service from them.

The books are excellent, however, the staff is rude. I had accidentally purchased a book not listed with the class (I gave them the course number, they gave me the stack of books). I realized the next day, but they refused to take the book back. The sales person called me a liar, laughed in my face, walked away from me whenever I tried to speak, and made rude comments about me being “arrogant.” I mailed a complaint which was never answered.
Make sure you check over your list before you leave, and don’t trust them to give you the right books. I have never been spoken to like this before in a store, and I will never use them again.

I hope you run out of business Stony Books, no more buying our used books for a little more than nothing!

UPDATE!!***
Stony Books sends me an email that looks a little like this:

Tony,

We would like you to take this entry off. We will do fine. If you have any problems, contact us directly about it.

Stony Books

HAHAHAHA!

Hahaha. Rumors say that Haitian people eat cats! I went to my boy’s house for the weekend up in Rockland/Nyak. It was nice to get out of the same routine. Went to the mall, bowling, saw Spider Man 3, a nice weekend in general. Friends and I went out to try to catch a deer and beat it with sticks.

Just got home thanks to Joey, drove me all the way back and then his car’s battery died, thanks to OnStar’s road side assistance. I’ll miss all of ya’ll at Stony Brook. Have a nice summer. Time to find something to do!! Out!

I’ve ran out of Stony Brook meal points about 3 weeks ago, I don’t know how that happened but it did and I haven’t eaten on campus since then. So I kinda missed the food they have here. I had dinner at Kelly yesterday evening and it looked a little something like this.

To my surprise, I actually liked it. I’m sorry the first post of the month has to be something I ate last night, but I liked the picture. Good old fashion chicken and mashed potatoes.

For the past 2 days I’ve been obsessed by the mysteries of the Ouija Board and even bought a 1974 vintage version of the board game online. The first day that I was playing with it, some crazy things happened that are unexplainable. Apparently how the Ouija Board works is that you put your finger on this triangle device and spirits are suppose to talk to you. I was surprised at it’s accuracy.

When we were playing, we asked it where were we, it spelled out COLLEGE. Then we asked which college, it spelled out LANGMUIR, which is the college we live in. By that time, it was enough to freak me out so I left the room to try to go to bed, but curiosity drove me back to the dark room where my friends were playing it at. Then the Ouija Board responded with a question, CAN I ASK YOU A QUESTION? We were like yeah. Then it asked, WHERE IS YOUR FRIEND? We were like what friend? The Ouija Board said, ASIAN BOY. When my friends told me this, I was scared out of my pants, then the board said, HE SHOULD BE SCARED OUTSIDE. They asked why? It responded, BECAUSE THERE ARE BAD SPIRITS OUTSIDE.

Feel free to ask me or tell me about other experiences, I have more to tell!

I’m telling you that I’m not lying when I tell you this guys, don’t mess with it!

Tiki Barber of the NY Giants visited Stony Brook University today. He was escorted here by Police after being getting here by helicopter. The helicopter landed at the tennis courts in front of Langmuir College.

Event Description
In Pursuit of Excellence: Leadership, Determination, and Teamwork

Ticket Prices:
$5 for Stony Brook Students
$10 for Non-Students Location Information  (View Map)
West Campus – SAC- Student Activities Center
Nichols Road
Main Entrance
Stony Brook, NY 11794
Phone: (631) 632-6000
Room Number: Auditorium