I try to keep busy- but recently things have just been crazy. I finally moved into my new (and first!) condo (which I own, no more renting!), and I have internet here now, so hopefully the posts will be coming in more steadily, I have a healthy backlog of topics I have been meaning to write about.

Mostly I am just stopping by to let you know this blog is still active, I just have been between here and there a lot the last few months but now that I’m settled I want to get back into more regular postings. This blog also is due for an update and a new theme don’t you think? I’ll get on that.

Also shameless self promotion, if you’re in college or a recent grad, head over to collegeblender, it’s a pretty cool fast-growing community of college kids and recent grads from around the country. It’s a great way to meet people on campus or just see what’s buzzing at different schools. Also, it’s what has been taking up all my time! We are always working on something new so that makes it hard to do other stuff (like post on the ze blog!). Anywho, check it out, find me, and vote for my blog.

Here are some cool vid’s from around the internet, hopefully they will entertain you while I get myself organized.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Leno v. Conan late night wars, I’m with COCO for the record. I think when we look back on all this in a few years, it will play something like this:

Spike Jonze is collaborating with Absolut Vodka on a cool new short film. Here is the trailer, which I thought looked pretty interesting:

That’s it for now, more soon, for real this time!

My curveball in this case has been transforming an idea I dreamt up over a year ago- The College Blog Network, into something much more mainstream. It’s a project that has taken 7months and 4 people to complete and the end is near! This post isn’t so much about what the new site- CollegeBlender, will be, but more of an outreach to my friends to help build awareness of this new brand.

We want to give college students a stage- to show off their skills. We believe there is some amazing stuff happening at the college level, from blogs to videos to music and much much more, and we think it deserves some recognition. That is what CollegeBlender is all about. I can’t speak about it too much right now but it is launching in August 2009, and you can check out the site for a few more details here. Please show support for our mission by following collegeblender on twitter and becoming a “fan” (we don’t like that term) of our page on Facebook.

The site will be live in August! At which point I will be posting the much needed updates to my code and other goings on here! On my personal blog!

Thanks again!
Dan

That’s right folks, somehow five years later I have managed to graduate RIT with a BS in Interactive Development. I was quick to switch my TCBN status to “Alumni” (via Control Panel>My Info) now that I’m finally free of the bonds of education (although the student loans will linger for quite some time).

In general it was all pretty surreal, after being in school for 5 years and being used to an endless stream of papers, projects, presentations, quizzes and exams day in and day out, now suddenly its all over. Done with. In my field masters degrees aren’t as benficial as some other fields so I plan on staying away from school for at least the next few years. I have a job lined up in D.C., where I’ve been working the past 6 years or so and I’m excited to finally get in and be working in the office (as opposed to the telecommuting I usually do).

I’ll be moving from NY down to MD and although I’m gonna miss the college life and my boys in NY, I know we will keep in touch so I’m not worried. I am very pleased to be leaving the gloom that is upstate NY for 8/12 months every year and covered with treacherous pathways they seem to call roads (responsible for 4 bent rims, 1 busted axle, and a blown lower ball joint), and some of the worst drivers in America hands down. So sunny MD with its blue skies, four season, and smooth roads is a welcome change.

I still have a bit of backed up work I have been meaning to post up [on this blog], that will be up soon as I now have some lounging time for the first time in what feels like ages. I also will be devoting a large portion of my time to upgrades, advances and new features for The College Blog Network. I have been meaning to redesign it to be easier to read and more interactive but these last few weeks of school had me truly “under the gun”. Now that I’m free I hope to pick up the pace on those improvements.

That’s it for now, expect more frequent posts and cool new TCBN features soon (if you found this through blogwire). But for now, I must get back to relaxin’… oh the joys of life after college

I recently took a course in Rich Internet Application development which focused on the snazzy new Adobe Flex 2 (now Flex 3) platform. This was an amazing course because Flex is being hyped up as the next big thing in RIA development because it runs in the highly pervasive Flash Player plugin (booyah silverlight!). The structure for the course was a rigorous 10week development session in which we would conceive, design, and develop a Flex application and integrate it with some type of stateful data storage.

As usual I wanted to develop something useful, and something that would allow me to integrate Flex with a technology that would be used in the real world- so I opted to integrate it with PHP and MYSQL. Even though this part of it wasn’t required, I felt it really made the experience that much more useful.

Check it out: Flex Course Manager

Responsibilities: All design, development, and backend

Well im tired of trying to track down other blogs, and other people near me who are involved in flash / flex / IT / blogging in general / local events.

So im starting “The College Blog Network” to attempt to create some type of index of blogs, and bloggers who live and go to school around me / with me. For now I am the one man design/development/database guy behind this, hoping to get some more developers someday cause i got so many cool features planned but so little time.

Checkout the site: thecollegeblognetwork.com

And its first school: tcbn.org/schools/rit

Please sign up if you have a blog!!

Responsibilities: All design, development, and backend