Well, this is probably the most boring class I will have this year... uh, well let me take that back. I had a VB class last semester. This course is basically about advanced Data-Modeling, and the principles of database designs for business. Also, the prof. assured us that the course would be universal so using MySQL or OpenOffice will be ok? I have no intention of installing Personal oracle or anything like that on my laptop... in fact OOo should work fine for this course right?

We're sorry... ... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.

We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we'll see you again on Google.

This occurred on google when looking up some music... I have never seen this before in my entire life. I think this is very clever... upon receiving this message in order to continue I had to key in a passphares issued by Google, and I was in business again. 1 point for Google 10 for advanced kernal-mode rootkits.

I'm sitting in the computer lab at Tisch Hall and I am just thinking, "Gee... I am paying a lot of money for this school. I hope it all pays off." But what if it doesn't, I have heard and seen so many people that go through college and have all the high ambitions then get out and end up in a sucky job that they hate and never really go where they want to in life. I'm not your ordinary college student, I'm not a kid, I am 29 years old with a wife and two children. I don't feel like I have a lot of time to go through a series of trials and errors.

I have the sucky job now and I never seem to make enough money to get my family to where we need to be or at least where my wife feels she should be. I think this makes it much harder. It is a lot of pressure and I nearly cracked last semester. I was hospitalized for nearly a month, I caught pneumonia and almost died.

This is the first extremely personal post I have made and there will probably not be many but I am becoming close to many of you slashdotters and I thought I should give you the low-down on my situation... just for the hell-of-it. If anyone has any words of inspiration I would appreciate them.

Recently, I read an article that is relatively old, however it had some striking points about Star Wars prequel's Jar Jar that I found interesting. When first introduced to Jar Jar in Episode I, I felt something strange and bothersome about him as a character... it wasn't hard to see through the alien's costuming and match certain resemblances. For example, Jar Jar's quirky english is very similar to West Indian english. And for what it's worth I agree with Film critic Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal and his description when he said "[Jar Jar]a Rastafarian Stepin Fetchit on platform hoofs, crossed annoyingly with Butterfly McQueen." Enough said!

Following Meostro's history:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Turn to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

For ANSI compilers, the class must be "static".

L.W. Canno; H. Spencer; D. Keppel et al., Recommended C Style and Coding Standards, rev. 6.0, 1990.

I have been listening to alot of arabic music lately. I know most of the people that may read this journal have never heard popular arabic music but it is really good stuff. My favorite artist is Samira Said, she is from Morocco and not only is she beautiful *whoa*, but her voice is like angelic, truly angelic. I love her voice... just remember check out Samira Said the next time you're in your local music store's world section.

I recently took a quiz to determine the major I should be... and the result was pretty good! I think it is a pretty accurate description: I am an Information Systems Major concentrating on Application Development and a Linguistics Minor w/ emphasis on Arabic. Obviously I love to write and in my leisure-time I read religious and philosphical text and these were my results:

92% - Engineering
92% - Philosophy
83% - English
75% - Theater
75% - Mathematics
75% - Linguistics
58% - Journalism
58% - Psychology
42% - Sociology
42% - Chemistry
33% - Biology
17% - Art
17% - Dance
8% - Anthropology (BTW... I recently got a C+ in Anthropology and I'm a straight A student... HA!)

You should try it...

A number of vulnerabilites were discovered in Apple's Quicktime Media Player product. The National Cyber Alert System reported that these vulnerabilites affect Apple Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows XP and 2000. To correct several vulnerabilites Apple has released QuickTime 7.0.4, however the impacts of these vulnerabilities are *critical* and include execution of arbitrary code and possible DoS attacks.

I am writing this as if someone other than myself actually cares... Anyway, I met with TSC my academic advisor and we narrowed down some choices and decided on a specific strategy. The first item is that NYU's McGhee School of Professional Studies is redeveloping its Application Development concentration in the Information Systems program. So I am going to hold off on selecting anymore classes from my concentration until NYU announces the changes in the program during the Fall of 2006. As a result I ended up taking some pretty cool classes so far:

• Critical Thinking
• Intensive Arabic I
• Database Design and Development

The database class is a dud and I could probably get life experience credit or test out of the class entirely but I'm in no mood to do that right now. So I won't put up a fight I will just go through it and raise my GPA another notch. Other than the DB class everything seems fine. So that is 12 credits total each class is worth 4 credits. I may take on another 2 credit course but I will think it over for a couple of days.

The last semester was so troubling that I am embarrassed at the final results. I was sick and hospitalized for nearly the 1/3 of the semester and as a result I ended up with an A, C+ and an incomplete. This is very disappointing for a straight-A student. Now my GPA has gone from a 3.89 to a 3.64.; I am terribly vexed. I want to take some easy classes to raise my GPA back up but I really need to start working on my concentration (Application Development). There are open seats in a Java I class and I am tempted... I am also minoring in Arabic and Intensive Arabic I is open also. Not sure if I can handle both... really confused. I will meet with my academic advisor today then I will post the results OK, btw I am open for any suggestions. Stay tuned...

A - Accent: New York (Uptown)

B - Breakfast Item: Bagel and coffee or nothing.

C - Chore you hate: Sweeping/Raking

D - Dad's Name: Ricky

E - Essential everyday item: Keys

F - Flavour ice cream: Helado de Coco... (Dominican Style)

G - Gold or Silver?: Gold

H - Hometown: Grand Rapids, MI

I - Insomnia: Of course... I'm a Techno-junkie.

J - Job Title: Student

K - Kids: 2 Wonderful Boys

L - Living arrangements: Married... I think!

M - Mom's birthplace: Grand Rapids, MI

N - Number of significant others you've ever had: There is only one woman that has ever taken my last name. She is the same woman that had my children, everything any other woman ever did with or for me is insignificant.

O - Overnight hospital stays: 1 (Nearly Died)

P - Phobia: Getting Hit By a Car

Q - Queer?: Nothing against queers but... NEVER!

R - Religious Affiliation: Muslim

S - Siblings: 6

T - Time you wake up: 0615

U - Unnatural hair colours you've worn: Burgandy

V - Vegetable you refuse to eat: Lima Beans

W - Worst habit: Porn... definately.

X - X-rays you've had: Countless...

Y - Yummy: Anything Curried!

Z - Zodiac sign: Capricorn

I have a bone to pick with the iPod and its developers. Although Apple has put into the iPod the most intuitive interface and the tastiest eyecandy-casing I have ever seen, the processing power has much to be desired. I primarily use .ogg files for my audio play and the iPod is a long way from having enough juice to fuck with Ogg Vorbis files. As a result I refuse to purchase one until they can play .ogg files. I might even hold out for the Flac but that may never come.

Slashdot, I was wondering if you could help me fulfill a life long dream for the New Year. I am a broke college student with a lot of music and video files but only a few low-budget and low-resourced computers. I would like to develop a small but effective wireless home-entertainment system and integrate it into my small home network. I am a Linux user how can I hack my cheap hardware to be a kick-ass wireless home-entertainment system w/ free software?

Congratulations! I was recently awarded the Xerox Minority Technology Scholarship for 2005-2006. I am very excited about this, it seems to be a fairly prestigious award as the majority of the recipients are from top-notch schools such as Princeton, MIT, Cal (Berkley) and others. Hey, NYU is not so shabby either... but it is an honor.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin inspires holiday-spirit by deploying a ballistic nuclear weapons strike-force. This strike-force system has been reported to be capable of penetrating U.S. anti-missle defense systems. On Christmas Eve, the Russian army organized a group of Topol-M missles which could carry nuclear warheads, travel up to 6,000 miles and change trajectory to shake defense efforts. The Russian army has activated a new battalion for the Topol-M missles, which has 75 times the power of the A-bomb dropped over Hiroshima in 1945.