TECH gets new Macs

For its fourth anniversary, the TECH Center installed 27-inch Macs, as well as other upgrades.

This year, the TECH Center celebrates its fourth anniversary with widespread changes and upgrades, including 100 new 27-inch Mac computers and the proposed replacement of 400 to 500 PCs.

“When the TECH Center opened, everything was brand new. Now that it’s been around for a while, people just kind of accept that it’s there. We try to keep it new with new features,” Executive Director of Computer Services Jerry Hinkle said.

Sandip Patel, a lab manager at the TECH Center, said the new Macs are equipped with a 2.66 GHz processor and four gigabytes of RAM.

“I like how big they are,” sophomore pre-nursing major Lauren Fernald said. “It’s easier to catch mistakes when writing papers.”

Sophomore communications major Stephenie Foster agreed.

“It’s nice for paper-writing. You can put different documents side by side to do work rather than go back and forth,” she said.

“One thing I’ve noticed is the login speed is a lot faster. The old ones used to take three to five minutes to start, but these only take 30 seconds,” university studies sophomore Pete Lundy said.

“You need more memory to process faster,” he added.

Hinkle said the cost for the Mac computers, which have additional memory and high-end processors, was about $1,700 per unit.

“This is several hundred dollars per unit less than we paid for the original iMacs four years ago,” he added.

The old computers were sent to Temple’s Computer Recycling Center.

“Our goal is to take old computer equipment, clean off all information and get them back into circulation,” CRC employee Jonathan Latko said.

When the computers go back into circulation, they end up in one of three places – they can be redeployed to other schools and buildings across campus, students and faculty can buy them, or they are donated to local schools, community groups and nonprofit organizations.

For students and faculty interested in buying refurbished equipment from the CRC, the price of a computer depends on the amount of restoration it underwent, Latko said.

“It’s about a $25 base, but the more work or specialty added brings it up to about $150 to $175,” he said.

The TECH Center also plans to replace as many as 500 PCs.

“[Replacing the PCs] would definitely help, because [they] are a lot slower, especially when it’s busy,” senior computer science major David Lebson said.

Students waiting for the upgraded PCs will have to wait, though, as the TECH Center employees search for the best deals.

“Because we got very good pricing on our Macs at this time of the year, we have delayed the purchase of the Dells by about six months and will be installing them over the summer,” Hinkle said.

Much like a business, the TECH Center tries to find what people want when they use the facility. Employees survey students every spring in an attempt to find out who uses what, how often and what changes students would like to see.

Breakout rooms and other space for students to work together are some of the reasons students spend time at the TECH Center. Soon, the TECH Center will introduce “open-air booths.” These rooms will be built where the current upstairs lobby area is now.

“Students [will be able to] come in, sit down and eat, while working together on a computer,” Hinkle said.

It seems many Main Campus students will welcome the addition of open-air booths to the TECH Center.
“Breakout rooms should be designed to let students make noise. [The open-air booths] would probably encourage more students to come out, and it would be a great expansion,” Michael Ashery, a freshman university studies major, said.

“With the comfy chairs, I can definitely see an advantage [of the open-air booths] over [the breakout] rooms,” sophomore film major Zachary Auron said.

Another useful tool for students is the map of the TECH Center on the plasma TV screens upstairs, which indicate the availability of different sections in the TECH Center. An improved version of this tool will soon be available online.

“That way,” Hinkle said, “if you’re on the subway [or] in your room and you want an idea of how busy the TECH Center is, you’ll be able to check your phone or the Internet to get an idea.”

Lara Taylor Strayer can be reached at lara.strayer@temple.edu.

Consumers buying into ‘it’ gizmos to stay on the cutting edge need limits

Apple’s new iPad, as well as other tech-gadgets, may be nothing more than a toy collector’s dream.

This past Wednesday, Apple made the long-awaited announcement of its latest product: the iPad. I immediately squealed with glee at the thought of having this beautiful piece of technology in my hands this spring.

Shortly following the mental kick I gave myself for not making the switch to AT&T from Verizon when I renewed my contract last month, I began spotting phrases like “no Flash” and “no camera” on my Google News feed. As I read further and conferred with fellow techies, I realized that Steve Jobs’s latest addition to the digital world might be nothing more than an extra large iPod Touch.

Nonetheless, this product is already a hit – the Tech Herald estimates 5 million will be sold in the first year – but why?

Because we, along with the rest of the digital world, love technology. The market may not be full of more reliable, user-friendly or advanced tools than those we already own, but those of us who have grown up in the Digital Age pine for touch screens, 3G and paperless lives.

It’s predictable that Apple’s iPad 2.0 will premiere a camera, USB ports, et cetera, but most won’t wait for that model.

“Being on the cutting edge is really important,” computer and information sciences professor Abbe Forman said.

Technology has infiltrated our daily lives, especially as students. Universities and other institutions have been making the shift to technology in the classroom and workplace environments.

“You come from a computer age,” Forman said. “You were all raised with computers. How would you feel if you walked into a classroom with a professor who didn’t know what they were doing [in terms of technology]?”

The answer? Annoyed. But while we expect access to the latest technology and people who know how to use it, we don’t need to jump the gun on products and services simply because words run on a battery and appear on a screen, not on paper.

Even the American Association of Neurological Surgeons is taking the step to supply 3,500 iPod Touches – not without an added fee, of course – to its attendees at a conference in Philadelphia in May, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Instead of being supplied with approximately 165 pages of material, the neurosurgeons will be forced to explore their PDFs on a 3-by-2-inch screen. Although this may seem more environmentally friendly, cost-effective and “advanced,” it may not be the better option.

Just for a five-day conference, the neurosurgeons will have to pay for the iPod touches, fiddle around on a small, difficult-to-read screen, take notes using a separate medium and learn how to navigate a touch screen.

Sometimes this advanced technology can be, in reality, less cost-efficient, less reliable and more difficult to use. While it’s important to stay on the cutting edge, we should spend our funds, time and energy on products and services that are actually worthwhile. When the iPad becomes more than a super-sized iPhone, I’ll be sure to make that switch to AT&T.

Kathryn A. López can be reached at kathryn.lopez@temple.edu.

Millennial minds crave connectivity, self-importance

The millennial generation’s dependency on new media stems from more than just easy access to technology.

Orange juice and Cheerios are rarely accompanied by a daily newspaper anymore.

There’s no need. The majority of today’s breed of students have already read the top stories on philly.com, checked their e-mails, responded to Facebook wall posts and tweeted about how they wish they could hit their snooze buttons just one more time – all before they roll out of bed and into their slippers.

This generation of “millennials,” as we’re called – born approximately between the early 1970s and late 1980s – is pegged as both more technologically savvy and dependent, and the trend continues to rise.
The Nielsen Company reports that millennials made 255 phone calls per month and sent 435 SMS text messages in 2007, but fast forward just two years to 2009, and millennials are making 191 phone calls per month and sending 2,899 SMS texts per month.

The growth has been staggering, but it should come as no surprise. While this seeming need to consistently transmit and receive information is due largely to the rise of the Digital Age, these Baby Boomer offspring also grew up in a social environment unlike those of generations past.

Let’s rewind to kindergarten. You sang the words “I can do anything better than you” in music class, and your mom let you choose pizza or ham and cheese Lunchables. You were raised in schools where teachers constantly reinforced how “special” and “unique” you are.

“It’s not the same as being ‘spoiled,’ which implies that we always get what we want,” writes Jean M. Twenge in Genertation Me, a book that explains why today’s young Americans are more confident and assertive, yet more miserable than ever before. “We simply take it for granted that we should all feel good about ourselves, we are all special, and we all deserve to follow our dreams.”

And so we do, and we’re sure to let everyone know about it. According to Facebook, there are more than 45 million status updates each day.

“I don’t like to complain, even though I do it often,” one Facebook user’s status reads. “I truly am grateful for the things I have, but there is this emptiness inside of me… I force a smile, I go on with my days…but something is missing and all I can do is pretend I am OK…”

Too-much-information statements like these get a little more personal than the “Steve is going to the gym”-type statuses Facebook probably intended for the feature. But the rate at which we’re increasingly expressing “what’s on our minds” is truly exponential.

Between December 2007 and December 2008, Internet usage as a whole grew 18 percent. Facebook usage, however, grew a whopping 588 percent, according to the Nielsen Company. We’re not spending that much more time on the Internet – we’re just shifting the way we allocate our time on it.

Some of that stems from our kindergarten-rooted vanity, but that’s not the only factor. The more technology becomes accessible and inexpensive, the more people are using it. And as these statistics rise, so do the numbers of questions as to why and how we use it the way we do.

We’ll explore some of these issues and questions here in For Tech’s Sake. We’ll cover over-sharing and digital etiquette. We’ll check out the latest in technology, like Google Wave – a barrier-breaking communication and collaboration tool. We’ll even risk our own millennial sanity, turn off our MacBooks and leave our BlackBerrys at home for 48 hours in an against-the-grain experiment.

But don’t forget that along the way, we’ll be turning to your Facebooks and Twitters, observing your online language and looking into your digital and social trends for our inspiration and reporting because let’s face it – we millennials might pride ourselves on our individuality, but we’re in this together.

“Today, you can watch, listen to, and read whatever you want; seek out and discuss, in exhaustive and insular detail, the kind of news that pleases you,” writes Farhad Manjoo, author of True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society, “and indulge your political, social, or scientific theories, whether sophisticated or naïve, extremist or banal, grounded in reality or so far out you’re floating in an asteroid belt, among people who feel exactly the same way.”

Kathryn Lopez and Maria Zankey can be reached at templeliving@temple-news.com.

This edition of For Tech’s Sake is Part 1 in a five-column series exploring the link between the attitudes of the Millennial Generation and technology.

Lost Ambition

Technology makes life easy for us.

Imagine writing a research paper without Google. Imagine carrying CDs instead of your iPod. Imagine going to California on the Oregon Trail.

We take many of those things for granted, especially those technologies that are so ubiquitous in American society.

The purpose of technological advancements is to make life easier, but sometimes, life just becomes too easy. The undesired effect from these comforts is laziness.

As The Temple News reports this week, students have been taking advantage of virtual grocery shopping, where they can order as many products as they want and have them delivered directly to their residence halls.
Laziness.

Off the North Philadelphia stop on the Broad Street Line is a Pathmark, one of the few supermarkets in the area. And just about 10 minutes south of campus via the subway are two other options on South Street – Superfresh and Whole Foods. Not to mention the corner markets, like Cousins a few blocks east of campus.

The options are out there. But one thing holds us back.

Laziness.

The excuses exist – it’s too much to carry back or it’s too scary to head up there. But we’ve grown up in a society that thrives on excuses for irrational behavior. Instead of supporting the local economy and being immersed in the community we’ve decided to live in, we opt for the workers to come to us.

We live on a campus that has fitness centers in all residence halls, in case you don’t feel like walking to the IBC Student Recreation Center. Many offices use instant messengers to communicate with students, eliminating all need to stop by in person. And Tristan Video, the rental store that conveniently sits on Liacouras Walk, actually delivers to all Temple residence halls.
Laziness.

This may seem like a trivial matter. But having groceries delivered to your residence hall is just a part of the larger problem.

It’s almost as if we’re trained to be lazy on campus. Heaven forbid you need to go to Paley Library to pick up and read a book. Imagine going to school as late as the 1990s when the Internet barely existed. Many of us would be horrible college students.

By becoming a virtual world, where nearly everything can be done via Internet Explorer, we lose personal interactions in life. We become more sheltered, more unfriendly, more cynical. And that’s not the way we should be living, especially in a community like North Philadelphia – one that would be more willing to accept college students should they not be so ignorant.

But one thing stops us from trying. Laziness.