Category Archives: about me - Page 2

Video: Learn How to Type Faster in Step 3

Posted by on April 2, 2011 No comments


Feeling the urge to learn something new, I decided to discover what it takes to produce a video and host it on Youtube.com.
After brain storming some ideas and watching videos to see what was out there, I finally decided upon making a video tutorial on how improve one’s typing speed.
Here’s the result.

“Learn How to Type Faster in Step 3 ” is my first video that I ever made and I learned a lot from the whole process. It took about half a day to complete but that was due to the fact that I had to research what software to use. A few rules that I found along the way are to are

  1. Get help writing subtitles because they take a longggg time! Unfortunately for me, the auto-caption feature failed with an error message of “Machine Transition Failed”. So that left me manually writing the subtitles by hand. I spent 2 hours writing subtitles for this 14 minute video, and the worse part is I could only insert 8 minutes worth of subtitles into the video because the on-line subtitle program I was using(captionTube) crashed every time after that point.
  2. Upload then do something else. It’s going to be a while get all 50MB+ of your video onto youtube.com. My upload time was about 1 hour.
  3. Don’t record everything in one take. It’s better to record multiple takes of a segment, then join the best parts into one long video.

For those wondering, I only used free-ware software for this project. Here’s a list of what I used.

Book Review: Computers Ltd: What They Really Can’t Do

Posted by on March 31, 2011 No comments

Hey everybody,
I would like to share a book review that I wrote on amazon.com.
Book: “Computers Ltd.: What They Really Can’t Do (Popular Science)” (2003)
Author: David Harel

Computers Ltd.: What They Really Can't Do

“This book sets the record straight. Computers can’t fix all of the world problems because they’re limited by time and space.

The author starts off by defining algorithms and how computer programs work. He’s then explores common problems in computer science using a fair amount of algebra and graphs, like NP complete problems, the travelling salesman problem, the Turing test, tower of Hanoi, and etc.

Restraining from being a complete pessimist, discussions mainly addressing Cryptography are included. Cryptography shows how computational complexity can be used for the greater good, as it’s nearly impossible to break the encryption within a reasonable amount of time for any data encoded in RSA.

Lastly, the author ends the book with his take on hot areas in computing, such as Quantum Computers, Artificial Intelligence and evolutionary (generic) programming.
Overall, I enjoyed this pocket size book and recommend it for those interested in expanding their knowledge in Computer Science.”
-Larry Battle

Google Translate a Life Saver

Posted by on March 16, 2011 No comments
Google Translate Mobile App
Google Translate Mobile App

Four days after a powerful earthquake-triggered tsunami hit the Japan’s east coast, I found a this on Google, Google Translate for Android Phones.

A few years back, I studied aboard in Japan. In the beginning, it wasn’t easy living there, since I only knew the very basics of the language. The part that made it even harder was that even though I studied for countless hours, I still had a hard time understanding what they said. But eventually, with time, the words and phrases started to come together and make more sense.

During my time aboard, I’ve lived in Taiwan and Japan and Google’s Mobile App Google Translate would have a been a life saver. There’s even a mobile app called Google Goggles for the Android Phone that allows you to translate text capture by your camera into your choice of language.
I’m astonished by the technological advancement made in natural language processing and voice recognition. Those two applications would have helped me open up more and get a better grip on what’s going on around me.

I recommend these two application for anyone adventuring to a foreign county.

My Pictures from Japan and Taiwan


Yamagata University in Japan
Yamagata University in Japan

Taiwanese Temple
Taiwanese Temple

Flickr Study Aboard Taiwan's Mountain View
Flickr Study Aboard Taiwan's Mountain View

Driving in Taiwan
Driving in Taiwan

Funny Videos using Google Translate


Learn Japanese with Minna no Nihongo. Link below.

Please leave your comments below.

New Editor onboard

Posted by on October 30, 2010 1 comment

Hey everyone,

I am a new contributing author, Marc Streeter.  You may have the pleasure, or displeasure, of reading one of my posts from time to time.  I thought that it would be a good idea to introduce myself before anyone through any tomatoes (or motherboards, things are a’changin’).

I am a student at the University of Texas at Arlington (any complaints for bad grammamatical erors can be sent to this address). Technology, gadgets, news, music, and QuakeLive thrill me to death.  I also have a particular passion for Objective-C and user interface design, but I also enjoy the occasional web technology related book.  It could be said of me that I have experience in Java/C/C++ programming, web design, image sorcery, and the like but whoever told you that should be silenced with a boot to the head followed by a prompt finger wagging. Ahem.  When I am not trying to look like I am working or busy I tend to hang around my wife and three kids.

Well enough about me – back to breathing silently in front of this monitor.

Bad Behavior has blocked 1085 access attempts in the last 7 days.

FireStats icon Powered by FireStats