#5. Missing Jerseys against Georgia Tech (2007)

Four players’ jerseys went missing before this Thursday night game. It’s still a mystery as to what happened to Tyrod Taylor’s, Sean Glennon’s, Kam Chancellor’s and Brandon Flower’s jersey at the start of the game. So what did they do? They wore Georgia Tech’s old practice jerseys and took a Sharpie to them to write in their names and add a backwards Nike swoosh on the front. You can see one of these jerseys on display at the Merryman Athletic Center.

#4. Tyrod Taylor’s Hit Against Ras-I Dowling (2008)

Remember the wild turkey? Tech was big into it during the 2008 ACC Championship season. On this play Tyrod Taylor lined up as a wide receiver with Greg Boone behind center. Boone attempted a 30+ yard pass to Taylor. Ras-I Dowling should have intercepted Boone’s pass if it weren’t for Taylor’s upending hit on Dowling.

#3. The Comeback Against Nebraska (2009)

The Hokies were quaking in their boots when our offense struggled to outdo Nebraska’s five field goals. With just 1:23 left in the 4th, Tech had 84 yards to go to gain a one point lead. That’s not an easy task against any team, especially one with Ndamukong Suh starring down the offense at every snap. But a cool Tyrod Taylor and a wide open Danny Coale make anything possible. In one play, Danny Coale made up for 81 of those 84 yards. And after a few more nail biting moments Tyrod completed a slick 11 yard pass to #11 Dyrell Roberts to give the Hokies a one point advantage and the win. Lane Stadium erupted and was louder than ever.

#2. Boston College’s Last Minute Undoing of the Hokies (2007)

This is an article of exciting and interesting moments, not the best moments in recent Hokie history. It was pouring rain and the Hokies were shutting out Matt Ryan and the rest of the #2 ranked Boston College Eagles with a 10-0 lead with under three minutes left to play. Tech had it in the bag and many had started celebrating already. These emotions quickly turned as Boston College upset the Hokies in what may be the most disheartening loss in all of Hokie history. Matt Ryan snuck in two touchdowns causing the Eagles to win 14-10.

#1. Pregame of ECU at Virginia Tech (2007)

Chris Fowler of ESPN Gameday spoke directly to the Hokie Nation telling us it was our time to “cut loose.” It was the first football game following the shootings at Virginia Tech and it was a time to start celebrating and getting Virginia Tech back on track. Anyone who was human understood the significance of this day to the Hokie Nation. This was the first Virginia Tech game I had ever attended. I had just moved into my dorm and scalped a ticket and sat with fellow ECU fans that were nothing less than respectful and compassionate. I had always had an affinity for ECU given my legacy status.

One of the big reasons why Firefox has become so popular is because they have revolutionized the way we interact with our browsers with the integration of tabbed browsing.  Mozilla first started using tabbed browsing in 2001 and Thunderbird users have wanted this basic feature for years.  Tabs are finally a standard feature in Thunderbird.  Open one window and have your inbox and as many emails as you want opened at the same time, all in the same window, brilliant!  This has been the best new feature added to this latest release of Thunderbird.  However, there is one feature with the tabbed browsing that I would still like added.  When I want to compose a new message, I would like the window that opens up to become a tab.

Another cool feature added to Thunderbird is how they overhauled the ability to search your inboxes.  If you’re like me, you have more than one email address to manage; I have four that I use.  I can search a specific inbox or all of them.  There is also a cool statistics feature at the top of all your search results that is a bar graph of the emails you’ve received matching a search term through time.  You can click a certain week to get more detailed information about your search results and even down to the day.  This can be useful when monitoring your messaging patterns.  The new search also gives you the ability to narrow your search results by selecting a specific person, a mailing list, emails with attachments along with several other options to help you find that email from last year more efficiently.  The one thing I would like to change about the new  search is the way the information is displayed.  The search results all run together.  I wish each result was in its own little bubble with a background to make it stand out from the other results.  Despite this minor lack of detail, I am very pleased with the new search feature; it looks like Mozilla took a page from Google’s book.

Thunderbird was also nice enough to include some neat little bonus features.  For instance when you’re writing an email you may say something like; “Please read the attachment closely.”  Once you’re done typing the word ‘attachment,’ Thunderbird will politely remind you to include that attachment so you don’t look like an idiot if you forget to attach it.  I really like this feature because I have forgotten to include an attachment before.  That’s not the only keyword it works with, but definitely the most useful.

Thunderbird also created a nice handy integrated inbox as I’ve grown to call it.  Thunderbird now gives you a master inbox with the ability to micromanage all of your separate email accounts.  This makes my inbox more organized and it is easier to see all the information from all of my email accounts simultaneously.

One feature I would still like to see added (although I’m sure possible through plug-ins) is to have the address book become integrated with social networking sites like Facebook and Linkedin.  This would just make getting in touch with your contacts a little bit easier.

All in all, I give Thunderbird 3.0 a big thumb up.  It included some more basic features like the tabs and powerful search along with some wow features like the word recognition and search statistics.  Mozilla executed this upgrade well too; I haven’t noticed any bugs or crashes.  Thunderbird is known for the quality and security of Mozilla products along with the intuitive, clutter free interface that’s synonymous to all Mozilla products.  If you are a Thunderbird 2.0 user, I highly recommend the upgrade and if you’re still using Microsoft’s archaic and confusing Outlook, please switch to Thunderbird and give it a week; I’ll guarantee you will not want to switch back.

Small laptops like netbooks and UMBCs have skyrocketed in sales this past year and at the thought of Intel’s newly remolded Atom processors coming out soon, it will only booster sales.  Intel plans on making a better processors by incorporating both the graphics and the CPU into a single chip.

Netbooks have also taken another interesting turn with the introduction of MSI’s dual screen e-reader.

As a computer science major, I am exposed to a lot of people using Macs, mainly MacBook Pros.  They’re great computers, well made, solid OS and great usability while becoming more affordable all the time.  This does not mean that Macs are the savior of the computer world like some people treat them to be.  I will outline several of the things I don’t like about Macs in hopes they will be changed so I too will want to buy a Mac someday.

Currently, my main computer is a Fujitsu T4220 tablet PC running Windows 7.  I am pretty happy with this laptop and I like Windows 7.  As a student I always have my computer with me when I go to class, it’s essential for me to take notes and follow Power Points.  Then at the end of the day I set it back up in my apartment connected to my 22″ HP w2207 monitor, my printer, speakers and all the other peripherals that I have, but I do this all via a docking station.  When I’m running late to class, I don’t want to have to spend time to unhook every device and have the cables all over my desk, or falling behind it for that matter.  I just want to pick it up and go.  The same is true when I return home, I don’t want to waste time reconnecting everything and crawling under my desk to find the USB cable for my printer.  Currently, no Mac’s come with a docking station and all the 3rd party substitutes for a docking station are a pretty lame excuse for a docking station.  Until Apple develops it’s laptops to come with a docking station, I’ll never own one, it’s too essential for the way I use my laptop.

Another thing I wish Apple would change is their magnetic power cable connection.  This is fine when the laptop is on a table or a desk, but I often use my laptop…on my lap and my knee always knocks it out.  It becomes annoying to be constantly plugging it back in and finding a position where it will stay put.  Some people love this feature, and I can see how it can be cool, but I think it’s rather unnecessary and an example of how Apple tries too hard sometimes to reinvent the wheel.  Maybe try making the magnetic part closer to where it connects to the wall, this way when someone trips on the cord it still doesn’t rip the plug out of the computer while it can still be firmly connected on my lap like a more traditional plug.  This feature isn’t a deal breaker though if I were considering buying a MacBook.

The battery.  I understand where Apple is going with the design of their battery.  By making it impossible for a user to exchange batteries when one becomes old or breaks, the user gains impressive battery life of 7-8 hours.  However, for high end users like myself who often use their laptop on battery power, that battery starts to lose its charge quickly.  There will come a time when the battery life just isn’t sufficient anymore but the rest of the computer is perfectly fine.  Getting your battery replaced will cost money and time away from your laptop, and for people like me who don’t have access to an Apple Retail store, sacrificing a week without my laptop is no easy feat.

These are my three biggest reasons as to why I’m not interested in buying a MacBook yet.  This doesn’t mean they don’t have great attributes, they have plenty of them.  But some of MacBook’s biggest flaws are some of my biggest buying points.  Until the MacBook addresses the issues of a docking station, power connection and battery replacement, I’ll stick with my Windows based laptops.

However, just because the internet is cheap, doesn’t mean you still can’t save even more money.  I’m also not saying that I can get you that fancy new $2,000 TV for $1,000 either.  But, in times like these where wallets are thinner than ever, it takes some creativity to find the best of the good deals.  All of the tips I’ll talk about today are ones that I personally use and I decided to publish an article like this because I get asked by people all the time how cheap I can get something.

The place I always go to first when trying to find anything is Google Product Search.  They scourer the internet and find all the websites that sell that item and compares the pricing.  Sometimes the prices are a little outdated but overall it can be a great first place to look.  Type in the product name and click search.  For example; Amazon lists the Logitech Harmony One Universal Remote at $199.99 plus shipping.  After heading over to Google Product Search, I typed in ‘Logitech Harmony One,’ clicked ‘Search Products,’ then clicked ‘Compare Prices,’ lastly I clicked on ‘Total Price,’ so I could see the price after shipping costs.  I am able to get the Logitech Harmony One shipped to my house for $179.77 thanks to Google.  That’s over $20 in savings for a minute of my time!

My next tip involves Amazon.  Usually Amazon already has the best price and it’s a great website with great service and fast shipping.  If you use Amazon as much as I do, sign up for Amazon Prime.  I have been a member of Amazon Prime for years now and I love it!  It costs $79.00 a year, but you get free 2-day shipping on most items and you can upgrade to $3.99 1-day shipping.  Another plus is that you can share you Amazon Prime with up to 4 other household members.  Get them to chip in to split the costs.  By the numbers, if you buy from Amazon once a month or more you could be saving money and time by getting Amazon Prime.

The third tip I have for you involves a neat little site many people never heard of known as RetailMeNot.com.  This website allows users to enter in promotional codes that websites use to give people free shipping or discounts.  When I go there I search the website that I am interested in buying something from and I look through the various promotional codes and I try some of them out.  This can be very hit or miss as a lot of the codes have expired or are not relevant to your order and some websites do not allow users to submit promotional codes.  Every now and then, you find a jewel on this website that knocks 10% off your order or gives you free shipping.

The newest tip I have involves eBay.  They have a brand new program called eBay Bucks that is currently invite only and I got lucky and got an invite!  Soon it will be made available to everyone.  It’s free and it gets you 2% back on all of your purchases on eBay.  Every 3 months, eBay will issue you an eBay Bucks certificate for use on eBay towards future purchases.  There are some clauses however.  You must pay using PayPal and it doesn’t apply to purchases in eBay Motors, classifieds or real estate.

The last big tip I have for you applies mainly to college students.  Myself being one I know how expensive textbooks are.  My tip to you is to buy international versions.  These are the same thing as what you can buy at your bookstore, but are made for people in developing countries.  Often times they say “Not for sale in US,” and the price will be in rupees instead of dollars and they are almost always in black and white and soft cover.  You are allowed to own these, it’s not illegal and some bookstores even buy them back from you too.  I buy the international version of every book I can and use Google Product Search to find them.  On average I save about $70 a book or $210 a semester which means $420 a year or $1,680 over my 4 years in college.

There are many more ways to try and find the best deal on the internet but these are the highlights and secrets of my success to saving hundreds of dollars or more every year on the web.  The last piece of advice I have is to be creative and look around the internet, some websites sell products from several merchants and consider buying used and refurbished items.  Also, keep an eye on websites like Woot.com and 1SaleADay.com.

If you’re looking for the perfect Blu-ray player/burner combo, the LG GGW-H20LK is perfect. Newegg currently lists the LG GGW-H20LK at $179.99 with free shipping. I have owned this drive since November and I have had no complaints. True, it isn’t the fastest drive on the market with a Blu-ray BD-ROM read speed of 6x and a BD-RE write speed of 2x, but at this price point it’s the best deal on the market. LG makes quality products and it has stood up to the test I’ve put it through. I have burned, played and copied several disc with no problems. It’s whisper quiet too, so there is no need to raise the volume when the LG GGW-H20LK is in use. The included PowerDVD software is handy too. It took a while to install because it made you go through all of the updates, but this just built the suspense to test the player for the first time. It takes about 45 minutes to copy a movie to my hard drive and about the same amount of time to burn a movie to a BD-R.

LG GGW-H20LK

I have only used the RiDATA BDR-252-RD-JC disc to burn and haven’t had any issues. The best part about these BD-R’s is that they are the cheapest on the market at $4.99 a pop. This is currently the one thing that is holding Blu-ray burners from being becoming more popular is the price of blank media. When this price drops, the market for burners will rapidly increased. We have seen this issue resolved before last decade with DVD’s.

The biggest pros of the LG GGW-H20LK are the quality it has been built with, its price and the fact that is just works. There are only some minor cons. I wish it came with a flat black face plate to match my computer better and as with all drives, I wish it had a better, more universal mounting/install system.

You may be questioning what’s wrong with a regular Bluetooth mouse and keyboard combo. The issue is that I like to sit deep in my couch and having a 2.4GHz wireless keyboard touchpad in my lap is extremely convenient considering the alternative. The other plus, is that the Adesso WKB-4000US is cheaper than most midrange Bluetooth keyboard mouse combos. It retails on Amazon for about $80, I was able to snag mine off of eBay for under $70 including shipping. I’ve had this now since January and I am very pleased with it. Some of my initial concerns were that since the market for this type of product doesn’t really exist, I was concerned about the build quality. Turns out it is built great. It’s taken some

small falls and has held up great. Nothing is loose and the keys don’t stick. The batteries also last a long time. I haven’t had to change them yet! One thing that took me a while to figure out was that to wake the keyboard up after a period of inactivity is that you need to push a button twice, the touchpad won’t wake it up.

If you are used to working on a laptop, this keyboard will feel like home. Honestly, I struggle to come up with any improvement

s for the Adesso WKB-4000US other than I wish it came in black. I love the reaction of people when they see it sitting around my room. Their first impression was that I hacked a keyboard in half, then I explain what it is, and they fall in love with the concept and its execution. All in all, this will always be a stable of my home theater setup.

The basic theory behind how this works isn’t the use of a touchscreen like you have at ATM’s or to place a sandwich order.  It actually uses a projector to shine the image onto a piece of acrylic.  I know what you’re thinking; the projector isn’t going to focus on the acrylic since its clear.  When building it, you essentially glue on a sheet of silicon or a number of other materials which create a surface to hold an image as well as give a good feel for your hands while interacting with the computer.  I also know what else you’re thinking.  How does it know when I am touching it then?  Simple, the edges of the acrylic are lined with IR LED which shine into the acrylic.  A property of acrylic is that it doesn’t let light escape it, so the IR light just keeps bounding around in the acrylic effictivly lighting it up with an invisible color of light.  Then, a modified webcam (to filter out visible color) is placed in the bottom middle of the housing of the MSC which will detect a touch from an object.  When a finger is placed on the acrylic, it will cause the light to scatter from that point which enables the camera to see it.  The computer on the inside has software which will eliminate noise from the camera as well as run software to provide a nice interface for the user to play with.  This is only a basic explanation, a lot more detail can be found on Maximum PC’s website as well as at the NUI Group’s website.  Hopefully I can start on this project early summer and have it done in a few weeks.  Below is a video of Microsoft’s Surface which has capabilities beyond those of the open-source software, but doesn’t have the same amount of fun or learning experience.  It’s also over $10,000 cheaper too, so I think it’s a fair tradeoff.