Alvin Sng

Intro

I finished my first quarter of college last week which felt amazing. Now I got eleven more quarters ahead of me. The great aspect of college is the true relaxations of breaks. The breaks are placed right between two quarters which gives the students a fully enjoyable break without any homework or studying to worry over. Unlike Thanksgiving break which was right before finals. With that much in mind, I was able to get some work done.

College

During the first few weeks of college, I was worried whether I was going to like the small suburban environment. Fortunately I began to enjoy it more. One weekend, I decided to go biking around Yolo country. I spent the entire Saturday traveling past farms for hours which made me think how much prettier it was than the urban places. Of course when finals came, everyone was unhappy. Cramming in college has a new definition if compared to high school. Overall I had a fun college experience. I got to know a lot of the people on my floor and was surprised to have learned more than in high school.

Old High School

I visited my old high school for the first time since graduation last week. I made my first stop to the AOIT (Academy of Information Technology) class. It was now run by a new teacher who now has that job full time. I went there during 4th period and I was told to give a little presentation about my college experience. It was nice to see that the school got more funding for their new equipment. On the other hand, it was unfortunate to see the departure of LincolnHigh.net which will be removed by the end of the school year. I had already seen that the site was bound to be gone once it lacked a dedicated web programmer to update the site. I had also made trips to visit a few of my old science teachers that all wanted to know what my Chemistry class was like. Right after lunch I went to give a long visit to my Old AOIT/film teacher. I found out about the new problems that the school is facing and also happy to know that much of old routines were still there.

New Server

I had been web programming all this time on DreamHost servers, which are not bad but I felt that I finally needed my own personal machine. I went onto Newegg with the recommendations from my roommate and purchased all the parts of the server. It came down to around $500 for a pretty decent setup. It was a quad core i5 processor with 4GB of DDR3 Ram running on Ubuntu server edition. I later added a 1.5TB Internal HD to maximize my server capacity. I installed my old web server software onto it but after a while began to re-develop the software making it better in virtually every way. With the current version, it has a mobile version, daily search indexing, multiple file permissions, image caching and some other features. I will still be keeping my DreamHost account active as long as I am hosting 3rd party websites. Even though I trust my own server, I don't trust my internet or electricity.

Work

Work has taken up most of my college life away, as said by my roommate. I got a new machine for my workplace which is absolute stunning. It was a Core i7 with two 24 inch monitors. I had finished the Fridge Rental website and completed my first draft of the new Community Housing Website. There are a lot of nice new features in the websites which all use either Zend technologies or Google APIs. I am still working over winter break with learning more Jquery as well as some new Zend tweaks. Hopefully my next project would be to re-do the current creative media website since it is currently about two years out of date.

Side Projects

I am planning on making some changes to alvinsng.com as well as design.alvinsng.com. There would be a lot more Jquery in my websites from now own since now I have taken a great deal of time mastering it. Even though it's better to use straight JavaScript, the future revolves around the development of programming libraries. Using a programming language is more pro and direct, but unfortunately writing code in standards is what makes the system readable. Along with that my server website will undergo some new versions and by the end of the next version, I would be publishing the project on Source Forge.

Intro

Just before moving into my new school. I thought about how much of a big jump I would be taking in my life's timeline. Before I know it, I will be blogging here on my College graduation day thinking back on how fast life moves. Life in college is quite different. For one thinking living in a dorm is nothing like living at home. You don't have to commute to school nor do you have to return back to home life. There is a ton of more freedom in college and for one thing, taking a normal 15 credits a quarter means a ton of free time. In college, it is designed to give you extra time so that you can focus one one extra activity that you want to do. Whether that may be being in a sport, a frat, a ta, or work. College allows you to take that opportunity. So far, since the day I moved in. I have been as busy as a bee. Dealing with time management can be tough especially when your in a new environment where you haven't figured everything out yet.

Stanford Splash

I taught for the first time at Stanford Splash this past weekend. I had 5 full classes, one on Global Warming, two on Web 2.0 and two on Web Programming. The classes were all fun to teach and the students were all eager learners. My Global warming class was from the Alliance for Climate Education organization I am in so the information were not exactly made by me. The web programing class was not as easy to teach mainly because the topic required extensive knowledge of programming as well as servers and web design. On the other hand, the web 2.0 class was much funner and enjoyable by the students since it gave a broad in-depth explanation of Internet and website technology. For the next splash, I am planning to teach double the number of classes and make them all hour long.

CreativeMedia

I now work for UC Davis's Student government as a computer programmer. I basically work on websites that are run by the student government. Currently my project is to develop a new Fridge Rental website which is pretty easy but learning the new Zend Framework can be a bit tricky. I never used a framework before and for now it seems pretty good. Obviously using it has its benefits such as how a framework keeps the website organized especially if the website is a massive project. My job is pretty fun and it seems that I will be working there my entire college years. I get a nice desktop at the studio with two monitors that sort of reminds me of my home a bit.

Side Project

Currently working on building a new server for development purposes. Looking into several linux dev to test out and see what I can possibly learn from it. I haven't gotten any hardware projects done so hopefully this should be a good place to start. Also I am planning to develop some open source apps onto sourceforge so that I can be officially known as a open source web developer. I don't think I will be filming anymore so my videos section will soon be known as my high school video's and hopefully become some sort of archive.

Intro

It is about 2 months into summer and so far it has been good. College is coming right around the corner and with that in mind, I am bound to use every day as much as possible. I had migrated my website's custom blog into a new blogger account. Now with this 3rd party tool to update my blog seems to be more web 2.0 style. I felt like keeping better track of my blogs and it looks like blogger would be the best way to do so.

Work

I currently work at the San Francisco International Airport as a High School summer intern. My job is pretty easy; I mostly do research and create documents and such. I work under the Recycling Office in which my goal is to reduce airport waste. The job itself is pretty fun, they offer free tours of different part of the airport once in a while. So far I've seen the airfield, emergency operations center, noise office, museum, engineering building and such. If I don't find a computer related internship next summer I will probably work here again.

Websites

I have been working for another internet business creating this time an e-commerce site. I have made e-business sites before but this time, I am developing the cart system as open source. By the end of the month, I should be completed with the site and I will upload the open source project under sourceforge.net. The site is pretty neat and I am trying to allow maximum flexibility so that the package can be easily configured.

Camping

So, I just came back from my camping trip to Lassen National Park. This would be my second time camping, the first time was a 30 day backpacking trip with NOLS. The trip this time was a bit different; it was more civilized I would say. Like there was a restroom, rangers, bear cages and such. It made the trip much enjoyable but at the same time took away the real experience of wilderness. We stayed at Butte lake campgrounds which were a good fit since it was near the trails. Our trip was filled with fun and every bit of it reminded me back of NOLS. I would have never thought that I would want to go back again. Now that I have a tent, it wouldn't cost much to be an active computer. Our stay was 2 nights in which the 2nd day me and my friend Justin took a 15 mile hike around the park. We swan in Juniper Lake which was a vast gorgeous freshwater lake with nobody except us. The experience in all was great. The drive back was quite scenic too and it seems that highway 36 has the best views imaginable.

Intro

Finally, the time has come for me to transition away from school to college. This means no more waking up early, taking the same classes everyday and doing homework but instead have the freedom to roam campus, look for research assignments, live minutes away from class and decide how you want to use your time. I've been waiting my entire life to enter college and now my time has finally come. I will be at UC Davis and hopefully with the goal to do research in computer technology as well as doing their website, but most of all I want to invent something.

My High School Experience

My four years at Lincoln wasn't bad, I wouldn't imagine that my high school experience would be so awarding; I got the Principal's recognition award! I went on a 30 day backing trip in the Rocky Mountains, Spent 6 weeks in Thailand with a host family and started a social networking website. Did I mention that I ended up as the school webmaster, technical director of mustangtv and produced 50+ videos! My high school experience was AMAZING!

Videos

This is the time where I made my final four videos that were all ending videos. The Noise PSA for the AOIT final project which helped our school community, the Social Enterprise for learning video which was presented at City Hall, the Drama Awards video was for the Drama seniors to say goodbye and lastly was the Senior Class of 2009 video which was for all Lincoln High School Seniors. Its time to say goodbye class of 2009 and remember all the good times we had. My ending videos were in a way sad because it was my last chance to do something for Lincoln and I think I did pull it off well. With that to say I was glad it ended well. The Graduation ceremony happened so fast I can barely remembered where all the time went.

For Hire

For those that remember my old Alvinsng.com, it had a for hire section. When I started this version it didn't have it since I was too bust for jobs. Now that summer is here, I am proud to announce that I am back for hire. If you, or someone you know needs a website done please let me know. You can check our my hire page at http://www.alvinsng.com/hire.html for more info.

Intro

So looks like my blog posts don't seem to be updated often enough even though the need to be. This is that time of year where you find out what college your going to. As of now it looks like I'll be an aggie at UCD. UCSD is nicer, high ranked and has an awesome engineering program but as far as parents go it's too far from home. Also as you can see I redesigned my website so that its more professional. I like the style of the banner since it seems to be much more stylish this way.

LincolnHigh.net

Not much as been updated other than a move to use the new bulletin system. The bugs have gone down and for a while I think the site is in its stable version.

MustangTV

Well since BSA just happened it looks like its time of the long editing process. There are 16 tapes with some extraneous tapes for behind the scenes videos. It is actually going to be tough to create the DVD since I need to mix HD with DV so that it will be compatible. Too bad we cant just force everyone to have and HD player. BSA was pretty good this year, a lot people liked my Change/Opening Video which I still think could have been greatly improved. The drama video was original and I though it was alright even though James Bond was my favorite.

Intro

So it is finally year and I am working harder than ever. Three are lots of new projects that I have been doing for the last month or so and I am still working on a few more projects. And I still have time to think about how much I miss being in thailand!

LincolnHigh.net 3G

If you didn't already know the new school website (3G) is finally published and online. The new site has gotten lots of positive feedback and I am now working and adding the lincolnhigh.net additions including getting the content to be as updated as possible. There seems to be more views on the school website thanks to more teachers using the school website. The CMS of the site has been added and it will be improved so on as time goes on. The web team has gotten a bit bigger with this year I will be distributing my work among the other website editors. Hopefully with all this great contribution our movement towards a better high tech educational system will go on.

Siemens Technology Competition

Mark and I have worked as a team into researching a Siemens scholarship competition. Our research is a computer science technology that will speed up the internet via smarter cache technology. In the next week we will publish our work online. Hopefully we will win the regional competition and get some money for the school.

Environmental Video

I will be producing a Social Documentary to tell about our world's environmental issues. Hopefully with that done it can have some impact among teens to be more informed about society and its ongoing world. We do have to take action and I have strongly been a support of the green movement. Go Obama!

Class Site

Currently under beta testing with 2 teachers, the class site is similar to the learning management software used by universities. After a few more weeks it can be published and announced for the school to use. The site will be shown later to a few more teachers and so more feedback can be added to developing it to be fully operational. This may include a focus group to discuss certain needs of the school.

Intro

Sorry for the long awaited delay in my blogging. I have been extremely busy the last few weeks and especially the next upcoming weeks up until I graduate. I am gratefully and delighted for all that said happy birthday to me! I can't thank you all enough and I cant believe I am finally 18; I still have memories when I was 8 and thought I would never become an Adult.

LincolnHigh.net

First off, our updates can now be now followed though our twitter feed at http://twitter.com/lincolnhigh. Recently our CMS has undergone a new big update; version 7 has been a huge improvement in web technology over the last version. CMS v7 is now included with the Class Site App, so its integrated right into the LincolnHigh.net system. CMS v7 is fully stable with just a few more features coming, possibly a video function as well as a completely new bulletin system. As far as the actual school website you may have seen some small changes, such as the re-designed home page that displays the complete daily bulletin. Faculty pages have also been completely remodeled to take into account of the new features in CMS v7.

MustangTV

This may seem old news but MustangTV broadcasts now runs a new live feed loop off the internet. It plays songs has been the most requested and it ranks them in that order. The environmental video “What's Happening” is now completed has been showcased to a good amount of students as well and a few other environmental organizations in the Bay Area. Also underway is a new upcoming environmental video to introduce the idea of a green academy in Lincoln. I am undertaking a few more film contests that may entertain quite a few people and then BSA will soon to come. BSA this year will hopefully be better than the last with Drama hopefully doing a new film and also two separate films will be produced. One video will be about change and possibly the other a general video.

AOIT

Lastly, AOIT held the Community Town hall meeting which came to be a huge success. That would mean that in the future we will be seeing more involvement of Lincoln students in the neighborhood. PSAs will soon be coming and that may be another project that I will be working on as well. I will be attending the SFUSD new technology plan meeting, hopefully to push the idea of having more use of technology both inside and outside the classroom.

I will be gone to Thailand from July 1 - August 22. That's just about all my summer. Feel free to send me and email at admin@alvinsng.com. I wont be checking my email as often but I will try to reply to them. Other than that I have been working with Mark on the Third Generation of Lincolnhigh.net. Its will be done hopefully within the first few weeks of school. Here is a photo with my close friends outside AMC Van Ness, after watching Wanted on opening night.

So it's been just 4 days since I left Thailand and I still can't believe I went though an entire adventure. It seemed just yesterday that I was sitting at home in San Francisco thinking what websites to be working on. Well I don't know exactly where to start on telling my story. If I did try to tell me story it would be too long to read. I will just do and FAQ since I it should get out all the basics out there.

Prologue

Well its finally Senior year! The year that I have been waiting for is finally here. It is the final chapter of my High School experience. I am pretty proud with what I have done so far, not to mention its just the beginning. During senior year I will be creating new and more crazier videos and also be boosting new levels in technology around school.

School

Junior year passed pretty quick, with my biggest memories would be the BSA Video, Drama BSA, Prom, Newhs.net, SEfL Project, First Music Video and Drama Awards! Its been a fun yet unforgettable experience that I would have never gotten if I was home schooled.... the year ended with a fun hike around the marin, below is a photo of where we hiked

Video

There has been two videos posted since the last blog, the Drama Awards video and the SEfL project video. Both were presented and both where big. The SEfL project was the video that explained to our district what we are learning from the Academy program and what has helped students, school and the community. Our video came to a big success and the student involved were all rewarded with certificates. The Drama Awards video was a sad memory that captured the fun moments during this year, from the start of the crucible to the last day on MustangTV the video has brought it all back. During the summer I will be in Thailand for the majority of the time. I hope to do a video documentary when I return from the trip. There might be a chance that I will create a video about my room design.

Computers

Well the site newhs.net is a bit more active now, the next feature will be the "howto" section. I have begun to create software packages so that anyone can learn and apply the open source codes onto their own website. Check out the software page on this website for available packages. I have been able to run a file server off Ubuntu and will begin to open up web servers off my computer. This is currently just for testing purposes. It may be available in the future for dropoff/pickup of large files. Computer Club next year for those interested!

Prologue

It is nearing the end of the school year. It is the time of year when I have to get a ton of work done before the year ends. A simple list of what I need to do by the end of the school year is, PSA video project, Drama awards video, Last Drama video, Complete Academy website, Online grade book/class site, Grease DVD and Physics Project. Whew is going to be a long and tiring stretch until I get all this done.

School

Interestingly in APUS we are on this mission to learn about history and how it affects our daily life. This new online mission is done to learn about history from us and other students. It been pretty fun. I did three missions so far with a total of 47 points! Check me out at playflashback.com, (Im Computer Dude). I have been deciding for a while now on whether to transfer to Lowell or stay at Lincoln. Not many people know about me thinking about this but it has been in my mind for a long long time. After some long thought it should just stay. Lets hope i don't go crazy and change the decision last minute eh?

Video

Its been a while now, the first music video is here! Yeah i got a lot of feedback about how its of sync. Its harder than you think. I seen the music videos online and they have similar but smaller problems. Sometimes when you think the artist is singing in a certain way, their lips move differently. This video just happened to be a bit more dramatic. It wont happen next time lets hope. It was pretty impressive how it was done is just a day. Probably the fastest video i made. The only video I havent done would be an action video... Get ready class of 09!

Computers

I am now on my final web project. Academy.lincolnhigh.net is just done. The new class site will be published by the start of the next year. Hopefully there will be a wide use of the website. It will be incorporating some of the fun features in newhs.net. I been working more on Apache web servers and I will probably have a fully running file server soon. It seems like the school computers have some security vulnerabilities that needs to be addressed.

Prologue

This is a restart to my blog (AGAIN). I haven't really been a dedicated blogger, I think it has due to me being busy and not having time to really write down what happens.

School

Well as the title has just said AP testing, I find that to be quite a pain to do, not the test but just the worry, stress and cramming. Well APUS is done and I am still not sure on whether I should even try to get a 2 on the AP Physics test. I haven't been concentration in studying for that test mainly because I am not in an AP Physics class??? Well if I was then that would be a totally different story there. Sighs that is $85 bucks gone to waste =(. On the bright side I think the AP US test went well. I am going to prom =).

Videos

There are two prom videos that have been quite popular at the school. The videos were quite simple to film and especially having Dominic giving pretty much the stupidest ideas that a video producer would want to hear. The videos were made to promote prom but I doubt that has convinced anyone to actually change their mind on going. I know that a lot of drama people wanted to be in the video but didn't know that we were filming. On all upcoming video days I send out messages on facebook to my “drama friends”, make sure that you are on my facebook drama list and also check your facebook. I am planning on a few more fun videos after the play including a music video. I have recently added the two SF cliff side videos that were shot a pretty long time ago with mark. It was made just to test around the camera and gather some good stock footage.

Computers

I have recently been moved into learning more of the server hardware and server side software management. Just a little thought is to try out the user-friendly version of Linux, Ubuntu. It is the most well known and most popular of all the Linux developments. I find that Ubuntu offers much more advanced and powerful tools in both networking and shell permissions that windows can ever achieve. Ubuntu is able to apply the pretty GUI to make the OS seem more human. The Lincoln Academies is getting a new website, the almost done website http://academy.alvinsng.com/ (will be moved) has all the info and media relating to the academies at ALHS. Starting soon, I will begin to develop and add open source coding onto this website in mainly to help others in learning PHP, MySQL plus the general web programming aspect (Sorry I don't teach hacking, please learn that on your own). It is planned that next year I will start a computer club so that people that are interested in learning more advanced topics about computers beyond the current level can do so from me and others. Let me know if you are interested in doing so.