Published in the January 14, 2009 issue of The Nugget.

News

NAIT’s got the recipe
by Linda Hoang

    Culinary Arts graduate Daniel Labutes has been confidently cooking and baking for years, and his culinary confidence grew even stronger when he won the Alberta Milk recipe contest just before Christmas.
    Alberta Milk and NAIT teamed up this winter to launch a milk recipe contest for Culinary Arts students.
    “The prize was $200 and a quick recipe is no problem for $200,” said 28-year-old Labutes, who has just graduated from the program. “I thought I had a good chance.”
    Students were asked to submit a simple, affordable, and nutritious recipe that could be put together in a short amount of time and featured certain food groups. Labutes created a Brazilian pie.
    “Alberta Milk felt that this [contest] would showcase the talent at NAIT and also provide some real work experience to the students,” said Alberta Milk marketing co-ordinator Melinda Falkenberg-Poetz.
    Culinary Arts students Alexei Boldireff and Joelle Sparvier were also selected along with Labutes to form the group of top three recipe winners.
    About 20 thousand recipe cards with the names and recipes of the winners, including Labutes, will be distributed at various Alberta Milk trade shows and events over the next two years.
    “It will be good for me to have to my name distributed that much,” Labutes said.
    Labutes, who has had years of experience working in various restaurants in the city, is now a teaching assistant in the Culinary Arts program.
    “Culinary is where I want my career to be,” he said. “Someday I’d like to own my own restaurant.”

Published in the January 14, 2009 issue of The Nugget.

Linda’s Tech Talk

Five game changers
by Linda Hoang

    The technologies that emerged or were refined during the past decade have had a huge impact on our day-to-day lives. Here are five technologies of the 21st century that have changed our world.
    1. iPhone: The most revolutionary phone ever invented, the iPhone has set the standard for smartphones everywhere. The phrase “there’s an app for that” exists because of this multi-functional all-in-one computer, camera, and phone that seems to be able to do anything.
    2. TiVo (PVR): One of the very first digital video recorders (DVR), TiVo has changed the way we watch television. No longer do we need to be at home at a specific time for a specific show, with a DVR remote, we’re able to pause, rewind, and later fast-forward through any broadcast. Talk about power and control.
    3. YouTube (Social Networking): It’s hard to believe YouTube has only been around for five years when it feels like forever. YouTube has made it possible for one person to reach a worldwide audience, turning average Joe’s into Internet superstars, and giving rise to video blogging. It’s easily one of the most important social networks in existence, though many social networks including Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, all of which launched in the past decade, have all had significant impacts on society.
    4. HDTV: Put a standard definition television broadcast up next to a high def. broadcast and you can’t help but wonder how you ever watched TV and movies before. The crisp, clear, and bright images are awe-inspiring, no exaggeration. HDTV’s have already led to the invention of Blu-Ray discs and in the increasing journey for better quality, who knows what’s next.
    5. High Speed and Wireless Internet: Gone are the days of that god-awful dial tone, high speed Internet means instant access to websites, streaming videos, downloading and well, basically anything done online that I’d otherwise give up on if it took too long to load. Thanks to wireless Internet, take what was just mentioned and add mobility to it. Instantaneous access on the go, wherever you go. The web is always available to us now. Plus, Wi-Fi has certainly made hanging out at coffee shops more fun.
    Not only have these technologies revolutionized the way we live, but they have also set the stage for more world-changing tech to come.
    I can’t wait to see what’s in store for this next decade.

Published in the November 12, 2009 issue of The Nugget.

Linda’s Tech Talk

E-reading the future
by Linda Hoang

    Once upon a time, you’d have to leave your home and go to a bookstore or library to buy or borrow your next novel conquest.
    This is not the case anymore, thanks to electronic readers.
    These tiny, library-bookstore-in-the-palm-of-your-hand devices let you access online bookstores and buy and read digital books, basically anywhere.
    Some might call it the book lover’s best friend. Others might call it the death of real books.
    Though electronic book readers have been around for some time, and have slowly but surely and impressively been improved upon over the years, this holiday season seems to be the season for e-readers.
    Currently Sony’s Digital Reader series dominates the Canadian e-reader market and come December, a brand new model is being launched. Just last week, Barnes & Noble announced their new, function-packed ‘Nook’ e-reader will be released at the end of the month.
    E-reader prices range from $200-$300 and e-books typically go for $9.99.
    Common e-reader features include a backlight, adjustable font sizes for easier reading, highlighting, writing your own digital notes or digitally bookmarking your page. WIth touchscreen e-readers, you can turn pages with a single swipe of your finger.
    Steve Haber, president of Sony’s Digital Reading division, says the goal of e-readers and e-books “is to expand the market and provide open access to what consumers want to read when they want to read it.”
    Regardless of e-readers’ neat features and attempts to look like a real book with paper-like displays, I don’t want to spend hours at school or work in front of a computer screen and then wind down for the night in front of a smaller computer screen.
    Call me old-fashioned, but I still enjoy the feel of a real book, the crack of the spine, and the good ol’ smell of worn paper.
    I also doubt that e-readers and e-books could actually fully replace real books and bookstores in the future, though e-stores and title selections are increasing all the time.
    Who knows, maybe you’ll find this article in a Nugget e-reader archive on your own little e-device in the future.

Published in the November 5, 2009 issue of The Nugget.

Linda’s Tech Talk

Telus, Bell get iPhone
by Linda Hoang

    Canada’s wireless landscape changed forever this week.
    Rogers’ monopoly in Canada officially comes to a halt today as telecom giants Telus and Bell begin to sell the iconic iPhone.
    The move comes just in time for the holiday season, which could mean great things for you and I. After all, competition generally means good things for consumers in the first place. Throw in holiday sales and there’s sure to be price drops, new phone and plan choices and more.
    Up until this point, Rogers had been reaping the benefits of being the sole provider of the phone that is arguably the best and most revolutionary of the mobile age. Rogers had also been the only wireless provider in Canada to use GSM technology (the most popular standard for mobile phones in the world) since 2001.
    This all meant Rogers was in complete control of expensive cellular plans, which we just had to deal with if we wanted in on the coveted iPhone and world-standard technology.
    I’m very curious to see how Rogers will now deal with losing their exclusivity and I’m also very excited to see just how much the cell phone situation in the country will change from this point on.
    Chris Ziegler, mobile editor for web magazine Engaget Mobile, writes that Bell will “be covering fully 93 per cent of the country’s population out of the gate, which should make the new network a viable option immediately for would-be switchers.”
    There are also rumours that quite a few new wireless carriers are slated to open shop in Canada in 2010, bringing with them even more quality, function-packed phones.
    Darren Entwistle, CEO of Telus, is quoted in the Toronto Star last year, as saying that offering two 3G/3GS networks side-by-side will help to “future-proof” Telus as the entire wireless industry moves toward a common standard over the next few years.
    And I am all for sweet future technology.
    Though I have to admit the high-speed, data-intensive, wireless technology of the future is just slightly overwhelming.
    I also hope the new hardcore data phones to come can maintain good battery life because nothing is more infuriating than having a smartphone that can’t do its smart functions because it’s dead.
    Also, is scrapping the ridiculous 3-year, feels-like-a-lifetime contracts next?
    I’ll keep you posted.

Published in the October 22, 2009 issue of The Nugget.

Linda’s Tech Talk

7 reasons to buy Windows 7
by Linda Hoang

    Microsoft’s much anticipated new operating system Windows 7, hits stores today (Oct. 22), and I was lucky enough to spend some time testing out the sexy new software myself.
    Popular technology blog Gizmodo.com, writes that Windows 7 is “solid, more nimble and the easiest, prettiest Windows yet.”
    And boy, is it pretty.
    In fact, that’s one of the seven reasons why PC users should buy or upgrade to Windows 7.
    Here are the other, less superficial, six:
    Windows 7 comes with a brand new task bar that is comparable to Mac OS X’s Dock. The taskbar contains large, aesthetically pleasing icons, allowing users to open applications with ease. You can right click on an application for a “jump list,” giving quick access to standard commands.
    Got too much going on on your screen? With Windows 7’s “Aero Shake” feature, you can simply use your mouse to shake the window of the application you want to focus on and all other windows open will disappear. Make them re-appear by shaking the window again.
    Resizing windows has never been easier with Windows 7’s “Snap” feature. Have a window fill your entire screen by dragging it to the top of the monitor, or make comparing two windows side-by-side a breeze by snapping them to the left and right sides of the monitor.
    Windows 7 also comes with new shortcut hotkeys. Hold the Windows button and the space bar and all windows open will become transparent so your desktop will be visible. Hitting Win+Up or Down arrow keys will maximize and shrink an active window.
    Windows 7 is just more advanced than any of its OS predecessors, which, well, isn’t saying much given its most recent predecessor was the oh-so-flawed Vista. The OS includes a 64-bit version that can use 4 GB and up of RAM, which means it’s able to work faster and handle more information at a time.
    If you have a compatible touch-screen monitor, you can use Windows 7’s new touch interface. With more touch screen cell phones, video game consoles, and computer monitors coming out, Microsoft is smart to keep up with this tech touch revolution.
    And did I mention that it’s really pretty? Yes, that is a superficial reason but the fact is, attractiveness is a sell point and Windows 7 is very sleek and sexy.
    To sum up, as a slightly snobby Mac user who wrinkles my nose at most things PC-related, I thoroughly enjoyed my hour and seven minutes tinkering with Windows 7. I think it’s a great new OS.
    Of course, it won’t make me switch back to PC, but I can see it keeping current PC users from switching to Apple.
    Mission accomplished, Microsoft.

I’ve officially finished my first semester of television broadcasting at NAIT! It’s this semester that is to blame for my lack of blogging the past three months. From eight hours in school each day to homework, group meetings, group projects, volunteering and spending time with my boyfriend (that takes up a lot of time), the past three months have set the record for the least amount of time I’ve spent on free-time/online hobby activities. My fansites have gone untouched, un-updated, barely even looked at, and as I wrote above, the blog posts have taken a serious toll as well. Not even that but I completely missed the last season of So You Think You Can Dance! Which is a HUGE deal… or at least was, considering how in love with the show I was a couple months ago.

My blog post listing the Top 20 of Season 6 was the extent of my involvement with the show this season. I blame it again on my busy first semester at NAIT, as well as the Fall slot the show moved into. Speaking of which, their ratings for the Fall SYTYCD were so poor that they are moving the show back to the Summer. Seriously. I could have told them that moving it to the Fall would not equate to a jump in viewership.

But anyway, back to my semester of television broadcast studying!

Here is a brief (I say brief as I write this now but I’m sure by the end it will be anything but brief) summary of highlights of the past couple months:

• Studio Production Class

By far the most hands-on class of the semester. After a few terrifyingly boring weeks of theory and note-taking, this class took a great turn into practicality. Each week we did several rotations of different television station duties. I learned how to use a TV control room switcher, be director of a “show”, be a news anchor, an interview host, and a sports anchor (I didn’t get to the entertainment anchor rotation though, darn). I learned how to select clips and superimpose names onto the TV screen. I learned how to set up and use television studio-caliber cameras and hook up lavalier microphones on anchors. I learned how to floor direct and be a production assistant, counting down to ends of clips and more. It was a really great learning experience and it really broadened my horizons in terms of duties that I’d be interested in (or good at) doing at a television station other than be on-camera.

• Group project successes and nightmares

Before heading to NAIT I had heard a lot about how NAIT “prepares you for the real world.” Their big thing is that you do a lot of group work because learning to work with people that you might not agree with all the time, is a great way to gain real-life experience and prepare you for co-workers who you might not agree with, but will have to work with, in the future. Now if you’ve come to know anything about the kind of person I am based on my blog posts, you will know that I am an overachiever. Well, I am an achiever. I do not get bad grades in school because I just don’t like that. I like being praised for good work and I like showing both classmates and teachers/people above me, that I can do quality work and deliver something more than exceptional. If I am in a group, I tend to take charge and I will pick up the slack if other group members are not doing their part, because I do not want to end up with a failing project.

Anyway, the past few months I had to do a lot of group work. Some of them smaller, like pairs or groups of three, which had always proven to be fine. But near the end there were a few bigger group projects that required groups of six and were weighted a lot, and required a lot of out-of-class time to meet and plan and work. Long story short, in the end my group projects did receive good marks and it all worked out in the end, but there were many times during the process where I really wanted to just shoot people. It was hard. I took up a lot of slack for many things and I saw sides of my classmates who were otherwise great people, that I didn’t like. It was definitely a learning experience because now I really know the people that I would like to work with on future group projects, and the people that I would definitely steer clear from because even though they are great people, they are just not great group members.

• The NAIT Nugget Newspaper

I made one blog post before with some of the articles I’ve written for NAIT’s student newspaper The Nugget. I have meant to add more but now I’ve gotten so behind I’m not sure if I’ll have time to catch up on posting them all up because I have written quite a few articles for the paper this semester. (The whole, having my own technology column that requires me to write at least one article per week helped with that). Anyway as the semester came to a close, and the current editors (who were all/mostly third semester radio and TV students) prepared to head off to their internships, the editor-in-chief started looking for editor replacements for next semester. So you are now looking at the Assistant Issues Editor for The Nugget! :D (I don’t know why they don’t just call the section “News” instead of “Issues”, I am going to ask the editor-in-chief that at the next meeting…) Anyway I’m pretty stoked. I had wanted to be Assistant Entertainment Editor (because I have done so much news/issues writing in the last two and a half years that I really wanted to steer my experience towards the entertainment spectrum now), but oh well, assistant issues editor more than suffices. I get paid (not fantastic, but better than what I made with a couple articles a month). And I get to put this on my resume! (Important! ;)) So that should be fun. Should be interesting to see how I handle the new-found responsibility.

• STAR Awards

So in the Radio & Television Program there is something called “Star Awards” at the end of each semester. Since the program does have both Fall and Winter intakes, that means at the end of each semester there is a batch of students that are leaving for their internships/leaving the program forever, so Star Awards acts as a kind of last hurrah for those that are leaving. For this semester’s Star Awards, I had put myself down as volunteer. I wanted to be Star Awards host, to be honest. The slots open for volunteers for first semester were “hosts” or “opening skit organizers” so I just put myself down for both and I ended up being picked to organize the opening skit. I was pretty bummed that I hadn’t been picked as a host but whatever I got over it fairly quickly and tried to rise to the skit organizing occasion. My friend Nicole and I, along with a classmate Garit (who I guess I would also say is my friend, lol) were all skit organizers and we decided that an opening musical would be a fantastic idea. Little did we know that our class would not be up for participating. Yeah. Star Awards organizing ended up being one of the biggest hassles of my semester. We started with a good chunk of the class being interested in being in the musical, down to 10. And that was including us three organizers, so really, only 7 of our classmates were interested in helping us out. There was endless music issues it seemed, a lot of low morale, people not wanting to rehearse on certain days or at certain times or for certain amount of times, and there just seemed to be a general negative vibe associated with the whole musical. It was really stressful and quite depressing honestly. There were at least two times where I seriously considered going up to the teacher organizer and telling him that the musical/skit was just NOT working.

In the end the 10 of us did pull through and delivered a choreographed and sung-out skit/musical that, while there were a few screwups, ended up being a lot of fun to perform and a lot of fun to watch over again.

Star Awards itself was interesting too. It got me really pumped up to make some TV commercials and be TV anchor and produce some stuff so that I could win some awards for my Star Awards (which will be next December). There was also a goodbye montage/video for both the radio and television classes that were departing on their internships and that made me really sad. I can’t believe that my first semester is already finished and there are only two more until I’m off to who knows where for my internship…

• My Boyfriend

I know you might be rolling your eyes or saying, “Are you serious?” that “My Boyfriend” would get his own little block of summary, but he does.

Michael Brown is a radio student in the same classes as me at NAIT. That is, as you might have deduced, how we met.

The last three months with him have changed my life.

As I said at the very start of this blog, the last three months have set the record for the least amount of time I’ve spent online doing just free-time, fansite-updating, stuff and honestly, he is the cause of it. When I’m not doing school work, I’m spending time with him. I do school work even when I’m with him actually, I like to think I am a major reason why he did well on his midterms and finals this semester. ;) Ha ha. But really.. like I said at the end of the Star Awards graph, it’s hard to believe the first semester is already over and not just because the first semester of my TV broadcast schooling has ended, but because that means it’s that much closer to when Mike and I are going to have to split off and do our internships. Mike knows he needs to go and do his radio internship at a small radio station in a small town somewhere. If you’ve been following my blog posts, you know that I want is to go to Toronto or California or somewhere spectacular and try and struggle to make it big there. Or at least that is what I did want. I used to tell people that it’s probably better you don’t have a boyfriend when you’re trying to make big life decisions because you end up making the decisions based on what’s convenient for him, and not yourself. Honestly at this point, I mean who knows if we will even make it past the summer, but at this very point right now (at 8:43 PM on Christmas Day as I write this, as he is playing video games on his bed right next to me), I want to go wherever he goes. Or I want him to go wherever I go. I want to take whatever path that ensures that we are going to be together. And again, you might be saying “Are you serious?”, after only three months?

And I would say to you, Yeah.

So it is sad, thinking that the semester is already over, and we’ve only got two more where we’re in school with each other before it’s time to make some seriously hard decisions that will change our lives forever.

Whatever happens, I can firmly say that Mike Brown has changed my life.

Remember, oh people who follow my blog, when I didn’t get The Best Job In The World? I said, You know what, I probably didn’t get it because I’m not supposed to spend the next 6 months in Australia because otherwise I would be missing something better that’s happening here. You know what that ‘something better’ was? Him.

SO that’s that. That was my semester give or take a lot of details but you get the jist of it. I learned a lot, I met great people, and I had a lot of fun!! I hear that next semester TV is CRAAAZY!!!! There is a LOT of out-of-class time invested into projects and assignments and apparently students literally pull all-nighters editing videos. But I am excited. Just, if this first semester made it nearly impossible for me to update my websites, I don’t know what next semester is going to mean for my sites! Ah!

Anyway, I will for sure putting up a year-end review kind of blog post before the New Year. I’ll also try and post up some more of the articles I wrote for The Nugget this past semester too, so stay tuned!

Linda

November 9, 2009, was my convocation from Grant MacEwan University. It was the first-ever Grant MacEwan convocation with the new “University” name and not the “College” name. (The college officially got University status in September).

Pretty historic, if I do say so myself.

If anyone is wondering why it took me this long to graduate after officially finishing Journalism program classes back in April, it’s because the program included the summertime internship, which we needed to complete before being eligible for graduation. Thus, they stuck us in with the Fall graduates which turned out great for us because our diplomas include the University name!

(Note to self: Update resume with University name).

Anyway, the graduation felt kind of silly because I’m still in school. In fact, I had school the next day. Ha ha. But still, it was nice to sit with the class I’d spent two years with and it was nice to be recognized for my good grades (I got a special string to indicate that I had graduated “with distinction“/honours! It even said ‘with distinction’ on the actual diploma paper. Yay!)

I had a great time in the Journalism program at Grant MacEwan. I learned a lot and I received a lot of great experience and writing opportunities.

Blog post to update all on NAIT TV Broadcasting life, coming up next. ;)

Linda

October 22 2009.

Top 20:

Top 10 Guys:

Nathan Trasoras. 18. Contemporary

Jakob Karr. 19. Contemporary

Legacy Perez. 28. Hip Hop / Breaker

Billy Bell. 19. Contemporary

Kevin Hunte. 23. Hip Hop

Victor Smalley. 20. Contemporary

Peter Sabasino. 22. Tap

Phillip Attmore. 25. Tap

Ryan Di Lello. 28. Ballroom

Russell Ferguson. 20. Hip Hop/Krump

Top 10 Girls:

Mollee Gray. 18. Jazz

Ellenore Scott. 19. Contemporary/Jazz

Kathryn McCormick. 19. Contemporary

Karen Hauer. 27. Latin Ballroom

Ariana Debose. 18. Contemporary

Noelle Marsh. 18. Contemporary

Pauline Mata. 19. Jazz

Channing Cooke. 18. Contemporary

Bianca Revels. 20. Tap

Ashleigh Di Lello. 26. Latin Ballroom

There’s your So You Think You Can Dance Season 6 Top 20!

What do you think?

Pre-performance show I know I’m loving Nathan Trasoras, Jakob Karr and Legacy.

Sidenote: I like the new show opener!

:) Linda

So since starting TV Broadcasting at NAIT I’ve been volunteer writing for the student paper (The Nugget). I’ve got a regular technology column (I forget if I mentioned that in the last post) and I try to do at least one entertainment-related piece for the paper per week too!

Here are scans of the articles I’ve written in the last three weeks:

• October 8 2009. A Google Wave. News & Features ( Tech Talk), Page 4.

• October 8 2009. Mraz strikes a chord. Entertainment, Page 11.
• October 1 2009. Mirror, Mirror…. News & Features (Tech Talk), Page 4.
• October 1 2009. 24 Hours, Edmonton style. Entertainment, Page 13.
• September 24 2009. Mobadass is Back. Entertainment, Page 14.

Here’s a picture preview for funsies:

I’ve had a lot of fun writing all the articles actually and I’m glad I’m still keeping up with print journalism whilst studying the broadcast side! ;) Plus it’s awesome because The Nugget actually PAYS you for articles! Being paid for my work? What a concept.

So my first month of school is wrapping up and I haven’t blogged about anything all month, my bad. I’ve definitely been busy!

This isn’t really the best blog post but I just wanted to post up a quick summary of my first month in school.

Here are the classes I’m taking this semester:

• Promotions and Marketing
• Mass Communications
• Computer Applications
• Basic Broadcast Writing
• Effective Communications
• Law and Ethics
• Introduction to Audio
• Basic Video Production
• Introduction to Studio Production
• Team Skills (2-Day Workshop)

When I first saw the program details and the semester course list, I was confused as to how 10 courses were going to be able to fit into a semester schedule (well, 11 courses actually– I was able to get credit for one course (English/Grammar) that I completed already at MacEwan so I am exempt from it at NAIT, woo hoo!) Anyway, it does work. It just means my Tuesdays are absolutely brutal. I had gotten used to three-hour classes at MacEwan but on Tuesday I’ve got a four-hour Intro to Studio Production class. Which, actually the hands-on in-class exercise stuff so far has been a lot of fun, but the theory part makes me want to just die of boredom. Four hours with just a 15 minute break is just wrong…

Anyway like I said above, I was able to get credit for the English/Grammar course because I had taken English 101, Proofreading & Copyediting, and Grammar for Writers, back at MacEwan. I’m totally stoked about this because it frees up my Wednesday afternoons! At the same time, I wouldn’t mind taking the class because there are vocabulary/definition tests and other grammar testing that I am actually really interested in. HA how nerdy am I?

There was a big Radio & Television party this past month too. It was called “Meet the Firsts” and it was basically a chance for all of the first semester students (that’s my batch) to get acquainted with each other and also meet the second and third semester students. The interesting thing is that my entire class is already SO close with one another. It’s great actually, it’s really cool but it’s also totally weird like I’ve never seen a group of students mesh so well together so quickly. I think it’s going to be a great next two years with these guys! :)

I’ve also started writing for NAIT’s newspaper, The Nugget! Since I’ve done so much news stories at MacEwan and for my newspaper internships, I’m really trying to get more entertainment/not-so-hard-newsy type stories to write for The Nugget. And so far so good! I’ve written a piece about a band, an Edmonton Film Festival competition, and I’ve also somehow gotten myself my own column?! It’s a weekly technology column and it’s pretty sweet I’m pretty excited about it. I wrote about a dual LCD screen Samsung camera for this week. And this weekend I’ll be writing another tech piece along with a review of a Jason Mraz concert!! Once this week’s issue comes out I’ll scan the articles I’ve written so far and post them up. :) Writing for this paper has been pretty great so far because everyone (like my class) is super nice, they PAY you for articles ($$$!), and they provide free sandwiches at the weekly lunch meetings! Hehe. I’ve also gotten really good feedback about my writing from the editors and I totally appreciate the comments. I mean, I would hope that my writing is good given that I just finished two years of journalism and have written things for legit newspaper publications, but it’s always nice to get the compliments!

Anyway, now to fill space I am going to post a few pictures!
(Click to view a larger size).

(Top L-R): (1) Me & Julie on TV!! haha. Our class did an exercise where everyone got to be an anchor-person, a camera-person, and a floor director. I actually loved doing all three roles but there’s definitely something about all the control that the floor director has that I am mighty attracted to! (2) Me & Julie as professional cord coilers! We learned how to properly wrap up cables so that they wouldn’t get tangled when you unwrap them. Under around, over inside! Ha. (Bottom L-R): (3) Some of the ladies of the TV program, Class of 2009-2011. (4) Me posing with a very old NAIT News banner.

More soon!
;)