Best Gmail extension: Boomerang

Does your inbox ever fill up with emails that you know you won't respond to for at least another week? If you archive them, you'll just forget to ever write them. Even if you stick them in a special "open me on ..." folder, you're unlikely to attend to them.

Do you ever want to delay sending a message by a few minutes? A few hours? A few weeks?

What if you send an email and want to make sure you're reminded about it if no one responds?

If you have ever had any of the problems above or are just plain curious, you should try Boomerang for Gmail. It's an extension available for Firefox or Chrome and I highly recommend it. You can read their FAQ here or download it here.

Something of that Ilk

I've discovered a new webcomic, Something of that Ilk. Here are a few of my favorites so far:

Link to original

Becoming an adult is realizing that you're still a child, but you can

have as many cardboard boxes as you want.

Link to original

Personal record: 8.53 seconds.

Link to original

...You really can't have any typos.

Finite Simple Group

I rediscovered this hilariously nerdy video today.

Creative and beautiful pictures, delicious treats, and a MATLAB puzzle

Ordinary objects come to life

Take a look around the world from above

These red velvet cake balls look delicious!

MATLAB puzzle (solutions at link):

if (BLANK)
    disp('I Love ')
else
    disp('MATLAB')
end

What can replace BLANK to get the print-out (exactly): I Love MATLAB

And finally, how this blog is created (follow the link for the full-size comic and hovertext):

Childhood and new technology

Childhood: Then and Now is an interesting read discussing two different styles of parenting. I've often wondered if today's children are over-pampered to the point where it will hinder them later.

NoteSlate looks like a neat new tablet alternative. It seems to be akin to the new e-book readers but used for writing instead. And at $99, it's not nearly as expensive as a regular tablet.

Finally, a pretty image (I didn't take it):

Sunset behind the Golden Gate Bridge

I went up the hills behind the UC Berkeley campus on Friday with some friends

to photograph the sun setting behind the Golden Gate Bridge.

I went up again today and, although it was cloudy, managed to get this shot:

Matlab publish()

The publish command is great because it lets me compile the output of a Matlab script into an HTML (or .doc, .ppt, .pdf, etc.) file that is nicely formatted. This way I don’t need to run the script again to get a quick reminder of what it did! I also use it to show results to my adviser. Learn more about it here.

First post

Who am I?

• Graduate student at UC Berkeley: EECS (electrical engineering and computer science) major working specifically on cognitive radio (more on this later)
• Born and raised in the midwest, in Oregon for high school, and now in California
• Traveled to Europe three times, mostly in Germany and Spain

My reasons for writing:

• I’m currently putting off doing research
• Some friends of mine have been writing interesting blogs and it looks like fun
• As a way to collect some of the interesting things I see on the Internet and want to share with people

What do I like?

• The Internet: randomly browsing websites, connecting with people, and learning new facts and skills
• The outdoors: camping, hiking, biking
• Photography: mostly nature scenes or animals but sometimes pictures of people as well
• Languages: English is my native language. Spanish and German are my second and third languages, respectively, and I can usually hold a reasonable conversation in either (though I’m a bit rusty — anyone want to practice?).
• Programming: it’s just fun! C and MATLAB are my favorite languages but assembly and PHP are also enjoyable. I’ve had the most fun programming a microprocessor for senior design and coding for my current research project.

What’s this blog going to be about?

I’m not sure, but here are some things that might end up in future posts:

• Cool MATLAB functions
• Random links to neat stuff I found on the Internet
• Pictures I’ve taken
• Research ramblings