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Apparently I have yet to announce this, but I've been testing out another blogging service while also running this posterous account, and before I degress into that account and why I'm doing it, I just want to make sure people who read this understand that I am NOT shifting away from posterous. I have begun blogging on http://rkrishnakumar.wordpress.com recently, and the main reason I've been doing this is due to:

• the high level of customization Wordpress offers its users, in terms of multiple pages (Home Page, About Me Page)
• the pure html coding, and possible pasting of widgets and so on.
• the Wordpress iPhone app. This thing is really cool.

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Merry Christmas to all of you out there on this great day, wherever you may be spending this day. I am here at home, caught up in the recent cold weather that has been hitting the Bay Area relaxing and getting some work done and playing games all at the same time. The weather does bring about a good representation about what it should be like during Christmas time, so I really shouldn't be complaining... :p

Not a big believer in spending big on Christmas, so the presents this year were $25 towards Borders, $15 towards iTunes (iTunes Giftcard, which I plan on either buying applications for my phone, songs, or the Dark Knight), a corduroy pant which is like my trademark (lol), and some pajamas. Writing what I got down should be interesting because I really can't remember what I asked for last year, but if I'm not mistaken it was just a hope that we could switch to at&t so I could get an iPhone, and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. I eventually got the iPhone 3G upon its release. Noting it down this year should allow for a nice reflection next year. Once more I have some personal wishes that can't be fulfilled by my parents. 

Here's one for Posterous:

 -Allow HTML Editing, and plug-ins so I can use Google Analytics and my facebook badge. Maybe even facebook connect for commenting.

Other wishes:

- Qik on the iPhone, or video recording in general.

- Flash/Java on iPhone to play some nice games and videos on the web.

Here's hoping they come through. I'm going to go catch up on my college applications and go play some Blockles (http://www.blockles.com)

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For this past five years or so, in school I have been signing my name on papers as Rahul Kumar, and in my cases even been called by fellow peers as Kumar (due to the immense popularity of the Harold and Kumar movies). However, with all the college applications I've been going through lately, teachers calling me "Mr.Krishnakumar" and never-ending questions on my why I right my name as Kumar. So with all this, I have finally decided to change my last name almost everywhere to Krishnakumar, including web services. So far it's been this blog and facebook. Even the URL for this blog has now changed from rahulkumar.posterous.com to rkrishnakumar.posterous.com . Please take note of this update, for all those with blogrolls, and favorites links, if any.

Other things I have been up to lately are pretty much the same as always. Band is going great, and we are headed to the Fiesta Bowl National Band Championship and that will be exciting, like almost every other band trip I've been on in my 3 years so far. Last time, I talked about ONE Club, it was going great, with a huge City Council Resolution that fortunately worked out in our favor. As I mentioned with that under our belt, we are envisioning big things, and hopefully they all go through in the coming months.

Got many college applications still to go, equivalent to the number of UC's and CSU's I applied to (11), fortunately I am getting a college done a night for the easy steps, however the essays will as always be complex, so I will have to really budget my time more finely. 

....and my final thing is technology as always. I've finally built a connected ecosystem using my Phone, the Desktop at home, and the Internet. It took a while, but my Calendar is the first item that has been connected all around. Through Google Calendar, the Calendar on my Phone, and Outlook the information is synced all around. Email is up next, and eventually all other items will do this. The only reason it took me to do this was because I needed a copy of Outlook (which is for businesses) so the consumer substitute, Windows Live Mail, was not able to do this. Nonetheless it's happened.

I've taken the additional features of Google Calendar, and added it to my facebook account now such that a tab on top of my profile, next to..."Wall" and "Info" now has "Calendar" which displays my google calendar. Similarly, there is also a tab called "Posterous" which shows this very blog on it. Essentially facebook now shows more information about me than I expected. 

That is all I have for now.

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In the News As of 12:00 a.m. PST • $14 billion bailout for U.S. automakers collapses in Senate• Asian markets fall as Senate rejects auto bailoutDollar down• Explosion rips through mine in northern Russia, killing 9 workers• Ecoterrorist gets home confinement for plot to destroy dam, lab• Alcatel-Lucent plans to eliminate 1,000 white-collar jobs• Sales of video game hardware and software climb 10% in U.S.•  Pasted from my iPhone! http://pastebud.com

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apparently facebook is now allowing users to embed video, so i thought id try it out myself with the only video ive ever put up there. it also does hd now, but i can't afford a camcorder/camera that nice so ill stick to the embedding

neatest feature id say is that i can put alot of privacy blocking on it. i can only allow my facebook friends to watch it, which means they would have to be logged into facebook to watch it. very cool stuff

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Yesterday was a very important day probably not only for myself, my friends, but also the citizens of Pleasanton,CA. Someday this importance can hopefully extend to the Greater Bay Area.

Essentially, the City of Pleasanton, and it's City Council (who were all reinstated of their positions after the November 4th elections) agreed to support the small club that we have built at Foothill High School, called ONE Club. ONE Club acts as a smaller chapter of the ONE Organization, in attempting to eradicate poverty to a somewhat extensive degree.

With the cities backing behind us now, the club in my mind has truly become successful. Yesterday we distanced ourselves from the other fifty or so odd clubs that can be found on Foothill's campus. Many clubs have overlapping ideas and thoughts, and others work towards something alltogether different.

Yesterday, the club was still a place where my fellow peers and I discussed ideas on what we could do. Tomorrow, is a day when we can do it.

My first idea/concept in motion will bring the club and the city's local businesses both in downtown Pleasanton, and the mall together. I plan to kickoff an idea with the owners of Stoneridge Mall (Simon Malls) and the Pleasanton Downtown Business Owner's Association to host small coinboxes by the register, so as shoppers pass by, the change they deem unnecessary may be dropped in this box. With this idea, the club begins generating a substantial increase in revenue, through which we can donate to local organizations that serve the poor, and homeless.

One such organization would be Open Heart Kitchen. With the current economic downturn, the kitchen is facing a bleak 2009, where they will be put out of operation due to poor donations from citizens. With the small money we raise, even a few hundred dollars can put food on the table for many individuals. So far ONE Club has only tied up with Open Heart Kitchen in doing community service by providing volunteers to serve the good and so on. With the additional funding, we can really change the way we operate, and get things done. This is the future for the club as I envision, and how does the city's stamp of approval play into all this?

In my mind, I believe we have become a legitimate organization now, that can properly walk around and show that we have recognition. Previously, we were groups of high schoolers with no backing that could not possibly not convince anyone what we are about trying to do, for we had no proof or examples. With the city's backing I think we no longer match that description.

Truly significant moment for me and my friends, but it is only the beginning of many more great things to come.

Also my first blog post to have some HTML editing in it, rather than theWYSIWYG

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Happy Thanksgiving to all those out there reading this blog on this fine morning. Be thankful for all the great things we all have in life, rather than what we don't have, and think of those who live this day in uncertainty or crisis. 

There are many out there being thankful for what they have, and here is a sample:

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It's a mixed feelings day today. Thanks to much assistance at the last moments, and school break I have fortunately been able to finish up my UC application, submission pending my parents arrival from work. Other than that, I've most of today just staring at Twitter, and CNN. For the first time I've felt citizen journalism come right at me. The event of course being followed is quite saddening, Terrorist Attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai.

It's really saddening to see your fellow Indians in immense danger because of the silliness that terrorists find as proper justification for their problems. Overall, it just raises much more anger within, that these people still think violence is a justifiable act, and killing innocent people is acceptable. On a slightly different note, something less obvious, is the following of this news on Twitter. 

A twitter feed has allowed thousands of people all across the world come together and discuss the situation, but also spread information. With hundreds of different sources for information, whether it be primary or secondary sources, or media outlets, Twitter is really a fantastic way to aggregate this information. The Indian news channels are offering a much more informative viewpoint then that of CNN, as they are on the ground with the problem. Surprisingly enough, I realized that I'm likely the only teenager on Twitter, following this feed, because a stark difference is facebook, where no one seems to be following it. I find that to be saddening but it seems no one is looking at their computer screens right, nor are they flipping to CNN. Twitter truly is a different crowd. Attached is a picture showing the craze.

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I've been thinking ever since the rumors came out that Apple might be building a search engine what it could be, and I've finally begun to think that to compete with Google's Android offering, Apple will embed some sort of search into the iPhone (such as Spotlight in Mac), that will allow phone users to search everything on the phone. 

Whether it be a contact, songs, a facebook friend, or contents of an email, the search will manage to swift through the numerous amounts of data, and find exactly what the user is looking for. The programs through which it would swift can be customized in the settings window, so whether or not to include facebook friends, or twitter messages can be determined easily.

Though this is all a guess, and a whole lot of daydreaming this would be a really neat feature in mind, because Apple has already done it with the Mac, so why not bring it over to the phone is my question. Other than this daydreaming, which I'll have alot more of now thanks to hanksgiving Break, I will be continuing to write essays for colleges, at this stage UC's.

-Rahul

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Taking my AP Psychology test yesterday on behaviors and learning, the name of famous researchers popped up throughout the test, yet one researched stood out promninently. His name was Tolman, Edward C. Tolman to be precise. One sudden thought struck me at this name...the building or hall where I took my ATDP course this past summer, and also the home of ATDP, was named Tolman Hall. After I had finished taking the test, I thought a little harder and remembered that Tolman Hall houses the Graduate Program of Education at UC Berkeley, and if Edward C. Tolman was a researcher in learning, the building must be named after him. And so I thought for the rest of the class period, only to come home, and take a quick look at Wikipedia, to notice my assumptions were right.

The hall in which I attended TIC (The Internet Classroom) at ATDP, was named after a famous learning researcher. How amazing this world is, and how amazing it is to find such coincidences. 

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today was a pretty good day at school. really loved the vibe of the campus, after last night's amazing win (predicted, but the margins were too good to be true in my mind)

with approximately 70% of my school student body believing obama is the right man for the job, its not too hard to imagine that the campus was lit up with obama shirts, posters, and people walking around saying "Obama Five's" or "We did it". I'm fortunate to be taking AP Government and Politics at such a crucial time in our country's history that we discussed last night, for almost the whole class period. We not only talked about Obama's victory, but also the House, the Senate, and the local Propositions, some of which mattered to some people more than the presidency. lol.

Prop. 8 failed. One loss for me last night. I didn't really connect to people who walked around promoting Yes, because I'm of the Hindu faith, and those walking around preached Christianity. I personally believe that what was true 200 years ago doesn't fit anymore. So I was no on 8, and just happened to lose there. Lost on Proposition 4, which had to do with Abortion, and notifying parents 48 hours ahead of time, if there a minor. That didn't pass either. O well.. some of the other nicer Props did pass like high speed train running through CA. That should be nice, especially if it goes to the happiest place on Earth.

Overall, the Democrats did a really nice job gaining loads more seats in the House and Senate as well. It's like buying a really nice cake, with a cherry on top, the cherry being Obama and his soon to be presidency. Let's hope or country makes the right decisions in the future, particularly when one party has leads everywhere. we cant sit idle.

-rahul

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It has happened. Those who know me, know that I have been about Obama for a long time, and have had this mad craze for the man, and his ideas, and today those ideas have come alive. From the day he talked on the steps of Springfield, IL like Abe Lincoln did only a century and half before, Obama has led one of the finest campaigns known. An amazing victory tonight.

I'm writing this post today, not because I've felt confident all this time that I'm right, but because it's a historical moment, and an amazing moment in my life, because I am of colored origin. Today, Obama has defied the odds. The New York Times says "the racial barrier" has fallen. He won all the important states. He won California, New York , Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, and possibly even Indiana at this time. More than half of those were Republican states, and "battleground" states and he turned it all around.

The order in which I'm saying my stuff is probably not even coherent, because I'm just that ecstatic. I wish I could have been in Grant Park, or along the edges of Lake Michigan. Anyway, tomorrow's newspaper should be fun to read, and worthy of hanging on the wall. School will be equally impressive. It's unbelievable how politically savvy we kids have become. The youth had nothing to do with politics and all of a sudden we do. Obama shirts, Obama pins, No on 8 posters, and Yes on 8 shirts as well. On top of that, facebook has been on fire. People having political messages as their statuses and having debates on their views and that of others, or writing notes on hotly contested ideas. Whatever it may be, the youth are now involved in politics, and I'm part of it.

The most important part of this blog post tonight, is to look back in 20 years, or anytime in the future, and see this historical moment. See that Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States, and the excellent campaign he ran to make it possible.

Thanks to all those who believed in Obama alongside myself, providing me with some interesting talks. Lloyd Nebres (http://l.editthispage.com) and I have shared some great moments during this campaign on almost everything. Going out to my school friends too, even those who love McCain and gave me some good debates. Boy and Girls on facebook, like Sheena and every close friend in my inner circle (Charlie, Nikhil, James, Matt, Brandon, Justin) for those interesting times after primaries or debates on issues. Those are the moments alongside this victory that I will remember.

-Rahul

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recently watched a video of steve jobs doing the commencement speech at stanford for the graduating class of 2005, and found a great quote at the end of the video, "stay hungry. stay foolish". and i've decided now that i'm going to make that my senior quote because i like the meaning of the quote. before i describe the quote, i will link the video here, so people may watch it, because it truly is amazing.

Video:

the meaning of this quote is amazing in my view. i think many successful people in this world today, have used this quote as a motto in their life, and steve jobs is probably one of them. when looked at a first glance, the quote seems to be a bit mind-boggling, but after some thought i think ive understood the meaning of the quote. by staying hungry, one is not being adventurous with the world, and aiming high or attempting to learn new things, and therefore being foolish. opportunities in our fast moving world dont come everyday, and therefore if an idea or inspiration comes to mind, one should take it up. if you dont make an attempt for anything in life, whether it be a dream or an idea, you are being "dumb" since you aren't gaining anything in your life, and possibly losing out on a lot. ive taken this quote, and home to use it in my life, as i go through some new stages with college and beyond.

-Rahul

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life is moving fast, and it doesnt look likes its going to slow down anytime soon. band finally kicked off this past weekend, with our band, foothill marching band winning the sweepstakes thanks to excellent playing on both parade and field show. percussion, my ensemble managed to place for third place, so its an improvement I would say. Nothing to be proud of just yet, but hopefully this is just the beginning and we can only improve on it.

in school we have recently been playing the stock market exchange game, thanks to the Cal State system. not throughly impressed with the system, as trades take about 24 hours to go through, therefore making it very hard to day trade. also hard to buy and seel numerous stocks when you are capped to 60 trades. anyhow, these numbers really dont matter, if there is no sector or industry to invest in. at this time, most industries are durable goods, likes shoes or movies, therefore companies which take part in their manufacturing are going to grow slower than before. today, luckily the market rose 900 points, which was cool because the market can boost investor confidence with such dramatic rises, and a 900 point increase of course covers up the losses that I had incurred for the past week. we are now in week 2 of this 10 week game, and my team is lagging behind, but only by 10000 dollars. hopefully we can cover that and win this in the next 8 weeks. speaking of stocks, leads me to my final thing for today. AAPL or APPLE INC.

Apple has a laptop event tomorrow and it looks damn exciting. Almost being a college student, and an owner of a iBook G4, i could definitely use a new laptop. laptops that are sub-800 dollars, and apple design is a win-win situation. not to mention dual booting windows vista, my OS of choice on it makes it all the more better for me. windows software+mac hardware.

pics of the laptop or "spy shots" are now emerging: http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/13/mr-blurrycam-reveals-the-updated-macbook-pro-899-laptop-model/

-rahul

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It's been a couple weeks noce since I've blogged, and I don't think there's a better time then now, to give a glimpse of what life is like.

Band is FINALLY going to start now, so I can finally enjoy Saturday's traveling around Northern California, while also playing music and hanging out with friends. It truly does feel joyous now, knowing there's lots of fun ahead, but I think by the time April rolls around, I will be dead tired from playing week in and week out. The stakes are high this year for Percussion, particularly because I hope to improve from the poor performances and results we got last year, so I really am crossing my fingers that we do better.

Paralleling Band, is the academic side of school. I've begun to notice that taking four AP courses isn't that bad after all, simply because AP courses mimic college courses. The homework load is not all that much, and if there ever is homework, it's always due on test day. What a great way to increase my low productivity rate. I'm really enjoying the course of English Literature, where we are studying Anglo-Saxon English and reading poems such as Beowulf, and doing Riddles as well. Studying the Germanic patterns is really interesting, as well as the modern derivation to common words. Aside from English Literature, AP Macroeconomics is excellent. Learning about how alot of things, particularly governments work in terms of economics, and now we are diving into a stock market game. Kids have been cocky about this game now for sometime, but I think I might have what it takes to win, not because I am cocky, but because I am slowly researching and buying companies that seem to be in a good position, in the current economic slump, or should I say recession? Don't want to go into details, but AP Psychology is somewhat dry right now, but I'm confident that it will get better and better as the year progresses, and so is AP Calculus. I'm not sure if I don't like Calculus because of what it is, or my poor performance starting the class. We have finally however dived into Calculus and Derivatives, and they seem much more fun, then the review on Limits we have been doing. Aside from the classes, there are also college applications on the way.

I'm feeling weird on doing these applications, but I am not dishing out the information for my teachers to write recommendation letters. Using a wide array of teachers, so each can focus on one aspect of my high school life. I did not plan to apply to too many schools, but obviously plans have changed as many schools are now sending letters home, allowing me to submit applications with no personal essays, and no application fee, and leaving me with a simple personal statement. UC applications also finally came out, surprisingly the last to come out, but the first to be submitted. Not fun at all, but I've started the adventure nonetheless. Overall, the application processes aren't that bad. I think there a really nice way to get to know yourself better, by simply writing what you feel is best, and sometimes the topics or prompts are equally fun.

....and my final section is putting my skills to use. Those who read this weblog are now quite familiar that I took a course in XHTML and CSS at UC Berkeley's ATDP program this past summer, and I think I'm finally going to try to put those skills to use. It's sad to say this, but going into ATDP I had an idea for a online suite for teachers to use to do grades, called Rank'd. I realized just this past month that an idea exists similar to what I planned on doing called Zangle. I was largely disappointed as I felt that Rank'd was a fantastic concept, and the idea had already been created or formed into reality. However, this past week I have come up with yet another idea, that has to do with the finance sector. Now that I have the skills of coding for the Web, I might as well try to put them to some use, before this idea vanishes into thin air as well. More on this, when the time comes...

-rahul

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comes from the song "Homecoming" by Kanye West, because today was the homecoming dance at school. For the first time in my high school life, I actually went to a dance, which I guess is a major step forward. I think I had fun, at least as much as I could being single, and not having a date. 

Really missed out on that. Took the baby steps, by actually deciding to go, but lost another opportunity at not asking someone. I guess that leaves me with 8 months to find or do something for Ball.

On a side note: Google's Tenth Birthday today! They've done some great stuff fostering innovation and attempting to create the best for us consumers, and it's only going to get more interesting in the next ten years.

-rahul

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For many countless years, I have been a user of various technological products. However, I have been a dedicated user to one product for whatever it may be. If it were to use the internet, I have been devoted to using Internet Explorer, ever since I first began using it in it's infancy (Internet Explorer 4). Similarly, in other products I have always been a fan favorite for one product or idea over another, and I think as a consumer, it is best to not get attached to one product or another, and try out everything.

Only this past summer, did I run into many people attempting me to switch over to Firefox, as it performs much better than Internet Explorer, however I resisted and got into numerous heated arguments. At the end was it all worth it? No. I have similarly for the past couple years held a view that Google is the real "evil" company, and they present little innovation, therefore I have detested using Google's products in favor of Windows Live. Historically, I have been a fan of Microsoft, whether it be Windows Vista, Internet Explorer, or Xbox, but I've tried them all and fallen in love with them all, as well as making sure it's the only thing I use. However, today I've realized that if anything a varied range of products is good for someone who is a consumer, therefore I've decided to stop playing "favorites" and start using varied products.

I've also considered dabbling in one companies ecosystem, and so far I've dabbled in both Apple's and Microsoft's owning a varied amount of products that may someday provide a connected ecosystem. None of that anymore. I'll now be trying out all sorts of things from all companies, including Google (primarily them), who I have despised for many years. My first change might be from Internet Explorer to Google Chrome. 

Google Chrome is truly an extraordinary browser, with it's amazing speed, and simplicity. Simplicity I have been waiting to see. However, it does come with it's own problems, primarily privacy, but I think I can get over that. Chrome is also "standards-compliant" the favorite word of any web developer, and as a possible future web-developer, it has all the more reason to be my browser of choice. I might likely dabble in Firefox 3 on Vista, but Chrome might just make me jump it all-together. However, the most important thing, that Chrome does is provide competition. This competition, particularly from a company such as Google, creates a competition among browsers, therefore every company will now work extra hard to create what is truly good. Maybe Microsoft will now work even harder on Internet Explorer, because Google is challenging them.

So this is a new vision I've decided to start doing today. My second thing I plan on doing is possibly coding for Google's new Android Mobile OS. The phone which was shown today is not too impressive, as a piece of hardware, but the OS being open fosters growth. Growth at such a high level, that even people like me may consider coding for the OS. The programming language is Java, and I am currently learning it. I think it would be interesting to put these skills to use. I've downloaded the SDK, hopefully it works out.

And that is today's blog post. Being a bit consistent on this "daily" blogging thing now.

-rahul

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facebook apparently watches everything people do on its site, so much that they took down a group me and my friends created, "amit kumar is a girlyman". best part is that even Amit Kumar joined the group, so i don't think i was being obscene, but just good to take note that they apparently watch everything thats created.

thats a nice screenshot of my screen.

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Today is the 11th Year since Steve Job's arrival once more at Apple as "iCEO", and also the 22nd Anniversary of his well known departure, in 1985 to create NEXT.

The 11 years since his arrival once more, have allowed for some of the greatest products to not only come out of Apple, but the tech industry as a whole. Apple's continued innovation in some fields has allowed for them to change the industry and vision as a whole. Not going to say Apple is first everywhere, but there entrance into any field, brings about a rapid change in the industry.

iPod, iPhone, iMac, you name it, they have all done what they came to do. (there are some bad ones, like AppleTV in the middle)

How does all this relate to me?

I'm a geek, and I love new products. I own all but one of those products mentioned above, the iMac of course, and I've got to say they've all been satisfactory. Just today, I downloaded a graphing calculator application for free onto my iPhone. Don't know if I'll ever use it, but who knows, might come handy some day.

Now I am less than one year from going to college, and obviously there is some excitement. I'm probably going to buy a new computer, but I'm confused between a Mac or a PC. Apple's ads suck. Vista has been the greatest experience a Windows OS has EVER provided me. Don't listen to reviews. It's good stuff. The question now lies, Windows 7 with Touch or Mac with touch (if Steve Jobs ever announces it that is). I'm going to have to wait till PDC in October to see how great Windows 7 is.

Likely going to blog on a weekly or bi-weekly basis for the first semester of this year. Getting some consistency would be nice, and congratulations to Steve-O. 

-rahul

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