Turning Your TI Calculator Into A Hand-Held Game Console

Ever heard of TI-BASIC? It's the unofficial name of the programming language built into your TI calculator, allowing you to program formulae, repetitive tasks, and games into your personal number-crunching machine. Granted, it won't turn your TI-89 into a PSP, but you can get it to generate rolling dice, convert currencies or temperatures, or set up a game of tic tac toe and twenty-one for you and a friend - and yes, you can even set it up to play Tetris.

And really, Tetris is all you need to kill time riding the bus to class, back to the dorm, or during a particularly drawn out lecture on number theory, right? Here are a few handy links to help you start programming your TI Calculator with the games and applications you want:

TI-82 Games

TI-83/84 PLUS Games

Open-Source Applications for TI-83

Programs for TI-89

Wikipedia's TI-BASIC Page

You're Never Too Old or Too Young...

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest college student to graduate with her degree is Nola Ochs, a 95-year-old graduate of Fort Hays State University in Kansas. Ochs made history when she received her history degree in May of 2007, walking with her granddaughter at her graduation ceremony.

The world's youngest college grad, Michael Kearney, enrolled at Santa Rosa Junior College at the age of 6 years. After receiving an associate of science in geology at the age of 8, Kearney went on to earn a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of South Alabama two years later.

Just goes to show - you're never too old (or too young) to earn a college degree and enjoy it!


Nola Ochs | MSNBC.com

Be a YouTube Superstar

Who doesn't love (or love to hate) popular YouTube videos like OK Go dancing on treadmills, or 1,500 Filipino inmates performing their own rendition of Michael Jackson's Thriller? Oftentimes hilarious, crude, slapstick, and even possibly educational, amateur digital media directors are making names for themselves everyday on YouTube.com. Inspired to become part of the revolution of home-made video entertainment? Here's what you might need:

1. A Camera: Don't worry, you don't need to break the bank for a sweet recording device. Depending on what type of video you want to create, you can use a simple hand-held camcorder or webcam.

Hand-held camcorders come in three main types: Mini-DV (possibly the cheapest and best quality video output, but must be firewired to your computer to edit and post video), Mini-DVD (with removable mini-DVD disks, these are really handy but because of the compression of video onto mini-DVD format, the quality can be lower than that of a Mini-DV), camcorders with built-in hard drives (like the iPod camera, these cameras can get more expensive, and the quality of video produced by them is not as technologically advanced as other types of video cameras on the market today).

Digital webcams are cheaper, smaller cameras you can plug directly into your computer and use to shoot videos directly from your desktop. They usually come with built-in microphones, and can oftentimes double as a photo camera. Webcams are ideal for frequent video blogging, video chatting on Skype or other video chat software, or snapping quick shots for your MySpace profile.

2. Video Editing Software: YouTube has its own simple editing software with some basic features, but if you want to get experimental, you may want to try out a video editing software package of your own. Put in sound effects, credits, and special visual effects into the shorts you make with software by Adobe, Corel, Maxon, and more.

Additional tips on publicizing your YouTube vids:

Make friends with other YouTubers and post videos as comments to their popular submissions

Tag your YouTube vids with keywords that you want your video to be associated with!

Publicize your YouTube profile and videos on your personal blog, in forums, or blast an email out to your friends to check it out

Post your video on sites other than YouTube, like Digg, EyeSpot, OurMedia, and Grouper.

CampusTech 20 Year Anniversary Sale!

July 2007 marks 20 years of student discounts at CampusTech, now the United States' fastest growing online retailer of high-tech hardware and academically licensed software for students, faculty, and institutions. Offering educational products by top manufacturers including Adobe, Microsoft, Dell, and Apple, CampusTech marks its two decade milestone with a month of Anniversary discount blowouts on software, hardware, and accessories.

This week take 10% off iPod accessories, backpacks, messenger bags, and laptop cases until July 9th! See CampusTech.com for more details.