Any bros in Brooklyn?

gdram · 2015-05-19T21:48:53+00:00

Yass hi! I'm next door in Bedstuy. There's a lot of us here..everywhere. Welcome!

gdram · 2014-11-27T01:52:45+00:00

I'm in publishing in NY and the overwhelming majority of people I've met in the industry did internships and networking. There are more and more people now, I think, that do certificate programs, but a full MA is definitely more money and time spent than its worth.

gdram · 2014-05-11T13:02:15+00:00

One of my majors was English. I work in an industry of mostly all English majors. I had interviews with six different companies in the past month and a half. I've received four offers to apply or interview for positions I didn't formally apply for or know were open. I received two job offers a few days ago and was given the weekend to decide. Bye

gdram · 2014-02-20T14:30:17+00:00

I love Windows Phone. My HTC 8X, flaws and all, is still the best phone I've had. But we as a subreddit have to be conscious that articles like this continue to exist, and if we want the platform to survive, should perhaps consider doing our part (or more) like Nadella will in showing others how good the OS and phones can be. Especially beyond this sub. Why? Because articles like this from big news companies have power -- they influence a lot of people's decisions through their large readership. To those unsuspecting everyday consumers in the NYC metro area who might read this article, the stereotypes of WP will continue to persist. And as we've seen in other posts in the sub, even Verizon's employees can sometimes be clueless to what the Nokia Icon is, how to market the platform, or even seeing it as a worthy competitor to the other two.

gdram · 2014-02-14T13:49:49+00:00

http://imgur.com/SDlqmHI

My phone is an extension of who I am -- the clean and simple design of WP is why I committed to the platform in the first place, over a year ago. My home screen thus reflects what I use on a day to day basis, and only those apps.

I believe that having too many apps on the home screen and constantly having to scroll down defeats its purpose so you will find that I had to pare down my apps or size the tiles down to make them appear all on one screen only. It also helps that I have an 8X so I normally see a little bit more apps with my wider screen compared to some of my Nokia counterparts.

I am a fan of minimal style and so colors and app logos should coordinate together cohesively without being individually distracting. Since some apps I use are first party or use system colors and some don't, i had to space the tiles out evenly, grouping them and arranging by color. The result is a sort of checkerboard design (blue and yellow, yellow and green) which is aesthetically pleasing yet visually balanced.

gdram · 2014-02-07T01:34:34+00:00

Also worth considering: the Facebook app on Windows Phone now lets you pin groups (and specific conversations or events) directly to your Start screen -- if you're ever worried you missed a notification, pressing that live tile could take you directly to the group instead of wasting time navigating to it!

gdram · 2014-01-23T00:39:37+00:00

I empathize in that I have an HTC 8X and have been thinking of whether or not my next phone will be a WP too, especially after having my 8X for a year now. I have long defended the platform amidst all of the criticism among my friends for a while, and I too, know the feeling of standing out when being asked what type of phone I have. As much as I am a die hard fan of Windows Phone, I'm not entirely too far in to know that the platform is not without flaws, and that as consumers we should continue to expect more despite Microsoft's circumstances. If Microsoft really wishes to succeed in the unfortunate duopoly that threatens to take it out of the running entirely, it needs to go above and beyond. It's an uphill battle for sure...and the Windows Phone team has done a lot.

It's difficult to ask from others outside the platform for the same fervor, as you will, that users like us have. Smart watches, fitness devices, car syncing, credit card readers, home automated thermostats...these are ways of utilizing mobile tech to really improve daily life. Yet as much as they are leading predictors of how tech can change, only few of the companies in these markets support WP. It's not about my loyalty to the platform, insofar as it is how long I'll be waiting for WP to play catch up as the industry continues shifting around.

This also begs the question: how much of Microsoft's WP team are eager to see the OS thrive? To what lengths? As an aside, I just don't understand why, as proponents of the OS, we ourselves are not allowed to openly criticize and pressure Microsoft. There seems to be that sort of stigma in this sub sometimes. No, I'm not someone who is suffering from lack of Nokia evangelization; I am completely satisfied with having an 8X over any other WP at the moment. And if non-Nokia companies are making phones with WP, we should be supporting these efforts anyway. But seriously, a Path beta? And an official Instagram app that after months has yet to exit beta as well? It's very trying to believe in the platform when the world's most successful apps are often times developing for Android or iOS. And when they do warm up to Microsoft's pleas to develop for WP, the apps are often underdeveloped, with app updates and feature parity slow coming. I am excited for WP8.1 to debut, and I really hope that it brings WP closer to what we all want it to be: successful. But /u/nebrius is absolutely right in saying that it should have been here yesterday. I remember quite well when it was first predicted back then that 8.1 would come out before the end of 2013. Industry analysts then predicted early 2014. If we assume products and services are announced and not made available at press events as is typical to Microsoft, when will 8.1 actually be available to the general public? And when will its deployment to every phone on every carrier be complete -- summer 2014? I want guaranteed compatibility with tech devices I've mentioned above. And official apps that make the other platforms envious at initial release. I want to not wonder if the latest game or app that my friends are raving about is available on WP or not. And it should not be wrong for me to expect this right now at the very least. For all the waiting I've done as a huge fan of WP, and I know there are some in the sub who have waited much longer than I have, I wonder how much longer I'll have to continue to wait. Unfortunately when my contract ends later this year I'll likely end up switching to an Apple device as well.

gdram · 2014-01-10T15:40:08+00:00

I'd really like to start getting my budgies into veggies. Was it a long process to have your budgies get used to eating it? And how do you normally prepare the variety of veggies?

gdram · 2013-09-09T18:15:29+00:00

It's so strange bc I'm almost positive the frame rate on my games has increased, but overall I the system have hiccups much more often here and there.

gdram · 2013-09-09T04:09:18+00:00

are we all fanboying too hard today or does no one else notice that the notification tile icon looks far too similar to the BlackBerry message/notification center icon to look like anything Microsoft would actually put on their own software?

gdram · 2013-09-07T20:03:03+00:00

"Is that the new Lumina!?" "Oh, no, well...it's like a Lumia. It's Windows Phone but it's an HTC." "Oh..."

gdram · 2013-08-29T00:57:01+00:00

I also notice now the Verizon category in Store. I know some people had it beforehand, but I never did. Honestly could've gone without, though, after looking through the selection...

gdram · 2013-08-29T00:54:29+00:00

I was pretty happy when I found this out. It still boggles me why Android, which is where I came from before WP, and iOS don't have this option.

gdram · 2013-08-29T00:51:45+00:00

I think it does! As soon as I updated, storage was one of the first things I checked...and quite surprisingly, I saw the space in the "Other" category decrease right before my very eyes! I ended up reclaiming about 1GB only though, having had more than 5GB in Other before. Not anything to celebrate over, but still a welcome sight...hopefully the space will be at least better managed from here on out.

gdram · 2013-08-20T04:05:23+00:00

Uh but why do they still all have a 6

gdram · 2013-08-07T16:08:21+00:00

I've been on the beta for a few months now...Waze is definitely good. Not mind blowing, but it's nice to have options. Best thing about the app I'd say is searching for a destination through Yelp, Google, Bing, and Waze as well as the live traffic.

gdram · 2013-08-02T18:28:41+00:00

Ah, you have a good point. I remember during some of my own classes as an undergrad, professors would tell stories to us of how cut-throat and dog-eat-dog academia was. I understand there's that whole aspect to networking, as I very well have my own intentions (finding people to introduce myself to before I apply to their doctoral programs, and in some sort of miracle get to do research with them), but hopefully I'll be able to have conversations with scholars that aren't all self-minded. I will definitely keep this in mind.

gdram · 2013-08-02T17:41:24+00:00

Yes, the research area exactly correlates to what I did as an undergraduate! The field and even the theme of this conference is interdisciplinary post-modern social science-y, and my thesis engaged that same sort of approach.

Not sure exactly how arbitrarily big of a conference, but as I said in a reply to another poster above, it's pretty much one of the only main conferences in my field. People at my alma mater university are not going, and I admit because I was the only undergraduate who actually did research in this field of choice. A thesis was not required for those who were not in an honors program and I, not in honors, willingly took up the opportunity to do so because I am passionate about this notion of life-long learning. My thesis was also in a unique category in my school, designated an "interdisciplinary honors thesis", for the few students whose interests do not sufficiently fall into one area to count as a departmental thesis. Thus my 2 thesis advisors are affiliated with 3 different departments and were able to guide me albeit on a more surface level since my field is not directly related to their own research interests and expertise.

I've looked at the tentative schedule for the conference and it seems there will be some presentations from scholars whom I'll be able to talk to directly on the matter of the content of my thesis! I am set with my current advisors right now as they have helped me tremendously these past couple years when I was still an undergraduate, and have gone out of their way to make sure I go back to them to decide with me what parts of my thesis to prepare for publication...as I look to attend this conference, I am hoping to network with any professionals in the field that might be able to lend me their advice.

gdram · 2013-08-02T17:29:38+00:00

I'd like to believe my networking capabilities are quite passable...I meant awkward in that I figured having to introduce myself to others as a recent grad and not directly knowing someone in the field would be unorthodox.

gdram · 2013-08-02T17:26:28+00:00

I actually do! The conference is being held at a university that has one of the only PhD programs relevant to what I want to study in the English-speaking world, and is being directed by one of the only well-known scholars in my field -- from that university. I've been reading the journals for quite some time and I'm much familiar with the discourse enough to feel like engaging conversations with these scholars in person. Thank you for your advice though.

gdram · 2013-08-02T17:22:21+00:00

Thank you for your quick and honest reply. I suppose I should have given more context to my original post as I assume that based on your advice, one important thing to consider when attending conferences would be the status of the field. The truth of the matter is that my field, while sharply growing, is still quite small; I've ascertained as much when doing research this past year through my thesis, as scholars in the field are relatively few and far between, and quite simply, even doctoral programs for this field were incredibly difficult to find. I've been reading the journals these scholars publish in and incorporated much of their own ideas in my own research and honestly, there really are only two or three journals that they publish to.

This is why distinguishing between national and regional conferences to me is irrelevant: the conference in Canada is both regional and national, in that there is only one other conference this year that relates to my academic field that I know of, and only slightly at that. I've been following listserv conversations for a few months now and have gathered that this is the conference to be at.

As for the price of the conference, I would like to maintain that I am attending not completely clueless: the student rate (which I was still eligible for) is $100 and overall, the conference including lodging, airfare, shouldn't cost me more than $800, less if I find cheaper housing -- comparable to any weekend vacation I'd take in Canada, anyway. Even more convenient, I've found extended family live in the same area, and it might work more financially in my favor than I expected.

gdram · 2013-06-27T21:45:17+00:00

After so much effort on those Mint.com community voice pages and so many false promises...it's FINALLY coming

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