Between Culpa, Bored@Butler, and that thing we can’t pronounce, we have a relatively wide selection of websites developed by Columbia students that provide services exclusively for Columbia students. Now, a new one has been released: I Saw You Columbia, a site for student missed connections. Sweet, sweet young lovers are asked to indicate where they saw their desired mate, and can write a short message to them. The site has only been running for a few days, but Bwog already has a favorite: Female spotting Male: Lit Hum class– “When our legs touch under the table it’s never an accident.”

Our doobie-sparking cousins to the North have their own version, as does Rutgers.

Go get ‘em, tigers.

One of the draws of coming back to school is the Super Fast Internet Connection.  At Columbia, we boast a roughly 10 megabits per second internet connection for both uploading and downloading.

Sound like gibberish?  For reference, consider that a typical MP3 (music file) is about 48 megabits in size, so it would take about 5 seconds to download.

We were curious how our speeds compare to other top schools, so we pestered our million friends across the country.

Just this once, we bow to our friends in New Haven…

…and extend our sympathies to our continually slow compatriots in Providence. Click on the graph for a larger version. A few technical caveats after the jump.

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Welcome back to SocketHop, a newish, occasional feature in which we seek to help you with your technology.  This week, we take Gmail and make it even better.

A horrifying example of an outdated electronic mail message client.

Just say no.  To drugs, unless it’s Adderol; to sex, unless you paid for it; to Cubmail, unless Gmail is down.  And even then it’s a tough decision to make.

We at Bwog recieve hundreds of emails every week and we would drown if it weren’t for the geniuses in Mountain View.

If you haven’t already, fetch all your Columbia email through Gmail.  It’s quite easy to do; here’s a nifty tutorial.  Benefits include threaded conversations, simple and powerful organization, and the constant distraction of Gchat.

Using the incredible tools found in Gmail Labs, we’re going to show you some ways to make Gmail even more powerful and effective for managing all those emails from the CCE.  Offline emailing, multiple inboxes, and automated organization after the jump. Read more…

Bwog’s Internet-based television critic Rob Trump returns with another installment of Know Your Web Series. This week: Drunk History.

There are certain things that are perennially hilarious, but by their nature are difficult to focus on for the purposes of fictional comedy.  A prime example: drunk people incoherently telling stories are extremely funny, but drunk stories are inclined to be personally focused, insular, anecdotal, and difficult to make humorous to a wide audience.  Often, the most brilliant comic minds are the ones who figure out how to penetrate that bubble and make something funny in real life funny in fiction as well.

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It’s TV on the Internet! Brought to you by Web-only television critic Rob Trump. This week: Toyboize.

Whether you prefer the British Office or the American version–and I think a case can be made for either–you have to concede one point to the Americans: they’re much better at keeping their actors employed.  While Jenna Fischer can bounce back from a dud like The Promotion into a full-time job on a hit show, the same can’t be said for, say, her British counterpart Lucy Davis, whose post-Office resume runs the gamut from the aggressively mediocre (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) to the downright embarrassing (Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties, Sex Lives of the Potato Men–and no, I am not making that up).

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Your guide to what’s worth watching on the Internet returns and TV critic Rob Trump comes bearing good news for fans of Neil Patrick Harris and Joss Whedon alike.

I feel like I’ve started the last three or four of these with some variant on “Well, I’m not sure that this really belongs in the category ‘web series,’ but…” Add another to that category, because Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is perhaps too short — it’s exactly three episodes, or “acts” — and perhaps too professional — it’s directed by Joss Whedon, he of Firefly and Buffy fame, and on an actual budget — to be comparable to most of the other shows I’ve reviewed.  But it debuted on the Internet, and that’s enough for me.  Dr. Horrible is a web series, and it’s an absolutely great one.

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A politically active tipster clued us in to CountMore.org, a neat website that allows your to figure out whether it makes more sense to vote here, in New York, or in your home state. (Though chances are it’s probably going to make more sense — or just as much sense — to vote in the latter.)

Anyway, it’s great because then it provides you with stuff like absentee ballot deadlines and the 2004 election’s margin of victory.

Internet Television Critic Rob Trump returns after a brief sojourn from Bwog’s series on web series.

Well, I’m back, after a few weeks hiatus of just basically forgetting to write this and nobody noticing. I promised several weeks ago that I would review the other major CollegeHumor webseries, The Michael Showalter Showalter, so that is on the docket now.

The Michael Showalter Showalter, is, like The Jeannie Tate Show, a sketch-like riff on talk shows, where the central joke is how unlikable and terrible the talk show host actually is.  In Showalter, the titular’s host self-parodic character isn’t mugging and self-satisfied like Tate, but instead passive-aggressive and cruel.  And instead of a minivan, Showalter takes place in a studio, where half the footage is of the actual interview taking place, and the other half is filmed by “behind the scenes” cameras that usually highlight the “real-life” tension between Showalter and his guests.

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A School of the Arts third year writing student named David Harrington is receiving some attention today from the New York Daily News in response to his famous internet invention, the Sarah Palin Baby-Name Generator. The Daily News loved their new Palin names so much that certain reporters even used them as bylines.

Bwog played around with this thing by entering in several of Columbia’s most recognizable names. Here’s what happened:

• Lee Bollinger: Shaver Razorback Palin
• Bruce Robbins: Steak Leather Palin
• James Franco: Moose Roadster Palin
• Roaree Lion: Snooker Hinge Palin
• Austin Quigley: Recoil Mush Palin
• Gayatri Spivak: Plop Hero Palin
  

Plus, it’s not just random: entering in the same name twice will result in the same Palin name both times. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Bwog’s actually quite partial to our Palin name: Ladel Torque Palin.

Just because you have homework doesn’t mean the TV watching has to stop — really 12s, it’s true! Rob Trump’s weekly web series fun continues with Mark Erickson’s Infinite Solutions.

Well, my original plan for the first week of school was, having done Jake and Amir, to quickly knock off a review of the other major CollegeHumor webseries, The Michael Showalter Showalter.  But while I was watching some other CollegeHumor stuff, specifically their awesome “Minesweeper: The Movie Trailer”, I discovered something magical that made me abort my original plan.  It was Infinite Solutions with Mark Erickson.  Specifically, it was this:

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It’s time to further explore the exciting world of Web Series. Your tour guide today — as always — is Bwog Television Critic Rob Trump. For even more of Trump’s musings, direct your attention to his blog, which has been added to our blogroll for your convenience. 

If you like to keep up on your Saturday Night Live news, you’ll be happy to know that fantastic New York stand-up comedian John Mulaney has been hired as a writer (as well as UCBT vet Bobby Moynihan as an actor) for the upcoming season.  Besides getting me really excited for this year of the show — Mulaney is seriously hilarious, see him live if you can — that makes now a good time to muse on the subsequent careers of SNL non-cast writers, a legacy far less-examined than that of the performers.  Because while a handful of them have gone on to more visible careers , they’re much more likely to end up writing for a sitcom or late night show and remain as invisible to you as they’ve always been.

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Last week, Bwog’s online television aficionado Rob Trump discussed The Burg. Trump returns this weekend with thoughts on Michael Cera’s latest venture, Clark and Michael. 

Anyone who recently saw Pineapple Express probably caught the following trailer to Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist:

If your reaction to that was, “MICHAEL CERA WHY?” then congratulations, you have a soul.

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Let’s welcome to the Internet Career Center’s new post-MonsterTRAK website. (Hopefully you remembered to remove all resumes, cover letters, etc. that you might have saved in the old system.)

Features of the new website include lengthy sections about everything from interviewing for jobs (“Men: Never wear white socks”) to the art of negotiation and a graph that illustrates how your skills can translate into jobs: for instance, a skilled researcher might be interested in “clinical research, market research, policy research, or magazine research.”  Plus, according to the website, “you will also be able to maintain a person calendar,” which is a calendar designed specifically for people, just like you!

LionSHARE will be releasing how-to tutorials in the coming weeks with information about using the new system and presumably an email annoucing its existence.

Did you know that other people associated with Columbia besides the Terrible 12s have been doing things (exciting things, in fact) this summer? It’s true! Here, we’ll prove it to you:

– Columbia law professor (and subject of a 2007 Blue and White profile) Tim Wu wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about bandwidth, in which he warns of a bandwidth cartel and suggests alternate technologies with which to move information.

–  Fun fact: Terrible war criminal Radovan Karadzic (the only person to ever be indicted on genocide charges at the Hague) is a proud graduate attendee of the Columbia med school.

– Today is Sunil Gulati’s 49th birthday! Bwog has now wished Gulati a happy birthday three years in a row. 

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Oh you kids today, with your New Facebook and AOL Instant Messager and such. The New York Times talked to a bunch of you who prefer going online to reading books that your parents bought for you. It seems that the standardized test scores of Kids Today have declined and plateaued, causing many older people to blame the Internet. But some others are saying that the Internet has created a “new kind of reading”, claiming that even reading New Facebook is better than watching TV because at least there are words involved.

We hear from a bunch of online readers like anime enthusiast Nadia, who counts among her favorite literature some nonsense entitled “My absolutely, perfect normal life … ARE YOU CRAZY? NOT!” Bwog found this thing online and we can see why all the adults are so worried. To quote from Chapter 30: “I drop my hotdog! It just flew towards the end… uwahhhh!! Damn plane! Wait… is that? MY HOTDOG!? I MUST REACH OUT TO IT!! WAIT…”

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