There are lots of advantages of going to college and getting your bachelor's degree. With the amount of online success stories building up these days, some might think that it's an easy path and skipping college is okay. Going to college has its advantages and the positive factors beat out the negatives any day.

1. More Money: There's a reason why I put this first. In this world, it takes a decent salary to live comfortably. Anyone can get a job paying just enough to support yourself in a tiny mousehole apartment. Having a college degree opens more opportunities to higher paying jobs, even if your field has nothing to do with what you're applying for.For example: If you have a degree in Philosophy and you've always had a thing for finance, who do you think will get the job when applying, person A or B? A) Somebody who doesn't have a degree and loves finance but has nothing to prove his worthiness or, B) somebody with a college degree who has demonstrated that he/she has devoted time and effort to successfully achieve a goal.
2. Increased Knowledge & Skill set: College is a period of communication and interactivity with your professors and classmates. The skills you can learn such as a writing efficiently, speaking and presentation skills are vital for career success of any kind. Whether you choose to attend a 2 or 4 year program, you will learn how the real world works. Professors and students share experiences that will sometimes put an end to things you've always wondered about. Professors are there to help - it's their job! Most professors find it self-fulfilling when they truly help a student understand and achieve something great. You don't have to spend a fortune to get a quality education. Little things that are learned during the college experience is what helps people get through certain steps in life. Continue for more...

It is known that teaching children certain things at a young age may benefit their future as it would make things easier for them and their parents. I believe that teaching our kids to be environmentally aware is now just as important as learning to say no to drugs. There is a lot of controversy going on about the validity of global warming and climate change. To me, it's no longer about "playing it safe" and believing in climate change just to have something to rave about every once in a while.

Teaching kids about the impacts of climate change and the pollution caused by our actions would be beneficial to everyone. They can learn about methods of improving lifestyles, reducing waste and energy consumption, and possibly knowing how to take political action to increase government particiaption.

Throughout the last 10 years of the internet, it has grown to be the fastest method of mass communication all over the world. When news breaks, it's usually only a matter of minutes before it's the top story on the top online news sites. Today, social networking and a online communities like MySpace, FaceBook and Digg are responsible for enlightening millions of people via word of mouth.

The speed of the internet is evident in our every day lives regardless the age. Spreading rumors in high schools takes just one person - from that point on it's all "he said, she said" gossip. Speaking of rumors, it's really no different in the technology world. Apple is one of the biggest targets when it comes to rumors and figuring out the latest and greatest that's to come from Steve Jobs.

Email, instant messaging, social networking and bookmarking along with niche websites are responsible for the mass enlightenment of the public. Never before have we had the ability to create our own websites and blogs and write about what we wish, whenever and however we want. This very blog is a prime example of self publishing on the web. I give advice, teach, talk about new technologies and the things on my mind. Continue reading after the jump.

Predictions are over and the chatter is on. The long awaited iPhone 3G has been announced and will hit stores on July 11th. The addition of 3G and GPS technology in the iPhone now makes it the most competitive device on the market, especially at its $199 price tag! The usability factor has jumped by a huge margin after seeing all the games and productivity tools demoed during the keynote.

The App Store: Probably the greatest thing that has ever happened to mobile computing. Never has anyone been able to download apps of all sorts on the fly from a unified location. I think it's cool having the ability to download apps over the air straight to the iPhone if they're 10MB or less. Developers also get a big a treat from what Apple is providing them - a platform to easily develop software and then distribute with complete control of the pricing. Who knew that iTunes was going to turn into the single most important Apple product?

What we have seen so far: Medical apps, games, productivity tools, music creation, eBay, and even GPS enabled social networking! What more can you ask for from something that's been in the works for such a short time? Speaking of GPS, I am very excited about using it in conjunction with Google Maps. I plan on traveling a lot and snapping pictures that get geotagged automatically will come in handy.

The TypePad application was pretty impressive even from the limited features we got to see. It has the ability to post entries with images that you can take on the fly, or choose from your library. It would be nice to see tools developed for other blogging engines like WordPress, which is the one I favor.

Mobile Me: Apple stated a long time ago that they would be revamping their online services. They weren't kidding! Integration of email, calendar, address book and photo galleries on all of my machines is more seamless than ever before. Whenever I add a new contact, modify a calendar event or receive email, everything will stay in sync across the board.

Apple's Guided Tour is definitely worth the watch to get a good idea of what Mobile Me is about. My .Mac account will be getting an upgrade as soon as Mobile Me is launched. The web applications that have been built feel completely natural and a pleasure to use. I will definitely be renewing my subscription in a couple of months.

Forbes.com recently wrote about the potential of the iPhone as a handheld gaming system. This sparked some thoughts in my mind about what Apple could be planning come June 9th. The release of the SDK and the announcement of the App Store makes the iPhone a tremendous platform for content distribution.

With the amount of market share Apple holds in the mobile world, the iPhone is more than suitable as a portable game console. We have already seen a glimpse of what the iPhone can do when EA demoed Super Monkey Ball and Spore on March 6th. The iPhone may have twice the power of Sony's PSP, but will its button-less makeup prove to be useful or inept?

iPhone vs PSP and Nintendo DS - Would Apple stand a chance?
Yes, the iPhone is powerful enough to handle top notch handheld graphics, but will it really work as a gaming platform? After all, it is a phone, and we all know what happened when Nokia attempted to join the big boys with the N-Gage. Continue reading for a list issues the iPhone faces.

We're days away from this year's Worldwide Developer's Conference and the hype is getting hotter by the minute! Lifehacker has reported that location-aware applications will be changing our lives, while rumors have it that "Snow Leopard" (OS X 10.6) will be announced. We have already seen a million iPhone 3G mockups and "leaked" shots. Now we have to see what Apple's really got hidden up their sleeves.

Geo-location Photo Tagging:
Having this feature on the iPhone would be pretty handy in my case. I use the iPhone camera all the time, and it would be cool to have location tagged photos. Some people aren't too crazy about this feature since the 2MP camera doesn't take pics that are worth tagging. Also: If cell tower triangulation is used for every picture taken, how will that effect battery life?

This, of course, is just one of the many highly anticipated features expected to be a part of the iPhone 2.0 update and iPhone 3G. We've seen some pretty awesome developments at the iPhone Software Roadmap conference back in March. I am anticipating a lot of things to be fixed and updated, as well as a plethora of applications including games, productivity tools, and more.

I discovered Penzu from a Twitter post by one of my friends on Twitter and I definitely think it's worth recommending. Penzu is a private journal & diary that can be used on a daily basis for anything you want to write down. One great thing about this service is that it's completely private. Other people won't have access to your entries unless you specifically permit them.

Isn't this just another blogging thing?
What makes Penzu different from blogs is primarily its interface and functionality. It's not complicated, nor is it messy. You have your writing space shaped after a ruled piece of looseleaf paper, and buttons to save, print, share, insert images into your entry. These are dated entries meant to be accessible by only yourself.

It's online based, so what if can't get online?
This is clearly a drawback of having anything online based, but most people have free access to the web almost all the time. I've been looking to start writing a private journal and I've considered both having it handwritten in a notebook and having it stored online. I chose the latter method simply because I have internet access all the time. I tested Penzu on my iPhone and it functions just like it should.

Yes, if you're an owner of a PDA phone (or an iPhone/iPod Touch), you already know that you can use the built in application to store your thoughts, and so forth. I look at it this way; A single interface on both my computer and mobile device while having it all backed up online is more convenient than having to manually backup all the time. If you've been looking for a private online solution to spill your thoughts out onto, Penzu may be perfect for you.

UPDATE: Check out my updated review of the latest Penzu offerings here.

The trend of micro-blogging and documenting people's lives on the internet is getting bigger by the day. Plurk is the latest player in the game, joining Twitter, Pownce, and Jaiku.

Plurk is pretty much does the same thing as the other services, except this time, with style! The biggest thing that sold me was that all "Plurks" are displayed on a scrollable timeline. Replies are threaded which makes it a lot of easier and better than Twitter in terms to keeping up.

One thing I noticed is that Plurk is more conversational than Twitter since it's easier to make every message you post turn into a mini chatroom. You're given "Karma" points for being active; replying to plurks, adding friends, uploading a custom profile picture, and more.  Continue reading to see the profile screen, and more!

June is usually a decent month for me. The school semester is over and I have a nice long 3 month vacation from school. This is usually the time where I enjoy myself and put aside all the hard work and stress. I have yet to come up with a good place to travel to this summer, but I'm thinking San Francisco. I also have a few tutorials that I started working on; one of them showing how to recreate the Fox 5 logo.

During the month of May, I thought I would have more time to write, but finals and other happenings required too much time. There are a lot of things that I will cover this month that relate to Psychology, Technology, Design, Apple, and the Internet.

In terms of health and wellbeing, this is the month I will start making regular visits to the gym. It's about time I burned off the extra few pounds I've gained in the last few months. I also need to take my bike to the shop to get it fixed up; a couple of friends and I are planning to start biking around the city. So far, this is sounding out to be a pretty fun month.

For a couple of years now, I've been interested in Parkour, an athletic discipline dedicated to moving fluidly through your environment using only your body and the obstacles in front of you. Some people call it crazy, while others think it's child's play, but I look at it as both. Training yourself both physically and mentally to perform certain things takes a lot of dedication and confidence. Once one gets a hang of the basics, it's all fun times from there.

I was first introduced to Parkour a few years ago after watching some videos online. I was always into this type of activity as it always got me excited and made me want to do it myself. It wasn't until more recently times where I actually started going to the park and other open places to practice Parkour and feel the adrenaline rushing through my body. More after the jump...