Tips and Tricks for students!

www.3dcafe.com (3d tutorials)
www.highend3d.com (largest maya resource out there, a must)
www.aliaswavefront.com (maya home page, lots of how-to's and other resources)
www.cgchannel.com (3d community with forums and some tutorials, breaking 3d industry news)
www.3drender.comwww.fineart.sk/
www.zoorender.com
www.3dtotal.com
www.insidecg.com
www.cgvisual.com
www.figuredrawings.com
http://cube.phlatt.net/forums/spiraloid/index.php (digital sculpting forum for W-I-P)

Check out Optical Illusions and Visual Phenomena

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/

taken from http://www.wikihow.com


If you're battling chronic lateness, there is hope. According to the experts, you can avoid procrastination and tardiness by changing your habits and tweaking your routines. Here are some things you can do to turn lateness into punctuality.
Steps

1. Acknowledge that you are a person who is having a hard time being punctual. As with any problem, you cannot fix it if you're in denial that it's a problem at all. But if your chronic tardiness is beginning to strain your job and/or your relationships, the first thing you need to do is acknowledge this as a weakness so you can begin to work toward correcting it.

2. Be conscious of the time.

* Keep your watch accurate. For some people, moving up the time on their watch will help them be earlier. For others, they will subconsciously know that the time is wrong and so they just disregard it altogether.

* Keep a clock in each room of your house. One of the easiest ways to run late is simply by not realizing that the time is going by as quickly as it is.

* Set all your clocks and watches to the same time.

* Don't be an optimist. Things usually take significantly longer than you'd expect, even without major delays. If you have a dinner date at 6:30 PM, don't think you can work in your yard until 6:00, then shower, change, and drive across town and make it on time. Realistically assess the time you will take on each step and then add 15 minutes more to allow for unexpected delays.

3. Wake up when you're supposed to wake up. Don't hit the snooze button, linger in bed, and watch TV at the very start of your day. If you have difficulty with this, move your alarm clock to someplace out of reach from your bed; that way you have to get up to turn it off. Acquire the habit of sitting up, stretching, and getting out of bed as soon as the alarm goes off. If you can't get out of bed on time, you may be going to bed too late - try sleeping earlier to allow yourself at least 7 hours sleep. By getting up late you are setting a pattern of lateness for the rest of the day. For more tips on how to do this, see the Related wikiHows section below.

4. Commit yourself to being 15 minutes early for everything. If you have to be to work at 8:00, don't even tell yourself this. Just tell yourself (and everyone else who listens) "I have to be at work at 7:45." If you do this, you will be on time even with little unforeseen interruptions. You will be on time even with a traffic jam. And on those rare times that you actually show up 15 minutes early - you will get kudos for being an enthusiastic employee.

5. Bring something you can read in short segments almost everywhere you go. This makes it easy to be early, since in the 10-15 minutes you have before an appointment/event, you can get a few pages of reading done. This makes it feel like you're getting something done (and you are) while you are waiting, if you do have to wait. You can get a ton of reading done this way, too.

6. Re-examine how long your daily tasks really take. For example, you might be under the impression that you take a 15 minute shower, assuming that starting at 6:30 you can leave at 6:45. But, what about the time you spend before and after the actual shower? It's quite possible you really spend 20 or even 30 minutes in the bathroom, and that's why you can never leave by 6:45. So, think about the things you do every day, and time yourself when doing them.

7. Watch yourself for a few days to see where you often waste the most time. These "time sinkholes" (such as getting distracted while checking emails) are often unnoticed by us and can throw off your daily planning. Try to change your habits around these activities - for example standing up while quickly checking your emails makes it hard to lose an hour randomly surfing the web.

8. Make a note of where you should be in regards to time. For instance, if you have to leave your house at 8 for work, tell yourself, "It's 7:20, I should be getting in the shower." "It's 7:35, I should be brushing my teeth." This will help keep you on track. It is useful to write up a morning schedule to get used to this habit.

9. Keep organized. Disorganization is directly related to lateness. How often have you been late because you were looking for your car keys or couldn't find an important document? Keep the things that you use everyday in some semblance of organization and your routines will go smoother.

10. Plan ahead.

* Schedule something unimportant right before something very important. If you have an essential interview at 4:00, plan to meet a friend for coffee at the coffeeshop next to your interview at 3:30. Then, even if you are late to meet your friend, you will be poised to pounce on your meeting.

* Pick out your clothes the night before (don't forget your underclothes and shoes!). If you need to bring something with you, set it with your car keys or purse.

* If you are going to some unfamiliar place, look over a map, or even drive there once if at all possible. Have your transportation planned - if you drive, keep your car in good order and refill gas in the tank. If you ride a bus, know the route, have your fare, and keep cab money on hand in case of emergency. If you are depending on another person for a ride - have a plan B!

11. Go to sleep on time. This makes it a lot easier to get up on time and helps you stay on task during the day. Unless you know otherwise, assume you need eight hours of sleep every night. By far the majority of people need at least this much sleep. College students and younger need more. Most people underestimate their sleep needs.


Tips

* Kids are really good at making their parents late. Follow all the above tips, not just for yourself but also for your kids. Have their clothes ready, make sure they get baths the night before, etc. If your child is very young, make sure their diaper bag is always fully stocked.

* Being habitually punctual tends to have the effect of actually allowing you to be late from time to time. For instance, Sally is often late. Bob is always on time. They both get stuck in traffic, it is the fault of neither of them, but they end up a few mintues late to work. Most bosses aren't even going to blink at Bob. They view him as a responsible person who has had a rough morning. Sally, on the other hand, is going to get yelled at. Her boss will see her tardiness as evidence of a larger pattern, even if it isn't really her fault this time.

* Quick thing to remember. "If you are 5 minutes early, you're on time. If you're on time, you're late. If you're late, then you've got a lot of explaining to do."

* It's better to be an hour early than a minute late.


Warnings

* Remember your reputation is on the line. The power of showing up is limitless.

* Don..t fool yourself into thinking nobody notices the latecomer. If you think you are more than occasionally late to work, school, church, appointments, etc., you can be sure others have noticed too.

Schools teach loyalty, as well as skill
Business, art programs have educated generations, built ties that remain strong

Thursday, April 06, 2006
By Judy Laurinatis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The nicely appointed front foyer of the Newport Business Institute in Lower Burrell is quiet this Friday, as it is most Fridays, since classes aren't held on the last workday of the week.

Fridays are reserved for independent study, teacher conferences or individual projects, so both the Newport school and its sister school just up Greensburg Road, Oakbridge Academy of Arts, have only a few students around. They're working one-on-one with teachers, trying out darkroom techniques or just reading.

Each school has about 100 students. Both also have loyal alumni and staff and a supportive community, which became apparent in 2004 when flooding from Hurricane Ivan nearly closed them down.

Maybe it's because they have such a long history in the New Kensington area.

Newport began in 1895 as Sayre Business College, an offshoot of the Alcoa Co., which had a plant and offices in New Kensington, said J. Bryant Mullen, owner and president of both schools.

Then it became New Kensington Commercial School, a place where hundreds of high school graduates from northern Westmoreland and Allegheny counties learned managerial and secretarial skills for the business world.

It moved from New Kensington to the vacant Burrell School District's Wills School on Greensburg Road in 1975, where it remains, and was renamed Newport Business Institute in 1995. Mr. Mullen's company also owns Newport Business Institute in Williamsport.

Oakbridge was once the Art Institute of New Kensington, a small school founded in 1972 as a place where creative young people from the area could learn how to use their talents to earn a living. That school is now housed in a former car dealership building less than a quarter mile from Newport.

Designers and photographers for companies and media outlets throughout the area have Oakbridge alumni on their payrolls, administrators say.

Both schools are busy hives of learning. You'd never guess that the little creek behind Oakbridge and across the road from Newport came close to wiping them out in the wake of Hurricane Ivan in September 2004. Swollen from record-breaking rains, it inundated the area so badly Oakbridge's floors were deep with water and mud and Newport lost just about everything.

Ray Wroblewski, the director of Newport Business Institute, has the slides to prove it. The images show mud-caked computers on the first floor and a ruined furnace in the basement.

Watermarks have since been painted over but he indicates where flood waters rose midway between the floor and ceiling in a conference room, soaking rugs and furniture and office equipment.

"Every desk and computer on the first two floors were destroyed in the flood," he said.

But something unexpected happened in the days after the flood waters receded.

People began to show up to help.

"Teachers and students got on their boots and gloves," Mr. Mullen said.

They and other members of the community wanted to help get their schools back in shape.

"The Kinloch firemen -- they're the best firemen in the world," Mr. Mullen said of the Lower Burrell volunteer company.

They succeeded in getting the schools reopened.

Accounting and computer teacher Marie Stewart said the loyalty comes from the small classes and the one-on-one contact between teacher and student. The Wilkins resident graduated from Newport before she earned her bachelor's degree at Robert Morris University and joined the faculty.

"We plant the seed," Mr. Mullen said.

The curriculums of both schools are specialized and aimed at people who want to get started on their careers and who want to do it close to home. Students are from New Kensington, Butler, Shaler and Penn Hills; they are young people just out of high school and older students who want to learn skills for their current jobs.

They pay about $2,500 a quarter in tuition and get an associate's degree and lifelong placement services for their money and effort.

Mr. Mullen points to his own experience.

He's a native of Oakmont and a graduate of Riverview High School. His first post-high school experience was close to home, too, when he graduated from Newport during the time it was New Kensington Commercial School.

"We're helping [local people] to get their first career," Mr. Mullen said.

Oakbridge Director Janie Gatty, also a New Kensington Commercial School graduate, said the school is a place where students learn that their art talents can lead to a satisfying career.

"There are so many things they can do," she said.

And they can do it without driving to Pittsburgh every day or enrolling somewhere out of the area, Ms. Gatty said.

Right now, a group of Oakbridge students is collaborating on a project for Lower Burrell. The city wants a logo it can use for easy identification of sites such as recycling centers or parks.

Mr. Mullen said even though the schools are up and running, with furniture and new paint and busy students, a few things are missing -- a full library, for instance.

The Newport library was located in the basement area before the flood. More than 5,000 books were lost when the waters rose that day.

The library has since been moved to the second floor, and now has 2,000 volumes, most donated by that same loyal community.

It lacks the books on business the school once had, something Mr. Mullen regrets but realizes will take time to replace.

But he's philosophical.

"You can't buy a library. You build it," he said.