Page 8 -The Lion’s Eye Eye on SPOIts December 17, 2002 Four year sports rule hits home By Dan Zacher DXZ133@psu.edu Lions Eye staff writer With the advent of the four-year bac- calaureate degree at the Commonwealth campuses the Penn State athletic program has begun to change with the times. Starting in the fall semester of 2003, Penn State Delco - along with 13 other Commonwealth campuses - will be eligi- ble to play student who are in their third and fourth years with the team in the Commonwealth's new four-year athletic eligibility program. "This is an exciting time for all Penn State students at our Commonwealth cam- puses," said John Fritz, director of the CCAC, in a published release from the Office of University Relations. "This is the natural thing to do, with these campuses offering four-year academic programs. Their involvement in athletics is a big part of their overall educational experience. The student-athletes at the Commonwealth campuses will have an opportunity to play an extended schedule for four years." The program will only be available in the fall for the women's volleyball and in the winter for the men's basketball. The school's other varsity sports - women's basketball, soccer, baseball, and team ten- nis - will remain with their current two- year eligibility although plans are going to effect that will also bring four-year eligi- bility to the rest of the teams This issue of my article is dedicated to the holidays. May it bring you happiness and good cheer....and an empty bank account. In the spirit of the holidays, I have decided to give the readers a buying guide for geeks, techies, or people that just like cool gear. PDA / PIM (Personal Digital Assistant / Personal Information Manager) The Palm Pilot was the father of the modern PDA, and may be on the top of your techie's wish list. Even "normal" people are starting to carry around these electronic schedulers. Here at Penn State, some staff members are using Palm IIIc's, and even faculty are looking into teaching classes with integrated Palm m515's. They have become somewhat of a phe- nomenon over the last few years, and con- tinue to grow in numbers and functionali- ty. But, Palm isn't the only game in town. The higher end competition is Windows CE devices. The Palm OS runs on PDA's such as Palm Inc's m515, Zire, or m305, and Handspring's Treo and Edge. Windows CE runs on PDA's such as Compaq's I-paq. The only difference between the two is style. You can liken it to using a PC or a Mac....both get the job done, just in different ways. The device itself (the hardware, or the solid thing you hold) is a different story. Handspring PDA's have a Springboard slot for expan- sion hardware such as digital cameras, MP3 players, and GPS devices. Palm Inc. PDA's have expansion slots that can han- dle extra memory, wireless cards, and The Computer Guy Santa uses a PDA: Gift ideas for the techie you love eBooks. On the other hand, you have the option of buying a Microsoft CE based PDA such as the Ipaq. The Ipaq has sup- port for Microdrives (very small hard drives), plays MP3's, and even supports PCMCIA devices (those that also work in a laptop) through an adapter sleeve. All models c ome with or without color, but just keep in mind that functionality has a direct relationship to price, and an inverse relationship to bank account. Look to spend about $99 for Commonwealth The Penn State athletic department believes that change will better the Penn State experience for student-athletes. "Athletic competition plays an impor- tant part in the educational experience of thousands of Penn State student-athletes," said Tim Curley, Penn State director of athletics. "We look forward to these excit- ing changes." Fourteen teams comprise the College Athletic Conference (CCAC). Abington, Berks- Lehigh Valley, Delaware County, Hazleton, Schuykill, Wilkes-Barre, Worthington/Scranton and York make up the eastern bracket while Beaver, DuBois, Fayette, McKeesport, Mont Alto and New Kensington are the west. (44 Athletic competition plays an important part in the educational experience of thou- sands of Penn State stu- dent-athletes... | 29 19, 10:30 - 12:20 ot 20, 10: 30: 12:20 0pm nect to your PC through USB, so make sure your PC has a USB port (small almost flat rectangle plug with NO little pins). The Apple MP3 player is an excep- tion to the rule. Apple's product is actual- ly a small hard drive that interfaces with the PC through firewire. The plus to that is you can store files and other stuff on the drive instead of just MP3's. The alterna- tive is a MP3 CD player. This device uses regular CD-R's and has the advantage of storing up to 720MB the low-end Palm Zire, or $299 for the decent color screen m315. The low model I-Paq model h1910 has a color screen, and decent memory for about $299. RQ > those of you who of music (many hours), but the disad- vantage of having moving parts. For don't need a high- impact device, the MP3 CD player may be the best choice, especially if your car stereo has a line-in MP3 Players Now that MP3's plug in the front. Even for light are REALLY popu- lar, buying a MP3 player for that someone special may not be such a bad idea. There are two types: Solid State and CD. Solid state means that there are no moving parts. There are many manufacturers of solid state MP3 players (Rio, Nike, etc.) ‘and they range in price and amount of music they can store. Keep in mind that 32 MB of memory can store about 1 hour of music, and most players can be upgrad- ed with the addition of Flash Memory. The typical standard is now 64MB, up from the standard 32 last year. Most con- bumps, most have a 30-60 second memory for the occasional pot-hole or speed bump. You can even find car stereos (head units) that support CD-R media in MP3 and WMA formats. I own a solid state MP3 player because I can run and exercise without my music skipping. Look to spend less than $100 on either kind of MP3 player. Wireless Networks Wireless networks have become all the rage this year, and they are starting to pop up in homes and businesses. If yoy haven't heard already, our campus has ong { available to students with the correc} hardware. There are two types of wireles available: 802.11a and 802.11b. Thg major manufacturer of wireless gear fo the home market is Linksys, so we'l explain some of their product line. Linksys has just released a duel-bang wireless access point/switch/route (Model WRTS1AB). What this means if that is will support both types of wireless networks (A+B), has 4 plugs for a wirec local area network, and will split youl cable or DSL connection’ for multiplg computers, so you can share the internet This is probably the best choice for some; one building a home network because the device does everything but bake a cake But, the price tag is a little hefty: $250. The only other thing you need is 2 wireless device for your computer. Thesg come is many types: USB, PCI Card, ol PCMCIA card. Generally, the PCI carg will go in a desktop or Tower PC, and ths PCMCIA card will go in a laptop. Thq . USB type can plug into any PC with § USB port. In my opinion, they all wor well, but currently the Linksys line wil not work on Penn State's wireless net work. Look to spend about $50 for the USB wireless, PCI wireless, or PCMCIA wireless card. Please, remember to reag your users manual and enable WEF encryption. Well, whatever you choose for you techie, make it a good one...and have : happy holiday! See you on January 13th...
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers