28 April 2009
Eclipse class at IBM Innovation Center
The folks at IBM wanted to use some of us to test a new class they will be teaching in San Mateo. Eclipse is a popular open source integrated development environment (IDE) that software engineers use to develop their programs.

I was surprised to learn two things
1) You can make an end user product that runs on Eclipse, by designing screens and scripts that will run in the background.
2) The Amazon cloud is integrated nicely with Eclipse to make it fairly easy to develop web applications and deploy them cheaply.

13 May 2009
“Bike Away from Foothill”
I organized, promoted and led a bike ride leaving Foothill at noon and riding the back way to downtown Los Altos. The goal was to show faculty, students and staff how safe and enjoyable it is to ride your bike to and from Foothill. My efforts promoting this on campus paid off as there were 8 of us riding together; both full- and part-time faculty, students and staff were all represented in the 8 riders.

Two in our group, Art Heinrich and Todd Leicht, are working on the current construction project that is underway on campus, and they were very much interested in getting ideas about how cyclists can enter campus and where we can park our bikes, etc. Another pleasant surprise was running into Betsy Bechtel while the group was at Peet’s in Los Altos; she was there with her bicycle club and she contributed to our lively discussion.

Major points made by the group:
1) As other vehicles do when driving on campus, bicyclists will always yield to pedestrians.
2) The Valley Transportation Authority gives 3 free Cora bike racks to companies in order to promote bicycle commuting. We believe that Foothill would be eligible for these too.
3) Foothill is currently drawing up a general plan, and so it is a good time to think about alternative entrances to campus and placement of bike racks.

Here are some things that the college could do to make it easier for us to commute to Foothill by bike:
• Install bike racks. Proposed locations: under the bridge and then other visible areas around campus.
• Make bike lockers available. These would allow people to keep their bikes dry and secure, and perhaps even keep things like shoes or a towel in there too.
• Make long term clothing and book lockers available to students. These could be in the gym or elsewhere, preferably near bike racks.
• Hold a bike safety class. The League of American Bicyclists will supply the instruction.
• Build one or more new ped/bike entrances to campus; near the fire station was seen as a good location for a new, paved pathway onto campus.