About Steven

General

I'm Steven, a 21-year-old student who goes to California State Univerisity, Northridge, majoring in computer science. Before coming to CSUN, I went to Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta (near Santa Barbara). For 7-8th grades I went to Goleta Valley Junior High, and before that I went to El Rancho Elementary. I like classical music and jazz (particularly vocal jazz). Have a look at some personality tests if you want.

Please note that half of the point of this page is for my own reference, so feel free to skip the longs lists of stuff.

School (descending order)

CSUN, 6th semester (Spring 2008):

  • Comp 450 - Societal Issues in Computing (Lingard)
  • Comp 565 - Advanced Computer Graphics (Barnes)
  • Mus 306 - Introduction to Jazz (Garrett)
  • Mus 371 - Jazz Vocal Ensemble (Falker)
  • Mus 372 - Northridge Singers (Smith)
  • Psy 150 - Principles of Human Behavior (Hamer)
  • Th 390B - Theatre Production Participation (Kim/Lehman)

CSUN, 5th semester (Fall 2007):

  • Comp 465/L - Computer Graphic Systems and Design (Barnes)
  • Comp 585 - Graphical User Interfaces (Covington)
  • Kin 137A - Dance, Ballroom I (Bagheri)
  • Math 482 - Combinatorial Algorithms (Dye)
  • Mus 371 - Jazz Vocal Ensemble (Falker)
  • Mus 373 - Master Chorale (Smith)
  • Urbs 310 - Growth and Development of Cities (Vazquez)

CSUN, 4th semester (Spring 2007):

  • Comp 310 - Automata, Languages and Computation (Lorentz)
  • Math 262 - Linear Algebra (Protas)
  • Mus 309 - Traditional Music of the U.S. (Alviso)
  • Mus 371 - Jazz Vocal Ensemble (Falker)
  • Phys 220B/L - Electricity & Magnetism (Karunasiri/Savichev)

CSUN, 3rd semester (Fall 2006):

  • Clas 101L - Elem. Latin I (Adams)
  • Comp 322/L - Intro to Operating Systems (Gabrovsky)
  • Comp 380/L - Software Engineering (Schwartz)
  • Math 326 - Discrete Math (Foster)
  • Mus 105 - Understanding Music (Alviso)
  • Mus 371 - Jazz Vocal Ensemble (Falker)

Latin was surprisingly a lot of work for having already taken it. Discrete math was... kind of weird. Not the best teacher in the world, oh well. Of course, music was as good as ever.

CSUN, 2nd semester (Spring 2006):

  • Comp 222 - Computer Organization (McIlhenny)
  • Comp 232 - Concepts of Programming Languages (Melara)
  • Comp 282 - Advanced Data Structures (Trybus)
  • Hist 271 - The United States Since 1865 (Davis)
  • Mus 389 - Jazz Combo Jazz Vocal Ensemble (Falker)
  • Phys 220A/L (Mechanics and lab)

Technically I wasn't taking the vocal jazz ensemble class that semester as it wasn't actually being offered, so I was really in some jazz combo class instead... vocal jazz continued though. I was still in the dorms. I managed to survive.

CSUN, 1st semester (Fall 2005):

  • Coms 151 - Fundamentals of Public Speaking (Kalin)
  • Comp 122/L - Computer Architecture and Assembly Language (Pham)
  • Comp 182/L - Data Structure and Program Design (Noga)
  • Geol 101/102 - Geology of Planet Earth (Vazquez/Grippo)
  • Mus 371 - Jazz Vocal Ensemble (Falker)
  • Phil 230 - Symbolic Logic I (Yagisawa)

In my senior year at Dos Pueblos I took Indep. Reading, Math 150 (Calculus, a CC class, but taught at DP), AP Physics, and Jazz Choir (we went to Europe again in the summer). For my first semester I also took Polsc 101 at CC and was a TA for Jazz Choir B. I also joined the CC Chamber Singers. For my second semester I took Comsc 120, a CC Java programming class, Econ (instead of Jazz B), and English 110 at CC (instead of Myth).

In my junior year I took English 11G, AP US History, PE, Latin 5-6 H, IB Pre-Calculus, Jazz Choir, and an online SBCC course called Bio 120, which is Natural History, and was a fall semester class.. As usual, jazz choir was my best class, and English/history were my worst. C'est la vie. Latin and pre-calc are okay, I guess... and PE isn't really a class as much as a filler period for me.

In my sophomore year I took Latin 3-4, English 10G, AP World History, Algebra 3-4 / Trig G, Jazz Choir, and Chemistry. I loved Jazz Choir a lot (including the Europe tour), and math was okay too... Latin was pretty good. PE didn't fit into my schedule so I took chem instead, and English and history, well, uh... yah.

In my freshman year I took PE, Physics 1-2, English 9G, Latin 1-2, Jazz Choir, and Gate Geometry. The jazz choir (my favorite class) is one of the top high school choirs in the country, if not the best. Least favorite class: English, I hate essays, and Speaker/Meaning/Significance tests...

Church

I am a Lutheran Christian who went to Good Shepherd Lutheran Church since I was born. I was baptized and confirmed there. I sang in the choir there, was in the youth band, and maintained the web site.

Music

I've been surrounded by music for my entire life. My parents have played in the handbell choir since before I was born, and I grew up going to their weekly practices, as well as singing in the church services. I probably like classical music because of this influence. Anyway, in fourth grade or so I joined the Santa Barbara Children's Chorus, which was at that time directed by the music director of our church. I sang first soprano there for a few years, but then my voice changed and I was suddenly (well, over a few-month period) a bass, so I had to leave. In 8th grade I sang in my junior high's choir, but it wasn't very good. But when I went to DP I got into the jazz choir there. Vocal jazz was new to me, being of an entirely classical background, but I soon grew to love it, as shown by my four years in jazz choir there. I continue to sing in CSUN's vocal jazz ensemble, Epicenter.

Computers

I have been interested in computers for a very long time... I don't know exactly when I got into them. I was in the computer class in 3rd grade with the old Macs that started up from a 5¼ inch floppy. My mom started teaching the computer class after that, and the school got some PowerMacs that actually used MacOS and a hard drive instead of a floppy.

I was introduced to PCs before this, I think, by my dad (though we apparently had a Mac before, but I don't remember it). That was in the good old days of DOS, Windows 3.1, and when 10MB was a lot. Some of the first computer games I played were on this computer, including Tyrian, Jazz Jackrabbit, and SimCity 2000.

I remember faintly when we got our next computer, in January 1998. It was a 300Mhz Pentium II with 64MB RAM and an 8 gig hard drive. I can't really remember much from back then... except for some of the games I've played (listed below). We got another computer later which was 450Mhz and pretty much the same everything else, but it died soon after I got my 866.

I later bought my own computer. It was a P3 866Mhz with 256MB RAM, 20 gig hard drive, nVidia TNT2 card, and Windows ME. I wanted a computer that would run Tribes 2, and run other programs faster than the 450. And I wanted an AGP slot for a graphics card instead of a built-in PCI card. So I bought it, and used it for three years. I later upgraded the video card to a Geforce4 MX 420 (for free), so performance was at least tolerable. But then SWG came out, and my sister needed a computer for college anyway, so I got a new one. Because the old one was below minimum specs for SWG... that's not good. I wanted to be able to actually play the game, not stare at it and get less than 1 frame per second.

In August of 2003, about three years after the purchase of the old computer, I bought a new one from ibuypower. (The 300 and 866Mhz were both from Dell, so this was new). It had an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ CPU, 1024MB of DDR RAM, an ATI Radeon 9600 video card, a 120GB hard drive, CD-RW, DVD, and floppy drives, and a nice case that had a window and cathode light, not to mention a few LEDs. This computer actually ran SWG well in 1280x960 with lots of settings turned up. In August 2005 I bought a Hauppauge WinTV-150 PVR tuner, so I could watch and record TV shows on my computer. I also upgraded a few noisy components.

In August 2005, my parents bought me a laptop. I chose a refurbished Averatec 3360, a 12.1″ notebook with 512MB of RAM and a 60GB hard drive. It also has a DVD±RW drive, and about 3:40 of battery life. It's nice to be able to take notes in class, though I brought along my desktop to college for gaming, TV, and tasks that require more screen space.

In June 2006 I got a new computer to replace my desktop. This one was built by my dad and me (I chose the parts). It has an AMD X2 4000+ CPU, 2GB of RAM, a GeForce 7900 GT video card, a 320GB hard drive, DVD±RW, and my Hauppauge card. It is nice and quiet, especially compared to my last computer.

Games

I play mostly RPGs these days, though I have played RTS, sims, FPS, etc. Games I am interested in can be seen in my wishlist on IGN.

Games I've played (in no particular order):

  • Fallout
  • Sid Meier's Railroads!
  • Oblivion
  • Evil Genius
  • World of Warcraft
  • Everquest II
  • The Sims 2
  • Tribes: Vengeance beta
  • SW:KotOR
  • Morrowind and expansions
  • Star Wars Galaxies
  • Tribes 2
  • Starcraft
  • Earth and Beyond
  • Age of Mythology incl. alpha and beta
  • SimCity 4 and expansion
  • Neverwinter Nights
  • Dungeon Siege
  • Anarchy Online (my first MMO)
  • Empire Earth
  • Civilization 3
  • MechCommander 2
  • Railroad Tycoon II
  • Startopia
  • Black and White
  • Homeworld and Cataclysm
  • The Sims
  • Age of Empires and expansion
  • Age of Kings and expansion
  • SimCity 2000 & 3000
  • SimTower
  • Subspace/Continuum
  • Midtown Madness 1 & 2
  • Rollercoaster Tycoon
  • Starsiege Tribes
  • MechWarrior 3
  • Jazz Jackrabbit 1 & 2
  • Tyrian (original and 2000)
  • Others that I don't remember

Anything else you think should be here? Tell me.

Last edited 2007-08-12.