By mvastola
05/02/2010 at 01:40 PM
..for the ginormous alert that is occupying TuftsLife currently and likely won't go away for some time given the predicted length of this water emergency.
These alerts represent joint efforts that have been ongoing between TuftsLife and Tufts' Web Communications department for some time now. Their purpose is to get information out quickly to as many students as possible when there is an on-campus emergency.
The good news is that the system is working.
The bad news is you might find the alerts a bit annoying (especially after you've read them already). TuftsLife is in the process of seeing what we can tweak to let you hide the alerts after you've read them so they don't get too bothersome.
This is the first real time this feature has come into use, so please bear with us as we make it better.
Stay safe!
TuftsLife
By mvastola
04/25/2010 at 11:29 PM
TuftsLife has a long history of tacitly observing and relaying events and movements on campus without injecting our members' views. We always have, and always will, continue to give equal billing to all groups and mindsets in the announcements and events we post. Given this, we recognize it is a bit out of character to publish our perspective on the upcoming TCU Presidential election.
After careful thought and much debate, we believe this is the right thing to do. This decision was not made lightly, though it was unanimous after seeing the first of two TCU Presidential Debates. Some of our members are so passionate in their support that they have opted to join Sam's campaign team.
At TuftsLife, our mission has always been to harness the power of technology and the Internet to connect people and ideas — to foster a greater sense of community at Tufts. As a TCU student organization, TuftsLife relies upon the TCU Senate's funding for our day-to-day operations. Similarly, any new endeavors which we wish to pursue need Senate funding as well. A TCU Senate that shares our vision will support us as we work to enhance the Tufts experience.
In thinking about the candidates, we focused on how the value they place on technology and community relate to ours. After some debate, we're certain that Sam Wallis is the candidate who more closely aligns with our values. In co-founding The Tufts Roundtable, Sam Wallis and others accomplished a goal that had been on TuftsLife's to-do list for years — creating a student-managed blogging portal that allows members of the Tufts community to share ideas and experiences in real-time.
Though both candidates were supportive of TuftsLife's future plans, we quickly found that Sam Wallis' priorities sharply align with ours. Elected Chair of the Senate Services Committee twice, he was instrumental in securing an expansion of on-campus wireless access. This expansion has continued even while he has been abroad, and Tufts University Information Technology (UIT) continues to deploy wireless access to new buildings around campus each quarter, with several additional dorms slated to gain access this summer.
TuftsLife, in the near future, hopes to work to place course information, including syllabi and textbook information, online. Upon hearing our idea, Sam Wallis immediately jumped onboard; we look forward to working with him in the coming months — regardless of this election's outcome — to make this service available as soon as possible.
Finally, Sam Wallis is supportive of the largest item on TuftsLife's agenda — the purchase of a Tufts SMS ShortCode. With an SMS shortcode, Tufts community members would be able to send text messages from their cell phones to TUFTS (88387), to get replies about upcoming events, and information about groups and departments on campus. This service, we believe, would revolutionize the way students interact with TuftsLife and get information about on campus events. It also opens the door for subscribing to text messages from your favorite clubs, or potentially, crime alerts from TUPD.
TuftsLife's role in building a stronger community is obvious, and we support both candidates in their undertakings to build a stronger Tufts undergraduate community. However, we find that Sam Wallis is the candidate best prepared to accomplish this goal through technology and information accessibility, our ultimate aim.
We hope you remember to vote for TCU President on Webcenter, this Wednesday.
Sincerely,
The TuftsLife Team
By mvastola
03/26/2010 at 03:18 AM
We are posting to let you know about a scam we were just informed of that potentially preys on TuftsLife users posting apartment listings. The user reporting being victimized by this scam told us the following in an email:
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"I just wanted to let you guys know that scammers are using either Tuftslife or Reslife to find apartments to rip off. I only advertised my Tesla sublet on those sites and was scammed by a "Sarah Simpson" pretending to be a Tufts grad student from London, who's under investigation by the FBI for sending fraudulent checks.
What happens is they send a check for more than was asked (in this case, 2950 instead of 683.33). Then after you receive it, they say they sent too much, please send the difference back. So you send the difference back, thinking that the check cleared. Then the bank calls, says the big check they sent was a fraud, and the money you sent back is gone. My dad caught it right in time so I didn't lose any money, but apparently they've done it quite a few times."
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We are not sure if the source of people who are being scammed is our site or ResLife/OCH's, but in either case please beware that our site(s) is/are publicly accessible on the internet and therefore there is no guarantee that the people who reply to your ads are fellow Jumbos. A good way to confirm this is probably to ensure you are emailing them at their official Tufts email address.. You can obtain this by asking them for it or looking it up via the student directory form provided on our website.
Note that all users posting on TuftsLife must register with a Tufts.edu email address for this (and other) reasons.
Enjoy the rest of your spring breaks and remember to stay safe when surfing the interwebs!
-The TuftsLife Team
UPDATE: This scam has been corroborated by a second user who says the following:
"Just wanted to notify you that I am pretty sure I am currently part of this scam as well. I have been emailing with a woman from Germany who sends very long detailed emails that are overly friendly. She has just claimed that her company will pay the months rent in advance; but her boss does not want to make out two checks, for her traveling expenses and rent, so she has asked me to receive all the money and send back the traveling expenses portion when I receive the check."
By mvastola
03/14/2010 at 09:05 PM
*UPDATED BELOW*
If you were looking for the box on the right sidebar to check what's cooking in Dewick and/or Carm, you've probably noticed that it's no longer there.
Sorry if we threw you off.. Dining Services has moved their menus off of TuftsLife and onto their own website, so we've moved the link to their menus to be with all the other links to external websites below.
You can still see what's being served in Dewick and Carmichael below under Dining Services Menus in the Online Services category of our Tufts web directory.
Enjoy!
Update: Ok, we heard you. It seems you guys don't particularly like this change as the dining menus are an often-used part of our site.
As a compromise you can now find the Dewick and Carmichael Dining Menus under the "Dining" drop down on the top of the screen. This way still only one click and no scrolling seperates you from your dining information.
Is this good for you? As always, feel free to leave us a comment.
By mvastola
03/05/2010 at 12:55 PM
Thanks to a recent hardware upgrade TuftsLife is now faster and more stable than ever. Stay on top of what's happening on campus at blazing fast speeds.. especially if you access the site from an on-campus network connection!
By ajr
04/03/2009 at 12:32 PM
Hope we didn't catch you off guard! TuftsLife was in no way going to permanently transform into HarvardLife this past April 1st. The idea sprang from our previous TuftsLife meeting, where it was suggested that we become HarvardLife for a day. You know, just to give them a small taste of what they are missing out on. The true joke is on Harvard for not having any web portal anywhere near as useful as TuftsLife. For students admitted to Tufts this past April 1, welcome to the Tufts community! Remember that there's a reason why we say half-jokingly that the cannon on our academic quad is pointed toward Harvard! A screenshot of the site taken in Safari is available here: http://tuftslife.com/images/april_fools/harvardlife-20090401.jpg A few of our other gags, in case you missed them: 1. Read our announcement about turning the site over to Harvard: http://tuftslife.com/posts/16 2. There were eight fake events posted by surreptitious Harvardites. See if you can spot them in the screenshot. 3. The news sources underneath the events and announcements included legitimate Harvard news among links to the Onion. 4. The weather has a long story attached to it. But hopefully you became well-versed in reading both Rankine and Kelvin temperature. 5. We did our best to replace TuftsLife with HarvardLife throughout the home page. We also linked to actual Harvard web pages. In fact, in the matter of a few hours the night of March 31, the members of TuftsLife put together a better web portal for Harvard than anything they have ever experienced.
By ajr
04/01/2009 at 12:08 AM
That's right, TuftsLife is now HarvardLife. With the main developers involved in TuftsLife transferring to Harvard, today we completed phase one of the transition to our new home. We are excited about the potential that our new Ivy League home brings to HarvardLife. For you Jumbos, this could not be a more difficult good-bye. We've enjoyed our nine years at Tufts. The Tufts community will be in great hands with the web resources provided by tufts.edu and inside.tufts.edu that have far surpassed what was once TuftsLife. For our new Crimson friends, we will offer you the best online experience possible. For years at Tufts, the secret to connecting students and groups on campus was not Facebook but TuftsLife. Now, Harvard will have the exclusive privilege of experiencing the benefits of HarvardLife. Today, we invite any member of the Harvard community to create a HarvardLife account and to start posting events, announcements, and book swaps to connect throughout Harvard Yard. The ride board will soon be replaced with a limousine service to better cater to your needs. During the transition period, accounts at HarvardLife from a @tufts.edu address will no longer be accepted. By April 15, all @tufts.edu accounts will be inactive, and by April 30, no more Tufts-related events or announcements will be posted. Soon all vestiges of Tufts affiliation will be removed from the site in favor of our new Harvard home. Again, our deepest thanks go out to the Tufts community for bringing us to where we are today. Best of luck buying your books for next semester, finding a ride home for Thanksgiving, and figuring out the URL to Tufts Webmail.
By Adam
03/09/2009 at 12:05 AM
Hopefully you've been enjoying the weather this weekend. And if you want to check the weather outside before you go out, you can always check the weather box on TuftsLife. Well today the icons got a little more personality. When we modified the site a few weeks ago, we lost the jumbo from the left side of the window. Today he came back -- and you can see him enjoying the weather outside. These icons should be familiar. The images are the beloved graphics that show the weather in the Tufts Daily. The Daily and TuftsLife teamed up to better integrate the identity and personality of Tufts in our media groups. We hope you all enjoy these new weather icons. As usual, tell us what you think with your comments or by coming to a meeting!
By Adam
01/27/2009 at 09:45 PM
Yesterday, TuftsLife released a new version of the site. This version is our biggest style change since we realized TuftsLife 2.0 at the end of the summer. Version 2.1 is a subtle yet important evolution of the site. We reacted to lots of comments about the design that was up this year (and the mock-up we had for a few days over the break) to make the site look cleaner, more professional, and easier to use. One user mentioned that the site was a tad grim and our blue and orange version (TuftsLife Mets) de-emphasized the Tufts colors. This current version plays up the Tufts' Brown and Blue and lightens the page. We think it looks a lot slicker, but we still want to hear from you. This version also has some layout changes. We have brought back the sidebar from the TuftsLife from last year -- including weather and e-mail links. this version also introduces the TuftsLife Menus. These menus on the top of the page will allow us to expand our features and display more information faster. This new version also brought about smaller changes. Now every restaurant listed on the site has phone numbers (a much requested feature) and we are still adding more restaurants and menus. The site also now has a search box and improved search functions. On the top right is a search box which will search all of TuftsLife. In bookswap, an auto-fill search will make finding the right book or class much easier. We understand some people were just getting used to the 2.0 version, but with the current plans for expansion, we needed more room for features and an easier way to access them. We hope that in a few days you will get the hang of this new streamlined look and improved layout -- and keep your eye out for new features in the works. Also, if you have an opinion or suggestion, as always, comment or come to our general interest meeting Tuesday at 8:00 pm (Feb. 3) in Anderson 208. Details will be posted on TuftsLife.
By Adam
01/17/2009 at 05:55 PM
For those of you closely watching Tuftslife over break, you may have noticed some small changes here and there. And some big ones scattered in. One of our newest features that has been recently unveiled is integration with Google Calendar. See an event that you like? Quickly add it to GCal by clicking the link next to each event. Keep your eye out for some new features over the next term.
By ajr
11/29/2008 at 05:45 PM
We have recently added a full course listing to Book Swap. This will make it easier to find the books for the courses you are planning on taking this Spring. For all previous listings, the course closest to the description was tagged with the listing. We hope to make Book Swap easier to use this coming Spring semester!
By Adam
11/23/2008 at 06:15 PM
If you check TuftsLife as often as I do, (You probably don't), then you might have noticed some recent changes. We are constantly working on improving the site by adding new features and restoring old details. Our latest updates have brought about a much larger and more helpful list of restaurants. Now, with just a quick glance, you can see if a restaurant is open or closed (by looking at the door on the list). You can also quickly see which restaurants take points. We now have over 30 off campus restaurants in the database - and the list keeps growing. We are still trying to get a hold of updated restaurants from all of them. If you have some menus you want to scan in, or a favorite restaurant -- let us know! Send an e-mail to team@tuftslife.com or join us at our next meeting.
By Adam
10/29/2008 at 11:43 PM
The new Tuftslife uses user accounts. These users allow people lots more flexibility with their submissions and the way the site operates. Tuftslife is rapidly approaching 1,500 users, and we just hit our 2.5 month anniversary. As you can imagine it's hard for all 1,500 people to remember their passwords - and now that is a problem of the past. Tuftslife stores your password securely, so no one, not even one of the administrators can EVER see it. Unless you show someone of course. In this case, you can log on and you'll now see a change your password option. This also means we can't find it for you if you forgot it. Another problem of the past. If you put your password in wrong, you will now see a link for forgotten passwords (http://tuftslife.com/password/new), so we can e-mail you a new one. Just remember to change this temporary password back to something you'll remember this time.
By ajr
10/16/2008 at 04:29 PM
There have been many minor changes to TuftsLife recently. On our front page, we added a Tufts Daily news feed to keep you updated with campus news. We also added a page Cultural Ticket to Boston cosponsored by the TCU Senate. Cultural Ticket has a host of links to plan many fun nights out in Boston. Also on the front page, we have added a bar at the top to direct you to important links. Right now, we are looking for people to donate blood in the upcoming Red Cross Blood Drive sponsored by the LCS. Additionally, the pages have been cleaned up for all the users who use Internet Explorer. Your comments have certainly helped us shape the site over the past month and a half. Please keep the feedback rolling in for further improvements to TuftsLife.
By ajr
09/25/2008 at 01:12 PM
Book Swap is up and running, albeit too late to sell books for this semester. We hit a snag in getting in a course listing from the university. Ultimately, this meant we had to change our plans for Book Swap. You can start submitting Book Swap listings by logging in and going to http://tuftslife.com/book_listings/new. Ride Board has been working since we launched the site. However, it was not featured on the top bar of links. That has been fixed. We feel this will bring more people to post rides and to look for ways to save on gas. Post to the Ride Board by going to http://tuftslife.com/ride_requests/new when logged in.
By ajr
09/24/2008 at 08:58 AM
No longer do you have to trudge to Carmichael to see if they are serving your favorite potstickers or the day-old chicken pot pie. Translation: TuftsLife finally has the on-campus dining menus. We only have menus currently for Carmichael, but we have the capability to add Dewick menus once we get them from the manager. Expect those soon.
By Adam
09/17/2008 at 01:20 AM
On the old Tuftslife, we didn't allow personal announcements. If you lost your coat at Spring Fling, or wanted to find a subletter, it wouldn't be displayed; we wanted to make sure the announcements appealed to the whole campus, and didn't overcrowd the site. On this new version, we added announcement categories to better filter Research Opportunities, Jobs, Lost and Found, and other options from genuine campus wide announcements. Today we added a separate place on the home page for some of these more narrow but still useful announcements, under "Other Announcements." We hope this will allow you to find your research and job chances, and also some new lost and found requests, without overcrowding the homepage. Also, if you ever want to see more announcements, click on (just that) "more announcements." Who knows, in the not-so-distant future, we may have a small Tuftslife craigslist going on . . .
By ajr
09/15/2008 at 10:43 AM
With the new TuftsLife launched, we are receiving lots of good criticism. We'd like to invite anyone interested in improving the site to our general interest meeting this Tuesday, September 16 at 9PM. We are still reserving a room, and we will post that once it is all set. You should attend our meeting if you have ideas for the site or would like to be involved in the behind-the-scenes work. Web programmers and HTML/CSS gurus are especially needed, but you can attend even if you have no programming experience. Even if you can pick out a better color scheme for our site (we know, it sucks), please attend! We do need the staff to bring back features from the old site, like book swap and on-campus dining menus. We hope that the new site will spark interest in bringing new members to our organization. Hope to see you tomorrow! PS: Today marks the one-month anniversary of the new TuftsLife!
By ajr
09/06/2008 at 06:12 PM
The new TuftsLife boasts the ability for users to edit and delete their submissions. However, we have not given you the ability to see all of your previous submissions in one place--until now. By visiting http://tuftslife.com/submissions, you will see new links on the left. These will bring you to your submissions. From there, you easily modify your submissions or check on a submission's status. As always, please allow 48 hours for TuftsLife moderators to approve any edits you make. The "submissions" link is now next to your user icon when you are logged in to further emphasize that you can quickly access your submissions.
By Adam
09/01/2008 at 01:26 AM
We have received a lot of comments about the dining menus included in the site. We are in the process of updating all of the restaurant hours, information, and menus and will continue to add restaurants in the coming weeks -- is your favorite missing? We also have heard a number of comments regarding phone numbers and other information. All of this, along with Tufts dining will be back soon too! Restaurant Missing? Write us a comment about it and we will be sure to add it soon. Better yet, are you interested in helping to grow the list of restaurants on Tuftslife? Join the team . . .
By ajr
08/31/2008 at 12:46 PM
The new TuftsLife has kindled emotion in many of you. We have been getting both praise and criticism. All feedback is valuable to us to help make a better web site geared toward the members of the Tufts community. That's why we are launching a new comment system. Just log in and go to http://tuftslife.com/comments/new to submit a comment directly to us. We require that you log in so we can contact you back directly. Also, this will eliminate the comment spam we received on the old site. Less spam means more attention to what our users want from the site.
By ajr
08/15/2008 at 10:00 AM
The TuftsLife team has been toiling endlessly these last few months to bring you our rejuvenated vision of TuftsLife. Please read about the new TuftsLife on our welcome page: http://tuftslife.com/welcome. We hope you like what you see.
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