1998 – First Quick Cam with CUSeeMe

In 1998, I took a computer science course at Arizona State University. Professor Whitehouse had office hours using video conferencing tools – CUSeeMe.

I remember going to Best Buy to get the webcam. They had no idea what I was looking for. They had web cameras but the staff was not educated in this area… I was sent to cameras, I was sent to computers. I had considered using a video camera. Finally, I was able to find and purchase the web camera.

The first quickcam pic I took, was in a hoodie. A couple of years later, because of bad math… by the engineering advisor, who told *me* I needed more math, I was declined re-admission to the computer science program. So, I was a mathematics major for a semester. During that semester, I wrote a book about the DMCA. The year was 2000. I used that first quickcam pic for the back cover.

The course was CSE 200. There I learned much more than C++. I learned social engineering, about the DMCA, and was introduced to slashdot.

I had used Solaris before and was looking for an alternative to Windows and Mac. This course changed my life.