TruthBegins

We are pleased to report that Part I of the Duke Pulse survey was very well-received.  As indicated earlier, the purpose of this survey is to capture point-in-time snapshots of fan perspectives throughout the season.  Let’s jump into the results of Part I!

Duke Pulse respondents are anticipating a successful season with ALL respondents predicting between 25-34 wins, culminating in a 2, 3, or 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament.  Interestingly, no one predicted more than 34 wins or a #1 seed in the NCAAT.

Additionally, no one felt that Duke is currently the best positioned team to win it all.  Respondents currently overwhelmingly favor the Kansas Jayhawks to win the title, with John Wall and the Kentucky Wildcats a distant second.

While no one believes Duke is best-positioned to take the championship, many respondents do feel Kyle Singler is in a great position to earn 1st Team All-American honors.

Additionally, survey respondents feel pretty confident about the team’s ability to takedown UNC at least once this year, but only half think the team has what it takes to win the ACC regular season.  That said, a bit over half are anticipating an ACC Tournament championship.  In the NCAAs, respondents are expecting Duke to build upon their recent tournament experiences in order to move beyond the Sweet 16.

And now onto a particularly timely question with Harrison Barnes’s highly anticipating college decision on Friday looming large in everyone’s mind.  How confident are respondents in Duke’s ability to land the following recruits?  Regarding Barnes, 69% feel that Duke will indeed sign the overall #1 prospect in the country – let’s keep our fingers crossed…

Looking forward even further, we asked survey participants to estimate the likelihood for the below players to declare for the NBA draft following the 2009-2010 season.  Interestingly, fans are just as confident that Kyle Singler will leave Duke as they are that Harrison Barnes will matriculate.  That said, other than Singler, respondents seem assured that Duke will retain the bulk of its non-graduating roster next season.

Stay tuned for future editions of the The Duke Pulse survey throughout the season.  As more results come in, it will be increasingly interesting to see how real-world events, namely on-the-court performance and off-the-court recruiting ruminations, impact respondent predictions.

Welcome to a new analysis series called “The Duke Pulse.” This series will strive to trend fan sentiments throughout the Duke basketball season via regular polling of the fan base. Fresh off the successful recruitment of Kyrie Irving and with only one more preseason game remaining on the docket, now is a great time to baseline fan sentiments as the season tipoff approaches.  Please click on the image below to open a new window and take our first Duke Pulse survey!

Be sure to fully complete the survey.  Results will be summarized and posted periodically throughout the season as interesting trends emerge. Note that individual responses will not be made public without prior consent.

8pm, October 16th, 2009.  What a spectacle!  Cameron was rocking to kick-off the official start of the Duke Blue Devils college basketball season.

Traditionally, Duke has not often participated in the annual brouhaha formerly known as Midnight Madness; however, this year marks a new tune for the program as Duke has decided to enter the yearly fray with its own customized kickoff celebration called Countdown to Craziness.

Overall, the staff did a wonderful job putting together a fun-filled event.  Highlights from the night included the annual Blue-White game featuring two special Duke legends — Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley — as guest coaches, theatrical player introductions by legendary announcer Michael Buffer, a high-flying dunk contest, and performances from the Duke University Improv.

Visit www.countdowntocraziness.com for a full video recap of the night’s festivities!

Welcome back to 1996! Or perhaps more accurately, 2007, when Brett was last seen on top of his game leading the Green Bay Packers to a NFC Championship game. After an ultimately unsuccessful stint with the NY Jets, Brett Favre is back at it again. With some assistance from Adrian Peterson and a friendly schedule, he’s led the Vikings to an undefeated record, including a near-miracle game winning TD this past weekend:

What a throw! (And what a catch!) Hopefully, this will temporarily quell the naysayers that wish Brett a speedy career exit. Most are simply fed up with the annual retirement drama, but I say, let the man play the game he loves. It’s not Favre’s fault that his annual "Do I have one more run left in me?" debate makes for such compelling media drama. Simply put, if the man is still performing at a level worthy of a starting NFL quarterback, consider yourself fortunate to still be watching.

I started using Evernote just over three months ago, and I have found it to be incredibly useful.  Previously, I had been using Microsoft’s OneNote for most of my note-taking, or simply relying upon pen(cil) and paper when not in front of a PC; however, I often found myself frustrated by having notes scattered amongst multiple places.  Evernote offers a sound solution to this problem by providing a useful note-taking tool that synchronizes your notes across multiple platforms (work laptop, home PC, Blackberry, iPhone, Palm Pre, etc.) and provides a single, searchable interface to find any entered information. You can even search for text within screenshots or images.  Think of it as a "virtual notebook" that you will always have access to provided you have Internet access.

Check out Evernote at www.evernote.com for full details.

In addition routine note-taking, I’ve also found Evernote to be useful as a productivity enhancer, particularly when coupled with this article detailing nine lists that everyone should keep updated in order to maximize personal performance: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/9-lists-to-keep-updated-and-keep-handy.html

I recommend customizing those lists to fit your individual needs.  For instance, I spend quite a bit of my time investigating different technology arenas, so I’ve added a new list to my Evernote called "Tech Tasks" that enables me to quickly jot down ideas on new technology developments that I can follow-up on later.  Additionally, I created a new note called “Blog Ideas” to capture those moments of inspiration for future blog postings that will later find their way here to TruthBegins.com.  For this on-the-fly note-taking, I cannot overstate the importance of utilizing the mobile-phone based Evernote application, not that you need any refreshers on my passion for the Palm Pre!

Overall, I highly recommend checking out the Evernote program.  It takes a bit of discipline to get acclimated to using an online note-taking tool, but if you start using the desktop client and the phone-based add-ons, the tool becomes very powerful.  And it’s free, so there’s nothing to lose.

With the NBA departure of Gerald Henderson and the unexpected transfer of Elliot Williams to Memphis, Duke was staring into a backcourt abyss with only two recruited guards, Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith, remaining on the roster for the upcoming season. While both players are undoubtedly talented, having only two legitimate options to play two positions is certainly an undesirable position for any program — surely one of the players will need a rest of at some point in the season!

Enter Andre Dawkins.

Dawkins is an acclaimed 5-star recruit that had already committed to Duke, expecting to matriculate for the 2010-2011 season. However, with a plethora of minutes available at the guard position, Andre Dawkins finds himself in position to capitalize on having already fulfilled his high school graduation recruitments.

This is an amazing turn of events for the Devils in the upcoming season.  While Duke is by no means deep in the backcourt now, the addition of a first-rate player at the guard position will go a long ways towards solidifying the backcourt rotation and helping Scheyer’s prognostications come true.

Admittedly, I was somewhat apprehensive to hear the news that Coach K elected to double down on his past Olympic success and will be returning to lead Team USA in the upcoming 2012 Games.  It’s no secret that Duke has underperformed (in relation to Duke standards only as nearly every other NCAA team would trade Duke’s perceived lack of success for their own results) over the last couple of seasons, and many people attribute the slump to K’s alleged lack of focus on Duke basketball as he guides Team USA to Olympic glory. Personally, I was not ready to accept that K’s Olympics duties were the culprit for Duke’s decline, but I wasn’t willing to rule it out either. Clearly, this situation required further research to reach a definitive conclusion, and I was chomping at the bit to review the historical data and write this article in order to finally put this issue to rest – one way or the other!

And then Al Featherston trumped me!  And frankly, I’m ecstatic that he did.  I couldn’t have produced a finer, more-researched article.  If you have any questions regarding the impact of the Olympics on Coach K and Duke basketball, this is the definitive article that you MUST READ: Featherston on Coach K, Team USA and Recruiting

As I returned to the office today freshly rejuvenated from celebrating America’s anniversary during this three-day Fourth of July holiday weekend, it occurred to me there was another important anniversary warranting attention – today marks one month since the Palm Pre was officially released!

With thirty days of Pre usage in the books, it’s now time to look back and evaluate how Palm and Sprint fared in this flagship offering.  Let’s take a closer look at some of the highlights:
 

• Design
  • Slim, polished, curvy, lightweight – one can’t ask for much more aesthetically!
  • The keyboard is ever so slightly on the small side; it’s still completely functional once you get used to it, but it is a few degrees smaller than those commonly used on traditional Blackberry devices.
  • Also, the Touchstone induction charger is a nice, yet pricey, addition that increases the overall coolness factor.
• WebOS
  • Multi-tasking! Multi-tasking! Multi-tasking!  The real beauty of the device is its “Deck of Cards” operating system that permits users to open up multiple applications simultaneously and shuffle through them at will.  Power users will love this feature!  The phone finally meets the PC!
  • If the multi-tasking makes you think Windows, the rest of the interface will make you think Apple.  Like the iPhone, the interface is very smooth and using the device is quite intuitive.  Occasionally, applications can be a bit slow to open, but overall, the user interface is very well done.
  • Perhaps most importantly, in less than 30 days, Palm has already delivered two OS updates to the platform.  Contrast this with the cumulatively meager four updates released over the entire life of the Instinct.  If Palm truly continues to put development resources into the WebOS as promised, the future will be bright for Pre owners.
• Audio Quality
  • Call quality is great on this phone; I have not experienced any issues hearing the called party, nor have I received any complaints of difficulty in hearing me despite my proclivity for using the Pre on noisy city streets.
• Display Quality
  • The screen on the Pre is amazingly sharp.  Very, very crisp!  It simply must be seen to be fully appreciated. 
• Battery-life
  • By far, the most disappointing feature of the phone.  Battery life is mediocre at best.  Simply put, if you are an active text messenger and often use the phone to surf the Internet, not to mention placing a few calls during the day, you had better plan on charging the phone during the day or you’ll risk full battery depletion by nightfall.
• Applications
  • Synergy – a very nifty, if cumbersome, contact synchronization tool.  This application synchronizes with your GMail, Facebook, and AIM accounts upon initial sign-in, leaving you with a plethora of contacts in your address book.  While the application does a decent job of combining profiles, users are certain to encounter situations where multiple contact profiles exist for the same person – for instance, think how many AIM ID’s bare no resemblance to one’s email address or Facebook user name.  To take full advantage of this Synergy application, Palm will need to release an online or PC-based utility to allow for manual off-Pre contact management to correct these situations.
  • E-mail – Pre comes with a built-in email management application that works with all the popular web-based email systems, as well as a synchronization option for corporate users with Exchange-based environments.  Overall, the email management application works very well, but there is presently no way for Exchange users to synchronize their corporate e-mail over-the-air via a desktop agent.  Hopefully, this shortcoming is addressed as new applications are developed.
  • Application Potential – 30 days, 30 apps.  Not terrible, but not great either.  Like Apple, the continued success of the Pre will heavily depend upon a strong application base to stay relevant.  Palm is promising to release their officially supported software development kit (SDK) in the near future, possibly as soon as September (even though leaked versions are already making their way online).  The release of this SDK to enable mass application development and sustain the Pre’s momentum is critically important to it’s overall success.

And the results are in… Ding, ding, ding – we have winner!  I am very pleased to report that Sprint and Palm combined for a real winner here!  I was one of the many Instinct owners that felt underwhelmed by the device shortly after purchase, and I am remarkably pleased with the Pre feature set to date.  I definitely believe this is far and away Sprint’s best cell phone offering, and I highly encourage any Sprint customers craving an iPhone-like experience to check out the Palm Pre – some of its features might even leave your iPhone friends drooling!

We at TruthBegins.com are pleased to officially introduce a new columnist, Esoteric, to our readers.

Esoteric and I have collaborated together on many projects over the last decade and I am happy to have him onboard for this endeavor.  I think you will find his writing style both informative and entertaining, two defining traits of TruthBegins.com.

With the addition of a new writer, you can also expect to see an increase in the frequency of article postings so be sure to check back often or subscribe to our convenient RSS feed to stay up to date.

Please join me in welcoming Esoteric – welcome aboard, sir!

Today, the recently-rumored E-Will transfer rumor officially bore out as Duke announced that Elliot Williams will indeed transfer due to family health reasons.  First and foremost, those here at TruthBegins.com want to wish Elliot and his family the absolute best of fortune in these trying times.  Elliot is currently dealing with undeniably difficult circumstances within his family, and our heartfelt condolences go out to them.  Additionally, we would like to thank Elliot for his year at Duke, and in particular, for his remarkable perseverance last season that reminded all Duke fans that hard work and dedication do pay off, as exemplified by Elliot’s ascension from minor role player to a contributing starter towards the end of the season.  We will continue to follow Elliot’s career and we expect his star will continue to shine.

Secondly, and I do mean secondly, we are all left to wonder how this transfer will impact the Duke team next season.  There is no doubt that struggles loom on the horizon as a team that was already woefully thin in the backcourt just lost its best athlete.  With only two recruited players returning at the guard position, Duke will be forced to investigate creative, perhaps very creative, contingency planning.  It will be extremely interesting to see how K molds the team strategy in the coming months to offset a lack of guard depth, but in the meantime, let’s all keep our fingers crossed that the ultimate contingency comes to fruition – a healthy Nolan ‘The Escalade’ Smith explodes onto the scene next season and emerges as Duke’s 2nd best (and arguably most important) player, behind Kyle Singler.

Nolan, the grandest of opportunities awaits you. Do work.