The Hard Drive And You

[giddings]

During orientation, like most of the new students, when I found out there was a external HD for sale that had many materials that I would need for classes and the USMLE, I was sold. I'm a total geek and the fact that there was all of this shiny new stuff to learn on one convenient drive was too good to be true. However, it took me a while to get the cash together. During that time I made some inquiries and found out the following information.

A normal 1 TB drive of good quality may sell typically for $90 these days. I have seen some for sale on slickdeals.net for as low as $55. This hard drive, however, is sold for $350. For the transfer only he charges $200. The money is ostentaciously put towards acquiring more material legally, but this is such a farcical argument considering it is all pirated and sold, so I won't lend any credence to it here.

After some initial attempts to get relevant materials off of my roommate's hard drive, it became clear that this HD was just a messy, completely organized dump of a bunch of pirated torrents from demonoid or the pirate bay, most of which was completely useless junk.

The hard drive is advertised as a one-stop source for all of your medical education needs, including the PASS program, goljan, audio, videos for anatomy, etc. The reality of the situation is that you are left with a massively redundant glob of total junk. By far my biggest gripe was the simple fact that the bulk of what would be handy is enclosed in painfully outdated executable programs from the dark age of educational software and is not accessible without installing the entire suite. Furthermore many of the videos are actually audio (of questionable quality) alone, including the pass program for the USMLE step 1.

By cutting the fat, instead of the advertised 550 GB I estimate that less than 50 GB of the HD are useful insofar as high or medium yield. The rest could be used maybe on a fuzzy background knowledge approach, but I don't know anyone who has the time for that stuff. 500 GB of stuff is literally more material than you could feasible listen to or read in 4 years anyway.

The hard drive does have some BRS guides, but they are executable programs and thus worthless to me. Considering the fact that you can get all the new BRS, first aid, and some extras for less than a hundred dollars, I really don't see how you can justify the (retardedly high) expense.

As a side note for incoming students I would recommend getting the lecture handouts from the papeleria located next to the secondary entrance (across from OXXO). Buying old hand outs from older students at the picnic is such a small savings, and there are significant amounts of material missing from hand outs that are older than two years.

In order to prevent other people from blowing an entire month's rent on this stuff without seeing what they're getting into, I've attempted to indexed the hard drive in the attachment below. As you can see from the legend on the upper right, the red and blue squares in the treemap are video files which include . The green files are .iso (virtual cd files) The purple are mp3. The yellow, which are all I would consider useful, are .pdf

If you're still curious, the useful stuff that is contained on the hard drive includes:

Some IPM / PMC stuff, but nothing as useful as the Hablidades Clinicas books which are dirt cheap here.

Basic Sciences:
Netter anatomy flashcards
the biochemistry textbook
slides for cell bio
The rest is junk, no major classes past 1st semester are really represented on here.

USMLE:
Kaplan Tests pdf
First Aid step 1 2007 pdf
PreTest clinical vignettes step 2 2001
PreTest series (step 2)
First Aid step 3 2003
Several Q-banks in worthless saved .html format or word copy-pastas
Kaplan Videos for DVD and VHS program (.avi)
Goljan high yield & audio

Additionally and perhaps most important, the hard drive does indeed contain a large pdf file (400 pages) which is a difficult to read scanned compilation of the various questions banks which are utilized to give tests here. If you want that shoot me a PM. I am so completely confounded by the school's attitude on old exams so I won't even touch that issue here.

If anybody has any other questions or requests, feel free to PM me. I've done a small amount of research on what materials to get, when, and how cheaply it can be acquired. Legally.

Bottom line, don't buy this. Get the handouts and some BRS. If you have to have it, get it from someone in another class for a few bucks, or off a torrent.

[giddings]

That's funny. I didn't even notice until now that instead of the advertised 550 GB or whatever there's 350. More room for my mexicano electronica & reggaeton mp3 folder. :shock:

[tcatx]

I would recommend all students to bring an external to GDL with them and find a nice person willing to share their electronic study materials. So many people already have this stuff, I think you are correct to advise against buying it. Just ask around!

I found the Kaplan videos great after having live lecture Kaplan in 4th semester. You can watch them in 2x speed using a media player such as VLC. Voices may sound funny at first but its easy to adjust and saves valuble time!

[brainteazer07]

there is some beautiful stuff on it. stuff that lot of students would love it. so yeah bring the blank drive and have ppl put stuff on it and give them some donation for being so nice. lol

some of the textbooks and charts on there are also very helpful.

[cpt.ricard]

Well there's some other things to consider:

* Electronics in Mexico are WAY more expensive, in the range of 2-3x what it should be. At costco you're looking at USD$200+ for WD 1TB. The $50 1 TB that you mention I can GUARANTEE is an internal, non-cased HD. For those that are tech-savvy this is not a problem, but not everyone fits that bracket, remember, and not everyone brought a drive . . . .

* If you have your own 1 tb drive totally bring it down, and most of us upper years recommend it in everything we write. He used to charge waay less for just imaging it over. Sorry to hear he jacked up the price.

*I, like you, looked down at most of the "crap" that came included. Granted, I haven't seen this latest iteration, but now looking back I'm surprised at how much of the stuff I used. Especially the USMLE prep stuff. That stuff's gold.

*you didn't hear it from me, but a bunch of people can chip in and get one for super cheap. Yes, you can download all the stuff but honestly knowing what to get and the time involved in doing it all . .. . .makes it more worth it than one gives it credit initially.

*In the end, we make decisions after factoring in how we're feeling and sizing up the situation. If the drive doesn't do it for you and you feel robbed, go talk to him about it, or split the price with someone. You'll be surprised how much you use some of the stuff later I think. If not, then hey.

*This is the only guy that's actively helping you learn. Admin's getting better at taking care of us so we can learn, but the actual learning is still not where it should be. He's one of the few that's doing something for us; sure, he's charging for it, but you should ask them how much they make. . . . .

[ringflip]

I do recommend the HD. I spent hours going through the HDD and do agree completely -- most of the hard drive is junk.

Ignore all the CDs imaged from the back of textbooks (aprox 100).those are worthless since we have the web now. textbook cds usually suck anyway. ive found 2 in my life that I actually liked.

qbanks are also worthless. they are too hard to use so i never do them. if you want questions just buy a bank for $400


what youre getting on the disk:



acland anatomy dvds (full, excellent, dig for them) (~$170)
kaplan lecture notes for each sub (in pdf, complete) ($150)
kaplan DVD lecture series (complete, very nice biochem lectures) ($250)
kaplan VHS lecture series (works but didnt watch) ($50)
pass program videos (F:\Videos\Pass Program\Pass videos) (maybe not complete) but its something ($40)
e-books - guyton physiology, cecil medicine, and harrisons internal medicine (all required reading) (free on torrents)
hand me down powerpoints for most classes. (convenient)

so youre paying for the acland anatomy dvds and the kaplan DVDs and their lecture notes. price those on amazon and youre easily over 300$

also there are many duplicated files (instead of shortcuts). the acland anatomy dvds are like 40GB and half are duplicated.

I use vmware to sandbox all the bookreaders and stuff just for the HD on a windowsxp install.

edit: many of the e-books on there are good but theyre at the 3rd-4th year and PGY levels. so a large chunk of the value isnt aimed at basic science which is a problem for us.

[Karplus]

This is the reason I never marketed my hard drive. You all just don't know what would be useful. I have the first two years of every lecture given to the Medical School Class at an Ivy league university. Along with all their powerpoints and home works given and answers exlpained.

I wonder what that would be worth if 50 gig of crap is worth $550

[jambi]

This is the reason I never marketed my hard drive. You all just don't know what would be useful. I have the first two years of every lecture given to the Medical School Class at an Ivy league university. Along with all their powerpoints and home works given and answers exlpained.

I wonder what that would be worth if 50 gig of crap is worth $550


Please, please! Sell it to the doctor in question, and ask whatever price you desire. I could really use those lectures.

[pillow]

I am a strong supporter of the hard drive project, mostly because Dr. H has promised to update it for free whenever new material is acquired... I think we should help him any way we can. I have about 10 gigs of material I'm going to donate (.pdfs, the Goljian lectures, .ppts and stuff from us students, etc.)

The real end game should be to have all the material from the papeleria scanned, and the HD hooked to a computer/server with passwords given to the students, so that UAG can become as tech savvy as every other medical school. At the very least we could put an end to the aggravating weekly 'omg where did you get that packet? what number is it?' phenomena.

BTW for mac users - the HD can be read with an Intel mac, but if you want updates the drive (and everything on it) must remain READ-ONLY. This is a serious drawback, and one of the reasons I hope the project gets more traction - maybe someone can help Dr. H to trim the redundant files.

[giddings]

I think it is a good idea - obviously - but the current implementation is sorely lacking.

Someone should be in charge who is actually technically proficient rather than delusional.

I have never met a self-professed hacker who ever charged money for their services, time, or talent. Much less a self professed hacker from the golden age back in California. By whatever metric you pick, he doesn't know anything about software (current or past) computation, coding, or hardware. What does that leave? I don't know.

There should be no "Oh but this is Mexico, everybody's got to make a buck." No excuses, there are many ways to make money in this world, teaching is not one of them.

I didn't want to jump to personal attacks, but Captain Richard, when you state that he is the only one who actually cares if we learn...

I feel at best, that your statement is misleading because we have at least one outstanding professor during the first semester, and furthermore your judgement of men is sorely lacking.

For the record at some point in the future I plan on refining the current hard drive plus other materials and making the bulk of it (will probably have to cut out most of the video) available for free somehow. Attaching a dollar value to most of this material is disingenuous because it was all pirated, mostly from torrents.

[eastern2western]

I think it is a good idea - obviously - but the current implementation is sorely lacking.

Someone should be in charge who is actually technically proficient rather than delusional.

I have never met a self-professed hacker who ever charged money for their services, time, or talent. Much less a self professed hacker from the golden age back in California. By whatever metric you pick, he doesn't know anything about software (current or past) computation, coding, or hardware. What does that leave? I don't know.

There should be no "Oh but this is Mexico, everybody's got to make a buck." No excuses, there are many ways to make money in this world, teaching is not one of them.

I didn't want to jump to personal attacks, but Captain Richard, when you state that he is the only one who actually cares if we learn...

I feel at best, that your statement is misleading because we have at least one outstanding professor during the first semester, and furthermore your judgement of men is sorely lacking.

For the record at some point in the future I plan on refining the current hard drive plus other materials and making the bulk of it (will probably have to cut out most of the video) available for free somehow. Attaching a dollar value to most of this material is disingenuous because it was all pirated, mostly from torrents.
completely agree that hard drive stuff is all downloadable from torrents, but do you have any idea how much time it takes to down load the from torrents or even find it on the web, another problem with torrent is that some torrents you get from web may even be contaminated with viral files (then that can even cause you more trouble), pay h or friend some money and just see what happens

[cpt.ricard]

Giddings that wasn't a personal attack- what you did is the ideal way to respond to something you don't agree with: stick to the facts and no name calling. It's very mature and lacking typically.

Here's what I said:

*This is the only guy that's actively helping you learn. Admin's getting better at taking care of us so we can learn, but the actual learning is still not where it should be. He's one of the few that's doing something for us; sure, he's charging for it, but you should ask them how much they make. . . . .

"One of the few" is not "sole person," so I'm sorry if it was understood that way. I think we can both agree that the individuals who actively push to have students' abilities to recall and understand info is slightly balanced against us, for whatever reason. Him, I'd stack up not necessarily on the "teaches awesomely" side, but at least on the "doesn't want to screw you over," like one particular prof I heard was sacked/moved recently.

About the other prof, you're right (and current students know exactly what 1st sem prof. you're referring to - he's a really good friend of mine and someone I get to practise my French with) but what my attempt was was to have others see him in a positive light, rather than "this whole thing is crap."

He's no hacker - he's helping and I think he figures that if he makes a profit along the way, what's the issue? Money for service. Caveat emptor like all of Mexico.

[Karplus]

Acually the one we are talking about is not trying to help us or he would quit.

This is just one man's opinion. He's all friendly and chum chummy but this is to cover the fact that he doesn't know what he is talking about. I spent a week in his class taking notes but only writing down the things he got wrong. Filled up a couple sheets. Clever saying and platitudes stink in the mind even if they are factually wrong. BTW I aced his class and three semesters after people were asking for my study sheet.

[absolutjag9]

doc h is a good man, in my opinion. yes, he continually increases the price of the hard drive for students semester after semester and yes, he has been wrong a few times in class on things...but the guy knows his stuff overall. his devotion to weekend reviews and willingness to give a usmle review course this semester to 2nd semesters demonstrates that he cares. the hard drive is a good thing to purchase--but it's pricey-so it's best if students split the costs and copy it onto their respective harddrives.

[Karplus]

As I said it was just an opinion. And, I really like the guy.

But, I also believe that a stopped watch is better than one that is just off by ten minutes. "Even a stoped clock is right twice a day."

A slow clock will make you miss every bus and then get jailed for loitering at the bustop waiting for the next bus. A fast clock will get you put in jail for loitering at bustops. Or is that the other way around. Doesn't matter the outcome is the same.

[brainteazer07]

As I said it was just an opinion. And, I really like the guy.

But, I also believe that a stopped watch is better than one that is just off by ten minutes. "Even a stoped clock is right twice a day."

A slow clock will make you miss every bus and then get jailed for loitering at the bustop waiting for the next bus. A fast clock will get you put in jail for loitering at bustops. Or is that the other way around. Doesn't matter the outcome is the same.

convenient justification. i m sure there are 100 other analogies that can go against the arguement. lol

yeah lot of students are not fan of Dr. H...esp girls..bcuz they think of him as a creepy guy with all his sexual comments..

but i did enjoy his way of teaching...he had good way of drilling the info in my head..and learned some practical medical stuff from him...its a cell bio class..slides are self explanatory and book is even better....so class for me was mere entertainment. i would sit in his class rather than lot of other professors ...i would tell u that much lol.

and yeah it is my opinion as well....i m not attacking your opinion. i hope missing the bus and going to jail for loitering wasn't the personal experience. :p

[uag dd]

The harddrive is useful, if one has the time and patience to look through it, organize it and use the videos, lectures and books before the exam and to assist learning, but let's face it, we're used to investing our money in things that will be the fast solution. I mean why spend 350 dollars if there is no organization to the mess.

I bought my own hard drive and paid a friend to burn the information on there from the hard drive she bought. so, we both got the information and we split the cost. and it is useful when i have time, otherwise, it sits in the corner collecting dust until I have some free time to browse the damn thing.

the Dr in question does not know what he's talking about. his devotion to weekend reviews is just as his devotion to "teaching" the computer class and proctering almost all the exams given. it's a devotion for MONEY.

He lacks academic knowledge, seriously lacks clinical knowledge and believes that he's the one fighting on the students' frontier while he's a block in their way.

Most of us have to relearn all the classes he teaches. He has talked through exams while proctering them and wasted time in class with "useful" stories from the golden era where he did.. and did and did..

to say the least, many hate him.. I just don't have respect for him, not just because of his attitude, but because he has only scratched the surface of scientific knowledge and knows the bare minimum and believes he's the king of the world.

I say, buy three or four hard drives per class, share the cost and get your own harddrive from home and download it. it's a win win.. he gets the money he's claiming to use for material and the class benefits from whatever they can get from the hard drive.

[jambi]

yeah lot of students are not fan of Dr. H...esp girls..bcuz they think of him as a creepy guy with all his sexual comments..

Yeah I've heard this... Do these girls think he's interested in them, or that he's going to whip it out behind his desk? What's the big deal about a few jokes?
Lighten up ladies, he's not your uncle and you're not 12. Pop that imaginary bubble you built around yourself and your friends in college...'creepy' is the toxic word of choice for white women between the ages of 15-25 to alienate any man they dislike with the unfair implication of sexual perversion. And the women I've met who complain about the doctor in question aren't prudes by any stretch of the imagination, they're just... what's the female equivalent to creepy? Oh right, there is none.

[giddings]

Yeah I've heard this... Do these girls think he's interested in them, or that he's going to whip it out behind his desk? What's the big deal about a few jokes?
Lighten up ladies, he's not your uncle and you're not 12. Pop that imaginary bubble you built around yourself and your friends in college...'creepy' is the toxic word of choice for white women between the ages of 15-25 to alienate any man they dislike with the unfair implication of sexual perversion. And the women I've met who complain about the doctor in question aren't prudes by any stretch of the imagination, they're just... what's the female equivalent to creepy? Oh right, there is none.

I want you in me.

[Karplus]

Creepy is a relative term. Students in medical school should be ready for more than your average civilian. Girls should not be exempt from being patients in chest exams, but guys should be professional about it. By the time we finish we should be prepared to have a drunk in the ER try to bite us, a cardiac patient grab our ***, and a psychiactric admit to jump over the table and pull our hair.

And no one point to the fact that I am a guy. I have been faced with unwanted physical advances in the workplace. Actually had a customer grab for the family jewels. It is strange feeling to wonder if you will get fired for brushing someone off.

[Karplus]

Wow, did that last post sound creepy???

I also wanted to let prospective students to know that we have been discussing family business. I have issues with Dr. H. That in no way means that I would not choose another school over this small family squabble. UAG is no different than other medical schools having a teacher that occasionally mispeaks is true for every school. Having a medical school intructor that is crass, overbearing or "creepy" is not an exeption but the rule. I have watched many lectures at an Ivy League school and the difference there is just as disturbing. Every lecture begins without indecision, BUT it begins with a disclaimer.

1. The most common being "you will not need to know any of this." This happens when very advanced researchers lecture. They know so much about a subject that their lectures are so particular that only one or two researchers in the world care about the difference caused by the information.

2. The second most common is worse: "this is the most important lecture you will have in medical school." Yeah, Right?

3. The third most common is the "worstest yet." (I claim poetic liscence) "Hey, I am suprised that so many of you decided to come to this lecture."