My photos for this week
1st Music theme:
a) pipe band – belting out the Queen classic – ‘We will rock you’ Sauchiehall street – last Sat
b) 1 tenor – Buchanan street (there were another couple of tenors – but when I went past it was solo
c) a Brass band – just down the road from the tenor
d) queues to see the new Bond movie – Casino Royale – this was its 2nd week of release
e) Judi autumn colours – taken on banks of river Leven, Dumbarton
f) kiddies fun rides in Sauchiehall street - last Sat
Ooops! - OK this is as far as I could get with Word - I'm a little nervous as this is what I am going to have to use for my assignment for Friday (this is a new one for Enterprise Architecture) . . . so now I have moved across to Google Docs - this is an online document . . . so lets see how this works (the above was copied 'n pasted from notepad . . .except I had grown complacent and carried on a lot further and then it crashed in word - so it seems as if it is corrupt . . . I may have to reinstall it ... I suppose a virus scan might be a good idea as well - just to make sure . . you never know . .
OK Sunday Judi came across and I showed her around Dumbarton (Don't sneeze - I told her) and then Helensburgh and surrounds -'twas lovely she says. Went to Tesco on the way home and of course I wanted the beers (Peroni) that were on the top shelf right at the back - they were just out of reach - that's life isn't it - anyway Judi said "lift me up - I'll get them" - well it must have looked like something out of the local amateur version of Swan Lake - except this swan came down to earth with a couple of beers. . . . the girl that works at Tesco was in hysterics . . . when we asked where the sausage rolls where she took us to the aisle and rack and then hung around - they were on the bottom shelf - she said she wanted to see whether we were going to lie down and take them off the shelf . . . she also said something about they'd better the camera on the two of us . . .
Monday was all about Information Retrieval(IR) - and my assignment 'never look a gift horse in the mouth' described last week. Well the research turned out to be all about relevance i.e. do the search results mean anything to me are they relevant for what I was searching for?? Well guess what Friday IR lecture was all about - you got it 'Relevance' - except I hadn't based it on or used any of the theoretical framework that Monica mentioned - so my mind was going into overdrive - thinking she'll just put a red line through it all . . . Quite a few late nights and or early mornings and I handed my assignment in on Thursday morning.
Tuesday morning saw Lesley our IT in Business lecturer going to great pains to put the subject into context - why we are doing - how we are to be assessed on the course - how we are getting on - she was giving a long talk explanation about how you have to put yourself out there to find an entrepreneur and then finished it off by saying "don't you Andrew" - and of course I nearly choked as I didn't know what she was saying - but then cottoned on and gave my tuppence input - not long after it was my turn again when she was explaining that it might be in peoples interest to attend the Connect meetings as some people had met entrepreneurs there - "isn't that right Andrew" . . . by this stage I was beginning to feel like (not to mention look like) the planted crowd participant . . . you know the person who is selected by chance and randomly . . . . Then it was Internet programming - we have finished our syllabus and Richard is going a little bit further by illustrating and discussing issues that are sort of cutting edge in this field at the moment . . . - this was followed by a lab but I was having none of it and went straight home to work on my assignment. I informed Richard that there was just no way that I could even consider attempting the PHP blog we are supposed to build at the moment as I have to many other deadlines (there were a lot of murmurs of approval at this) - he said it was fine - but I can't help but feeling it would be better if I had done some more work in this direction (priorities I know) - what may happen is that I find myself struggling over Christmas with no one to ask - plenty of time but if you can't get things to work who do you approach??
Wednesday morning was Java lab and the Manager class is coming on nicely. Had a chat with Colin first thing and he pointed me in the right direction - this is the Pizza company I described last week - I was thinking I could create a single list shared between Company & Managers as there would be great deal of repetition between the two if we wanted to create a list of employees as opposed to who would be in a Managers team??? According to me its almost the same thing . . Anyway seems for the time-being at least he is quite happy even if we do have some repetition . . . so I knuckled down and attempted to complete the Manager class . . . need to be more or less finished by Wednesday next week - is it going to happen - the preliminary part of it yes! I will make it happen. Whilst in the lab an email came through to say that Reuben was off sick and that the lab was cancelled - which it wasn't - I had a sense then that we were not going to see Reuben for the rest of the term . . .it turned out that I was right as the day progressed it became clear that Reuben would not be returning for the rest of the semester . . . Colin has now jumped in and on Thursday we had some new material / and a lecture . . . there is very little time left so its perhaps a case of too little too late but we will see how it goes (more about this in the staff meeting).
I helped David our lab lecturer / assistant in Internet Programming, with some research he is conducting at the moment - all about email and he has developed email with photographs linked to each sender - because we dealt with faculty members -everyone is supposed to have a photograph of themselves . . . so I found some of this quite interesting - sort of a graphical email interface - rather than just text based - easier to search I think . . . .
Then another Internet Programming lecture looking at some of the current Internet tools . . . more about web sites and a sense of how they could work . . . interesting
Thursday - 1st thing Java - Colin was there to lecture us - including samples of code so you could see whether you understood or not . . . plus he handled exception handling and how it works and we have a programme which he sent us to play around with and change and see what affect it has on it etc., - I can only but wonder what it might have been like had we had Colin from the beginning all the way through. We actually had a lab with Monica but I had made an appointment with Bellsmyre Monica a while back and never knew about the IR lab - it turns out it was only hading out old / past exams and being told this is worse case scenario - exam in January 16 - will never be as difficult as the mock one handed out. When I arrived in Bellsmyre - Monica phoned me to say she was at the office but no one was there and it was pouring - just happeend to be passing at that moment and drove up and at least I could offer her a dry space - well Brian arrived shortly thereafter and when then moved to his car and a large part of our discussion was held with Monica whilst sitting in the car - a short while later Tony & Mick arrived and we then went inside the project offices.
Minor hiccup in the morning (Thursday)- my assignment was 65+ pages - I was worried about paper in the lab - bottom-line I got in before everyone else (survival of the fittest) . . .and on top of that a word document was corrupt the same problem or the forerunner of yesterday and today's problem . . .?? Anyway - no problem I had it on my flash drive - but I had also emailed it to myself as well. Lo & behold what do you think ??? Yes, it too was corrupt . . . what did I do - I just printed off what I had and handed it in . . this of course threw the contents page out some last minute re-jigging.
Friday always starts with Monica our IR lecturer - the uni then decided to have an actual fire drill - so quickly down the stairs and waste some time outside the buildings - all 'n all 1/2 hour was needed for the whole exercise - before we were given the all clear and trooped back in.
Came across this whilst browsing:
BBC video nation
This was our last Enterprise Architecture Lecture - I liked Steven our lecturer . . . and I do believe this is a field which shows a lot of promise . . . I ain't exactly a hotshot programmer so looking at how everything fits together - I think this and IR at the moment are the two which appeal to me most - I could see myself going further with IR . . most people seem not to like it - what can I say I am not most people - I am looking forward to seeing what our electives are for next semester
Then it was our first Student Rep & faculty staff members meeting - Paul Hunter; George Weir & IM Director - not sure what her name is . . Idong; Catherine; And & myself - we had quite a lengthy agenda and it did seem to drag on but it was a very constructive meeting - interesting to watch it unfold as we (Andy & myself CIT - Computer & Internet Technologies) were up last - so it was quite some time before we had our chance and I had to lead with Java - I ended up pouring water into a cup just as I started to launch myself into the subject - took my eye off the cup and the next thing the water was all over the desk . . . anyway it was quite awkward as I didn't want to assassinate Reuben but needed to stress just how dire the whole situation was . . . I managed to convey our sentiment and that we hadn't done much in the way of lectures or covering much material . . . lets leave it at that - it is too late now and my main concern was what will the knock-on / long term consequences of this be?? We don't know - I don't know how many of the courses in next semester might assume a certain knowledge which might now not be there . . .We finished off our discussions by moving it onto a social level -a number of initiatives were discussed including us forming a society which will allow us to access funds from the student council . . . so lots of homework to be done and if we are going to organise a graduation ball - we'll need to get a committee in place and start with that as well.
The week that was - It started and ended with Judi as she decided to catch a movie with me Friday night and I managed to get her safely on the last train out of Glasgow - which she tells me was perhaps not a good idea as everyone was in a very boisterous and loud mood . . .
More adventures with mwa next week :-)
Andrew . . . .
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