a cold wet week in the face of Java

Well let me start off by giving a brief overview of the photo's - went in to university early thismorning and took a couple of photos - so both blog & photo's are up to date . . . . the high rise building - focus of 1st photo - this is the Livingstone building (where I spend most of my days at university) - of Dr David Livingstone - who was recently in the news because of a place in Malawi called Blantyre - a place that he named in his wanderlust years. 2nd photo - two fold - 1 give you an idea of the hills we are up and down between classes - this is the McCance building on your right and the registration building straight ahead. There is a open piece of ground - which used to be a Maternity hospital - the university now owns the ground and the next photo shows the original entrance to the maternity hospital - maintained by the university. No apologies for the next phot taken from the 10th floor of the Livingstone - it was quite a dreary morning as you can see (your probably wondering what time the photo's were taken - those outside were on my way to university - approximately 08h45 or thereabouts - this one was a little later as I had already had my hot choclate fix for the morning (next photo - drug dispenser - hey! hot chocolate for 20p - no one is complaining) - anyway view from window - uni residence on left hand side - otherwise looking out towards east end of Glasgow. Fancy dress - no - ice bar in London - Samantha's birthday. Last photo - George square - they are busy renovating 2 buildings and they have actually erected 2 massive advertisements in front of them - so we now have both Wayne Rooney and Ruby Wax watching over George square. Well the title is a misnomer really - started the week having two assingments to do and dreading the new exercises for Java as quite a number of us are still struggling to complete Labs from 2 weeks ago - its one thing to have worked on them and to get some code to actually complete it but it is another to be able to wrtie it from first principles . . . Reuben reported off sick - left us with no new exrcises but gave us the opportunity to catch up - so he missed labs on Wednesday and then obviously no class on Thursday - then Monica reported off sick so Information Retrieval was cancelled on Friday - we only found out when we went to the lab on THursday - but we used her lab for Java so now IR lab behind and still no further with Java - beginning to worry me - but just need to give it some more time - I have sensed improvements but it seems to come and go (unfortunately in waves) sometimes things seem to be crystal clear and at other times clear as mud - sounds suspiciously like life . . .lol.

But I am getting ahead of myself - Tuesday is Richard Glassey - Internet Programming - Lecture then lab - we have started databses but our lab was on JavaScript - databases is fairly interesting as we discussed various web sites and some of what is going on behind the scenes - sort of Amamzon.com; Expedia; even briefly touched on porn - I brought this up as it is often quoted that an incredible amount of business on the web is porn and it seems these figures are not incorrect - anyway basically discussed databases and how web sites use them as well as YouTube being purchased by Google; MySpace being bought by Rupert Murdoch group etc., - no one is quite sure how they are going to make money from them or are they basically just buying traffic - if you reduce the price to the number of users making use of the sites it is not a lot of money at all really. Bullions admittedly but divided by millions you can end up with reasonable figures per user.

Wednesday - Java lab - I was up to 01h00 solving a problem - quite a tricky one at that - I looked at it realsied immediately that we had had previous examples which were similar went in used and combined the different code and it actually worked - I was beaming from ear to ear - a simple little program that allows you to give it 5 random numbers and it has to sort them into ascending order . . . you would swear I had come up with the theory for relativity . . .hey! that is how I felt - on top of the world. It was I am afraid to say short lived - I was pulled out of orbit again the next day when I tried to model a bank account - with balances; interest rates; deposits and withdrawls etc., - I have subsequently got that working and I am now struggling with the next one . . .so it goes. Reuben was not there and Colin helped me - the guy that gave us the Java boot camp - he is really good - he looked a program I had written - to count the number of voewls in a String (a sentence you give the computer) and within a short space of time had helped me to see how I could improve the code . . . very useful - I just wish he had taken us all the way through -he is helping out in the Labs but Reuben is our lecturer.

Somehow got talked into going for a beer on Wednesday afternoon - Iw as exhausted - I'm sure it was the Java - just sapped all teh energy from me - frustration - plus the late night and grappling with the problem - anyway - you now me - doesn't take much to persuade me - completely different group - Andy; Russel; Phillip & David (he is a character - more about him some other time) - went for two beers - but I felt quite drunk afterwards - and it buggered up my whole evening - couldn't get down to any meaningful studying - you know when you flutter around but you just can't seem tog et to grips with anythign that is what my Wednesday evening was like - which in itself is maddening as you have loads to do but you just seem to stay in one spot - not moving at all. Made me think that unless its a special event / occasion - to drink when your already feeling exhausted is not to be recommended. (we live and learn - at least I hope we do . . .)
SO with Reuben off we had a hole in Thursdays timetable - what a stormy day it was - reluctantly dragged myself in for the single period - Information retrieval - only to hear on arrival that Monica was sick as well - well I felt sick when I heard this - could quite easily have had a long lie in myself . . .oh well it wasn't to be.

So Friday because the class was cancelled meant we once again only had a single class - although some of use decided to get in early and do some Java - I spent early morning taking a few photo's and then breezed into the lab - but it was a bit frustrating - I am probably expecting too much (he says in hope). Later on was Enterprise Architecture - which I am really enjoying - discussed Visa and how they reorganised their whole network 100m transactions a day . . . not bad - you need some pretty powerful processing power to cope with that - which they have - and more importantly they cut their processing speed down by 40% - which in simple terms means they can process more quicker - which means they are making a lot more money . . . also looked at Japan and the DoCoMo mobile networks there - they were adding 25 000 new users every day at a time when Europe & America couldn't give it away . . .we looked at some of the reasons why - and then another group gave a presentation on Wireless Networks . . . quite good - not quite as good as that other group the other day on Grid computing. Yes, I was in that group.



Well I have to give a presentation tomorrow - this is for the community organisation we are applying for a grant of £2000 10 flat (tft) screens for our computer suite. Wish me luck - no powerpoint / data projectors or anything - trying to level the playing field so to speak - I'm thinking of taking down a pizza box and another box to try and convey the difference in size and dimensions - hey! I might just use myself as an example. see you next week - I hope.

Ooops - your asking what happened to our Thursday night out - it just never happened - a good thing methinkest.

Week 4 and counting . . .

I thought this is nonsense - I am interested in photography - I have some photo's of Glasgow - instead of going onto various web sites and (as my weblog title suggests) borrowing their pictures - I thought this gives me the opportunity to post my photo's as well. So starting from this blog - I will attempt to capture something about myself with words and now with pictures as well. It may just act as an impetus for me to take some more photo's - between you and I - I normally don't need an excuse anyway - I am shutter happy - and digital affords you that luxury. I use a Konica Minolta Dimage Z2 digital camera - I am very happy with it.
So a quick index of the photo's before I start with my weeks experiences - the first 3 are taken in July - on the Clyde (see the sun does shine here in Scotland) - there is a river-bus - which runs from near enough central Glasgow to Braehead shopping centre - which is technically in Renfrew (not Glasgow.) You will see 2 photo's of the new bridge (4 lanes of traffic) which has now been completed for use and another one which has someone (a marine) abseiling down from one of the old cranes which is a throw back to the time that Glasgow was a port of note. Also a big centre for ship building. The next set of photo's are at a complex called Xscape - you can have a look at their website. I'm sure you'll be able to work out the following 1) the ski slope 2) the centre itself 3) a climbing activity they have for kids - looks dangerous (but they are in a harness setup) - its right above a Starbucks / Costa Coffee type place.

I have survived another week at university - met my personal tutor; struggled with Java again; got into a bit Javascript; taking part in some research; had our 1st Enterprise Architecture lecture; gave a presentation as part of group; got to thinking about how group I met on day 1 induction has stuck together. Whew! Let’s get the show on the road.
Monday, at the moment is a free day still - which is great but what it does is makes me slack off on the weekend - I'll do it on Monday - which isn't necessarily a bad thing - but it can be dangerous . . . so once again with the best of intentions didn't get all that much done over the weekend. I have told myself though that balance is important. This Monday coming I have a dentists appointment - 2 sessions at least with teh oral hygienist. I'll tell you about that next week - but I have just changed dentists and I am much hppier - the guy I went to recently - had about 30+ people in his chair in the 15 minutes that I filled in some forms to register with him - its all about whether or not you have to come back etc., - after I had sat down, in his chair, within 2 minutes (if that) he told me I needed some fillings - when I eventually came back to see him - the 1st thing he done was to x-ray my crown and then he seemed dissapointed that it did not need any work done to it - that was the last staw for me - Oh yes, and when Is aid that I wouldn't be paying for dentistry in the future, he wanted to know why not? and I told him I was a full-time student and he said it depended on when the treatment started - well that was me out the door - he struck me as someone who was only interested in how much money he could fleece you for - friendly enough but I tend to sum people up fairly quickly - rightly or wrongly - hey I'm still alive to tell the tale so I can't be all wrong.

Back to university - Tuesday kicks off with Internet Programming - we had looked at and finished discussing forms & cascading style sheets last week. If your wondering what in earth's name is he talking about, well a form would be anything along the lines of username & password that you might have to type in on a web page, or in some cases a lot more information. The style sheets do just that - help to make your web page look the way it does (i.e. style) and the beauty of it is that if implemented properly you can change the look and feel of your web site by changing these sheets - here I have to confess that I am cheating with this blog as it has templates that I am just plugging into (using) - I should be doing the entire thing by hand, coding it (writing / starting it from scratch) - but hey! there are only 24 hours in a day - I may play around with it more in the future. So we played around with this and then on the Tuesday the next day we started with Javascript – this is a programming language that allows you to do a lot of fancy things on your website – from a course perspective we will be using it to validate the forms. You will have seen examples of this – when you type something in that is incorrect or leave a column blank it will take you back to that entry and so please complete the form etc., So looking forward to that – will only actually start using it in earnest next week in our lab.

Well Wednesday’s always kicks off with a 2 hour Java lab. We are given exercises and have the time allocated – where we can work on this and there are 3 instructors floating around assisting people – once again I balked at the exercise – seems I don’t know where to start get confused – don’t read the question properly – seem to go into panic – just want to code without first drawing a diagram and theorising about what is required. Anyway – I know I still have a lot of work to do here – took me the full 2 hours to do the first part of the exercise – with help from all 3 tutors. I had a meeting with Reuben (remember Columbo) who is my personal tutor. We ahd a chat about Java – I shared with him where I was – that I had decided to start a Java study group – that a lot of us were struggling and just a good heart to heart. Result being that he will now give an additional tutorial every week – straight after our lab – where we will be able to generally discuss the exercises – without him giving us the solutions . . .but giving us enough – to enable to go away again and try by ourselves. I am quite pleased with this as I think it will add a lot more value. He also, in the following days lecture, did not go any further and went over some of the earlier material which was also much appreciated.

Wednesday afternoon saw us attending a compulsory seminar on assignments and plagiarism acknowledging sources etc., - all the usual stuff anyway. Wednesday also saw our group – working on Grid computing – have its first dry run with the presentation . . . which went well but over-ran slightly – everyone went away to make changes – refinements etc., There was even an article in the Metro on Wednesday about this very subject – some of you may have seen it about a student in Plymouth that solved a problem that NASA has been having for the last 40 years – he done this by hooking up the 1500 computers at the university and having them all work on the problem – super computing – which is what our subject is all about. So many slight adjustments were made.

Friday was the big day – we had split the work up so that everyone had a section to concentrate on – I thought we had a fairly good presentation – could have been better. What did the lecturer think – he said “a lot of work and effort went into this and that in his opinion it was the best presentation he has seen by a Masters group. So we were first and according to him it will be up to the rest of the groups to try and equal our standard – needless to say we were all pretty chuffed with this feedback. Its all pretty anti-climatic – you put everything into it and then its over.

I must say I found the Enterprise Architecture very interesting – he has done a lot of consultancy work for large corporate company’s like Royal Bank of Scotland – 5^th largest bank in the world etc., makes a world of difference – an authority on the subject. His lecture preceded ours – turns out he has had pneumonia – that’s why this was the first class. There was no Information Retrieval class – she was away – attending a conference.

Went for lunch with a couple of the guys from our group. As I was saying at the beginning – 4 of us that by chance (is there such a thing) sat next to each other Christopher, Rory, Stephen & myself – we seem to naturally gravitate towards each other and have formed a bond – strange. I realised today that this is a whole new side to me now – new acquaintances / friends / colleagues – a new chapter has started.

Oops – research one of our lecturers asked all of us to assist with some research that he is doing – seems I am the only person who has signed up and is doing so. It is just recording any email searches I might be doing. Also signed up to help someone in Information Retrieval, not sure when that starts – no doubt be informed in due course.

Well there is another night out coming up next week – the group celebrates successful presentation – more Java tales . . . .

‘till next week.

Andrew

Week 3 - Welcoming Event . . . .went well until the shooters . .

Week 3 is over – how do I feel – well seeing as it was our welcoming function last night which started in the Livingston Building 10th floor and ended in the Counting house – that was after having visited the Union & Print Works – I would have been quite happy staying there but there are a few foreign students so we thought we’d show them a pub or two in Glasgow itself – all within a few hundred metres of each other . . . and close to the station, for me. Well it was wine to start with and guess skipped lunch – not on purpose but it just happened and when I looked at the time again it was 15h00 and our function was at 16h00 – so I thought there was not much point – something I lived to regret, later on. Wine then onto beer and of course someone introduced the inevitable shooters . . . it was the beginning of the end – I left at about 23h00 or somewhere around there – grabbed a burger on the way home – another bad idea . . . my fingers are not finding it as easy to find the correct keys today . . .

Tuesday start again as Monday is our free day – supposed to catch up and do some reading as well get up to speed on Java . . .more about that later.

Well Tuesday is Internet programming lecture then 2 lab periods – at the moment we are starting off on our development route – we will learn programming languages which allow us to design a web page with all of its bells and whistles – the fancy stuff running in the background – have the ability to get you to fill in some information online and validate that information – then create some sort of a record / database of this and I presume act on the information or use it for something – might be an e-commerce type site we’ll just have to wait and see. I like the fact that everything we do is done incrementally – first a lecture then the opportunity to put it into practice and play around with it.

Wednesday was 09h00 sharp for Java lab – proved to be a bit of a disaster – I thought I had picked up some of the basics – found myself treading water – not knowing what to do – it didn’t help that when we asked for help the person seemed a bit confused – couldn’t help but notice he gave a slightly different explanation and code to the guy sitting next to me ???? Then we asked someone else they gave us different code and then the 1st guy came back and said – what the other guy had shown us was incorrect – by this time we were reeling . . .and pretty frustrated – realised that we have to do something ourselves if we are going to get the hang of this – so I have suggested a separate study group for this – we have 2 hours in between classes on Wednesday and we are going to get together and discuss and make sure we understand. Get a battle plan worked out – just look at basics. So far only 2 people have signed up but I know 1 or 2 others who will come along. Want to approach some of the more marginalised individuals in class – A Chinese guy whom I’ve not really seen him speaking to anyone else and a couple of the Indian guys as well.

Thursday was Java lecture – I’m sorry I’m not impressed – I had sent him an email – expressing my concerns but – I am sure he had not read it before the class – some people who know Java tell me that his syntax is incorrect – at this stage of Java – I really can’t afford to pick up any bad habits. If you work with something and you go over it again and again to understand it and your examples are wrong it is just going to throw you right out and confuse you no end. So once again hope study group can address this. 2 hours a week is probably not enough. We had an Information Retrieval lab – which I enjoyed – I couldn’t really get to grips with it initially – but some of my research for our group exercise on Grid computing actually overlaps – so I found myself being drawn into this and I started to make sense of what she had been telling us in the class. Its really all about information on the Internet and how we go about 1) putting together a query 2) matching information with our query 3) Initial complexity - how do we know what to ask when we don’t know the subject 4) the ranking / presentation of information. My research took me to a new concept of the Internet – or what it is developing into - the Semantic web – and raised the issue of much much more information being generated and how we are going to cope with this from an information retrieval point of view.

Thursday afternoon 16h00 students from Library Information (49); Computer & Internet Technologies (25 – I’m in this group) and Information Management (12) – were invited to get together over a glass of wine to meet each other. We actually share some classes together – all 3 of us take Information Retrieval and we are in same class as Info. Man group for Enterprise Architecture etc., during the rest of the year I am sure there will be other classes – now strangely enough the library science class is about 80% female – we only have 2 and IM has 2 as well I think. Only 6 people from my class turned up; Russel; Andy; myself; Nicole; Duncan – actually that might have been it – and we didn’t really mingle – tended to just stick together – but then another Nicole from Florida came up and introduced herself and Christine one of her fellow students came to chat wasn’t long before the rest of the guys muscled in on our threesome – went quite well – I should have been a bit more active in circulating – but did get to meet quite few people . . .a few glasses of wine led to a thirst which had to be quenched – a few pubs later some shooters . . .you know the story.
Where we ended up - Counting House - little arrow
(Hey don't tell anyone but the arrow is actually 1 block away from where the pub is.

Made it for my 09h30, next morning – Information retrieval – had to have a coke first thing though to try and sort out the blood sugar and I had been a wee bit ill during the evening as I had somehow skipped lunch on Thursday – not a good idea. I made it, somewhat gingerly, through the morning and went to a lab later. Came home and had a nap.

Just back from the King’s theatre ‘Two’ – a 2 person show – well done – well put together.

What else happened this week:
Monday night – my computer drop-in class I run; some confusion with venue booking etc., - will need to sort out pay as well and how that is going to work as the community group are now picking up the tab.
Tuesday evening – Digital Community management board meeting
Wednesday evening – helped out with girl guide group – they are all going for their computer badge – so assisted the troop. (incidently Scotland lost 2-0 to Ukraine; but then again so did England to Croatia;)
Thursday – welcome evening
New books purchased this week: Javascript & DHTML and PHP & MySQL.

A recommendation I can make is that any of you seriously interested in web design make use of Mozilla web browser has a couple of great features –

• View : Page info


• Tools : Web Development : DOM (Document Object Model) Inspector

Both really great!

And now its just about time for bed.
Adios!

Week 2 - Slipping into some sense of rhythm . . . slow, slow, quick . . .

Well - Java boot camp was over - shell shocked and frightened, I clawed myself back to reality over the weekend (which in English means - I done shitall over the weekend).

We kind of ease ourselves back into the new week as we have no classes on Monday's - so our week starts on Tuesday - not bad eh? But most of our assignments, by default are due in by 12h00 on Monday's so I am sure within no time we will be in need of the extra time - last minute typos changes and re-alignment when you look at your essay in the cold light of a Monday morning.

Well what did week 2 consist of - our first Internet programming class - very interesting and by the end of this term we will have our own web site up and running - using a minimum of Html; JavaScript; PHP & MySQL . . .So looking forward to that. As I have a wee bit of experience in that. Managed to have Nicole ejected from our lab - I thought I was helping but turns out she wasn't fully registered so they ejected her - I think she is still speaking to me though. Enterprise Architecture turned into a correspondence course for the first 3 weeks - we have been given the notes and told, by the lecturer, to go through them ourselves. Also have a group exercise - I have chosen Grid Computing - which culminates with a presentation in 2 weeks time - we chose the subject that is to be presented first - may as well get it over and done with - also we are all able to use this information for our first assignment. We are hoping to set a high standard which throws down the gauntlet to the other groups - 4 other groups / topics.

We had our first formal Java programming lesson - I was late (Yeah, I know my life story) got up late missed my train - couldn't see on my timetable where my class was - it was just one of those mornings - any cut a long story short - bumped into Abi (apologies for spelling) who guess what was also late and also did not know where he was going - so when everything fails - throw yourself on the mercy of the faculty secretaries . . .up to the 10th floor - into reception and caught Zakia's attention - told her we were lost - turns out we were in the right building but we should have been on 4th floor . . .rushed down - all of 1/2 an hour late - embarrassed etc., - get to class - lecturer not even there yet . . .no sooner sat down - when this Columbo character comes in behind us (all that was missing was the trench coat) and he is Italian as well. Well in not time he told us he has never taught Java - will discover with us as we go along and in fact doesn't think much of the language as he is a C man - and during the course of the lecture reminded us on countless occasions that C would have dealt with it much more efficiently . . . All n all though - he is very good and I warmed to him because he would scribble away on the blackboard to give you an example - just a pity the chalk didn't actually write on blackboard - some sort of invisible chalk - could see parts of the word but most of it was invisible ... and of course yours truly who knows next to nothing - managed to correct my lecturer because he had given it a capital letter (which is actually quite important in programming - I had him beaming from ear to ear over his mistake - probably cost me 10% in my assignment though).










I was so frustrated with this BlueJ book we were told to buy, of course Columbo told us within 2 minutes that it was rubbish . . . fact of the matter though was that I had installed CD that comes with book - and wanted to work through material before the class (keen I know, this is what happens when you are a mature student, Yes boring isn't it - I know I should out there drinking with the best of them) - but do you think I could get it to work??? I even went on to web site of the book thinking there may be a known problem - I ended up signing up on the discussion forum on the web site - turning into a right nerd. And received a single reply suggesting I do what I had highlighted the problem could or might be (I knew it was a mistake to give people an easy option - I should have let them tell me or suggest that as a solution.) Anyway I have subsequently tried the work around and guess what it still doesn't work. Columbo, god bless him made a half attempt at sorting it out until he heard I stay in Dumbarton - to which he was heard to say "I no go to Dumbarton" - so at the moment back to square 1.


We actually had a seminar this week - presented by Marc Dunlop - one of the (groot Makulu's) - he attended a seminar recently in Finland on mobile (cell) human computer interface - which looked at amongst other things how mobiles could be use for:
* monitoring your heartbeat whilst training - communicating with your MP3 player
* having a group of people in your memory and constantly scanning to see if any of them are in your proximity. IEEE I am outside the cinema or I'm in mall lets meet for coffee
* DoCoMo - had developed software which could tell whether you were moving / involved in running / going up stairs or sitting at your desk - just an indication of whether you were likely to answer
* a group in Glasgow were experimenting with receiving pulses - with varied amplitude (I thought of using it for Morse code actually - showing my age again)
* for tourism instead of having street maps - have actual photos transmitted to your mobile - for direction purposes. 1 of the things which is disorienting in a strange city is direction and finding street names . . .let alone numbers
It was interesting to hear some of latest development taking place

Which took us to Friday an early start - listen to me settling in to this student lifestyle - of 09h30 . .Information Retrieval with Monica Landoni another Italian - Inter supporter who told is in the first class - she don't know about us but 09h00 (when we are supposed to start) is way too early for her - so there were NO complaints and 09h30 it is. Well we had no sooner started than she made us come up with a definition for information - well we were 6 in the group and I just take over these groups and my definition was "Information is meaningful data" - which I thought was very good - she had given us a number of categories and the one girl had started to work through the categories - but I was having none of that nonsense . . .someone else defined it the other way round Data is meaningful Information - but I told him (gently) what I thought of his definition . . .It is actually quite a theoretical subject . . dreading the exam as there are tons of definitions as I am discovering . . .

[ Glasgow webcam ] If you look at webcam 2 - I am actually attending university in some of the tall buildings in the background there . . . hmm - don't be surprised if it is raining . . . lol.

Had a brief meeting with my fellow group activity - Grid computing members: Matt; Rory; Anthony; Stephen; Christopher and Idong (and me of course) - just realised no women - well I did invite Nicole - but I suppose when she was still upset about being thrown out and banned from all subsequent labs - oh well - can't win them all!

And that folks was week 2.
Scotland play France tomorrow Euro qualifying match - couldn't get tickets for the love of money. Below is the score from Scotland's last match 6 - 0(in their favour against Faroe Islands) played here in Scotland . . . One can but dream tomorrow will produce a victory for Scotland. (He stands up hand over chest . . .and start singing . . "Oh flower of Scotland . . . .")


. . . stop press . . . final score Scotland 1 - France 0