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.