Longtime no speak
It has been quite a while since I have posted here so I feel an update is in order. I have finished my 2nd year at University so have technically finished for the summer. However I have been given a research grant from EPRS so I am now working as a research associate in the Culture Lab of Newcastle University. In this past week I have learnt a lot of C++ and started to look at OpenGL. I needed to this as I am going to be working with the OpenCV library written in C++ (so I need to learn C++) and OpenGL is going to be used to produce some GUI for applications I am going to be making.
On another note, I am currently posting this blog using Firefox 3 Beta 5, which comes with the latest addition of Ubuntu, something that I have just installed moments ago so be expecting a review on this OS in the coming weeks. I just have to say that it is already better than Gutsy in my eyes as it has support for my wireless adaptor out the box and I have connected to the Internet with no problems compared to after installing Gutsy and having issues with IPv6.
I will leave it here for the moment but will be returning soon!
UPDATE: Things have changed slightly since my last post. I installed Vista after Ubuntu, which naturally overwrote the bootloader so I could not get back onto Ubuntu without reinstalling GRUB. Once this was done I had to change the menu.lst file so have I could select Vista.
Another point I would like to make is that unlike Hardy, Vista could not connect to the Internet using my wireless adaptor so I had to search the Internet for the correct drivers - oh the irony.
P&G presentation
As has been previously mentioned on the blog, I am involved in a team project as part of my degree. Anyway, the team I am in was on of the top 3 for the project and we now have to give a presentation to Procter&Gamble regarding the system we have created along with how we coped with the team issues.
If we do well in this then we the team I am in will be selected to go through to the IBM ThinkPad challenge where we can win money, a laptop and some other stuff (I think).
Pretty exciting stuff. Particularly since I didn’t think I could do presentations (along with leadership) until starting this project, at which point I discovered I was actually rather good.
UPDATE: our system was chosen.
Module options
So I had to make my 3rd year pre-registration module options the other week and feel like I will share them with you. These aren’t final and may not be able to do them all due to timetable constraints.
- Human-Computer Interaction - kind of related to my dissertation, supposed to be quite easy
- Understanding Programming Languages - uses VDM so should be quite useful and was recommended to me
- Real-Time Programming in Java - control robotic arms - no more needs to be said
- System and Network Security - interested in security in general
- Internet Technology and Electronic Commerce - have to build a web server so that should be fun
- Middleware and Web Services - the guy who teaches is this is a legend, plus the topic is quite interesting
- Software Architectures - useful for when entering IT industry
- Software Project Management - same as above
I may change software architectures because I am not sure about the content or the lecture. It is the same sort of story for human-computer interaction - the only reason I am taking is because my dissertation is on a similar topic so figured it might be a good idea.
I am looking into potentially doing distributed systems, graphics and artificial intelligence (the latter 2 being unlikely as I think it would be a bit random just doing them). Complex systems is also a possibility but I am not sure if this will be very hard, it is also apparently structure poorly.
Team working
I have been very quite recently on this blog as I have not had time to update due to my work load. As part of my degree I have to do a module that is a team project with another university. Basically each university has split their stage 2 students into teams of 6 or 7, with a team from each university being paired together. From here we are then given a project specification and have to create an appropriate system as if we were working in the industry.
This year we have to create an logistics system for Procter&Gamble and I have to see it has been very interesting. The actual system is not that hard to create even though we have had more work from this module than any other mainly due to the huge documents you have to create in regards to requirements, design, implementation, testing, manuals. However the work is not the point of the exercise: the idea is to give each student some hands on experience at team working and the problems that can occur. I would like to share my experiences (so far) in this team working.
I know it sounds a bit cliche, but communication is the most important part of working as an effective team. This was quite a big issue with us as a company (company = team at my university and team at other university), especially early on. One of the first documents we had to produce was a Statement of Work and this was where the first lapse in communication was shown. As a company we split the work up evenly and everyone produced their part. However, our counterpart team got feedback on the whole document and did not forward this feedback to us and ended up changing the entire document before the final submission. This naturally annoyed my team a lot and did not get things off to a good start but thankfully we had learnt that communication was vital and that we had to communicate more.
Other smaller instances of a lapse in communication have shown through more recently as well, within the company and within my team itself; I shall start with my team. The communication within my team seemed to break down a lot during the past couple of weeks as we started to implement the designs we had created for the system. I found that I had not been set any tasks by the implementation leader and that everyone was just going off doing what they want and chaos ensued. With duplicate files appearing everywhere we had to stop what we were doing and address the situation. Thankfully this has been redeemed with a task organiser called FlySpray. We had been using this organiser all year but only last week did we just put all the implementation tasks and then everyone just assigned themselves to tasks that need to be done. We are now functioning better as a team and being a lot more productive.
Communication within the company also deteriorated a bit at the start of the implementation. At the very start of this stage we had a company video conference to decide what each team would do and tasks where allocated. For some reason though when it came to documenting, our counterpart team decided to create the system architecture document, which was something we had already done. This led to a lot of time being spent trying to combine the two documents to get the best possible solution.
A part from these break downs in communication we have not really had any major problems working together as a team. We are due to integrate both parts of the system this Tuesday (11/3/2008) so I am guessing there may be a few issues here.
Well that’s me finished on my little summary of how may experience of team working has gone so far. Now I need to go tell the counterpart team that they are rubbish at designing and implementing databases….
Doing the happy dance
I think I have failed to previously mention that I have a first round interview with Accenture on 5th February down in London town. Was a bit of a surprise to get an interview as I buggered up the application by not completing it properly as I thought there would be an opportunity to have a review and go back and change the application at the end, but this wasn’t possible. This is for a summer internship.
What I am actually doing a happy dance about is the fact I have a phone interview with HP. This was another surprise as I kept getting e-mails from them saying I had not finished my application (when I quite blatently had and submitted it). It turns out there is another section to the website and you have to fill out a questionnaire for it…oops. Either way I now have some sort of interview for HP for a year-long internship. Yay!!
IBM pt. 2
Didn’t get the IBM placement. Kind of fluffed the interview a bit, which was very annoying to say the least.
So anyway I heard IBM abused small children with Hungarian prosthetic arms and do sexual favours to Hungarians - probably a good job I didn’t get the placement I guess.
Internship
I have an interview for an IBM placement at IBM Hursley on 26th November. Hopefully it will go alright and would be a great experience if I actually got offered one of the places.
IBM Mainframe challenge
You may or may not know but every year IBM hold a contest for university students - such as myself - to have a go at playing a round with a mainframe. This is IBM’s way of trying to get more students into the mainframe sector of the IT market as soon there will be a need for new technicians and no one really wants to do it at the moment.
Anyway, if you apply for this contest you are given a username and passcode and given access to mainframe with the aim to complete certain tasks. There are prizes for each task/stage in the competition and you get some mainframe experience and something to write on your CV.
Unfortunately my username and password don’t seem to work so I can’t take part in the competition. This coupled with me forgetting the start date as ruined my chances of winning anything. I guess there is always next year?
Why computer networks suck
As part of my 2nd year at Newcastle University I have to do a module called CSC2003 - Computer Systems and Networks. Not to bad you might think? WRONG - the module is fine (even though we’ve only done the networks part so far) but it’s the coursework.
Why oh why would anyway think it’s a good idea to represent a computer network using Java. Then from there expect us to setup a network from this which works on a PAR and PiggyBack acknowledge algorithm.
It is rubbish. The end.
Exam time
I have been a bit busy at the moment as it that time of the year again where exams are around the corner. I have 3 3 hour exams this year which is blatantly going to be really fun…I only have to get 40% on each to pass my first year at university but I currently have an 81% average so would quite like to keep that intact, plus if I decide to take a year out in industry then I need to have good grades to be able to get a good work placement.
This means most of my time is being wasted revising, but it does mean I get to listen to a lot of music (work to it). At the moment I am really into Gym Class Heroes, Fischerspooner and Louis XIV. All 3 are bands/groups I use to listen to but haven’t for quite a while is a nice change.
