Ramblings of a Coder

ASS-essments

Wednesday 31 March 2010 at 12:38 pm

Turned in my Third assessment for my current course on Monday, I knew turning it in that it wasn’t going to be to par with the rest. With everything else going on as mentioned in previous entries i just couldn’t focus on devote the time on it that i wanted to originally.  And i was correct the results weren’t to par and throw in that somehow all my symbols didn’t showup in it either didn’t help anything.

Ahh well not going to stress about it to much though, It covered Boolean Algebra. Which well honestly the course materials didn’t cover very well. So to get around this I’ve purchased a book on the subject and I’ll just make time to learn it from that instead.

Onwards anyway, no time to dwell. Final Assessment is due in may and this time I really am not going to leave it like the last one. Starting it NOW!

Got the exam in June too, so need to pencil in revising sessions for that too.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | Education | No comments

Tech Work

Wednesday 17 March 2010 at 5:18 pm

Been repairing a LOT of laptop’s recently, Mostly Virus/Spyware related breakage. To which i do the only sane thing, and flatten it and reinstall. Unless I’m told specifically that they need X and Y off it, then i pull out the ole trusty USB->IDE cable with my spare 80Gb laptop HDD, and the ole 16Gb USB key with my linux install on it.  Really can’t go wrong with that, fire it up grab all the files and then proceed with flattening.

People ask why i don’t just remove the offending software, I never really have a straight answer. Mostly for me is because it just saves time. I don’t really want to spend a whole day removing virus’s and spyware from someone else’s computer when i can spend 5 minutes starting a fresh install. Plus well I don’t repair computers for a living, so when I’m doing it its as quick and painless as possible for me. Mix in the fact i never really trust a install that's been compromised anyway. Occasionally i will just do a quick repair, but its has to be for very specific reasons. Mostly like i don’t have the install CD’s required with me >:D

So if your looking for me to repair a laptop take note of these points

If you have something you want kept SAY SO, don’t just assume i will.
If you need X software reinstalled after too, please tell me when giving me the laptop. I can’t read minds… yet.

That's basically all i like to know.

Plus one last note on the subject, if i say i don’t want anything for fixing your laptop/computer. I really don’t want anything.  If i think the repair was worthy of getting paid for. I’ll freely say how much you owe me.

The attached image i thought was fitting, G’s Buzz Lightyear’s “Laser” stopped working. and it was me doing a quick switch for a new LED. Seemed fitting somehow.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | Electronics | One comment

System update for Client

Sunday 07 March 2010 at 04:36 am

Over the past week I’ve been updating a system that i wrong in late 2007, At that time they wanted the “Cart” system to only be available for a single login session, and not to be saved. So that’s exactly what was supplied. Now they want it updated to to be available at any point in the future and have the ability to be saved.

Normally this would be simple, but the entire system has been modified in gradual stages so much that’s an absolute nightmare. First I tried to just modify the code to get the required behaviour, but that failed. So now I was left with the choice of continuing to hack away at it in the hopes of getting it to work as required finally. Or rewrite the whole subsection from scratch.

I choose the latter, and that's been mostly all that I've been doing. Its been a nightmare but I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and its allowed me to future proof the subsystem for the changes I can already foresee in the future.

Downside of it all is I’ve forced myself not to touch any other system within the base system, even though the desire to change quite a bit just to make it easier has been HUGE. But what can i do? I know myself if I started that then I wouldn’t be happy until it was a full re-write and i have neither the time or the patience for that.

Also have a assessment due this month, Not even looked at it yet. Behind on the coursework for it too, mostly theory based coursework and its so dry to read that every time I've attempted to I've fallen asleep. Great for those long nights, bad for assessment time!

Also got a strange project to-do with G for School. Something to-do with a snowman, we really don’t know what's expected though as the school neglected to tell us anything about it. And well G doesn’t seem to know anything about it. We’ve just got some previous entries in this snowman book to go from. Ahh well I've had some ideas and if we can get G to-do them tomorrow then I think his project will be finishable to turn in on Monday. If we’ve got the right idea about it anyway.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | Coding, Education | No comments