M263: TMA03 Result

Got my result back yesterday for M263 TMA03. 97% and I am well chuffed, especially as this was one of the most taxing TMA's that I have had to do.

M253: Soul Destroyer

M253: “Team Working in Distributed Environments” is a 10 point level 2 course costing £260.

OU Summary
“M253 gives you an understanding of the issues and processes involved in planning and carrying out a team-based, problem-solving project where team members are not co-located: a situation that is becoming more common in the electronic age. You will gain practical experience in team working on a case study, which will be developed through several phases. You will be able to develop: your skills in analysis, design and evaluation; your ability to reflect critically on the processes and outcomes involved; and your team-working skills. You will work remotely, communicating with your tutor and collaborating with other team members electronically.”

What this summary does not tell you is that…

1. This course does not reflect a majority of cases where you will find yourself working in a project team;
2. You are reliant upon your other team members. Without them you run the risk of failing the course;
3. You have to stick to the course schedule. You can not get a head;
4. The teams tend to be run on a democratic basis with each member taking it in turn to be for example project leader. Can you imagine participating in a real life project where the team leader changed every 3 – 4 weeks?
5. The supplied materials are minimal, both printed and electronic, and comprise primarily of 21 resource sheets (in the form of downloadable pdf files) of up to 10 pages per booklet;
6. For those who have not studied an OU course that introduces you to system development (i.e. the former M206 or M301) or worked in a system development role, some of the concepts can be difficult and time consuming to grasp;
7. Communication between team members is limited to FirstClass conference areas, e-mail and FirstClass online messaging. There is no form of verbal communication available;
8. M253 is extremely time-consuming. You will end up spending more time on this course then you will on a majority of others.

I started M253 with a lot of enthusiasm but as the course progressed I found myself having to keep motivating myself to keep going, and towards the end I was getting quiet depressed, continuously looking for the “light at the end of the tunnel” when the course would be finished.

Is the course good value for money? No!
Is the course worth 10 points? No! Not for the amount of effort required.
Would I recommend M253? No! Unless it is mandatory for your degree.

So to sum up:

DO NOT DO M253 UNLESS YOU HAVE TO!!!

ref: Team Working in Distributed Environments

OU: and relax....

Yes I know that it has been a while since my last posting but I have just had a hectic 3 weeks. I have had to submit the ECA for M253 (26.Mar), TMA03 for M263 (02.Apr) and TMA01 for M359 (04.Apr). Oh the joys of doing 3 courses at the same time. Fortunately I have now finished M253, thank god, so I will hopefully not be in the same situation again especially as it did get a bit stressful. Of the 3 I enjoyed the M263 one the most, even though it was the hardest and required a lot of thought. The M359 TMA was ok except for question 1 which was a 600 word summary on how DBMS’s implement the enduring issues in data management. And what can be said for the M253 ECA? Only one word… HORRID!!!

My next set of TMA’s are…
M263 TMA04 (cut-off: Thursday 24.May)
M359 TMA02 (cut-off: Wednesday 16.May)

For Fans of Heroes

M263: A Wasted Hour!

On Thursday I scribbled down some notes on how to solve one of the questions for M263 TMA03, yet I soon discovered that my notes were not as good as I thought. Why? Well on Friday I tried to type up my notes but hit a problem, I could not resolve one item of reasoning which meant that the remainder of the question wouldn’t work out. I spent an hour searching through Unit 10 and the course handbook, but to no avail. It was then that I remembered that the solution to resolving this particular item was actually in the TMA, and everything else then fell into place. To say that I was annoyed with myself is an understatement. In future I must make my scribbled notes a lot clearer.

M263: Schedule Blown to Bits!

As I have previously written I have been managing to keep to my planned schedule for M263. But Block 3, units 9 – 12, has blown it all to bits!

After reading through the Block 3 units I realised that I didn’t fully understand the information, so have decided to re-read them plus spending extra time on the activities and exercises. This is proving worthwhile as I am now getting a far better understanding of the material and the TMA03 questions are now not as daunting as they first appeared.

M263: TMA02 Result

On Friday got the results back for TMA02. Managed to get 98%, but rather annoyed with myself as I lost a mark through missing out a small part of a question. For Q3.d I missed the part that said "It should also demonstrate that your implementation does not have side-effects" and this is doubly annoying as I had underlined the preceeding line about testing. In future I'll have to go over TMA's with a fine tooth comb and highlight any mark related points, before starting the TMA, so as not to miss them.

M359: Tutorial

Attended my first tutorial for M359 last night. It was at the University of Westminster from 7pm to 9pm. There were 3 tutors and 10 students in attendance.

The main topic of the evening was an overview of the course.

Apparently the course glossary should be available within the next couple of days.

Other points of interest where:

• Substitution is allowed for the course;
• No course materials will be allowed into the exam (unlike M263 were we can use the course handbook);
  
• When including SQL code within a TMA the output generated by the code should also be included;
• The OU has directed tutors to only mark the first version of a TMA that is submitted more than once. Therefore unless there are technical issues a TMA should only be submitted to the eTMA system once;
• According to one of the tutors every TMA that is submitted using the eTMA system is automatically checked for plagiarism using a system called copyCatch. Apparently copyCatch Campus was developed in co-operation with the OU. This is interesting as according to my the copy of the "eTMA Student Guide" there is a warning when submitting TMA's that says "Please be aware that the University may subject your work to a computerised check for plagiarism", it does not say that every TMA is checked. Will have to look out for the warning message the next time I submit a TMA to verify exactly what it says.
  

M359: Books

I have just purchased 2 books in the hope that they will aid in my studying of M359. They were recommended by one of the M359 tutors.

The Relational Database Dictionary
from amazon.co.uk














Database in Depth: The Relational Model for Practitioners
from amazon.co.uk

M359: Beta Testers

Not trying to be negative about M359 as I am so far enjoying the course, but...

TMA01 has finally been released 2 days later than originally scheduled! Still only 1 conference area available! Course website not complete yet! A delay in a number of additional documents!

Although this is the first presentation of M359 and one must expect a few teething troubles, I get the distinct impression that we are in fact BETA TESTING M359. If this is the case are we due some form of special consideration (such as discount on our next course)?

Sod's Law

Sod's Law isn't it! Got home last night only to discover that I had received a welcome letter from my M359 tutor.

M359: Missing!

M359 officially starts in 2 days time, Saturday 3rd February 2007, and yet there are still some items missing.

At present there is only 1 FirstClass conference area (“M359 07 Students”) available. Today the “Course team chair” posted a message saying:

“As the course progresses the forum will act as a 'virtual' meeting point for course related discussions with sub-forums for specific topics. This will also include a social area for more general chat. A moderator will be appointed in due course and will post a welcome message of their own when they take responsibility.”

Yet for all my previous courses the various FirstClass conference areas such as “tutor group”, “TMA discussion” and “general chat” have been made available from onset.

Normally by now I would have received some form of communication from my allocated tutor in the form of a welcome note giving his / her details, a brief explanation of the course expectations and hoping that I will enjoy the course. So far I have not heard anything, not an e-mail or snail-mail.

I appreciate that this is the first presentation of M359, but some of the aspects of this course (FirstClass conference area and tutor communications) are the same as those for any of the other OU computing courses I have participated in. So why haven’t they been implemented yet?

Microsoft - BlueJ Patent Update

It appears that Microsoft are dropping their patent application for "Object Test Bench". See here Movement - The Latest on The Microsoft Patent Application. This is most excellent news!

Bad News: Microsoft Applies for a Patent

Although I use Microsoft product quiet extensively I have never entered into the Windows vs Linux vs OSX war as I believe each OS has its own merits, and I most certainly have never used the term Micro$oft. Well until now.

Why? Because Micro$oft could potentially stop the development and distribution of BlueJ.

BlueJ is a fantastic IDE for the teaching of object-oriented programming using Java and is used extensively by educational establishments, including the OU (see M255). One of its key benefits is that enables you to create instances of objects, examine these instances and invoke methods on them, without having to run the whole program that is being developed.

Micro$oft has incorporated into Visual Studio a feature called “Object Test Bench” which appears to be a straight BlueJ copy, and Micro$oft have now made a patent application for “Object Test Bench”.

For the full story see here Microsoft patents BlueJ

And for a follow-up see here More on the Microsoft / BlueJ patent case

M359: Missing Materials

According to the course news there are some materials missing from the supplied course CD, due to timing issues. The missing materials are 5 pdf's and can be found on the course website via the "copies of CD-ROM files" section.

M359: Course Materials Received

Received the first set (there are 3 sets in total with the other 2 being dispatched later) of course materials for M359 on Friday. This is what I received...

• 2 x block books
• Block 1 - Databases in context
  
• Block 2 - Introducing relational theory
  
• M359 Course Guide
• M359 Software Guide
• Using the Electronic TMA System - A Student Guide
• Course News
• M359 Software CD
• Database Cards Pack
• M359 Errata 1 - Block 1 Replacement Pages

Missing was (apparently due to dispatch issues)...

• Online Application CD-Rom v.8

The supplied errata replaces pages 14-17 of Block 1 as they were incorrectly printed during production.

The M359 software is easy to install and I have not experienced any problems with it after installing it onto 2 desktop PC's and a laptop.

Both the FirstClass conferences (well 1 conference area so far) and the course website are now accessible as well.

M359: Course Materials

Getting a bit nervous as I haven't as yet received any course materials and M359 is supposed to start on 3rd Feb. With this in mind I have just contacted the OU's materials dispatch centre and they informed me that there has been a delay in them receiving the materials over the Christmas period. They reckon that the materials will be dispatched by Thursday of this week (18.Jan.07) and that I should then receive them within the next 5 working days. Lets wait and see!

OU: Dip Comp (Open)

I have just received a letter from the OU confirming that I have passed the "Diploma in Computing". So now apart from being able to put "Cert IT & Comp (Open)" after my name I can now also put "Dip Comp (Open)" as well.

ref: Certificate in Information Technology and Computing
ref: Diploma in Computing

Big Brother!

[ref: Watchful Eyes]

M301: Result

The results for M301 were released today and I got a grade 2 (76%). I have very mixed feelings about the result especially in relation to my assignment scores and the amount of time I put into revising. Although looking back I now think that perhaps I was a bit too complacent about how hard “part c question 4” would be and should have spent more time on revising for this question.

I am now not happy with the revision technique that I used for the M301 exam and feel that it needs refining, or looking for an alternative that is more suitable to me.

M301: Awaiting exam result

According to my OU StudentHome page for M301 my "course result should be available by Friday 15 December 2006". 10 more days and counting.

M263: An Update

1. Attended a tutorial at Waterloo last night. Started off slow but got better as the evening went along, and picked up a couple of useful pointers such as a clear distinction between functions and methods.
2. Submitted TMA01 this morning.
3. Having completed questions 1, 2, and 3, I have just started question 4 of TMA02.
4. Started unit 7 "The Class Set".

M263: Annoyed!!!

I am so annoyed with myself. For sometime I have been bemused by references within the M263 course text to “Practical Computing sessions” and not being able to find them. I searched through all the doc’s and pdf’s but with no luck until today when I discovered that the “Practical Computing sessions” are html based and installed when you install WorkPad. The installation places the home page (M263_Index.html) in the sub-directory …\workPad\ComputerPracticals and a shortcut to it in the M263 program group (off of the Start menu).

This is doubly annoying because at the study group on Saturday a question was raised (TMA01 Q4Cii) concerning whether a particular function was valid or not. The “Practical Computing sessions 1.3” answers this question.

M301: Hope?

Several students who took M301 at the same time as me have received letters saying that their exam papers have been lost. Apparently the letter states that the OU “will determine a result for you in a different manner to the normal one, based on the available continuous assessment scores and other assessment evidence for the course.”. Now taking in to consideration that I did very well with the TMA’s and don’t believe I did so well with the exam I am hoping that my exam paper has been lost as well. ;)

Wireless hijacking

Peter Stevens was having problems with neighbours hijacking his wireless Internet access. So he came up with a plan to stop them. He turned their world upside down and made it blurred. Brilliant!

M263: On Schedule

My study plan for M263 is so far working to plan (see M263: A new way of studying?). Today I am starting unit 5 “The Class Turtle” so I am certainly on schedule. The only delay I am experiencing is creating concept maps based upon my notes.

Although I have completed TMA01 I am not going to submit it until after 29.Nov as there is an evening tutorial on this day. This is just in case I have made any silly mistakes with the TMA that might be highlighted during the tutorial.

On Saturday (18.Nov) we had a study (self-help) group and this was very successful. Everyone agreed that it was most helpful and the next one is planned for a week or two before TMA02’s cut-off date (05.Feb.07).

Lunch

To day I had lunch with Eddie Jordan.

Well to tell the truth I shared a table with him. I was meeting a friend who is on the same OU courses as me, and got to the Café earlier than planned. So whilst waiting for my friend, Eddie Jordan comes along and asks if any of the other places are taken. I couldn’t say no could I? After all he was kind enough to let me take a photograph.

M253: A few thoughts

I am starting to realise that there is some structure to this course. Initially it has appeared that tutor’s just there for resolving issues and disputes; the ‘Course Guide’ is not essential and can be put to one side; and that the ‘Course Resource Sheets' do not play a major role, especially as the TMA’s say things such as “you might find it particularly useful to refer to the Resource Sheets entitled…” and “You might find it useful to refer to the Resource Sheets…”. Everything gives the appearance of revolving around the TMA’s and their associated activities, with the team pretty much left to their own devices.

Thinking about the course this morning whilst on my way to work I have come to the conclusion that both the ‘Course Guide’ and the ‘Course Resource Sheets’ are important and that both should be read and not skipped over. Why? Because they provide far more information than I realised and actually do add some structure to the course as a whole.

I am starting to wonder if I am the only one who has gone along this route or whether any other students have initially dismissed the ‘Course Guide’ and ‘Course Resource Sheets’ only to realise later on how vital they are to their success in doing the course.

M263: A new way of studying?

During my studies with the OU I have as yet to find an ideal study method, with trying out a different technique for each of the course I have studied so far.

Therefore for M263 I am trying out something new. First of all I am reading each section and underlining keywords and passages, then using this information I am creating a mind map (on paper), and finally constructing a concept map using IHMC’s CmapTools.

ref: CmapTools

My reason for doing my studying for this course in this way is in the hope of:

1. help in re-enforcing the information I am taking in;
2. being able to retain the information longer;
3. have a good set of notes that make revision easier.

As an example below is my concept map for section 2.4 – Sets. Click on the image to see a larger version.

M253: TMA 01

TMA 01 is now available and consists of answering 3 questions in relationship to doing 5 activities over the next 5 weeks. Some of the activities are team activities, as opposed to individual activities, and questions 1 and 2 reflect this.

M263: Tutorials

My alloted tutorials are in Croydon which for me means a 3 hour round trip to attend them. Will the first tutorial is on the 18th November and it is only 3 hours long, in fact a majority of the tutorials are 3 hours in length, with a couple of 5 hour sessions. Therefore I have decided not to attend them (although I might attend the 5 hour sessions).

As a compromise I find that there are evening tutorials being held at the Waterloo Centre in London. This is more convenient for me as I work in London. So I attended the first one last night. There were approx 12 students and 2 tutors, and the tutorial revolved around a general discussion about the course and answering some questions in relation to unit 2. Although I didn't learn anything new and it was of no assistance for TMA 01, it was enjoyable and I plan to attend the other tutorials.

M263 & M253: The story so far...

Well I am know 4 weeks into both M263 and M253, and surprised that I have managed to keep up to date, seeing as everything was put on hold whilst revising for the M301 exam.

My objective for M263 is to get as far ahead as possible so that my work load is reduced for when I start M359 in Feb 2007. To achieve this I am hoping to be able to do a unit a week, which means I should have got up to unit 14 (out of 16) by the time M359 starts. For M253 I have to keep to the course time schedule as the course is all about working as a team and therefore have to take into consideration the speed at which the other team members are working to.

I am so far enjoying both courses, with studying M263 in the morning on the way to work and at lunch time, whilst studying M253 on the way home in the evening (FirstClass Personal is a god send for this).

M301: Finished!!!

With a huge sigh of relief, that is M301 finished after taking the exam yesterday. The exam itself was not too difficult and I answered questions 1, 2 and 4. The hard part was trying to remember specific aspects of the course text in amongst the myriad of information that we had to learn. For example one question asked us to list the 5 characteristics of a certain feature, and could I remember them? NO!!! Eventually I managed to dig up from the depths 2, possibly 3 of the characteristics, but know I have lost points on the particular question. I really do hate those sorts of questions and if I hadn’t learnt verbatim the definition of some of the keywords I would have lost at least another 4 points. In my opinion those types of questions do not you’re your understanding of the course as a whole, it is all most like having to learn the highway code before a driving test and then forgetting about it immediately after the test.

My aim has always been a grade 1 but I am now lowering my expectations and hoping for a grade 2. Will have to wait until Decemeber to find out what I actually end up with.

OU: Silence

The reason for my recent lack of blog entries is due to the fact that I am intensely revising for the forthcoming M301 exam on the 16th Oct. Even though I have received the course materials for my next 2 courses, M253 and M263, I have not yet taken a look at them.

If anyone is interested, below is my M301 Exam Strategy and Revision Plan:

Exam Strategy

• I feel reasonably confident with Java having just recently finished M254 “Java Everywhere”.
• The same applies with UML having done M206 “Computing: An Object-Oriented Approach” last year.
• Therefore aiming for high marks from questions 1 and 4, as these are my stronger areas.
• Weak on blocks 2 and 3, but more comfortable with block 2. Therefore will look at doing question 2, even though some of block 3 might overlap into question 2.

Revision Plan - Overview
Week 1 (11.Sept – 17.Sept)

• Review TMA’s and past exam papers, identifying common areas.

Week 2 (18.Sept – 24.Sept)

• Revise Block 1 “Introduction to Java”. One section per day.
• Each day of the week attempt one of question 1 from a past paper (i.e. Monday, Q1 from 2001 paper, Tuesday Q1 from 2002 paper, and so on).

Week 3 & 4 (25.Sept – 08.Oct)

• Revise Block 2 “Concurrency 1” and bits of Block 3 “Concurrency 2”. One section per day.
• Each day of the week attempt one of question 2 from a past paper.

Week 5 (09.Oct – 15.Oct)

• Revise Block 4 “Basic Object-orientated Software Development with UML”. One section per day.
• Each day of the week attempt one of question 4 from a past paper.

Happy Birthday Hard Drive

In September 1956 IBM shipped the 305 RAMAC, the first computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD weighed over a ton and stored 5MB of data.
[ref: BBC]

M500 Revision Weekend

Got back from the M500 weekend at about 9:30 last night due to the traffic on the M40 being horrendous. That aside the weekend was very good (well presented, informative, educational and fun). Richard Walker was our tutor and there where 26 in the group. Each tutorial covered a block from M301 and was broken down into two sections. The first section was to get us thinking about the relevant block, by answering questions that Richard had devised, and the second section was trying to answer questions from past papers. Rather than work as individuals we worked in small groups, and this very much helped. But it was not all work and no play. Friday evening a group of us went to the Blue Mango curry house (really recommend it) in Broadstreet. Walking down Broadstreet was a real eye opener; it was just like those police programs on TV were they have to control the drunks coming out of bars. Saturday night we went to the Sack of Potatoes, a pub on campus, and eventually crawled into bed at about 1:30 Sunday morning.

Would I recommend the M500 Revision weekend? Most certainly and if they include M359 next year then I well be going again.

M500 Revision Weekend - Timetable

M301 Timetable

Friday 7.30 - 9.30	Saturday 9.30 - 12.30	Saturday 2.00 - 5.30	Sunday 9.30 - 12.30	Sunday 2.00 - 5.00
Part A of exam - Java	Java completed Part B of exam - Concurrency	Concurrency completed	Part C of exam - Software development	Putting it all together - Exam technique and mock exam

M301: TMA06 - Available

The sixth and final TMA, TMA06, is now available. Downloaded it yesterday and have virtually completed Q1 already. It certainly looks more fun than the previous two TMA's.

M301: TMA 05 - Results

Results for TMA05 have been released and I got 95%. I am rather pleased with this as some of the questions for this particular TMA where awful.

M301: TMA05 - Submitted

Finally managed to submit TMA05 last night. I thought that TMA04 was painful but this one has proved even worse due to some of the questions not being clear on how they where supposed to be answered. Whoever wrote TMA05 must have a passion for cryptic crosswords, so lets hope that it isn't the same person devising TMA06.

Americas Memory Problem!

SOME 30 per cent of Americans cannot say in what year the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against New York's World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in Washington took place, according to a poll published in the Washington Post newspaper.

ref: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20078887-2,00.html

M301: TMA05 Rant!!!

I am half way through TMA05 and am really hating it. In fact it is the worst TMA I have had to do so far during my time with the OU. The reason for this is that a number of questions are not clear in what they are asking and rather vague. Trying to understand these questions is proving a time consuming exercise.

M254: Exam Result & Final Grade

I have just found out that the exam results and final gradings for M254 have been published and I scored 75% in the exam, giving me a grade 2 for the course. Although to a certain degree this was the grade I was expecting I have mixed feelings about the result, especially as my average score for the TMA's was 99% (97, 100, 97, 100) .

Note to self: Must revise harder for next exam (M301)

SysAdminDay

Today, 28th July, is System Administrator Appreciation Day.

ref: http://www.sysadminday.com/

Fried Furby

ref: http://www.unoriginal.co.uk/footage18_3.html

Blonde meets Apple

and the Answer is...

For the question I posted on 12th, the answer is "A Sand Sculpture of Canary Wharf".

M500 Revision Weekend

I have enrolled on "The M500 Society 32nd Mathematics Revision Weekend" at Aston University, Birmingham. It runs from Friday 8th September to Sunday 10th September 2006, with the weekend designed to help with exam revision, and is open to all OU students.

They expect to present the following maths-based OU courses, subject to sufficient numbers:-

M208, M248, M255, M301, M336, M338, M343, M346, M358, M360, M361, M373, MA290, MS221, MS324, MST209, MT262, MT365 and T305.

ref: M500 Society

Picture of the Day....

Could this be the picture of the day, month, or even year?

Kylie Minogue, in a promotional photo for her Showgirl Homecoming Tour.
[ref: BBC]

UML

Here are some UML related links that people might find useful:

.net coders - Guide to UML Diagrams
Orientation in Objects - UML 1.4 Reference
The Prestwood Community - Introduction to the Unified Modeling Language

M301: TMA 04 - Results

Yesterday I got the results back for TMA04. According to my tutor TMA04 has proved to be the most difficult TMA to date, and he complimented me on a job well done. I dropped several marks for omissions in a couple of my answers, and lost a mark on the Statechart Diagram for not following the supplied specification, in the question, explicitly. Although this is my lowest TMA score so far for M301, my TMA average is still over 97%.

Knights of the Round Table - Star Trek TOS

For all fans of Monty Python and Star Trek TOS, take a look at this video .

M301: TMA04 - Submitted

Submitted TMA04 yesterday afternoon. This has been a rather difficult TMA as a lot of the questions were very judgemental in how they were answered.

Although I am enjoying the course, it is a very hard slog with lots of information to digest.

A Useful Mac?

I have never been a fan of Mac's, too restrictive if you ask me. But I have now found a great use for the MacBook. See here.

Spotted

Whilst exiting the train at Canary Wharf tube station this morning, I saw Chris Fairbank entering via the same door I was leaving through.


[picture from the BBC]

Competition Time

This is being constructed in Jubilee Place Mall at Canary Wharf. So what do you think its going to be?

Crouch & Rooney - They have a system

Donington

I spent the weekend at Donington watching the British round of MotoGP. Although Danny Pedrosa won quite comfortably, the hero of the day was Valentino Rossi, starting 12th on the grid with a fractured wrist and ankle he managed to power his way through to 2nd place, and is now only 35 points behind championship leader Nicky Hayden.

If anyone is interested in looking at the photo's I took click here.

OU: Studying under fire...

On Saturday I received my copy of Sesame “The news service reaching the Open University worldwide” and in it was an interesting article by an OU student Rochelle Jones about her husband, James, who apart from studying with the OU, is a British soldier currently serving in Iraq.

We all moan now and again about our studying and the course(s) we are currently doing, but after reading Rochelle’s article it put everything into perspective. To be able to study under such daily pressure, to me seems unimaginable, and my admiration goes out to James.

My hat also comes off to Rochelle for the pressure she must be under and yet managing to study for MA at the same time.

If your are interested in reading the article it is available at Sesame 230 on pages 24 & 25 (pdf page 13).

M301: Up to date

Due to spending all my time on revising for the M254 exam I have spent the last week and a half concentrating on M301, and I am now back on schedule.

Once I have completed each unit of block 4 I am endeavouring to do the corresponding assignment question, but some of the questions are rather vague to say the least. Block 4 is all to do with systems analysis and design, and I’ am having to utilise a lot of the knowledge I gained from M206.

M301: TMA 03 - Results

The results for TMA03 are in, and am extremely pleased with mine. :)

M254: Exam

Yesterday I sat the exam for M254. It was 3 hours long, and comprised on 10 short questions (5 marks each) and 2 of 3 long questions (25 marks each). Although not extremely hard I was hard pressed for time, especially as I had difficulty in remembering the answers to 2 of the short questions.

Other students are saying that the exam appeared to be easier than the specimen paper or the previous one, and I do tend to agree with them. What I don’t understand though is that some students are saying that they finished with plenty of time to spare (i.e. 40 minutes), especially as my understanding is that exams are designed to be done in the time allotted.

Any way I now have to wait until August until the results are released. Should have passed, it is just a case of waiting to see what grade I finally end up with.

M254: TMA 04 - Results

The results for TMA04 are in, and I am rather chuffed with mine. :)

Object of Desire - Reviewed

As a follow-up here is a review of the Sony VAIO VGN-UX50.

Derek And Clive Monkeys

This is highly amusing - Derek and Clive Monkeys

OU: Next Courses

This morning I booked my next set of courses...

M263 - Building Block of Software (start date 30.Sept.06)
Details

M253 - Team Working in Distributed Environments (start date 07.Oct.06)
Details

M359 - Relational Database: Theory and Practice (start date 03.Feb.07)
Details

Google Notebook (beta)

Google Notebook is available. Like Gmail it is beta, and certainly looks interesting.

M301: Condition for Serializability

If anyone is struggling with the definition of "Condition for Serializability" in Bacon, then the following 2 links (in Wikipedia) might be of some use.

Schedule (computer science) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Serializability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Object of Desire

ref: techEBlog

M254: TMA04

Finally submitted TMA 04 on Friday, with all questions well and truely completed, resulting in my largest TMA to date. 38 pages!

Swiss Army Gardening

Just what every gardener needs...



ref: techEBlog

Moving the Goal Posts Yet Again !!!

M301 TMA03 question 3 (iii) relates to the ‘dining philosophers problem’ and yet the course text says that practical activity 3.1 is optional and that Bacon section 17.5 should be omitted. Therefore my question for the M301 course teams is this…

Has the course team redefined the meaning of the word optional to now mean mandatory, thus meaning that we now have to do practical activity 3.1 and read Bacon section 17.5, or is question 3 (iii) optional as well and we will get full marks for the question irrespective of whether we answer the question or not?

Whiners!!!

A number of people are whining about TMA04 and how difficult it is, especially as the course is only worth 20 points. Perhaps they should take the following into consideration:

1. The overall workload for the course has been very easy.
2. This is a level 2 course not a level 1 course.
   
3. The cut-off date for the TMA is the 18.May.06, but we have had access to the TMA since 22.Dec.05. Surely that’s plenty of time to complete the TMA.
4. Everything that is needed for the TMA has been covered within the supplied course text.

For anyone still experiencing problems re-read Unit 9, especially section 8.

Moving the Goal Posts

I know that this is World Cup year but why does the OU have to keep moving the ‘goal posts’.

I received an eMail yesterday from the South East regional centre basically saying that unless I planned to study M254 – Java Everywhere (last presentation starts Oct 2006) I will not be able to count M206 towards the BSc (Hons) Computing that I am studying for.

Fortunately I am studying M254, as regular readers will be aware, yet if I wasn’t the OU would be potentially forcing me to take M254 otherwise I would have wasted 1 year, 60 points and the course fee.

I also predict that the October presentation of M254 will be heavily subscribed due to students who had not thought about taking this course but all of a sudden in a panic about loosing their M206 points.

M301: Tutorial

For our tutor group the next tutorial is not until Saturday 01 July, which presents a problem, because we have to submit TMA03 (cut-off date 04 Jun) before then. With this in mind I went to another tutor groups tutorial last night and this proved most beneficial, as the tutor went over the TMA pointing out which sections (and / or SAQ's) of Bacon and the course text related to which questions.

M301: TMA02 - Results

After the tutorial on Saturday I spent a couple of hours re-wording some of my answers, as I wasn't that I had explained some of the theories well enough. This re-wording was a couple of hours well spent as I got my results back for the TMA last night and was very pleased with the marks.

M301: TMA02 - Completed

After I along hard slog I have just finished TMA02. Want be submitting until the cut-off date on Sunday, as we have a tutorial on Saturday, and I want to see if I have made any potential mistakes.

M301: TMA03

TMA03 for M301 is now available. It comprises of 5 questions with each question worth 20 marks and correspond to an associated unit within block 3.

After initial scan through of the TMA it looks like questions 1 and 2 involve some Java coding.

OU: TMA Tip

Read the questions carefully.

For example with M301 TMA02 the questions Q5.i.b, Q5.ii.b and Q5.iii.b, are different to the question Q2.iii.b, in how they are to be answered. Q2.ii.b requires a screen dump, whereas the Q5's require an extract of the output and an explanation. I nearly got caught out by just doing screen dumps for the Q5's, luckily I spotted my mistake this early.

One to try at home!

Came across the following video on BoingBoing, which then lead me to Steve Spangler's Science Experiment website. I am certainly going to have to give this a go, and will report back the results.

Computer Networks: The Heralds of Resource Sharing

This 1972 documentary entitled "Computer Networks: The Heralds of Resource Sharing" covers the early years of ARPAnet, the precursor of the Internet, through interviews with the heroes of the internetworking revolution. Tightly wound internetworking geeks like the legendary JCR Licklider intensely recite the benefits that internetworking will shortly deliver, sliding in digs at the telecoms industry, the Bellheads who have no desire to see this future realized. This is a fantastic 30 minutes of paleo-nerd memorabilia.

ref: documentary
ref: BoingBoing

OOP Concept explained: Polymorphism (NSFW)

Warning: The linked article is NSFW and if you are easily offended do not follow the link.

If you do not fully understand the concept of polymorphism or interested in a different way of explaining it, then this article that I came across (excuse the pun) might help.

Weird

If you want to see something really weird take a look at the trailer for a forth coming film called "Drawing Restraint 9" featuring Bjork. Apparently some people call it Art!

The core idea of Drawing Restraint 9 is the relationship between self-imposed resistance and creativity, a theme it symbolically tracks through the construction and transformation of a vast sculpture of liquid Vaseline, called “The Field”, which is molded, poured, bisected and reformed on the deck of the ship over the course of the film.

M301: TMA01 - Results

Got my results back for TMA01. Dropped a couple of marks for...

1. Not going into enough detail about "Composition".
2. Forgetting to check that the passed argument was of the correct type for my equals method.

M301: TMA02

TMA02 for M301 is now available. It comprises of 5 questions with each question worth 20 marks and corresponding to an associated unit within block 2.

Q1 (6 sub-questions) - U2.1 "Describing Concurrent Systems"
Q2 (6 sub-questions) - U2.2 "Processes"
Q3 (5 sub-questions) - U2.3 "Distributed Systems and Management"
Q4 (6 sub-questions) - U2.4 "IPC in Shared Memory: Low-Level Primitives"
Q5 (7 sub-questions) - U2.5 "IPC in Shared Memory: Classical Problems and Language Primitives"

Questions 2 and 5 involve some Java coding.

Bargains

Had to go shopping on Saturday, much to my horror, but managed to pick up a couple of bargains.

Java Network Programming for £4.99 and Battlestar Galactica (2003): Complete Season 1: 4dvd: Box Set for £24.99

NetBeans Meets BlueJ

Read the whole story here. Ok, I know, this is a press release... :) So to explain what we are doing: we are building together with authors of BlueJ from the University of Kent a special version of NetBeans. It will support BlueJ projects and thus make it easier for people who use BlueJ to open their projects in NetBeans. This is quite easy to do because as you know everything in NetBeans is a module - thus we will choose a subset of NetBeans functionality (including Matisse) and add several features e.g. to show files in the project in the BlueJ way.

Why should you care? Well, BlueJ is great for learning Java - no surprise it is so widely popular on universities. Once you learn enough you become ready for a full-blown IDE such as NetBeans to work on bigger Java projects. Then the transition will be easy - you will be able to try the BlueJ edition of NetBeans on your BlueJ projects and start to learn all the advanced features (refactorings, CVS, etc.).

ref: Roumen's Weblog

CrunchTV

John Draper aka Captain Crunch has launched a video project.

John Draper was an original member of the now famous "Homebrew Computer Club", but he first became infamous for learning how to penetrate phone networks to make free long distance calls.

Now he’s hacking away at it again, so to speak.
...

CrunchTV will tell you the latest security threats and provide helpful instructions in dealing with any security issue you may face. If you use a computer, CrunchTV is compulsory viewing.

ref: CrunchTV

Vint Cerf on the future of the web

The BBC has a short 2 1/2 min interview with Vint Cerf.

In an interview for the BBC, Vinton Cerf began by explaining how he thought the internet would develop.

ref: news.bbc.co.uk

The BBC also has a text based interview.

System Administrator Song

For all you sysadmin's out there here is a song dedicated to you.

Professor assigns hacking homework to students

Now this is the sort of assignment I wouldn't mind doing, wonder if the OU has anything similiar in the pipeline?

According to the SANS Institute a professor at an undisclosed university recently assigned a practical for his computer-security class.

The practical, which is worth 15 percent of the students final grade, requires students to perform reconnaissance on an internet server using open source security tools.

ref: http://www.securitydump.com/content141.html
ref: http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=1155

M254: TMA 03 - Results

Got my results back last night for TMA02. Although the overall mark was good, I am rather annoyed with myself as I forgot one part of a question and because of this I dropped 2 marks. Still hopeful I want make the same mistake again.

M301: TMA01 Q5(i)

Question 5 (i) of TMA01 asks us to construct a GUI front-end using the JBuilder GUI Designer. Now as I am not a fan of JBuilder and have been using BlueJ for all my Java coding, I thought I had better check with the course team as to whether it was mandatory to use the GUI Designer for this question. The answer that came back was yes we have to use the GUI Designer.

Now I am a bit disappointed with this as...

1. I have already manually coded the GUI, and now have to redo the question.
2. The GUI Designer generates unnecessary code for such a simple project.
3. The course team implied, in an early FirstClass posting, that it was not a requirement to use JBuilder for our Java coding, and therefore I have been using BlueJ.
4. With M254 TMA questions we have not been allowed to use any form of GUI Designer, and have had to code any required GUI's manually.

BlueJ ver 2.1.2

BlueJ ver 2.1.2 has just been released.

This version contains a number of minor bug fixes, including:

- a fix for a bug with display of parameter names and method
comments in call dialogues.
- a fix for a bug in specification of VM location in bluej.defs.
- a bug fix in extension API: compiler warnings are now
propagated to listeners.
- fixes to the parser.

Download from http://www.bluej.org/download/download.html

M254: Self Help Group

Tonight we have a self help group at Canterbury Christ Church University, Room number NF03, From 07:00pm - 09:00pm.

M301: TMA00

Forgot to mention yesterday thatI got my results back for TMA00 on Wednesday night. Even though it was an easy TMA and will form part of TMA01, it is always satisfying to get a good mark.

M301: Constructors and Inheritance

Code to demo that a subclass invokes its superclass constructor without directly calling it.

Output
Creating an instance of ChildClass
--- Running the ParentClass constructor ---
--- Running the ChildClass constructor ---
The instance variable from the ParentClass says "Hello from the ParentClass"
The instance variable from the ChildClass says "Hello from the ChildClass"

Source Code
public class ExtendTest
{
public static void main(String [] args)
{
System.out.println("Creating an instance of ChildClass");
ChildClass tempCC = new ChildClass();
System.out.println("The instance variable from the ParentClass says \"" + tempCC.pcString + "\"");
System.out.println("The instance variable from the ChildClass says \"" + tempCC.ccString + "\"");
}
} // End of class ExtendTest

public class ChildClass extends ParentClass
{
protected String ccString;

public ChildClass()
{
System.out.println("--- Running the ChildClass constructor ---");
ccString = "Hello from the ChildClass";
}
} // End of class ChildClass

public class ParentClass
{
protected String pcString;

public ParentClass()
{
System.out.println("--- Running the ParentClass constructor ---");
pcString = "Hello from the ParentClass";
}
} // End of class ParentClass

M301: Polyfrogism

Below is some code (based upon the Amphibian World of M206) I knocked to show a fellow student the concept of polymorpism within Java.

import java.util.StringTokenizer;

public abstract class Amphibian
{
static final int HOME_POSITION = 1; // Specifies the starting stone of an amphibian.
static final int NUM_OF_STONES = 1; // Specifies the number of stones an amphibain will move by.
static final String INITIAL_COLOUR = "Green"; // Specifies the default colour of an amphibian.

private String colour; // The colour of the amphibian.
private int position; // Represents the stone on which the amphibian is on.

public Amphibian(String colour, int position)
{
this.colour = colour;
this.position = position;
}

/**
* @return the position of the amphibian, an integer.
*/
public int getPosition()
{
return this.position;
}

/**
* @return the colour of the amphibian, a String.
*/
public String getColour()
{
return this.colour;
}

/**
* Set the stone for the amphibian to stand on.
* @param position The position the amphibian is to be at.
* @return no answer.
*/
void setPosition(int position)
{
this.position = position;
}

/**
* Set the colour of the amphibian.
* @param colour The colour the amphibian is to be.
* @return no answer.
*/
void setColour(String colour)
{
this.colour = colour;
}

/**
* subclass responsibility.
* @return no answer.
*/
public abstract void right();

/**
* subclass responsibility.
* @return no answer.
*/
public abstract void left();

/**
* Set the colour of the amphibian to Brown.
* @return no answer.
*/
public void brown()
{
this.setColour("Brown");
}

/**
* Set the colour of the amphibian to Green.
* @return no answer.
*/
public void green()
{
this.setColour("Green");
}

/**
* Set the colour of the amphibian to that of anAmphibian.
* @param anAmphibian The amphibian who's colour is to be used.
* @return no answer.
*/
public void sameColourAs(Amphibian anAmphibian)
{
this.setColour(anAmphibian.getColour());
}

/**
* @return the class name of the amphibian, a string.
*/
public String className()
{
StringTokenizer element = new StringTokenizer(this.toString(),"@");
return element.nextToken();
}

/**
* Textual representation of the amphibian.
* @return amphibians details.
*/
public String inspect()
{
return ("An instance of class " + this.className() + "(position " +
this.getPosition() + ", colour " + this.getColour() + ")");
}

/**
* subclass responsibility.
* @return no answer.
*/
public abstract void home();

} // End of class Amphibian


public class Frog extends Amphibian
{
public Frog()
{
this(INITIAL_COLOUR, HOME_POSITION);
}

public Frog(String colour)
{
this(colour, HOME_POSITION);
}

public Frog(String colour, int position)
{
super(colour, position);
}

/**
* Increase the position of the frog instance by the
* default number of stones.
* @return no answer.
*/
public void right()
{
this.setPosition(this.getPosition() + NUM_OF_STONES);
}

/**
* Decrease the position of the frog instance by the
* default number of stones.
* @return no answer.
*/
public void left()
{
this.setPosition(this.getPosition() - NUM_OF_STONES);
}

/**
* Move the frog instance to its home (start) position.
* @return no answer.
*/
public void home()
{
this.setPosition(HOME_POSITION);
}
} // End of class Frog


public class Toad extends Amphibian
{
static final int HOME_POSITION = 11;
static final int NUM_OF_STONES = 2;
static final String INITIAL_COLOUR = "Brown";

public Toad()
{
this(INITIAL_COLOUR);
}

public Toad(String colour)
{
this(colour, HOME_POSITION);
}

public Toad(String colour, int position)
{
super(colour, position);
}

/**
* Increase the position of the toad instance by the
* default number of stones.
* @return no answer.
*/
public void right()
{
this.setPosition(this.getPosition() + NUM_OF_STONES);
}

/**
* Decrease the position of the toad instance by the
* default number of stones.
* @return no answer.
*/
public void left()
{
this.setPosition(this.getPosition() - NUM_OF_STONES);
}

/**
* Move the toad instance to its home (start) position.
* @return no answer.
*/
public void home()
{
this.setPosition(HOME_POSITION);
}

} // End of class Toad


import java.util.*;

public class AmphibianWorld
{
public static void main(String [] args)
{
HashMap thePond = new HashMap(1);

thePond.put("kermit", new Frog()); // put kermit in the pond
thePond.put("toady", new Toad("red", 1)); // put a red toady in the pond on stone 1

Amphibian tempAmphib;

// lets see the pond
tempAmphib = (Amphibian) thePond.get("kermit");
System.out.println(tempAmphib.inspect());

tempAmphib = (Amphibian) thePond.get("toady");
System.out.println(tempAmphib.inspect());

System.out.println("move kermit right 3 stones");
tempAmphib = (Amphibian) thePond.get("kermit");
tempAmphib.right();
tempAmphib.right();
tempAmphib.right();
System.out.println(tempAmphib.inspect());

System.out.println("move toady right 6 stones");
tempAmphib = (Amphibian) thePond.get("toady");
tempAmphib.right(); // toady moves 2 stones at a time
tempAmphib.right();
tempAmphib.right();
System.out.println(tempAmphib.inspect());

System.out.println("now lets make both of them blue");
String name;
Set pondSet = thePond.keySet();
Iterator pondIt = pondSet.iterator();

while (pondIt.hasNext()){
name = (String) pondIt.next();
tempAmphib = (Amphibian) thePond.get(name);
tempAmphib.setColour("blue");
System.out.println(tempAmphib.inspect());
}
}
} // End of class AmphibianWorld

M301: TMA00

Just submitted TMA M301 00.

M301: TMA01

A new version of TMA01 has been released due to a number of issues with the supplied code files. Also there are 4 corrections to the actual TMA01 document. Just as well I haven't submitted TMA00 yet.