jack

I'm a computer guy. I work on websites primarily in HTML5/Javascript/jQuery, PHP and MySQL. I'm very interested in computer hardware.

Passed my “4A” term

school, uwaterloo No Responses »

Apr 282012

I passed my 4A term (4A is the code value for the first portion of the 4th year, B indicates the second portion). My average for the term is a 79 with a 73 in AFM 101, 76 in CS 448, 78 in CS456, 80 in CS490 and 88 in PHIL 216. With that term complete, I should be out of academic probation for good and will complete my Bachelor of Computer Science without issue.

Speaking of which, I’m taking one last course which is CS 349 – User Interfaces. Hopefully I can remember how to code in Java to pass the course. There are no other options available for me that are as simple as User Interfaces. I’m likely to be developing an app for Android devices for one of the assignments, that should be very interesting.

As for what I’m doing post-graduation, I’m still undecided. I’ll look for a job starting in May and I’ll hopefully have something confirmed before July. I’m looking for jobs in Waterloo and Toronto, either is preferred, it makes almost no difference to me where I end up working.

Bird Courses at #uwaterloo

Uncategorized No Responses »

Apr 182012

Going into my last term, I think I can say that I’ve done my fair share of bird courses. I define bird courses as courses that generally: don’t require any work, simple marking breakdown, material is “common knowledge”, professors are easy, etc.

For me, being a CS student, I’m given the option to have 18 of my 40 required courses be electives. 10 of those electives are slightly more restrictive than the other 8 but that simply means they cannot be offered by the Faculty of Math.

PHIL145 (Critical Thinking) It’s mostly learning how to solve problems with logic/reasoning. Very fun course depending on your professor.
ECON101/102 (Introduction to Microeconomics/Macroeconomics) An easy course depending on the professor. The course is usually 2-3 midterms and a final and all multiple choice.
FR151 (Basic French 1) If you remember any French from high school (Ontario students) its easy. The course doesn’t drift too far from Grade 8/9 French and only touches on some of Grade 10.
PSYCH101 (Introduction to Psychology) Interesting course, I did mine online and wrote an essay about procrastinating and got a 92% on it. All multiple choice, possible to pass the course prior to the final.
SCI238 (Introductory Astronomy) (237 is the alternative) Very basic course in astronomy, all multiple choice but the course does require a lot of math.
PSCI291 (The Canadian Legal Process) Very top level view of Canadian Law. All multiple choice, material very easy to understand with very minimal memorization (memorizing details about cases).
SCI205 (Physics of High Fidelity Sound Reproduction) The course has not been updated since the turn of the millennium. All multiple choice, the answers for homework assignments are readily available online and the final hasn’t changed since at least 2005.
SCI206 (The Physics of How Things Work) Extremely fun course, all multiple choice again. The course is basically a mixture of Bill Nye and Mythbusters, it’s a very hands on course because of all the experiments in class.
PHIL216 (Probability and Decision Making) Homework assignments are very easy for a Math/CS major. Course is very passable before the final. No midterm, and highly participatory.
AFM101 (Introduction to Financial Accounting) You might think this is a bird course though it’s probably better to do AFM123. I made that mistake.

Courses I haven’t taken yet:
ACTSC221 (Mathematics of Investment) It looks like an easy course, there’s only 4 formulas needed and a lot of problem solving. It’s the type of Math that I like.
SPAN101 (Spanish 1) Only in the Spring as a Block Course. Any course that’s a block course (in the Spring) should be easy because it ends in July which means an earlier final (or in-class final) — which implies less studying during normal exam time in August. SPAN101 shouldn’t be too hard with some basic French knowledge since these languages are very related.

Human readable filesizes

coding, php No Responses »

Feb 202012

Since the latest posts on PHP.net’s filesize Manual page, at least of this writing, had terribly inefficient code to convert bytes to a readable format, I’m sharing code:

/**
 * filesize_to_str()
 * Converts filesize to a string value.
 */
function filesize_to_str( $filesize ) {
    $sizes = array( 'B', 'KB', 'MB', 'GB', 'TB' );
    $i = floor( log( $filesize, 1024 ) );
    return sprintf( '%.2f%s', $filesize / pow( 1024, $i ), $sizes[$i] );
}

It could be extended easily to push past terrabytes, but if you’re working with those filesizes, you shouldn’t need me to tell you how to do math.

CS456 Networking Lab

hardware, school, uwaterloo No Responses »

Feb 132012

When Control became Caps Lock, backspace became `

The network lab process was pretty bad. We were given 6 computers to use, all of them had Fedora 16 installed. I’m glad it wasn’t some weird OpenSolaris setup given the keyboard.

We were greeted with a terminal. I did the logins and set up all the network devices to the proper IP addresses. Then I had to run Wireshark. Wireshark needs a GUI, unless they wanted us to run Tshark. No prior instructions were given to us to launch X to get into Wireshark.

Just typing X hung the terminal at a X with no inputs or window manager. From experience, Fedora came with Gnome so I typed gdm and I was given a login manager. Unfortunately, gdm prevents root logins by default — and rightfully so. I had to manually add a dummy user so I can log into Gnome and launch Wireshark.

Tests were done and outputs were saved. Then I had to bring the data home for the lab report (the instructions were to copy them onto a floppy disk — I’m glad we were implicitly told to ignore it).

Problem: there was no Internet connection on any of the computers. Luckily, we had USB keys with us and were thinking of just copying files to the USB key. The first computer (these aren’t exactly desktop towers, they were 1U rack servers) had the metal cage unlocked so we put the USB key in and copied it without problem.

1/2 done with my 10th school term

overpower, school No Responses »

Feb 122012

Just about to enter week 7 of my “4A” term at the University of Waterloo. So far, the classes are going well. An update to the courses that I’m taking:

CS448 – The course is very fun and challenging. I completely understand the concepts but I’m having a hard time applying them.
CS456 – The course is everything I expected but it seems very outdated. For the first half of the course, there is barely anything new to learn that I haven’t learned in high school or while reading my Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) books. We’re just entering network programming, which is completely new to me, but I understand the gist of it.
CS490 – The course is mostly taught by students as that is the model that our prof adopted. The professor taught us the first 3 chapters and the rest of it is student presentations. That seems to be a good model for the course, I’m not complaining. There is no final for the course and only 2 presentations and 2 tests.
PHIL216 – I barely have to read the textbook for the course. The course is on game strategies and making decisions while playing games. I love the course. We even get fed.
AFM101 – I thought this would be my bird course but apparently it’s harder for me to grasp than the other ones. I have no ability in accounting. I’m really not interested in it at all. I should have taken AFM123 which is “Accounting Information for Managers”. I can’t do AFM123 next term because the 101 conflicts with it.

Reading week is next week, I won’t be coming back to Toronto until the Wednesday or Thursday. There is an OverPower event happening on the Saturday so that’s the main reason why I’m coming back. I plan to spend reading week doing a bit of homework and a bit of developing for the OverPower site.

For the first time in 5+ years, I’ll have to make my apartment look clean so that my landlord and rent it out to new people. It’s a weird feeling so leave this place. I’m still mostly undecided on what I’m doing after graduation. If I end up with a job offer in Kitchener-Waterloo, I’ll likely stay in KW but definitely find a new place. If not, I’ll be back in Toronto and going job hunting — though I should really make use of the job bank we have on UW campus to look for a job.

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