school » Jack Truong

Passed my “4A” term

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.

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.

Converted my blog to a WordPress blog

school 1 Response »

Jan 022012

I have converted my blog into a WordPress blog. I figure that the old site probably had some horribly written code and was vulnerable to attacks so I decided to import all my content (sans comments — haven’t been able to figure that out yet) into a WordPress blog.

I’ll be going through the site to make sure everything looks nice and not too much is broken.

As for life, I’m 8 courses away from graduation. I’m doing 5 this term so that my last term in the Spring will be as easy as possible. The courses that I’m doing are:

CS 448 – Database Systems Implementation: An advanced course on databases. From what I’ve researched, I’ll likely have to code some parts of a database engine, likely PostgreSQL.
CS 456 – Computer Networks: A relatively straight forward course on networking including network programming. Should be a very neat course except for the fact it’s my first 8:30AM course EVER.
CS 490 – Information Systems Management: A computer science/business course.
PHIL 216 – Probability and Decision Making: A course on game theory and such, I’ll get the gist of it after the first lecture on Thursday night.
AFM 101 – Introduction to Financial Accounting: A course on accounting, my bird course for the term.

For my Spring term, I’ll likely be doing:

CS 349 – User Interfaces: I took the course last Winter but dropped it because it conflicted with Operating Systems (which was more important). Likely coding in X11/Java and might be doing Android application development.
ACTSC 221 – Mathematics of Investment: One of my bird courses for the term. I keep explaining to people it’s a course based around one formula. The course is based around calculation mortgage rates and interest.
SPAN 101 – Introduction to Spanish 1: My other bird course. Spanish is close enough to French that I shouldn’t have a hard time picking it up. It’s also done by the first week of July so I’ll likely have an early final and only 2 exams to prepare for in August.