Read it, disregard it, drive into walls.

You know what? stfu, valleywag. I know you’re the Internet’s answer to The Sun, so I’m just going to disregard everything you just said in that article. I mean really? Alex is “forgettable”? Please, Alex is far more interesting than Kevin. If I had to pick one of them to go out and grab something to eat with it’d definitely be Alex.

If it’s true about Alex wanting to leave Diggnation, then Diggnation is dead. No really. Just Kevin sitting on a couch, with Glen and Prager? That’s not interesting. Alex’s retorts and spontaneous jokes (which sometimes are so spontaneous they don’t make sense) are what make that show interesting. They can’t get another co-host, because they just can’t afford to. They’d have to come from in house, and I’m not sitting thrugh 40 minutes of Martin Sargent.

Anyway, whilst I’m here. My ‘Freelance’ label in my gmail has never been more active. It’s quite intimidating. Priorities say I have to finish that website assignment first though. Well, first food, then website. I’ve decided on just using CC and GPL content to fill the pages. Perfectly legal, if a little lazy.

Last minute coursework again…

Now I’ve finished that freelance gig I was given (well, almost finished, I just need to convert the guy’s old pages to new ones) I can actually start on my coursework. Which is due in Friday.

It’s basically a website. So long as it’s valid XHTML and CSS, and has form pages, I’ve been told anything can pass. I’m actually not going to be putting much effort into content due to that. I just want to make sure that I have it finished. Maybe later, when I have more time I’ll add better content.

It’s basically a website about Leicester from the prospective of a fresher – someone how just needs some information about Leicester and where to go and what to do.

I’ve already done the actual template. I just need to add content. Laura and Chris have already taken photos, which we need to include in our website, so I’ll just use some of theirs. They certainly took enough.

Work hard, play hard.

Lets make a productivity list for tomorrow, because the last ones all worked so well…

• Go take photos for my website assignment! I’m gonna take my laptop too, due to the small card capacity. I decided this should be a group activity.
• Write a tutorial on how to add a button to TinyMCE in WordPress.
• Read another chapter of Twilight. Must read this, and the next book before the next film comes out. Granted, I probably have a year, but I’d rather get the entire saga out the way.
• Look through Monday’s class notes, and maybe write a few help sheets. I’ll be working as a classroom assistant, so I should probably be more prepared.
• Wash up. Really, Shane, you have no plates left.
• Get the systems analysis work from Blackboard. I really want to ace this presentation. This is looking to be the only module I might actually fail because of stupid things, like lack of motivation for it.

Busy day tomorrow. Carnage bar crawl is in the night too.

Stupid course is stupid.

I’m actually feeling productive today, and I’m fairly certain I have a multitude of work to do.

I woke up with the intent of creating this database we need for Database Design Concepts. Well, I say need, but it turns out we might not actually have to hand it in. Because I thought it was integral to my learning, I sat through it and slowly knocked up a few tables following the instructions letter by letter.

When it started explaining, in great detail, how to change the freaking font of a label I gave in. Not only was it offending me, but flicking through the book I can’t see anywhere where it’s telling me to hand the finished database in. Even if it did, what would be the point?  You can’t vary from the obnoxious instructions; even if one person created the database and then gave a copy to everyone in the class the person marking it would never know. They’re all identical.

So, I gave in with that. I’m pretty sure there’s more work to be done, so I asked Laura. Apparently we have a Systems Analysis assignment that we’ve not been told about yet.

The final assignment we have is from Computer Tech, to create a website. I’m not sure why I can’t just give him the URL to one of the many websites I’ve designed and coded to prove my work, but meh. I have to create a guide about Leicester for freshers of DMU, which I’m okay with actually. I might even be able to make some money from it. Even if I do feel slightly underestimated.

Why can’t university be as hard as I actually expected? Why do people walk into a degree with zero knowledge of the course? There are people that have blatantly never even used a computer before on my course; wtf? Just make A Level Computing a requirement of the course entry, and teach with that as a foundation. Don’t freaking teach it me again! Grr.

I’d switch to Computer Science if I wasn’t so worried my math would let me down.

Class summary for today

In visual web dev. we just learnt about parameters for functions, and making subroutines and functions. Yeah, it was thrilling. I finished up the set work in the first hour (class is two hours along) and just spent the rest playing with Flash.

Database design concepts was okay. “Okay” is measured by “did I learn something?” and I sort of did. It was about how DBMSs should handle their integrity, using rollbacks and transactions. Also on user privileges.

When I can be more motivated (or if someone asks), I’ll come back and actually explain what they mean, because a few people missed that lecture. For now though, I’m going to work on my Leicester Guide Website for my computer technology assignment.

Comp. Tech.: The Internet and Communication

I’m pretty sure we did the tutorials for this lesson yesterday, but had this lecture in the forth week. I swear, they’re all out of whack.

Computer Tech.: Lecture three

I wasn’t even in this lecture, so this material is new to me. The fetch/execute cycle isn’t though.

Computer tech.: lecture two

Right off the bat, I’m a bit confused with what this lecture is about.

Weeks one and two summary: Computer Technology

I’ve still not much idea what I should be learning in this class. What we’ve talked about is computer related, but other than that I can’t place it with much of a topic. I guess it’s just… how computers work. I really can’t remember much of what was talked about in the lectures. I was kinda hung over in the last one.

We have two teachers for this topic, which doesn’t seem to have posed much of a problem yet, but at least once I’ve noticed how Cowell and Samad haven’t communicated their lessons to each other at all. So Samad was somewhat left off guard.

The lectures – with Cowell – are just annoying and at this point I’m rarely bothered to go to them. He’s a clearly oppinionated person and tends to teach to those, rather than just sticking to facts of things. Things like saying “using variable width website design is out of date”. No it freaking isn’t. Using all the available space is a vital aspect of every website I use (especially WordPress and forums since I need all the space I can get to see what I’m typing). He also keeps bringing up his veiws on politics, his favorite being ID cards where he’ll deviate from the lecture so much that people get confused about what they should be learning. I don’t even think that teachers should legally be allowed to talk about politics when they’re in a role where they’re most persausive (teaching their oppinions as fact to students).

Because numbers are dwindling I thought it’d be okay to ask a question about something he was teaching. For some reason, he still thinks it’s standard to put comments around CSS. That was the done thing back in the day, but now it’s just a waste of bytes. I asked why he was doing that and he rudely said “Actually, lectures are a one way learning method, we don’t usually take questsions.” And that was the end of that discussion. I could understand if there were 40 people in the class, but there was only around 10 so no one was really disrupted.

The tutorials aren’t so amazing either. We’re learning basic hardware consepts of the computer; binary, file allocation, how things are stored, et al. It’s not hard, but it is something I need to learn. It’s probably thing I’m worst at on this course but I’m still mentally approching it with a snobby attitude which I guess I have to fix.