Finally Settling on a Dissertation Title is hard!!

I have been pulling over many titles for a while now, getting laods of research about cybercultures and CMC or Computer Mediated Conversation. But the problem is trying to narrow the title down so it is not so broad and leaves me with such a broad topic that it doesn’t seem like an essay on a specific subject.

At the moment, i am hovering around the title:

How has CMC allowed the evolution of connecting between two peers.

However i am not sure.

this is tough, final year is hurting.

George Bush: My Last 5 Days at Work

When you hand in your notice at work, it is usually around two weeks long. So with that in mind you usually think of things to do in the office that you haven’t done over your time there as you thought you were always going to be contracted to do the bidding of the top dogs.

Well George Bush has around 5 days of his notice left to run, if you were him, what would you be doing right now? Below is a list of ideas that i think Georgie should be doing over his last 5 days.

- Look behind every cupboard in the White House for secrets that Nicholas Cage says exist.

- Have a game of hide and seek with Condoleeza Rice.

- Maybe go driving really fast around Washington and pull a barrel roll and land it off a car park.

- Aggravate drive thru attendants.

- Have a game of paintball on the front lawn of the white house.

- Watch Independence Day and jump when the White House gets destroyed.

- Ask Tony Blair over for a sleepover and then accidentally spoon him.

- Streak through the quad.

If you have anymore, feel free to comment on the article, and i might take them and credit you in the article.

Researching Key Stage 2 Websites

My idea for my major relies heavily on information about the Key Stage 2 level of education. To those not in the know, aka me and everyone who is not a parent, KS2 is the 11+, an exam that can determine what school you go to for your senior years, aka in preparation for your GCSE’s. Fab.

So far, i have sent off emails to schools in the Bournemouth area, in hope that they will be up for collaborating in this Major idea. This is so that i can get the full syllabus and also have it taught to me by a teacher, so in reality i will be going back to school. If it occurs I will be fully looking forward to it.

Websites:

BBC – Bitesize

So far the best website that i have found is the BBC bitesize website. This does not surprise me as Bitesize has been around for a while now and is the most comprehensive learning tool on the web for helping out teachers and students in preparation for exams. From KS1 to A-level, bitesize covers it all. What I am trying to do is find away to differentiate my project from Bitesize.

How i plan to do this is to incorporate tests that actually recortd and analyse the childs progress and can point out where they have certain weakpoints and allow the parents and teachers where work needs to be done.

BOFA

What sounds like it should be the name of a flatulent superhero, is actually a good website and an indicator of what i am aiming for and hopefully going to surpass with my major. BOFA exports results of the tests but does not do what I aming to do which is to indicate the weaknesses and also be used by both teachers and students. This is aimed directly at home use, unlike my idea which can be fully integrated into the classroom

Other websites that are dotted around have the same idea but are not done with the same style and quality that i will be aiming for.

Wanting to use Asp.net

damn i have a mac. at the moment i am trying to learn it, but at the moment, the fact that i have a mac is holding me back. Hopefully i will be able to use itools supposedly to start it off.

However, i fi cant find a way to work it on the mac, i will have to set up a pc as asp.net is key to how i want my site to run.

Euthanasia – Views?

I have always been interested in Britains views on Euthanasia, as in theory it is a double sided coin when morals are involved.

One on side the person involved is suffering and one may think that by allowing them to die in a humane way is better than allowing them to be in pain for however long their illness lasts.

But then on the other hand, it is determined to be assisted suicide in law terms, which is a crime and means that the party involved will be sentenced.

A controversial case that has now appeared is that of Daniel James, the 23 year old rugby player who was assisted in dying by his parents when they took him to Switzerland where euthanasia is legal. This brought to the floor a statement about the events that took place.

‘If Mr and Mrs James are not prosecuted, though the evidence against them is crystal clear, it will seem that, though assisting someone to die is a crime if the death occurs in this country, it is permissible if the death occurs in a country whose laws permit it.’ Full Article

My opinion on this situation is that it should be legalised here in the UK, however that there should be a huge restriction on how it can be used, otherwise the system could be abused. This is all common sense but then religious parties wwould intervene as it is unhealthy and unrighteous, but r the person who is suffering should be given the choice not a greater party who are not going the pain.

Major research. So it has begun

So finally after 2 years of university the whole course is going to reachita conclusion. It has began with emails being sent out to various institutions regarding help.

It is going to take some time but this is going to be a good but ambitious project .

Final Day of Placement

As I was leaving placement today, i thought the best way to go was to buy some presents for people or basically things for them to eat during the day.

So i bought some pies, some cakes and also stuck a fish behind the fridge. Not Really.

But overall I have really enjoyed this placement and really really like the attitude of the company. Reading on their website, it states that they are working for blue chip companies. To be able to do this, the quality of work has to be exceptional, and it is. From the design work done by the designers on the high chairs to the eventual coding done by the devs in the hottest room in the building, the standard of work is high.

A company like this deserves all the success they can get, especially as its original founders are still here and are the backbone of this company.

Anywho, this is the last day i get to sit in the office drinking tea and doing some work.

Good Day

Today….

I f**king hate flash errors. and cookies. the computer kind.

PLACEMENTISING – FINAL WEEK

Holy Egg McMuffin, my time on my placement is nearly over. A whole 6 weeks have gone by without me actually realising it. Well I have realised it as my body has severley suffered from sleep deprivation. I look like the following picture right now.

Me on the bus on way to work

However, what I have learnt over the past 6 weeks has been pheonmenal. Not just what I have learnt whilst coding AS3, which is something I have spoken a lot about on this blog, but what I have learnt about how an agency is run by the people who created it.

Everyone in here is really positive about the work they are doing, bar a few moans and groans that you get along the way but that is the same with every workplace you go to and will remain that way until everything is done digitally. i.e. from home.

The people I have worked with have been really supportive of me including in the first week where i was crap. I can;t put it any bluntly but i was strugglying to create HTML newsletters. I know it was because I was nervous and was trying to make a good first impression, but constantly sending emails back to Hayley (who was passing me the work) didn’t do much for my reputation or valuation in the company.

I have learnt from those around me even if they don’t know on how to crack problems and their various ways into relaxing and solving problems. Some like to eat biscuits whilst trying to crack complex PHP puzzles whilst others approach problems from a more systematic angle. It has shown me that there are many way sto get to the solution it just depends on which way is your way.

There are a few people I want to mention as they are the ones who got me this placement and were also so very lenient as they realized that i had a full time job on top of this. To Richard who put up with me turning up late or sometimes not all due to illness, injury or trying to do the worm and failing. Everyone in the office who I have worked with, mainly Hayley, Charles, Rachel and chicken Dan, even though I haven’t been that talkative, due to unprecedented shyness  ,it has been fun working with and around you lot.

When i return to Uni, I will return with more confidence and experience in the Actionscript and in the quality of work that is up to professional standard. The placement has shown me how high the standard of work is in the competitive market with creative ideas being the difference between making it or failing.

Placement Last Two Weeks

The last two weeks on the placement have flown by, i think that has been the time since I last posted on here. It has been all about this RSS widget and making sure that it works and that it does everything that it needs to.

However it does seem that it is all going to be about this widget for the length of my placement. Even though it has just been one project, which would take an experienced programmer a few hours, it has taught me a lot. Especially about Flash.

Before starting it, my Flash skills were ropey at the very least, making simple animation and programming the game for my Second year project taught me the structure of Actionscript. However this widget has allowed me to jump deeper into flash and more importantly Actionscript 3.
AS3 is a complete change to AS2 with many of the code structure of AS2 being wiped, which was what I coded the game in. However now that AS3 has slowly grown on me, the changes Adobe have made seem like they had to be made.

Working in an agency also brings with it differences between working at home as a freelancer, which I have heard that some of my coursemates have done.

Also a lot of fun has had in the office with banter flying around between employees which you certainly would not get if you worked from home on a placement. Overall with a week left to go, i have really enjoyed challenging myself and know that my knowledge has grown of action script thus increasing my confidence for the final major project.