I'm sure everyone here knows about these events, but thought I'd post for the one or two who may have missed them.

Please book via CSTD http://www.reading.ac.uk/internal/cstd/

The Digital Development Forum Launch Event

Weds 20 October 12.30

Nike Lecture Theatre, Agriculture Building (Building 59, Whiteknights)

The University's Digital Development team are inviting everyone with an involvement or interest in the University's digital presence - no matter what your level of skill or knowledge - to join the
new Digital Development Forum.  Through a series of talks, seminars, and workshops the forum will provide the opportunity for members to: improve digital skills and knowledge; keep up with what's going on and what's coming up; share knowledge, ideas, and best practice with colleagues and contribute to the development of the University's digital presence. This will be YOUR forum and we'd like you to help shape it over time. Come along to find out more!

A Digital Development Forum Presentation

Weds 3 Nov 12.30

Nike Lecture Theatre, Agriculture Building (Building 59, Whiteknights)

Professor Judy Delin - "Writing for the Web"

Writing implies reading - which means that writing for any medium, the web included, has to consider how people read. This talk looks at what web writing shares with other forms of writing, and then goes on to look at what's different. We examine what readers are trying to do when they encounter web writing, how we can use page layout and typography to help people navigate and digest information, and how we can use the functionality of the web to make that information easy and pleasant to use.

A Digital Development Forum Presentation

Weds 8 Dec 12.30

Nike Lecture Theatre, Agriculture Building (Building 59, Whiteknights)

Finlay Carmichael and Alex Colvin - "The Activedition CMS – What’s Next?"

The Activedition CMS has been undergoing a major transformation.  Find out more about the new cross browser editing facilities, the rich internet application management facilities and the community elements for online collaboration and social network integration.

All presentations will start at
12.30 with Chair’s welcome and introduction to speaker
12.35 Speaker 40 mins plus q& a
13.15 Chair’s thanks & quick round-up of hot news on the digital front
13.20 Buffet Lunch

The process of coding a full system has been one with many up and downs, however an awful load of ground has been covered.  Not only have a wide range of programming concepts been covered, but the complete project lifecycle has been covered, from the initial problem analysis and solution design, all the way through to building and testing a completed system.

Prior to this project, only simple code samples have been written in C++ for which to demonstrate certain programming constructs from within the constraints of the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE (integrated development environment).  However, for the first time a fully functioning system has been coded, and tested in not only Windows under the Visual Studio environment, but under the open source Unix based Linux in eclipse.  The system has also been compiled and tested working in Apples OSX Snow-Leopard (not shown here).  The system has been tested working in both 32bit (SSE PC use) and 64bit (Home Machine) environments, with both Windows Vista, and Windows 7 included in these tests.

It became clear at an early stage when considering time constraints that the optimum approach to this project would be to start with a very simple implementation of Blackjack, and then build on this.  This methodology meant that a fully functioning game was available at a very early stage of the coding process, however the programmer was also able to develop the system further to include some more complex features, such as betting.  This approach to a task is perhaps one of the most key things that have been learnt; it is much better to have a working system come the project deadline, than nothing at all!

Although the system has been coded for a command line terminal output, it has covered a wide range of programming constructs (detailed above) including array and memory addressing.  Although these techniques will prove useful in future programming problems, the approach which was used towards this system is the most important thing that has learnt.  Combine this with a systematic approach to building the game and documentation, and the clear importance of an understandable pseudo-code and the result is a highly successful project.

Instead of following the pretty standard "Hello World!" program output, we could make things a little more interesting!  Creating a project that requires a user response would add a little more challenge to the problem, while still maintaining many of the original skills.  For example, instead of printing "Hello World"  print "What is your name".  The user may then enter their name, followed by a response of "Hello *username*"

I have clearly decided of my own free will, that I wish to post here more frequently.*

I'm back from my placement at Accenture and I'm doing a research project over the summer in G40, based on parallel algorithms for constructing the tree of life. I'll also be available in SCR for the next 3 weeks thursdays 2pm to help 2nd year algorithms students doing resits. 

More, later.

 *honestly.

View as blog or forum?

Me likey.

I'm Emma and I'm 20 and have finished my 2nd year at the Univ of Reading - I'm currently on a years break (yay, no exams!) doing my placement year working in London - I'll graduate in 2009. If you get me, we'll click and all will be swell; if not you'll probably just assume I'm crazy and ignore me. Fair play either way - I'm a good friend to those who deserve it, if you're a twat to me expect nothing back (but attitude).

I spend the majority of my time programming, thinking about programming, drinking or sleeping - standard things really. I love being technical, it's very much become who I am as well as what I do, and I'm proud of my abilities. I'm also fond of good grammar and cake. My degree course is Applied Computer Science, at which I have every intention of trying to get a 1st.

I get very competitive at times and generally work pretty hard (interspersed with some bouts of laziness I do admit) - I'm great at partying hard too however, and am good fun to go out with - or so I'm told! Although I'm away from the Uni this year I like to keep my presence felt, it's a great place to be and I like to have my say. I may even visit!

I've just been reading the Software Design criteria and it's been overhauled AGAIN.

I think it's actually for the better, read the full rules here - http://imaginecup.com/Competition/mycompetitionportal.aspx?competitionId=10

What's interesting though is that "approximately" 50 teams now go to France, teams of "up to 4" and there's actually some grading criteria - about damn time. You also seem to have to submit a working application again, rather than a badly knocked together mash of ideas, fulled by coffee and pizza...

I'll need to fully read the rules to check if I can enter this year, but hey, why not eh?

I love Microsoft.

Mid-morning I tend to check my uni email, saw one from Mark Johnston telling me I'd won a 360 for voting for Imagine Cup entrants last year. Yay! :D

Another way of promoting it for the competition this year - compete/register and you actually DO win stuff!

I think I still need to do an intro post, will do that soon. I promise.

This morning a database died - containing all the defect details. Never good, and my team raised about 20 Trackers all going "oh dear god what do we do"!

As soon as my boss realised we were in for a rush of Trackers he asked me to deal with all of them. On top of my normal work. On top of delivering two sets of enviroment files/source to the live system.

I didn't have lunch today.

Go-live for a branch is this weekend too, so almost the entire room left at 4pm to go up north to the client's site apart from a handful of us - fortunately I managed to escape the 72 hour installation frenzy: I shall have a peaceful weekend involving alcohol, gaming and quite possibly a haircut.

Why are there multiple bars? Home/Account Settings/Log Off and then Blogs/Bookmarks/Cheers etc...

It seems a bit pointless? The former bars look a lot nicer too.

Also, Blogs redirects me to my blog. Kind of silly no? I know what's on my blog, I posted it! Surely a fast link to everyone's blogs would be better?

Feel entirely free to ignore my comments, just wondering if anyone else agreed really :p