Semester 2 - Programming 2

Take two on programming in C++.  This was by far my favourite class last semester.  The teacher was amazing.  If I could have this teacher for all the mundaine classes I will have to take in Computer Science, I would be very happy.

This teacher had a huge stutter, and the less comfortable he was, the more aparent it was.  But, as he became more comfortable with the group, his stutter started to fade, and would only come out on occasion.

Everyone I spoke to who was in this program before me, or even poeple in a year ahead of me, all told what an amazing teacher he was.  I thought they were saying this to be nice, but they were bang on the money.  He new exactly how to explain the complexities of C++ in a way that made perfect sense.  This guys knows everything there is to know about computers.  I'm sure if he tried he could re-invent Google.

Programming 2 covered searched, sorts, structured data, file input and output, an introduction to classes, pointers, and the part I found the hardest:  recursion.

Even making command line programs became more interesting because of the use of classes.  Breaking a program down in smaller parts made a lot more sense, and made debugging much easier.

He gave us challenging problems as labs, which were mostly simple games; Connect 4, Poker, and the most challenging, Othello/Reversi.

Reversi made all our other labs seem like childs play.  It was easy to make a move, place the piece on the board, and switch players.  Making any chain reactions happen because of a move was different.  Thanks to the teacher I was able to figure it out.

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Semester 2 - User Interfaces

Class number 2 for my second semester was an inroduction to user interface design.

Again, this was not my favourite class, but I feel like I accomplished more than in Tech Support.

Based on Visual Basic, the teacher often referred to the class as VB, adn I don't remeber a thing from this class.  Visual Basic is annoying, I was getting used C++, and I found "if" statements much easier to understand in C++ than in VB, even though VB was intended to be simpler language to program with.  C++ required a lot more attention to detail, where as VB would finish statements for you.

Simple loops did not make sense to me.  In C++, we were taught understand how variables and arrays are stored in memory, then dealt with loops that would cycle through the array.  In VB, the connection between the variables we were creating and the loops we were using to process the data was not made.

The class was not made that interesting, and the teacher would lose his temper often enough that we had a hard time taking seriously when he got mad.  There was no text book for the class, yet I managed to find a Visual Basic 2008 text, which helped a lot.

On the upside, my tic-tac-toe game got 100%.

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Semester 2 - Technical Support

The second semester at Computer Science at John Abbott College turned out to be no more interesting than the first.  One of the least interesting classes I had to take was Technical Support.  This class should have been in the first semester as Introduction to Computer Technology, I did not learn anything in this class either.  In fact, this class did prepare me for a technical support job.

There was some coverage of binary and hexadecimal numbers, again the history of computers.  Two assignments that were training manuals; the first on how to install a piece of software on Windows 98 (this class was taken in the winter 2009!!), the second on to zip a file in Windows XP.  The third assignment was a training presentation on any topic of our choice.  I chose using Twitter.  Our limitations were 10 minutes long, and we had to use the computer in classroom, which had no internet connection;  demonstrating how to use Twitter, and a few Twitter applications was pretty difficult, it's hard to show the full scope of something like Twitter with a few screen shots.

Hardware trouble shooting was rushed, and all I learned was how to install a hard drive and a RAM chip.

Software trouble shooting was even a bit more ridiculous, it involved formatting and partitioning a hard drive with F-Disk, install Windows 98, then re-format the hard drive with Partition Magic, and install Windows XP.  Norton Ghost was briefly covered.  Keep in mind, all of these applications were ran off a 3.5 inch floppy disk.

I am old enough to remember Police Quest and King's Quest on 5.25 inch floppies, but the recent high school grads in my class had only seen them lying around their parents place.  They had never actually used one.  This also made want to bring in a copy Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of Lounge Lizards for old times sake.

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Semester 1 - Programming 1

Where I learned the most was in my two programming classes.  In Programming 1, the teacher was good, enthudiastic enough for the class, and most importantly, did not lose steam due the idiots that were in the class and ruining it for the rest of us.

Programming 1 & 2 (and I learned today Algorithm Design) are based in C++.  Other colleges around Montreal that offer the same three year technical program begin with Java.

The basic syntax of a C++ command line program was covered.  We covered data types, conditional statements, loops, the string class, and functions.  That's it.  Labs were mostly variations on the theme;  make a simple guess the number game, enter names and addresses ... simple stuff.

The only complaint that I had about that class; while the teacher was good and new C++ inside and out, she only encouraged the use Windows and Visual Studio 2008.  Since C++ command line programs are the most portable, and we did not cover the Visual Studio debugger until week 12 (out of 15), it made no sense to me why I had to use windows, when XCode does the job just fine.

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CompSci at JAC

CEGEP John Abbott College Montreal -- 420.A0 Computer Science Technology

Just quick rundown The Computer Science Program at John Abbott College.

I'm lucky because I only have to take Computer Science classes, I get out of English, Humanities, and French.

What I would like to know is where could this program lead me.

Right now there's still a business environment push to it, and soon there will be gaming angle.  Hopefully, mobile development will be added.

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Semster 1 - Intro to Computers

A mandatory class in the Computer Science program at John Abbott is Introduction to Computer Technology.  Which showed potential, but quickly lost it.

It started out simple with an introduction to what computers are, and the history of computers, which was interesting, except that my teacher was refused to accept that Apple popularized the personal computer.  The right answer to that question on the test was IBM.  Oh well, give the teacher what they want for the grade.  Then the basic parts of what made a computer.

The history of computers was followed by a too quick overview the binary and hexadecimal number systems.  Which seemed usefull, but was too quick, and was forced to teach myself how to add binary numbers.  I still get stuck on hexadecimal problems.

The problem with teenagers, especially those fresh out highschool, they have no attention span.  They also know alot about computers.  They also think they know everything about computers.  The idea for this was to get a fundamental understanding of how computer works, which was lost on most of my classmates.  The teacher lost steam about half way through the semster.  We never learnt about file systems, nor was there a connection made between binary and hexadecimal numbers, and the internal workings of a computer.

While the above topics were being covered in lectures, the lab for this class was more about learning how use MS Word and Excel.  Even here, our assignments were spelled out step by step in our textbook.

The final project was a personal website about anything technology related.  Once this project was announced, again another plug (from the department Chair) for MS's Expression Web came about as better alternative to Dreamweaver.  Kind of useless to me since I have a Mac at home.  A trial copy of Adobe's CS4 downloaded, I discovered the learning curve for Dreamweaver was pretty steep.  I quickly switched to Smultron and built my site from scratch.  (note:  Sadly, Smultron is not being maintained anymore)

And there you have it, Intro to Computer Technology DONE. Mark:  85%.

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FriendFeed and Facebook

FriendFeed Blog: FriendFeed accepts Facebook friend request

Being at work really sucks sometimes.  Three hours after the fact is when I find out that Facebook bought FriendFeed.  Which is good for the FriendFeed guys:  startup gets bought by a big online player, but sucks for users of FriendFeed.  It was a much simpler service to use.

Facebook grew too much for my liking.  And it was more closed off than FriendFeed and Twitter.  Creating revenue is necessary for all online businesses, and especially hard for social networks, therefore, targetd advertising was necessary evil. Ads on Facebook targeted at me were all for Montreal Singles, it felt like the old pre-Google internet days when every search turned up porn.

Facebook has been great at finding long lost friends who found their way to the other side of the world.  But once I found them, I took down their e-mail address and used e-mail to contact them, and other services that I registered for before I signed on to Facebook.

FriendFeed on the other hand felt more usefull and productive than Facebook.  Actually, it felt like Twitter on steroids.  The idea of no ads were nice, but I'll admit I was curious to find out how long an ad-free experience would last.

But the two were different in one more important way, FriendFeed, like Twitter encouraged you to follow people yoou found interesting online, where as Facebook encouraged you follow people you actually know.  It is a little more private by default, and your profile on FriendFeed could be locked down with a few extra clicks, but again, FriendFeed is more about sharing with everyone.

Hopefully Facebook will pick up a few features from FriendFeed.  If it doesn't, I might stick to Twitter only.

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Semester 1 - My Classes

The good thing about going back to CEGEP, is that I don't have to take any craptacular classes:  english, french, humanities, and phys. ed.  I only have to take three or four core classes each semester, instead of seven classes.  The downside is that I can't speed up my education.  I will have take three years to complete the program.  I'v already finished one, two more to go.

Semester was 2 classes:  Intro to Computer Technology and Programming 1.

Needless to say, Intro to Computer Tech had potential, but quickly deteriorated when we did not learn anything.  We were showed how to the on off button and how to use Microsoft Office.

Programming 1 was more interesting, but it was still an intro class; command line programs, where we mainly learned C++ syntax.

What I discovered the first semester had nothing to do with programming or computers.  Everything from Microsoft was free (except for Office, of course).  One whole course was learned Word and Excel, and even in programming, my teacher was unable to use anything but Visiual Studio.

disclaimer:  yes I am a Mac user, and I really do think Windows sucks, but it mostly gets when we are supposed to be learning something universal like C++, and we spend more time dealing with VS 2008 crashes.  On the upside, I should be getting a free (clean) copy of Windows 7 this fall.

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Semester 1 - JAC

The Country Club is where I returned to school, after a failed stint in there 11 years ago. John Abbott College (JAC) got the nickname "The Country Club" because of the type students that go there: too naive to handle anything highschool, and relishing every freedom that taken away from highschool. When you first get there, you get overworked by too many classes by teachers who think you are only taking one class at a time. Then you discover that no one cares if you skip a class and to the bars down the street. Then it's a few beers later and you realize that you're too drunk to go to your last class. So you go get stoned.

Eleven years later, I can handle a couple of afternoon drinks, and I never did like getting stoned. Also since I managed to complete a few class my first time around at JAC, so I only have to take core Computer Science Courses. The college smells the same as it did years ago, except the smoking room is gone, and kids straight out of high school still think that they are the first to skip a french class and smoke a joint.

Yes, I get to go to school with 17 year olds. I don't spend much more than class time at school, and there's an Irish pub down the street.

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The Mandatory First Post

Here it is the first post I have been saying to myself I would write 6 months ago.

A year ago I decided I had enough with my current job, and made the step to head back school.  But here's the thing, when you screw up your schooling early it becomes pretty hard to get into university.

I spoke to a friend of mine who's mother is the chair of the computer science program at John Abbott College; a three year technical program.

And there it is, my first post, and more to follow.

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