Week 13: Data Store/ Entity Cross References, PDPs, Therapy

So we got ran through how to cross reference Entity diagrams and data stores, this week, which may or may not have bored 70% of the class. We got told about our assignments a little more, and that this would be included in the exam next year. By the sounds of it, there's a lot of stuff to revise for, and do for the Abraham Heights Hotel assignment study.

There was a PCDS tutorial about Personal Development Portfolios, too, where we were introduced to websites like LinkedIn. It's a really good idea to have a LinkedIn profile because of how versatile they can be; you could be looking for a drummer for a band you're starting, and you could look for them on LinkedIn, and the same applies to any industry - council work, acting, production, civil engineering, and the list goes on.

I've also been for a talk with a local counselling group called Steps2Change to see if I need help with anxiety and other troubles (which I feel uncomfortable talking about on this social platform), but those problems do exist and I will need to combat them.

I still have no idea, truly, what I want to do at the end of this entire course.

Week 12: Web Page Design, Number Systems Assignment and some SaD Stuff

There seems to have been a bit of confusion regarding which weeks we are doing what activity, so this post is probably going to be as big as King Kong's banana budget.

Dynamic Web & Media had us laying out web pages all pretty and stuff, making sure that paragraphs and line breaks and pictures and navigation bars are in the right place and that the page doesn't look like it just came out of a typewriter that can print images of cats and vegetables.
The main idea is to use a CSS file (Cascasding Style Sheet) to keep things flowing; you can use it to space out your paragraphs and style tables how you want.
For example: You could make all of your tables have a thick border and colour that border lime green. This is possible in CSS, and it makes your HTML code a lot easier to read (you don't have to dredge through a huge <...> tag to see what's happening - just open your CSS file and it's all there).

We got our first number systems assignment. I have Christmas coming up; birds to eat, mountains of food to climb and conquer, I don't need another birden on my mind.

Logicalisation. Ah yes. Lovely. It sounds hard, but we've just got to write down what the system's doing at the minute and then write down what we think is ought to be doing when we design the final database. Thinking about what the system should do is a bit of a brain tease, but it's no sudoku, so it shouldn't be too hard!

Week 11: LOOP DE LOOP, SaD Interviews, Web Accessibility

This week we did some more array work, but this time the lecturer threw in some loops.
A loop (sometimes called a for loop) is a way of making a subroutine run continuously until either a specified parameter is met or the user ends the subroutine or entire program. We were told that in a few weeks we would need to find a way to implement loops and arrays in to a mock assignment.
The class didn't seem too enthused at the prospect of a mock assignment, considering we'll have a few assignments coming our way soon enough.

This week we also sat down and interviewed the manager of the Abraham Heights Hotel. Well... It wasn't actually the manager, per se, just a member of the teaching staff acting out the role of the manager. Nick and I interviewed the manager whilst Jasmine and Scott interviewed the receptionist. We asked questions such as, 'How do you think the system could be improved in a specific area?', and, 'Do you have a budget in mind for the new system?'.
Me and Nick ran a bit over time and Steve was ushering us to finish, but I think we came away with all of the information that we needed in order to complete the assignment.

Dynamic Web & Media had us looking at how to make a website accessible to a wide variety of audiences. A website should be intuitive and easy to use anyway, however sometimes you need to account for those who may be red/green colour blind and those who have dyslexia.
To someone with red/green colour blindness, a red page will appear a shade of green, thus making it incredibly difficult for them to make out which parts are supposed to be red and which parts are actually supposed to be green.

RG Colour blind (left) - Original image (right)

The photo above (source: http://www.washington.edu/news/archive/images/20090916_pid52016_aid52015_colormarket_w400.jpg) details what life is like through the eyes of someone with red/green colour blindness. Anything that is red to someone who does not have the blindness is green to someone who is (as you probably figured).