As part of my masters degree in University College Dublin, we undertook a group project which focused on building a technology product. I’m very proud about how we ran the project, so I’d like to give an overview of it here! The product is a technology news application, which personalised your news feed based on your interests. I like to think of it as Facebook meets Techmeme meets your favourite RSS news feeds!
As part of my undergradute thesis, I found a template (for LyX) to ease the pain of formatting a thesis in LaTeX. Making it look just right to me was very important. If your are writing a thesis, perhaps you feel the same way? If so, read on… While doing my first undergraduate thesis in Computer Science, I found a template used for a Computer Science thesis in NUI Maynooth (a university in Ireland).
I’ve recently decided to further my education by applying for a Masters in Computer Science at University College Dublin. It’s very different from a traditional masters course in that it is very much focused on industry, the term the University uses is “Negotiated Learning”. It was a colleague of mine that introduced me to it, I was not even aware that there was what I would call ’non-strict masters’ (that is not a set-in-stone syllabus/research direction).
It has been a whirlwind four years, but this day marks the cessation of my full-time education for my honours degree. It is an overwhelming feeling of relief, joy, sadness and all of the emotions you feel when leaving an institution that has been a huge part of my life, if only for four short years. The best part of my course has been without doubt, the friends for life I have made.
For my final year project, I have done a web application on the concept of replacing traditional web applications. I picked an area I was deeply interested in, smart phones. I am an avid iPhone user and I have bought Android phones also, they are great devices I can’t imagine not having now that they are here. As part of my thesis I touched on the old way to develop apps, using Symbian C++ or J2ME and we’ve come a long, long way since then.
Wow… what a weird feeling, I have a degree under my belt. Three years, many friends and a lot of hard work later! The degree itself was based on my father’s business Grogan Burner Services, and trying to solve a real world problem of using Excel spreadsheets. We used Python, Google App Engine and a lot of Javascript to create a modern, sleek Customer Relationship Management system. All the code is open source, under GPLv3.
This is a 3rd Graphics project we presented as a group for Computer Science. I’d like to thank Mark and James, my team members, for all their hard work! The subject of Bauhaus was previously discussed in my graphical representation of a 3D chess set. The music is courtesy of Jamendo, and is free ;) Enjoy it the video! Update: Also noticed Mark has a nice post on it also
One of our projects this semester is to make a Bauhaus Chess set in a program called 3DS Max (created by Autodesk). 3DS Max is a modeling and animation tool built specifically for creating 3D representations and models. Being a lover of Open Source, when we we’re told although Blender was considered, it fell a bit short for some reason, so we had to use 3DS Max. 3DS Max is not bad to use, some of the tools are nice if your not an arty type (like me) and prefer more technical and structured things.
Some people make new years resolutions about eating healthier, exercising more etc. I find that boring, who doesn’t want to be healthier? So I am making a list of technology resolutions: Learn C in XCode on a Mac Make an awesome CRM program for College degree (Python, Google App Engine) Learn Vim and Emacs bindings, using them for code Learn to use Git, possibly mercurial Learn some Obj-C with Cocoa Learn some C++ with Qt Learn Python +Tcl/tk Learn more about the design of Linux kernel and study some of it’s code Do Sysadmin stuff on my server on Linode; like setting upSendmail,IRCServers and other stuff If I have time, investigate CakePHP, Django, maybe Ruby (on Rails?
As part of Computer Science you do a couple of general modules which are general in nature about computing; but I think that just reflects the broad use of IT in every part of society today. As things go digital or are created digitally; understanding of this concept is vital; that is where Web Multimedia comes in. For my first project of this second year; I had to do a movie made of stills with custom sound effects.
I have got a place in a 4 year Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Computing, or more commonly known as Computer Science (or comp sci as I am lazy and like to abbreviate). This means I might be blogging slightly less sometimes, but it should be a hell of a lot more interesting and I promise to keep my posts not too technical as I have up to this point.
Just a quick post on Google Sketch UP for Mac (also available for Windows), it is a very nice application. I drew my Engineering project (Leaving Certificate) on it, to see if it was easy enough for a novice (Read: Me) to mess around and get something functional out of it. Most people have heard of Computer Aided Design, but usually the applications are expensive to say the least. Not so with Google Sketchup, it is totally free and can import some of the most popular 3D drawing formats.
I have ordered and I am expecting delivery of my brand new Apple MacBook (or BlackBook as some call it)! It will be a Black, 2Ghz Core Duo, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB HDD (5400 RPM) MacBook, complete with a remote, Bluetooth 2 and Wifi functionality. Not mention cool applications such as iSight built in Camera, Front Row ( a media center) and Spotlight search technology. It cost me close to €2.