Java Fundamentals

Today was another day of copying notes from a powerpoint presentation. We learned the essentials before becoming a java programmer such as the datatypes, subprograms (procedural) and methods. Apparently, the file name must be identical to the class name. I guess I have to change a few things. There are 3 types of methods: CAM (constructors, accessors and mutators). I made an acronym to remember the order. There are several rules to follow when writing code in Java so we have to be familiar with them to be professional programmers.

Computing Day at York University

I was able to experience University life during the course of the full day at York University Keele Campus. I have been in this area several times but never actually visited York University. I was planning on taking the TTC but my dad was kind enough to drop me as it was snowing in the morning.

I arrived a few minutes after 9 am and we registered in at the Computer Science and Engineering Department building. We waited in the lobby for the rest of the class to arrive. The first presentation began at 10 am describing what is computer science and whether it has an intellectual dimension or is it only about Technology? It was presented by Jeff Edmonds in a big lecture hall.

Following this presentation, we headed to Hall C for a presentation by the York University Rover team. It was intriguing with their mind, body, soul concept and I was impressed with their achievements in the University Challenges from the previous years were they placed 1st rank. My eyes were glued to their design and I was picturing it on the red terrain of Mars. However, it was time to leave.

The next presentation was a hands-on experience where we were attacking our partner's computer as a trojan virus. I really enjoyed it and at the same time was shocked to see the several things a virus could do to your computer. I was getting hungry as it was 15 minutes past 12 and luckily it was lunch time.

We had until 1:30 to finish our lunches. This was like any other lunch except I decided to buy a medium hot chocolate at Tim Hortons. My friends and I were chatting about the possibility of winning the roll up to win contest. We headed back to the lobby as it was almost 1:30.

The final presentation was gruesome and interesting at the same time. The speaker, Burton Ma showed us several methods of surgery with the help of computers and how successful they are becoming in preventing deaths after this new addition. I finished drinking my hot chocolate and as I rolled up the cup, it was highlighted in red so I thought it said please play again. However, I read gagnez in french and I definitely knew that meant "WIN". I won a donut and I was delighted. Overall, this trip was not only educational but at the same time, extremely enjoyable. The donut made my day even luckier.

Cayley Waterloo Math Contest

People prepare for things in advance so they are able to show their talent at their best on the day of. That was the case with me. I had completed several Waterloo Math Contests under the Cayley category for practice. Today was the day of the contest where I was being evaluated on my skills! I was nervous at first but I was confident when I began as I had been doing math contests every year. Part A was easy as it was testing skills taught in the curriculum. Part B was applying the skills with real-life situations. Part C was the real tough one to conquer! Luckily, I had plenty of time to work on the questions. I finished the questions with 30 seconds left in the hour. I remembered that I had skipped a question so I quickly entered in the answer and let out a big sigh when the timer started beeping! I now await for the results.

Terminology Trivia!

Today's class is a significant lesson in familiarizing ourselves with the terminology used in programming. It is very essential to know these terms on our fingertips as we use them to communicate with other programmers. Some of the vocabulary was a recap from last year such as programmer and source code. We learned new terms such as executable, identifiers, comments and classes. Comments and keywords can be identified easily in a program as they are colour-coded. The lesson was executed with the standard software of Powerpoint which is a useful method in my opinion as it helps students learn better by understanding the key concepts. I learned a lot of new information about classes, objects, constructors and methods. Some people might understand better by comparing it with Turing but I like to stick to Java. I didn't have anything to program so I tried a contest question from DWITE. It was a challenging problem but I was able to solve it!

Write once, run anywhere.

Today was the 1st day of learning to write code using Java. We installed Java Development Kit (JDK 6.0) as our compiler and DrJava to write the source code. Mr.Arkin provided us with an introduction to "The Development Process" with the steps required to program with Java. There is a total of four steps beginning with writing the algorithm and then coding the algorithm in programming language, followed by compiling it in byte code and ending it with converting byte code into binary code by a Java Virtual Machine. A rough outline on how programs are written were shown using Classes which is a factory for making objects. We learned several rules of naming classes, and the syntax for writing comments. A new term was introduced to me: "delimiter". Since I have programmed using Java, most of the information was familiar to me. I was able to finish the HelloWorld Class and I hope to code advanced programs in the near future!

Final day for the Super-power Assignment!

I am delighted and tensed for the same reason. Yay, it is the last day for the project but Nay, we don't have any more periods to work on it. I had completed my project already but for some reason, my link to my super-power autobiography assignment was not working. I was frustrated. I hope to get it to fixed as soon as possible. The peer-marking database has to be fixed by Mr.Arkin before we submit our marks. I had to get my partner's co-ordinates so I can communicate with her on the long weeked. I am overjoyed that we get a break but I need this time to finish my submission. I aim to finish it earlier so I can enjoy the rest of my weekend!

Lists...

Today was a recap on lists from last year's HTML unit. I was able to recognize unordered and ordered lists as they were familiar in code and I have used it previously. However, I learned about definition lists and the code for it. This list makes it easier if you are making a vocabulary list for yourself. I decided to use a list in my super-power assignment but I have not decided which one. We were given few tips for our project about underlining and emphasis. We were reminded about the special character entities and the credits must be grammatically correct. I noted down a few points on my checklist so I can make sure I have them in the end. I am continuing to add external links, but this time it must be embedded. Hopefully, this project will be concluded soon.

Images and Anchors

Images and Anchors are similar that they both should be "in-line" elements which must appear in a "box": paragraph, list or table. Many students thought that these terms were different. Another new fact that we learned when writing the code for images was that we must specify the source, alternative text, width  and height. All of these attributes must also appear in quotation marks which many of us forgot to do. I also had to go back to change my code in a few places because I forgot to add in the anchors. Today, I searched for all my images that are corresponding to my topic but I was having a hard time to find a relevant background for my website. I hope to finish it for homework!

Blog Notes!

Today, as we checked our blogs in class, we noticed that we received comments. They were from Mr. Arkin and he complimented on my success in validation and being live on the web. During today’s lesson, we received a few suggestions on how to improve the overall outcome of the blog with minor changes to thinks such as spell-check, grammar, capitalization and colour contrast. I was also shown how to change the date of posting using the post options which really helped me in arranging the posts in chronological order. What more can I say about the superpower assignment than continuous work on making sure all requirements are met. Hopefully, I can get a peer to edit my project as soon as possible. I am excited that we are going to start Java soon in class. I was also looking forward to writing the Canadian Computing Contest this year but it seems like I have a lot on my shoulders. I look forward to more people replying to my posts.

Hard Work is the key!

At the beginning of Friday, February 10th's class, we just confirmed a few things on our agenda. We listened to some music in studio 218. We were notified about the upcoming Waterloo Computing Contest. A link with some information about University of Toronto was also provided. Many were delighted to hear about the new web designing course which is going to be introduced in the upcoming year. All class, I was working hard on the project and clarifying my doubts as much as possible with Mr. Arkin. It seems like there is still a lot more to do regarding the project however it is validated on the web!

Introduction to Cascading Style Sheets

Today, we were on our best behaviour as we had guests from the Toronto District School Board visit our classroom. Simultaneously, we were deeply engaged in the lesson about formatting using Cascading Style Sheets. We learned about the rules of selectors and declaration. We were able to look at a sample program and analyze its elements. There were certain exceptions to the different ways of writing the code to formatting. Finally, I read the Word Processing Guidelines to make sure I didn't miss anything. For homework, I am still continuing to work on my project and trying to follow all the rules.

Live on the Web!

February 9th, 2011 was a successful day as I was finally able to connect to the FTP server. I was delighted to have posted my website live on the World Wide Web at last. It was a remarkable feeling within me. During class, we were able to track through directories and comprehend the parent-child relationship. To get a better understanding, we looked at Victoria Windsor's homepage's structure in the directories. To assist with my superpower assignment, I was able to use Validation Man's page guidelines. Additionally, I recalled my memory about absolute and relative addresses from last year's HTML project. I am continuing to work on my website by reading through the page mechanics on Cascading Style Sheets.

FTP connecting to server?

Today was a busy day with the gallery of choices in the morning and with shortened periods. Several problems were occurring with connecting to the main server in British Columbia. This evening, we figured out the solution to one of the problems with the wrong host name. However, that doesn't end all problems. Hopefully, we successfully can upload the file onto the server tomorrow. We are continuing with our website and the superpower assignment and validating both web pages. A lot of progress is being made on the page but still more to do! Today, both my pages were validated so now I can focus on the content rather than the formatting. Since we are back to a regular schedule tomorrow, I hope to complete more of the task in class. That's all for now!

HTML Validating complete!

Today, we completed our HTML validation. The terms client and server were clearly distinguished as client being software which requires service and server offers the service. We were notified about our excursion to York University computing on February 25, 2011. I can't wait to go and explore the university and learn the different methods they approach when computing. Changes were made in directory naming from website to your own name. We created links to our blogs so our fellow peers may view them as well. I read a couple of them and they all seemed very interesting. Finally, we were trusted in remembering the password for our File Transfer Protocol folder. It seemed like there was a lot shown to us today in terms of organizing our assignments but once you frequently use them, it gets better with practice. I have managed to understand some of the basic coding for css and hope to accomplish a lot in tomorrow's class with my assignment. There's always more awaiting in the world of programming!

Em-dash, En-dash, Hyphen...

During Friday's class, we learned the difference between HTML and CSS. Also, we were taught about special character entities such as quotes, apostrophes, non-breaking space, em-dash, en-dash and hyphen. The following content elements will assist when we are working on our superpower autobiography assignment. As homework, I have been able to experiment in writing code to create a validated web page. With lots of extra practice from last year's web site assignment, it was not too difficult. Writing content and formatting the page is time-consuming but worthwhile in the end at the outcome of the web page. A lot of knowledge has been gained from today's lesson.

Welcome to ICS Semester 2!

Today, we were introduced to our class wiki and our curriculum on touque.ca. The daily log was also presented to us to provide us with our homework for each day. We learned about the usage of the dropbox and definitions for a few terms such as file, directory and root. We were requested to create a folder with sub-directories to keep our assignments organized on our home drive. Finally, the words empty elements and container were taught as an introduction to the upcoming assignment. I was able to create a dropbox, a blogger account, overview the superpower assignment and read the policies on the class website with my parents. Today's class really gave an opportunity for the students to view various methods of gathering information if any circumstance of forgetting or misplacing homework occurs. These methods help students to become responsible and organized.