BIT320 Remix — classactivities

December 16, 2005

Class Idea - Continued

Topics:

Like Pink Footsie and Shady Waters, I definitely feel that there should be more “techie” classes at the business school. Personally, my experience with the BIT (once called CIS) program has been rather dissappointing. Coming into college, I wanted to do a CIS/MIS major, and pursue a career along those lines. I was deciding b/w the MIS program at Carnegie Mellon and the BIT Program here at the U of M. However, when I started with the business school here, I realized that there were not enough BIT classes or they were not as techie as I would like some of them to be, in order to get a solid CIS degree. Right now, I have enough classes to get a ” BIT concentration” but I feel that my knowledge is really not as good or thorough as some students graduating from other CIS programs. Realizing this last semester, I decided to pursue another concentration in Finance which also changed my career path.

I really hope that the business school adds more BIT classes, and make a strong BIT curriculum to match programs in schools like Wharton or CMU.

In supriya, 12/16/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

December 10, 2005

Let ‘Em Know

Topics:

So here were are at the end of semester. We’ve struggled through learning some nifty new languages, tackling some tough problems, and conquered the blogsphere. And there are many take-aways we can take-away as Kevin, JB, and SuperMatt have pointed out. But there’s another area that I’d like to look at, WordPress.

For me, using WordPress has become a transparent aspect of this class: it has it’s quirks, and I’ve just learned to use them and work around them. But remember, the version we’re using is still very early. So I’m wondering, now that we have a pretty intimate knowledge of the basic workings of WordPress, would the WordPress people be interested in knowing this? I can’t remember if Bud worked out a deal with them or not for us to pilot test this program, or if it is just open to anyone who wants to give it a shot. But I say, if you’ve got a few moments and feel strongly about it, shoot WordPress an e-mail and let them know your impressions of their software. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.

In Matt's Musings, 12/10/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

December 9, 2005

YAY for SQL and the X-Team!

Topics:

Working on our project, and making forms to enter new data in the database reminded me of the days when I used HTML to store data, and how cumbersome the whole proces was!

HTML forms collect data, but they do not usually process it. In order for a form to be processed, it must go somewhere. To enable this you need to include two attributes in the

tag, namely METHOD and ACTION.There are essentially four basic ways to process a form with HTML:

it the form to a program stored on a web server.
  • Process the form with JavaScript.
  • Send the form to a database.
  • E-mail the results of the form using mailto.

    • I actually used the email method when I was managing a database a few summers ago. Though its the easiest to set up, it produces results in a very crude format and sends you an email everytime a new data entry is made in the table. I had to then manually input the data in the database which was very laborious and time consuming. Moreover, it was annoying to get so many emails every day.

    But SQL has come to our rescue now. YAY! I love how the insert statements automatically insert the data and one does not have to deal with a gazillion emails every day. I wish I could have taken this class earlier and learned about the X-Team which would have saved me many hours at my summer job two years ago. The class project is definitely a great way to bring together all that we have learned in class, and do it ourselves from scratch to get a hands-on-experience. I am excited to use the X-Team members the next time I have to manage a database so that I don’t have to sit there and make manual entries from HTML forms. 

    In supriya, 12/09/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

    December 5, 2005

    Change Directory the XPath & Linux Way

    Topics:

    PinkFootsie and Shady recently had a converation about the CD function in Linux. Shady gave some excellent advice to PinkFootsie:

    “Some help might be found on this site that Blogstar found in response to a post Tiger Lilly.”

     

    While reading Chapter 5: XPath Espresso, in the XSLT For Dummies book, they mention that the XPath commands mimic directory structure navigation commands. Things such as “..” represent the parent, while “.” represents self, and children can be accessed by “/child/child”..etc. I hadn’t made this connection until the until the book pointed it out. I think this is pretty cool and will help me remember the XPath commands now that they don’t seem so arbitrary. So just like in linux, to go up a directory you type “cd ..”, in XPath to access the parent you type “..”. Pretty cool if you ask me.

    In Matt's Musings, 12/05/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

    A Perfect Remix

    Topics:

    I’m extremely impressed with how far the class has come in the blogsphere this semester. From what I’ve been able to gather, like me, most of the class was pretty new to the blog world. Most of us either had never blogged before, at least not regularly. But after a slow start while we all tested the water, we seem to all have hit a stride now.

    Our proficiency in blogging became apparent to me while catching up on the back-log of blogs I had missed. Not only was it an informative read, but it was an entertaining read as well. We seem to have struck a happy medium within the content confines of the class - it’s not boring, it’s not all business, but it’s not fluffy/trival either. But that’s just my opinion. What do you all think? I’m particularly curious as to Bud’s reaction on how we as a class have done. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’d love to see this remix continue and grow once the class is over.

    In Matt's Musings, 12/05/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

    November 15, 2005

    BITtersweet Blogging

    Topics:

    I agree with Zee completely.

    “The longer you delay, the harder it is to keep up with the blogging. At the same time,I love getting a chance to write about things I care about. Between school and friends, I never have time to gather my thoughts and actually have an opinion on certain issues. Blogging makes me analyze articles in more detail and think of issues I probably wouldn’t have noticed before.”

    Blogging has been both simultaneously rewarding and challenging. I ago about how much though I’ve enjoyed blogging. At this point, I most certainly intened to keep blogging. I’ve found myself at so many times this semester saying, “I really want to blog about that.” But since it’s not in the scope of this class, I don’t. So I definitely want to start…but I wonder if the hurdle of knowing I won’t have a dedicated audience when I start my new blog will be too much and I’ll stop after a while?

    In Matt's Musings, 11/15/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

    November 6, 2005

    Blogging and Bookmarking

    Topics:

    On the first day of class, I made this document available. It answers all the questions we have about grading blogs and bookmarks. In answer to Lindsay’s question,

    Also, are we expected to post/bookmark over Thanksgiving? I usually procrastinate and mass bookmark and post at the end of the week and I will be out of town with family so I am not sure that I will have time. Also, there tends to be a lack of stuff to post about when we only have one class that week. And finally, when does this posting and bookmarking end?

    I will excuse you from blogging over Thanksgiving.

    However, note this. I am grading blogging on frequency and quality. Grading is competitive, as with all aspects of the class. My other observation is that people who blog more, do better in other aspects of the course. This is probably because they are more engaged in actively trying to master the material.

    In Blogonautic Solutions, 11/06/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

    Blog Count

    Topics:

    So if you can’t tell by my massive number of posts…sorry…I’m playing blog catch-up at the moment.  However, I have a question about blog counts.  Can we count the first “test blog post” we did in the first class in our total blog count?  Or do we have to subtract 1 from the total count?  Also, this is probably a question for Bud, but when this is all said and done, how many blog posts should we have? 

    In Matt's Musings, 11/06/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

    November 4, 2005

    What’s a BIND to do?

    Topics:

    A couple posts back, Blogstar asks the question

    “when is it appropriate to use bind params and what purpose does it actually serve.”

     

    As far as I can tell, a bind parameter is a way to limit and select only a certain set of records from our database.  So when we ran queries that asked for specific records (e.g. query1.no_style.xsql), we used a bind paramter.  In this query, we were looking for homeowners whose age = 32; so we bound on age.  Then we substituted a “?” in the SQL query where we’d normally have the binding condition. 

    NORMAL :  SELECT customer, salary, age, zip FROM house WHERE age = ‘32′;  
    XSQL     :  SELECT customer, salary, age, zip FROM house WHERE age = ?;

    So when the XSQL query is run, the default value we inputed for the bind (32) is substituted for the “?”. 
    However, the question mark also serves as a variable and can be defined on the fly as Bud showed us in class. 

    Dynamic Declaration:  query1.no_style.xsql age=50

    I hope that makes sense and helps clear up some things.  On an interesting side note, while searching Google with the term “XSQL bind parameters”, the first result are the fall 2004 BIT320 lecture notes.  Interesting huh?

    In Matt's Musings, 11/04/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

    November 1, 2005

    To spellcheck or not to spellcheck

    Topics:

    A while back, Pink Footsie lamented over not being able to spell check in her blog. I agree, it’s a pain in the rear to not have spell check on the Wordpress Client (interesting on how reliant we’ve become on spell check isn’t it?) However, I found a article about ways to go about fixing it. Granted, none of them are great fixes and can be a bit of a hassle, it still gives you options. And variety’s the spice of life right?

    Which brings me to my next point: I’ve noticed that I’ve had some typos/misspellings in my other posts. However, I’ve been reluctant to fix them. Mainly because I remember Bud saying sometime back in the begining of all this blogging madness that editing a post caused it to be reposted to the remix. Is this still true or has the problem been fixed? The fate of all grammatically and correctly spelled posts rest on the answer.

    In Matt's Musings, 11/01/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

    What time is it? Blog time!

    Topics:

    So I found myself thinking over the past week, “Gee, you’re a bit behind on your blogging. You know, asking some project questions would be a great way to catch back up.” Which seemed like a good idea to me, as well as Supriya, Pink Footsie, and JB.

    However, I found myself hesitating to do so. And I wondered why. And I realized that it was the non-immediate nature of blogging that bothered me. I’m more of a last minute worker so when I do have questions, I usually don’t want to wait for an answer. So it seemed to me to be not an efficient or pleasing way to get answers if I have to post a question and then hope that someone will answer in a timely fashion (i.e. in the next half hour). I know that this time expectation is not reasonable, so it was preferable for me to hunt down the answer in my book or online even though I know someone would eventually answer it…Shady Waters points out:

    “Oh may I always find my answers on this blog, oh wise ones!”

    This points out the temporal quality of blogs which I never had really considered before. Has anyone else run into this issue?

    In Matt's Musings, 11/01/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

    October 3, 2005

    My blogs are plagued with errors !!!!

    Topics:

    Looks like my blogs are plagued with errors.

    First, it won’t let me publish my blogs and give me errors regarding the headers. Aga also complained having the same problem a few days back. Surprisingly, the blog still posts in spite of the error.

    Now, as I am trying to create links— instead of making my text a hyperlink, it just inserts the actual link (for eg. www.cnn.com) in place of my text.

    Anyone having the same problem? Know how to deal with it?

    In supriya, 10/03/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

    September 12, 2005

    Taking the big plunge

    Topics:

    jbartko makes some interesting observations:

    Seven days ago, I had absolutely no answers to the above questions. Today, I can give you a vague response to most of them. But I still feel as though I have a lot to learn this semester. I don’t usually find myself so lost on terminology during the first week of class. I have never claimed to be an expert on the Internet, but I definitely never realized how much there is about it that I have never even heard of.

    Hang in there, Jenny, the class is about exploring new topics. You get points for making blog posts like this one where you lay out the issues as you see them and start to try to address them.

    In Blogonautic Solutions, 09/12/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

    September 8, 2005

    Class remixing is starting

    Topics:

    Students have delicious accounts. They have blog accounts. They are rearing to go. Can’t wait.

    You can read how to do this here.

    In Blogonautic Solutions, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

    My first blog post

    Topics:

    This is my first post for the BIT 320 class. We are starting class remixing. I have my own delicious account.

    I am excited for this to take off!!!

    For instructions on creating a blog, click here.

    In supriya, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

    The first remix

    Topics:

    This is my first post in the BIT320 class blog. Accounts were created today, and fun was had by all. This should be interesting. So sit back, relax, and enjoy.

    Here are the instructions I followed to do this.

    In Matt's Musings, 09/08/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati