It occurred to me, having set up this blog, gallery and forum software on my webspace, that I could have my project be a web based application. Theoretically, I have unlimited MySQL databases available on my hosting plan and currently I am using 3. Add to that the fact that I’m using less than a tenth of my hosting space and about 5% of my monthly bandwidth usage (and that’s with a moderately active fansite hosted)… it’s looking like it could be an interesting idea.
Month: October 2005
The Top Ten Blog Design Mistakes
Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes – Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox
Number two on the list is certainly something I agree with. I have my photo on the about page of this blog, so that my supervisor might be able to recognise me, and associate me with my project.
As for number ten, I only have this blog hosted on my own space because it’s not so important for all my friends to read it – it doesn’t really say what’s going on in my life. At least in my own mind, it makes it a “work” blog rather than a “play” blog and helps to ensure that the x4 labs results at uvu content is at least vaguely on topic.
BBC NEWS | Magazine | Can fingerprints wear away?
BBC NEWS | Magazine | Can fingerprints wear away?
If the letters and texture of my keyboard keys wear down within 6 months of getting it, then I think I can probably assume that my fingerprints are in no better shape. 😀
BBC NEWS | Magazine | Bang blast
BBC NEWS | Magazine | Bang blast
If I found any one of my blogs (aside from perhaps the fictional character roleplaying ones) covered in adverts about bleach… I would be more likely to buy some other brand. I’ve become very attached to my blogs over the years and on the whole, they’re very much a personal thing.
I put my diary online because I tend to lose paper diaries. I use security functions to keep the more private stuff private, but as when I look at my blog, I see all the entries at once, even advertising on an entry that just had the results from an online quiz on would feel intrusive.
It’s interesting to think how a blog, which pretty much anyone can read and is mostly publish publically, can be thought of as private.
Project Proposal!
My project proposal is all done and handed in. It’s not really as detailed as I would have liked, but as I don’t really have a clue what kind of detail I could put in… there’s not much I can do about it. Most of it was written last week, but the last 3 days have been taken up by going home and being distracted by food and techsupport for my parents.
On the plus side, delayed trains means that I have discover that my laptop can still access the wireless network in the department. I can see lunch being used to investigate more into the design and implementation of my project.
Tomorrow, I will go and see if my supervisor has the papers he promised last week… and I think I will start looking into the search engine half of the project.
Time to crack open the software engineering books
Most of my project proposal is written up from the notes that I have, and I’ve been trying to think where I put the notebook I was using towards the end of the summer term. All I need to do now is look over my software engineering notes to be able to plan my development timetable (or at least include the right stuff to do in it!)
Other than that, been thinking on my project more and making notes on various ideas that pop into my head.
This terms modules are more interesting that I thought they’d be. Databases 2 will certainly come in handy for my project and it’s surprisingly not boring. Compilers & Languages is cool and occassionally funny. Virtual Reality is fairly interesting too. Haven’t had the chance to do very much there, as we’ve just had the one 2 hour lecture so far, which was mostly introducing VR and some of the basics. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s lecture as I’ll get the chance to start using VRML to build things. 😀
What else?
Oh. Commercial programming has been interesting, some of the speakers have been really good. Not sure how I’ll be able to apply it to my project, but we’ll see.
More sidebar items
I gave up on getting any of the wordpress plugins I found to work. I figure that it’s probably easier to just stick with what I know… and that’s spacking rss feeds into webpages. 😀
heh. Most of my personal site is entirely generated using rss – I found that I was terrible at updating websites, especially ones about me, but using feeds from various online journals/blogs I keep and bookmark sites, it made it a lot easier to have current content online.
The sidebar on this blog not only now has links to relevant sites I’ve looked at recently, but I managed to sort out a feed of the music that I’m listening to as well. I do like rss. It is tempting to change my project entirely into something that keeps track of people but the rss trails they leave… but I suspect it may already have been done and it’s a bit late to change tack now. heh.
Mindmap
I found the mindmap I made for my project idea, using a tool at Mayomi.com.
Things to do
Took a look at the provisional dates for project work on the website and noticed that the deadline for project proposals is 10th October.
…that’s not very far away. So, I’m going to have to do work on that and more reading in the meantime to really flesh out the proposal. Should probably have a word with my supervisor too, which… will be tomorrow. Must remember to sign up for a time slot.