My Re-Education

Job Hunting

2011-06-02T13:06:00.000-04:00

Personally I think I should be reimbursed for all the driving I have in the last few days. At the very least, for all the bus tickets I have bought over the last 2 weeks. Too many meetings, not much work getting done.

Looking for the ideal job is hard. Refusing to "settle" is one of the main goals; finding a job that suits my ideals is the goal. Large companies will not even meet people face to face unless you say exactly what they want to hear over the phone, and small companies do their best to stay afloat financially, not offering much in term of money.

But there lies the catch. Playing the corporate hype game to get a decently paying job would require settling. Settling for a culture that only sees three months in advance, where everything is expendable. Short term gain seems more important that long term stability. The hierarchy of bigger companies is also a huge a factor. The leaders of the firm are very far removed from the people actually doing the work, it can be very hard to get noticed for work done.

Smaller companies keep a close eye on their finances, which means the pay for positions available tend to be less. Especially for start ups. But the pay off is job satisfaction. The relationship with the boss is separated by the size of the conference room table. Where you are not just shown a cubicle and told to get to work, but real collaboration and interaction occurs every minute.

Interaction is necessary for a high job satisfaction rate. Where one an freely converse with their co-workers. And while the workload tends to be a little higher, the satisfaction that comes with being able to track a project from start to finish is very rewarding.

Even though start ups necessarily keep a close eye on their finances, the work culture tends to be more relaxed. No formal dress code day to day, no preset time for lunches or breaks, and a much more forgiving attitude towards needing time off. Small businesses tend to remember actual people work for them.

Finding the perfect job is the goal, but the perfect job will never be found. There will always be some trade off; less pay for more human environment, or more pay for a less interesting job.

What is a DEC

2011-05-31T14:02:00.002-04:00

It has occurred to me that the three or four readers who follow this may wonder what a D.E.C. is. Put simply, it is the best way to keep people in Quebec. Kind of. Well, mostly.

Quebec has a very odd need to be different than its neighbours. Quebec also has a serious paranoia about people leaving. Creating a different school system is the easiest way to do this. Everything done in the school system is done to keep people from evolving, intellectually and socially. At times, it feels like lines from Braveheart when the King of England is trying to rid Scotland of the Scots.

A D.E.C. is simply a pre-university degree that is useless outside of Quebec. The last year of high school and the first year of university have been combined into this useless waste called C.E.G.E.P. As a pre-university stream it is complete garbage. Resdients of Quebec have a harder time getting into schools outside the province. And never mind the language issues.

Where C.E.G.E.P. does excel is in professional training, which is different than the pre-university stream. It is three years instead of two, and can lead to decent jobs right away. But it is still not the same as getting a University degree. Far from it. In fact, most jobs I have researched have required a Bachelor of some kind. An most professional programs do not lead directly to a university program.

Three Years Later ...

2011-05-30T17:50:00.000-04:00

... I think I'm done. Three years ago I called up John Abbott College to apply for the three year Computer Science program. Which is a three year technical degree. And I was let in with arms wide open.

In the last three years, the program covered the wide spectrum of the IT industry, from Excel spreadsheets to networking to application design. If there is one down fall to the program, it would be the entire first year.

The first year started assuming no one knew anything about computers, it went so far as pointing the "ON" button at one point. But more importantly, the first year was devoted entirely to the syntax of C++. Most of th programming classes were based on command line programs. Which are essential in the learning curve, it created a huge dissconnect once we started graphical based applications. It would have made more sense to create GUI based applications using a language we are already familiar with.

It was not until the third year everything started to come together. Even then, only the surface of GUI ased applications were covered. Most of the learning was done during our stage.

3 days a week for 3 months spent in the workforce. Some people were stuck with technical support stages, while others were lucky enough to get a spot in software development. I was extremely lucky where I got placed at a small development company. In addition, I was given my own project to develop, from start to finish, in an area that was completely new.

So three years done, now it is time to start looking for a "real" job. And if anyone has a "real."

Adventures with Apex

2010-11-21T18:46:00.000-05:00

I have been trying to learn Oracle's Application Express (a.k.a. Apex). Not for my own personal pleasure, for a class, fittingly enough named Oracle Technologies. And I am still rying to find out where the express part of it comes into play. So far, after working with Perl, PHP, ASP.net (using VB for the code behind), and Flash and ActionScript 3.0, I find Apex the most confusing to work with.

Something as simple as a select list was a 3 hour nightmare. I can get more done in less time with plain html and Perl than I can with Apex. At least in Perl, I know what the code does. I wrote it. In Apex, I am constrained by the way the Apex developers have envisioned a web application.

And that's my rant on Apex.

For those wiching to tackle Apex, you may need this:

Getting Ready for Stage

2010-11-19T13:01:00.000-05:00

My last pos t was a while ago. Almost two months ago. My goal of posting something every week has been tossed out the door. Or more like tossed for me.

24 hours in a day, and only 7 days in a week feels like a cruel joke. Whoever cam up that system was obviously not balancing work, school, and an actual life. Or this person had "people" working for them. Looking forward at how much work needs to get done to finish the semester, I am trying to figure out how fit it all in, without alienating the girlfriend. There is still an Oracle application to implement (if anyone knows of a simple guide to Apex, please let me know), a shopping cart in ASP.net to finish, a mail server to install and configure, and a message board written in php to produce.

As the end of the semester gets closer, we also have to get ready for our stage (a.k.a. internship for those outside of Quebec). I have already been to two interviews. Each at very different companies (nameless companies of course, just in case).

My first interview was at a small start up. A tiny little office that barely fit the five desks. Basically a cafe that, for one reason or another, is producing all their management software in house. Probably to bring to market in the near future. Very anti corporate guys, and looking at their website, very community oriented. The more casual style of this company fits my style very much.

The second, which was self defined as a small to medium business, had a more cutting edge feel. And cutthroat. Though my interviewer was impressed by my C.V., despite the immense lack of IT experience. I felt like fumbling idiot at this one.

Neither place asked a for quick programming test, like others in my class had to perform. Both places what projects I had in progress outside of school.

Outside of school, my life is ruled by work, and a friends. And I am starting to get a feel for this industry, and while whatever skills and knowledge acquired on my own can only be beneficial, my interviewers seemed surprised how I do not live and breathe programming outside of a work/school environment.

Having a side project looks like the norm in this industry, and sleep and friends take a back seat.

Balancing Life, Universe, and Everything

2010-09-21T20:43:00.000-04:00

This has taken me quite a while to write. Too much real life stacked up in front of me while I had other things planned. A friend's 30th birthday was cut short short for me, which took away the chance to see long time good friends that I have not seen in a while. School work piled up t the point where assignments were being handed in as a bare minimum of what they could have been. And my boss seems to think I live at her beck and call during the month of September.

These last two weeks felt like one giant loop; a hazy cycle that never found its end. That is what is necessary when one decides working full time, studying full time, and having a full time social life.

The Waterfall - by Escher

Each one of those elements are necessary. Work to pay the rent, school to get a head, and friends for sanity. Too bad once all those things group together in the same week, sanity sneaks out the back door.

On that note, tonight is a night off. Assignments are done, work has not called, but a couple friends are waiting at the bar.

And the Web Moved On

2010-09-17T20:05:00.000-04:00

The World Wide Web, with all its uses, potential, and technologies, is one of the reasons I chose to enroll in computer science. Cloud based systems, and advances in web browsers, have made the internet a much more intersting.

To give an idea of how old I am, I remember a book my parents bought somewhere around 1995: Netscape 2 for dummies. This was back in the day, before Google, or even Hotmail. Netscape 2 for dummies gave a step-by-easy-step explanation of how to surf the web. Many details of that book are now long forgotten, but one phrase still sticks with me: "If it takes longer than the time it takes to brew a pot of coffee, there's something wrong with the network."

That was also the time when surfing the web was event unto itself. Everybody had a dial-up connection, and more than 2 images meant a pee break. Yahoo was the up and coming revolutionary web product, and Alta Vista and Lycos were the leading search engines.

Contrast that with now, Google reigns supreme in search and has produced a better web mail service (with a better name), if a web site has not loaded immediately after we click, we move on, and Yahoo is just barley a skeleton of what it once was.

So there we have it. For those who don't remember the internet before Google, or never experienced it, that was the internet viewed by the masses.

Later,
Mike D.

Semster Number Five

2010-09-16T19:26:00.000-04:00

Year two, semester five. What ever my teachers want me to call it, it's busy. 5 computer science classes, plus I will have to get a math class done if I want to move onto next semester. The joys of the Quebec education system never cease to amaz me.

Problem is, I don't have time for all this. There is also the reality of life where rent and electricity have get paid every month. And, my boss weems to think I live at her beck and call. That is, when I'm not in class, I'm available to work. She seems to think that all my work magically gets done when I'm in class. Which, as anyone who's been in computer science, or any other post secondary school, does not happen.

Any way, so enough of that, on to assignments that lead up to full web app.

Later,
Mike D.

p.s. Went to Rio this summer. Pics to come.

And More Hooping

2010-06-22T11:13:00.000-04:00

A good friend of mine started hooping less than a year ago. She has always been into dancing, and teaches yoga and step. Now she is trying to build up a hoop-dance side business. Her first performance got caught on video, at Studio 303 last Saturday. The sound quality is not that great, but that's what you get from a point and shoot camera. Enjoy.

The Summer Crunch

2010-06-19T16:03:00.000-04:00

Summer is packed. Now that have a social life, there's not enough time to get everything done. The unofficial start of summer was last weekend with the Grand Prix, which coincided with Francofolies, Fringe, and probably a few others that I forgot. And It only gets busier from here:

100 days is not enough, when you consider most people have to work five days a week to pay the rent. So really, an average person only gets to enjoy much less.

Take those festivals above, add in Sundays at Tams and Piknik, finding time to play around in the river, and LaRonde. That's the summer.

Now, take the festivals, and other classics mentioned, add in weddings, parties, BBQ's, and the occasional birthday, you start to run out of sleep time. And weddings take the most time.

If you happen to be part of a wedding party, a wedding turns into a minimum four day commitment (for the ladies), with the bridal shower, bachelorette party, wedding rehearsal, then the actual wedding. Guys come out on top with one less day, since there is no lame gift giving gathering. If one is required at two weddings, that's one week right there. More if it's out of town.

Take all of the above, add in work and try to fit in a few days at the beach, next thing you know it's October and carving a Turkey for Thanksgiving.

It almost makes me want to be a teacher, just for the summers.

Check Out:

Montreal & Quebec City (City Guide)

How I Came Into Hooping

2010-06-17T11:16:00.000-04:00

For the last few weeks I have been working on a website for a friend who starting her own side project. She's a fitness instructor, who teaches yoga, and found a new passion: hoop dance.

NOTE:  That's not my friennd up there, just a cool video.

On top teaching fitness at her regular day job, she is setting up her own side business focusing on hoop dance. She has already started giving beginner workshops, all advertised through word of mouth. She has also set up couple free demo days, a stage for St Jean in our town (which oddly includes me), and is taking part in the Canada Day parade, again in our small town west of Montreal. The site will go live by Monday, all that is needed now is a french translation for it.

Anyway, here are some pics, not my best ever, with more to come over the summer. Enjoy.

For those who are interested, this is what she started with:

A Wedding From Last Summer

2010-06-16T19:51:00.001-04:00

I was going through my flickr page and found these. My friend's wedding from last year. It was a simple backyard reception, after a ceremony at the botanical gardens. Enjoy.

Why I Hate Unions - Especially in Quebec

2010-06-01T12:29:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: This was written on June 1, 2010, when my union decided to stage a 4 hour strike, something no staff member, union members included, wanted to be part of. We do not support our union since they refuse explain clearly what the issues are, how they concern us, nor have they shown any sign they will try to. We were even told, since we live in Quebec, they do not have to provide an english translation for us.

I am supposed to be taking part in a walkout right now, and I do not care. The City of Montreal's White Collar Union is a pile of nonsense. Its leaders are ignorant, selfish, and misinformed.

One of the things I have been thinking about lately is what kind of work culture do I want to be part of. Since going back to school, the realization that I will one day leave my current job for a job in the tech industry is getting more clear each day. I'm not sure where that will send me, but I do know that if a union is involved, I'll be looking elsewhere.

To be fair, unions, in certain workplaces unions are necessary. The teacher's union, for example, since the Quebec government does not know how to manage an education system. Or at Wal-Mart, where unpaid overtime occurs regularly. My workplace does not need a union, nor do we want one.

I work in the recreation department for a suburb of Montreal, and we are part of the large white collar union that represents employees of the City of Montreal, and employees of its suburbs. How we became, and remained part of the union, is too long to describe here. I may post how it happened, but in the end, the department I work for, like all other departments in the city, did not have a choice at all. It was the most unfair and un-democratic method of unionization, the very ideas a union is supposed to uphold.

In my division, there are roughly 200 part-time employees, and 10 full time. The 200 part time employes are students, or people looking for a little extra money. We are treated very well by our division managers. Better than other city departments in most cities in North America. We have a unique, and favourable, relationship with our supervisors, including the division manager and the department's director. Our union would like to get in between that relationship.

Our union represents clerical staff for the city. Full time employees who are generally nice people, and do their appropriately. What happens when a union becomes involved, the union takes a life of its own. Union leaders tell us what is wrong with our working conditions. Except, where my workplace is concerned, no union rep has come around to see that our working conditions are good. The 200 student employees at my workplace are numbers to the union, to show how influential and large it is. We are an extra 200 members filling the union's bank account with some play money.

In reality, we do not care about our union. They have nothing to offer us, nor do they attempt communicate with us in our language of choice (90% of the employees are anglophone). The only time they any attempt to get our attention is when the union needs a show of numbers, and then, in a language of their choosing. They also get 1.4% of my paycheque each week, which would be better spent buying The Montreal Gazette, or The New York Sunday TImes. We are a cash grab and a numbers game.

I am supposed to at a lunchtime strike right now, unclear as to the reasons. Picketing in front of my workplace, where relationships with staff, managers, and clients are more important than an misguided organization's attempt for publicity. I refuse to show any support for my union, since they have not taken any opportunity to take us seriously. Unions will weigh heavily on any future career choice.

Apple's iPad - My Way

2010-05-31T19:39:00.000-04:00

Apple's iPad is a great example of what a forward thinking technology company can achieve. And, it has finally arrived in Canada. Actually, it took a lot less time for the iPad to reach Canada than it took the iPhone.

While there are critics of the device, no other computer manufacturer has been able to market a tablet computer to the masses. What is sad, these kinds of devices can not be brought on by surprise. The days of Steve Jobs ending a keynote with "...and one more thing..." may be losing it's impact with the recent examples of leaks about upcoming products. Yet the hype still builds.

As Apple creates the best computer operating system, designs the best notebooks and desktop, and gave a much needed kick to the mobile phone industry, it is also seeking too much control over its products. There seems to be less and less respect for developers and users, especially when its mobile devices are concerned.

For developers, it stems from the iPhone developer agreement, and the approval process for iPhone/iPod Touch applications, which will extend to the iPad. Let developers create the application they want, whether it duplicates and official Apple app or not, and let users decide. Users will chose the best application for their needs. The only criteria there should be applications is that it does not contain any malware. Apple's own applications are very intuitive to use from the beginning, yet if a developer creates an application that duplicates some functionality of an Apple application, it is usually filling in a missing link not covered by Apple.

As for users, buying an iPad, or iPhone/ipod Touch, means being locked into Apple's iTunes service. Which is far from losing its music market share. The stability and integration that comes with combining an Apple mobile device with an iMac or MacBook is huge advantage, and solves many problems with trying to sync data between mobile devices and computers. However, those mobile devices can only play certain formats, which are inconvenient if a collection already exists in a format not endorsed by Apple.

Where the iPad is concerned, it is right now a giant iPod Touch. It needs more features of a notebook. A proper file viewer, a preview application, multitasking taken to a level farther than the iPhone, and the ability to play a broader variety of video and audio formats; whether built in or via a plugin such as Perian. Those simple additions would make the iPad much more attractive. Otherwise, I will wait for the next generation.

Book Review - Starting Out With C++

2010-05-31T10:22:00.000-04:00

Starting Out with C++: From Control Structures through Objects (6th Edition), by Tony Gaddis, has been the most valuable text book I have ever bought. It is a great introduction for those just starting out with programming, and an excellent reference on the C++ programming language in general.

This text was required for Programming 1 and Programming 2, but also was my default reference for Algorithms and Data Structures before I looked elsewhere for answers.

Like most text books on programming, it starts out with a little history on the C++ language, followed by the most basic elements of a C++ console program such as data types, arithmetic operations, variable scope, and comments.
Following a basic introduction to C++, and programming in general, in depth chapters are devoted to control flow, looping, and functions. Chapters 7 and 8 focus specifically on arrays; manipulating and searching arrays. One element lacking would be more focus on 2 dimensional arrays. While they do get explained, and practice examples provided, there is no mention of using 2 dimensional arrays as function arguments. This technique came up often enough in class assignments to the point that the book felt incomplete by leaving out this topic.

Following arrays, are chapters on strings and pointers. It is logical to place strings and pointers after arrays, since understanding arrays make pointers and strings far easier to understand. Also, Tony Gaddis uses pointers frequently in the sample code from this point on.

The second half of the book presents classes, linked lists and binary trees, more real world programming techniques.

The progression of the chapters follow a logical order, with plenty of review questions through out each chapter. Each chapter ends with standard review questions, quizzes, and problems, plenty of programming challenges are provided with each chapter. A nice touch, which adds consistency through each chapter, a mini project is provided chapter 1, and with each chapter, builds the project further with each new topic covered.

The CD accompanying the book provides all the source code for each example, with further examples, an extended set of appendices, and answers to review questions.

The examples and programs in this book are provided in a platform independent manner; Windows, OSX, or Linux will find all examples work when compiled. No mention of which development software except for one line in Chapter 1 on how to compile a C++ program at the Linux command line. All the programs used and presented in this book are console programs.

For those starting out in programming, or are new to the C++ language, this book provides the best value, with an excellent mix of reference and learning material.

How to Hold Back the Future

2010-05-20T11:25:00.000-04:00

No more room in Montreal CEGEPs to teach ( via The Montreal Gazette ).

Ever since I returned to school, I have been more observant of Quebec's education system. There are many areas that make Quebec's post secondary education great, such as low tuition fees for Quebec residents at Quebec universities. The bad, and there are plenty is how the provincial government wants to decide what language people should study in after high school.

Now the Montreal Gazette is reporting that enrollment at Montreal's 3 english CEGEPs have reached the point of refusing addmission to new students, especially in science. Odd, considering anglophones are the minority in Quebec, and CEGEP is a necessary step on the way to university.

An interesting point left out of the Gazette article, was since enrollment has risen at the english CEGEPs, what was the increase in francophone applicants? The Gazette notes the problem is mostly at english CEGEPs.

It is common practice for francophones to enroll in english post secondary CEGEPs and Universities to improve their english skills. The Quebec government has been trying to limit the amount of english learned, so as to keep Quebec unique in North America.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Reasons to Self Re-Educate

2010-05-19T12:16:00.001-04:00

I work in a department that has nothing to do with computers or software development, yet the skills I have developed in the last year are maing me very critical of how business gets done. It is the kind of place where people with wrong skill set are asked to complete certain tasks.

For example, I work at a large aquatic center, with roughly 3000 individuals passing through the building each week. Most are children participating in a 30 minute swimming lesson, with a fair amount taking part in more than one lesson with a different instructor. The new project is to identify these kids so their assessment from each instructor is consistent.

The problem is, since this is a municipal operation, there other programs run by the city, such as day camps, clubs, and other organizations, all using the same database. That by itself is not the problem. The problem is there are only a select few who work for the city who know how manipulate a large database. The task of identifying kids in multiple lessons fell to a clerk with only basic computer skills, and planned by a manager who has issues organizing her e-mail in any kind of logical manner.

The poor office clerk was left using Microsoft Excel to create a list of a few hundred kids, and about 50 instructors, instead of getting an employee from the IT department, with the necessary skill set, to create a report with the desired information.

Just another where one who has no clue asks another with little skill to perform a complex task.

Semester 4 Done ... Now What?

2010-05-18T12:08:00.000-04:00

The semester is over. Finally. Most people in my class were, and still are, envious that I only had to take three classes this semester. What they did not see was, after finishing school for the day, I still had to work for five or six hours.

Semeter 4 of 6, also known as year 2 of 3, is done. In fall 2009, I took another C++ programming course, a Flash(Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium Upgrade from CS4 [Mac]) and ActionScript class, intro to databases, and a math class. This past winter, a class devoted to Linux and the BASH shell, a final C++ data structures class, and an SQL class.

Now what? My first year in Computer Science were all intro classes. Stuff that could be taught in a highschool prgramming class. Year 2 is where we started actually learning things. Case in point, from what I learned in Database 2, I was able to offer tips on how to improve some things at work. From Data Structures, I can see how applications actually store and access data.

But, I am still stuck at my job for the summer at least. Most jobs in the IT business require more years experience than I have, which would be zero, and most summer internships pay a lot less than what I earn in my current job. On top of that, with little free time on my hands (more like none), getting contacts in the IT industry here in Montreal is hard.

So now what? Update my C.V. to show I still have one more year of school left, and no IT experience.

It's Been a While

2010-04-19T14:31:00.000-04:00

It's been a few months since I last posted something, something that no writer should ever do. My last post on Jan. 20, 2010, described how I handle early morning classes. In the mean time, I have lost all free time. Once classes are finished for the day and my shift at work is done, the few hours I have at night leftover are spent with the girldfriend.

Weekends were usually lost to catching up on sleep, and finding time to head to Jay Peak whenever the conditions were decent. All that to say I have been busy these last few months, adn to day is one of the few days where I have no assignments to work on.

One of my favourite classes is Operating Systems. It of course started with a brief introduction to the Windows command line, with one assignment where we created a simple batch file. Then we moved on to Linux.

All of us have used Linux before, but mostly just on a casual basis; trying it out and comparing to Windows or OSX. I now have a new found respect and appreciation for Linux.

Sed, Grep, and Awk were the starting points of our Linux experience. Which moved to shell scripting. To date, our major scripting assignment was an archiving script, with very strict and precise rules.

The core of the script looked like:
for i in $2/*
do
     echo "cat > $i << '!EOF!'"
     cat $i
     echo "!EOF!"
done

Simple enough. The output of this script was sent to an archive file named in the parameter list.

The tricky part was catching the errors, such an empty source directory, or missing directories along the target file path. All this to say, if (and probably when) I ever have write scripts, I hope it is in Linux, since its command line tools are simple and elegant, yet much more powerful than the command prompt on Windows.

What I wish was covered in more detail, was the boot process, and how to customize how Linux boots up, or how further customize the Linux shell (in our case, we were using Bash, which seems to be the defeault on most Linux/Unix systems). We had ten minute description on Bash environment variables, but that was it.

Though I learned a lot about how powerful Linux is under the hood, it seemed like it was lacking.

UNIX(R) Shells by Example (4th Edition)

DataStructures.NoCoffee = True

2010-01-20T13:56:00.000-05:00

For the last five weeks, I was in the habit of sleeping in until noon everyday. What seems like a blessing at the end of a semester quickly becomes severely annoying, especially when a scheduled lecture is at 8:30am in a computer lab that STRICTLY forbids coffee.

Now lets be honest here. Computer science is interesting, but it is not the most thrilling experience in the world. Enter Data Structures. This will be the fourth C++ programming class that we are required to follow in CompSci at John Abbott College.

There are two sections for my class this semester, yet the college has decided to combine the two sections for this one class. The idea is to have the same teacher, and therefore more consistency, for both groups. Unfortunately there only thirty-two workstations in the lab, and thirty-four students.

On top of that possible inconvenience, the class runs three hours, from 8:30am to 11:30am, twice a week. It starts with a lecture portion then moves onto a lab section. 8:30 in the morning is too early to be thinking about abstract data types and linked lists without caffeine entering the blood stream.

The first day was basic, a review of data types, functions, and other basic programming concepts. The good news, the text (Starting Out with C++: From Control Structures through Objects (6th Edition)) from my first programming class is still valid, that will be a $70 book that was used in four classes.

Formerly Sleeping 'Till Noon

2010-01-18T19:06:00.000-05:00

After a long Christmas break, the first day back at school is always the touhgest, plus it was made annoying by a unrelated things. My last exam was on December 14, 2009, and today (January 18, 2010), after a five week break, I'm back at school.

John Abbott College, like other C.E.G.E.P.'s, have a ridiculously long Christmas break; five weeks long. Just long enough that when classes start up again, waking up at noon has already become the norm.

To make a my return to a normal school routine a little more annoying, I found out that, because I only taking three classes, I had go meet with an academic counsellor. The issue was that I was not taking enough courses to qualify as a full time student. John Abbott's policy is that a minimum of 12 hours a week marks full time status, yet they also insist on four classes. I had to meet with the counsellor to explain my case. Since I also have bills to pay, I also need to work at least 30 hours a week, especially now after Christmas. The annoying part is that there is no consistency for qualifying as full time; 12 hours or four classes, it depends who you talk to. This lead to me signing a special contract to make the exception for me to take three classes, which add up to more than 12 hours a week, which full time anyway.

My first, only class, today, was Databases 2. We have moved on from MS Access, and beginning with Oracle Databases. Our main development software will be Oracle's SQL Developer, which luckily, also comes with a Mac version.

Now that school is back in, there will be less time doing this:

(p.s. That's not me, it's just a great shot of my home hill: Jay Peak, Jay Peak's Flickr Page)

Flash Final Project

2009-12-16T15:00:00.001-05:00

I think I finaly realized the importance of planning a video game. If you have a look at my final project for my multimedia class, it looks like I did not plan it at all. The graphics are horrible, and in one spot the text is not displaying properly. Yet the logic is pretty good.

It's a blackjack (this is my favourite one) game that I created from scratch. Everything had to be completely original. I chose to inlcude card counting just to give an extra element that could make it more interesting. The orginal idea was to have a dealer, two computer controlled players, and a human controlled player.

I had a card class, a deck class, a player class, a dealer class, and basic game play all worked. Except, by the time the asignment was due, I did not have any graphics working, and all the information needed was being traced to the output window in Flash. I given an extra week to finish it, by the end of that extra week, I did have any working graphics. Which leads me to my question. Is it better to start a Flash project by making sure the animations work properly, then tackle the logic, or vice versa?

I was not even able to get a card added to the stage. Never mind he simple animation of moving it across the table to appropriate place, then have it flip to reveal the face value. I was able to get one or the other but never both. There was the flip as a motion tween o the symbol' timeline. I had intended to add a card as needed, basing each card on one symbol from the library. Then adding the necessary info for each card. Or would it have been better to create 52 (or in the case my original idea - 208) symbol's in the library; one for each card.

In the end, as you can see, it was visually a disaster. However there was enough logic behind the scenes to get at least a passing mark assignment.

Quebec's Language Non-Sense

2009-11-22T17:37:00.001-05:00

PQ members debate access to anglo CEGEPs, daycare

The Parti Québécois (PQ) is doing all it can to keep the population from progressing and improving. (Wikipedia link for the French impaired).

The way it stands now, in order to attend an english primary or secondary public school in Quebec, at least one of the child's parents must meet three basic criteria:

received their schooling in Canada,
attended a public school,
received their pirmary and secondary education in english.

The rationale for this law is to prevent the erosion of the french language in Quebec. This requires that all children whos parents do not meet these criteria, receive their scholing in french. Since the majority of Quebec's population is francophone, this is a non issue for most families. Immigrant families are subject to this law as well; children of immigrant parents must be sent to a french school, if they choose to follow the public school system.

Famiies can opt out this arrangement if they choose to send their children to a private school, since private schools are not covered by this language law. After one year of education in a private english school, children are eligable to attend a public english school. The Quebec government tried to close loophole, but was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada. This is an ngoing debate in Quebec that will not get resolved soon.

Once teenagers finish high school (at grade 11 in Quebec), they enter he world of post secondary education with 2 years at CEGEP, followed by three years at university. Here. students finally receive the choice they deserve regarding the language of education. Most students choose to follow their CEGEP studies in their mother tongue. There, however, a large amount of francophone students who choose to attend their post secondary studies in english. Sometimes because of the program they followiing, but often, they wish improve their english skills.

In word that is becoming more connected, english is beng used more as the common language. Also, with U.S. being less than 1 hour away from Montreal, Quebec's largest trading partner is also one the largest english speaking countries in the world.

This where the real non sense begins. The PQ want to restrict this choice as well, extending the language law to post secondary institutions. In effect, they want to limit Quebec's students to living and working in Quebec, by restricting their ability to function outside of Quebec. It is all name of protecting the Quebec's unique culture, and the language of the majority being the defining character of culture.

Making Cars Go Bump in the Night

2009-10-19T17:34:00.001-04:00

Finished another pleasant day at school, with one 3 hour canceled, leaving only one that started at 2:30pm. It was kind of nice being able chill wth the ladylover and watch some Californication this morning instead.

Once at school, we continued to animate a car moving around the screen. What I accomplished last week was keeping the car on the stage by cutting the speed to 0 when it hit the ed of the stage. Now we are adding obstacles, which adds a new level of fun, both programming wise, and playwise.

It's pretty easy to moniter a hit between 2 objects, but each object is surronded by a an invisible box. When Flash records a hit, it is when the two boxes overlap, but the eye, the objects are afair distance apart:

There is a trick out there to watch different coloured pixels overlap, that will take some research.

Another issue some people were having was removing a child from the stage. We created the obstacle in an array of obstacles, but removing individual elements are turning oout to be a bit of a complicated pain. Some more reasearch is required.

UPDATE: Getting this error when I try to remove a child
                    ArgumentError: Error #2025: The supplied DisplayObject must be a child of the caller.
    at flash.display::DisplayObjectContainer/removeChild()
    at DocClass/HitObject()

Here is what my code looks like:
for ( var count:int = 0; count < NUM_OBS; count++ ) {
                if ( car_mc.hitTestObject( obsArray[count] ) )
                {
                    trace("HIT!! KABOOM!!" );
                    obsArray[count].scaleX /= 2;
                    obsArray[count].scaleY /= 2;
                    //obsArray[count].play();
                    car_mc.speed = 0;
                    trace(obsArray[count].scaleX + " " + obsArray[count].scaleY);
                    if ( obsArray[count].scaleX < 0.125 )
                         removeChild( obsArray[count] );
                 }
}

Keeping in mind I am trying to manage an array of obstacles for a simple car game.

Databases - Microsoft Access

2009-10-16T11:05:00.001-04:00

Year 2 inlcudes an introduction databases. We get to cover the exciting world of Microsoft Access and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Last school year, we had an introduction to Visual Basic, and I figured that would translate well to VBA when used with Access. I was wrong.

The basic concepts behind Access are failry simple. Getting into VBA code is pretty annoying. This goes back to my preference for C and C++ syntax. VBA makes absolutely no sense to me. It's a convoluted language that has too many wierd quirks to remember. I especially do not like how VBA will automatically shift characters a couple of spaces; there is certain way I like to code, and VBA usually prevents me from doing this.

This is also another where there is no text. Also frustrating as this makes studying at home a little more difficult; having to jump between two windows is annoying. The teachers notes don't explain how things work behind the scenes in Access and VBA, so I don't truly understand what it is we are doing. I like to be able to easily look up things, instead of endless Googling hoping someone has had the exact same issue as me.