Chris Meller

It?s been a little quiet here lately. It?s kinda interesting that after blogging virtually every day for a month, and sometimes multiple times a day, I?ve somehow fallen into the pattern of once every other day. While this is probably much more distressing to me than it is to my few readers, I promise I?m going to strive to do better? Whether you really want me to or not!

In reality, it?s not like I?ve been slacking off. Well, at least not that much. After wrapping up exams last week, I switched my main focus to wrapping up design on the new layout for my Lyrics site. Thankfully, I?m about 80% (maybe a little more) done with that project, and soon I?ll be able to release the totally redesigned site and wait for people to break some of the new features I?m adding. I know this re-design has been way over due. Since I never expected this site to become public, much less for this many people to start using it, I never really made the design ?all it could be”?. With any luck, I?ll have rectified this situation by the end of the week.

My big project for this summer is still going to be Trekkies. I?ve got the entire design worked out. Now it?s just a matter of actually getting together with Drew (my partner in Trekkies crime) and getting the code banged out. Since we?ve done most of the work already, the first stages will merely be code cleanup. We?ve both learned a lot about PHP since we started working on Trekkies, so we know there are some much better ways to do things. Among other improvements, I?m adding a MySQL class that I?ve come to rely on heavily, and we?re going to re-structure the way all the pages pass data to each other.

After having looked at some of the code that runs this Wordpress blog you?re reading now, as well as some of the code behind the Mantis bug tracker and phpMyAdmin, I think I?ve decided on some better ways to maintain code and modularity in general. Since I?ve also made some incredible improvements to my standard code package (headers, footers, database support, etc.) since Trekkies stopped development last year, this should be an exciting period, and it should go by rather quickly.

After the cleanup, we?ll have to get back to the fact that I never finished the Tactical system. Thanks to MySQL classes and functions, however, this shouldn?t be nearly as big a deal as I thought it was at first. Those of you who have been waiting should definitely expect a beta by the end of the summer (that being August when schools start back).

I realize I?m getting more techie and code-related on my blog as of late, but you guys will get over it. I know there are some readers out there who will appreciate this more equal mix of topics, so I figured I?d have some fun.

I just upgraded WordPress from version 1.5 to 1.5.1 (released this morning). There shouldn’t be any ill effects, but if you happen to notice something that looked f’ed up, please either comment here or drop me an email!

Thanks!

I?ve written a couple of times lately about how I?m no longer a ?kid?. If you?re tired of hearing me talk about my pre-life crisis, then I?m sorry, but you need to move on and find something else to read?

There probably couldn?t be a better day for me to write an entry like this, really. Today, as I slowly leave my teenage years officially in the past, I take yet another psycho-analytical look at my life, as it is now, and as it shall slowly become.

As I leave behind my childhood, I look back on a flood of memories. Some good, some bad; some filled with happiness, others overflowing with sadness.

In these random flashes of my life that flow before my eyes, I see my first girlfriend, I remember our first (and only) date, and I recall how hurt I was when she actually ended it, even though there hadn?t been anything there to begin with. For the first time in what had seemed like years, I had actually cried.

I remember sunny weekends of my childhood spent at the zoo and out and about with my dad and (at times) my little brother. With those memories of grilled cheese sandwiches and pretzel sticks, honey-nut cheerios, spaghetti-o?s, superted cartoons, and care-free weekends also come their sad endings as we all returned to the harsh work-week reality that we had come from.

Also at the fore-front of my memories is the feeling of freedom and liberation when I got my first car. It served me very well for a long time, but also brings back memories of very depressing relationships and the hardships and heartaches they brought.

I remember those first few innocent crushes in middle and high school, and how the feelings some of them brought last even to today.

I remember birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, weddings, and funerals. I remember being mad at my mom for having to work all the time, and the late nights spent watching Star Trek in her bed while she was working at the hospital. I remember moving from my childhood home, back home to be closer to my mom?s family. I remember cheating on tests, my first kiss, and the first time I stole something. I also remember how guilty I felt as soon as I did it, and every time I thought about it for months after.

I remember fights with my brother, as well as the long summer days when we were finally old enough to stay home alone, spent wiling away watching stupid children?s shows on Nick and PBS. I remember wonderful teachers, as well as bullies. I remember book reports, essays, and science projects not done until the very last minute.

I remember days when my mom would take me into work with her when I?d be happier than could be for no real reason. The woman in the office next to her would pay me a quarter an hour to put things in ABC order for her ? but don?t tell anyone!

As I look back on the last 20 years of my life, and the last 5 years of which I?ve been working, it?s a huge mass of flooded images. There?s no pattern, no logic, no order to them, and I can?t turn off the flow.

I can?t stop the past from living on inside of me anymore than I can stop the future from moving on outside of me. All I can do is trudge on day after day, contributing what little I can to the world around me, and try to make sense of it all.

Here?s to life and waiting for a mid-life crisis?

Any of you who live in the Greer area (Greenville, Spartanburg, assorted insignificant towns) probably know that we’re not only parade-happy, but we also love our families enough to have festivities to acknowledge that fact.

That’s right, the Greer Family Festival happens every year on Mother’s Day weekend. They blocked off streets this morning, which is the only reason I really dislike the idea. I mean, I know this is a big deal for people around here and all, but who was the mental deficient that decided it was no big deal to shut down half of the 3rd largest intersection in town… during morning rush hour?

I’m all for family togetherness and fun (as long as it doesn’t involve me), but at some point we have to actually take into consideration all those people who CAN’T take an entire Friday off to loaf around and do nothing, and who are trying to GET THROUGH TOWN TO GET TO WORK!

On the way home this evening, it was almost as bad as trying to get home Halloween night… Cars double parked, stopped in the middle of the road, people absolutely everywhere… I really can’t take all this community gathering stuff. If DSL didn’t have such strict distance requirements, I’d move out into the middle of nowhere so i didn’t have to deal with all this traffic crap. Wait, then I’d have to deal with the whole nature thing, and that’s even less me than the traffic..

Just focus on the coming summer months, Chris, and it’ll be alright. People will be out of town on vacation, schools will be out, and all that scantly-clad sweet high school ass will be getting in your way when you’re trying to get lunch every day…

Ahh yes… The sweet sweet ass-filled silver lining. It would appear that there is a god…

I just finished moments ago with the first of my four exams this semester (I’m a slacker and a procrastinator and won’t do them until absolutely the last minute!). I decided that one by one as I finish exams, I’ll review the classes. Hopefully, should anyone else be attending Greenville Tech and need some advice on courses in the Programming or Networking departments, I’ll be of some help.

This will be an ongoing post, and I’m hoping that aggregators will realize when it’s been updated, but it’s probably a good idea to check back and see manually a couple of times through the end of the week, just to be safe.

• CPT 234 - C++ Programming I
  Instructor: Bob Whaite
  • Overall Impression:
    Overall, this was probably the class I enjoyed the most. I suppose programming is really my biggest passion, if for no other reason than the fact that my existing knowledge centers more in this area. I always hate it when I’m in a class I don’t know anything about. Every computer class I’ve ever taken, I’ve known varying degrees about already. In BASIC programming in highschool, I was already more fluent in it than the teacher was.
    
    Thankfully, PHP is heavily based on C++. Even though I’ve never done any actual application programming before, the simple similarities in loop structures, etc. was incredibly helpful. Unfortunately, this is a double-edged sword. I’ve decided that I MUCH prefer PHP to C++, mainly because of it’s simplicity. I absolutely despise variable types! For some reason, in what little bit of experimenting I’ve done, I seem to prefer C# over C++… Don’t ask me why.
  • Pros:
    Fun course. I’m a big fan of learning by doing. Having weekly (or somewhere close) coding assignments was great. Some of the assignments got a little long (7 programs is a bit much, even if they’re simple), but that goes along with the subject matter of the chapter we were covering at the time, so the instructor really isn’t to blame I suppose.
    
    One absolutely excellent thing about the instructor’s teaching method: Evaluate your own work. I love it. Every time we’d submit a coding exercise, the next day, we’d have the opportunity to review our own code, compare it against the instructor’s working code, and see what we did wrong, how we could have improved, etc. This is an absolutely brilliant method of teaching, if you ask me. Forgive me if this has been done before somewhere (everywhere?), this is my first programming class that hasn’t been taught by a total idiot.
    
    To focus more on the instructor, Bob was great in what little communication I had directly with him. I think he’s got a good thing going here (Did I mention the evaluate your own code thing? Wow!). When he made a mistake on the dates our final exam were available (2004 instead of 2005), he was appreciative and sent me a reply to my email, even though I’m sure other people noticed it before I did. I like that. Gives the student a sense of comfort, familiarity, and communication with the instructor. I just wish some tech support / customer service centers would adopt this policy more often.
    
    Also, Bob’s teaching method were quite effective. We didn’t waste a ton of time reviewing what variables were and what data types there were at the beginning of class. Instead, we just had to use them in our weekly code assignments to prove we understood them. I love this. Most of the time, I absolutely hate the boring intro crap classes focus on for weeks before actually hitting any real material.
    
    I admit I didn’t read the syllabus, so this may have been covered, but Monday when I realized that he’d had a dozen or so chapter quizzes available with no ending date, I dropped him an email. I asked him if they were required, since there was no end date, and if I could have until the end of the exam to wrap them up. Thankfully, he emailed me right back and let me know that he was considering them practice for the few unit tests we’d had. I think this is great. There’s no need to over-test. It shouldn’t take much to realize whether someone knows the material or not, particularly in a programming class.
  • Cons:
    Truly and honestly, I can’t think of a single downside to this course. As I mentioned, I dislike C++ in general, but that’s certainly not a reflection upon the course or the instructor, which were both absolutely excellent in my opinion.
  • Exam:
    32 Questions - Multiple Choice, True / False, Coding
    Time Allowed: 150 minutes
    Time Required: 67 minutes
  • Overall Score:
    



• CPT 247 - Linux Installation and Administration
  Instructor: Beau Sanders
  • Overall Impression:
    All-in-all, this was probably the easiest of my classes this semester. Not only was the teacher very reasonable (at least for the most part. I’ll get to the exception later…), but the assignments were always short and to the point. They obviously made you think and prove that you knew the material, but didn’t jump into the realm of simple memorization and recalling random facts.
  
  
  • Pros:
    Not only was the teacher very reasonable (at least for the most part. I’ll get to the exception later…), but the assignments were always short and to the point. They obviously made you think and prove that you knew the material, but didn’t jump into the realm of simple memorization and recalling random facts.
    
    Teacher also runs a website (beausanders.com) to provide easy access to school resources, class information and material, as well as news links and other useful tools. Through this website, he provides free Linux shell accounts and Apache web hosting for any students in the department that can’t provide their own machines. Very nice, even if I don’t need either.
  
  
  • Cons:
    The single complaint I have against the course came up just Monday afternoon. I was sick, and I logged in to see if there was anything I needed to make-up for the class before our exams. Well, ordinarily I log in every 2 days or so and look to see if there’s a “x assignments / quizzes due soon” notice under a class. If there is, I go and take the quiz or do the assignment. I know, probably not the smartest approach, but it’s the simplest and quickest method available. So I log in and see 12 quizzes are due soon. Apparently, the instructor had created short quizzes to go along with each chapter and hadn’t bothered to set due dates to go along with the material. As a result, I didn’t know about them until the day they were due. Since each was an hour long, I didn’t have anywhere near enough time to complete them all, much less take my time.
    
    Suspecting a reasonable person, I emailed my instructor and explained the situation, just as I did here. I told him that since I’d done extraordinarily well on the unit tests (all As, 2 of which were 100+), it was obvious I knew the material, and I simply needed more time to complete these assignments, since they’d snuck up on me here at the very end. I told him that I had no problem completing them, I simply needed another day or two to do it in. I was met with a rather rude response that I’d had 15 weeks to complete them in, and that they were due at the end of the day. Not the best move, and for that you lose a point. I understand rules and regulations that are in place and come from over your head, but let’s be a little reasonable here. I saw nothing unreasonable about my request, and no reason it couldn’t have been granted.
  
  
  • Exam:
    67 Questions - Multiple Choice, True / False, Matching, Fill-in-the-Blank
    Time Allowed: 100 minutes
    Time Required: 47 minutes
  
  
  • Overall Score:
    
  
  
  
  


• CPT 267 - Computer User Support
  Instructor: Cheryl Gaines
  • Overall Impression:
    This was the most boring computer-related class I think I have ever taken. The entire jist of it was “be nice to customers, that’s why you’re employed”. Ok, so maybe it was a little more detailed than that, but honestly, an entire class about this was probably excessive.
  
  
  • Pros:
    If you can find one, I’d love to have it pointed out…
  
  
  • Cons:
    Absolutely boring. Uses a lot of “buzz words” in the text (which is NOT a Thomson publication like most of the other great textbooks I’ve used). The nature of the material makes it inherently repetitive and memorization-focused. Unfortunately, this isn’t nearly as easy as you’d think, because of all the buzz words that are similar. I have a feeling a better textbook (if one exists) would probably help a great deal with this.
  
  
  • Exam:
    160 Questions - Multiple Choice, True / False
    Time Allowed: 140 minutes
    Time Required: 65 minutes
  
  
  • Overall Score:
    
  
  
  
  


• IST 220 - Data Communications (Network+)
  Instructor: Cheryl Gaines
  • Overall Impression:
    Very informative course. I hope I never see the OSI Model ever EVER again… Who needs to rehash that kind of data on a daily basis anyway? Do big-business networking guys actually go around randomly talking about the differences between the Physical and the Data Link layers of the OSI Model? If they do, there’s medication to help fix that…
    
    In all seriousness though, it was a very informative course. I can definitely see how it would get you prepared for any number of networking certifications or jobs, and from what I’ve been told by friends, it basically clears you for the first half of the CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Administrator) certification test.
  
  
  • Pros:
    As I said, informative. Aside from the OSI Model, it was fairly interesting as well. The textbook (which IS a Thomson publication), contained some very helpful charts. I think I’m going to actually keep this textbook for future reference, rather than selling it back to the school. From charts about T# / DS# speeds to the different classifications of 802.x numbers in IEEE standards, it was very helpful for my daily life as well as my school work.
  
  
  • Cons:
    OSI Model, OSI Model, OSI Model. Aside from that, not much. Just like the last class, since there’s nothing you can really *do* in the class, it’s inherently memorization-intensive, which is a big down side for any supposedly educational program. The tests and homework assignments reflected this, if a bit excessively (I think a dozen questions about which layer of the OSI model things fit in to is a bit excessive).
  
  
  • Exam:
    115 Questions - Multiple Choice, True / False
    Time Allowed: 120 minutes
    Time Required: 73 minutes
  
  
  • Overall Score: