Week 12

I can't believe it's almost over, it's like a huge chapter of my university life is over. Lets hope that the video can capture the excitement, good times, hard times, hard work and fun that was IE this year. I'm really going to miss it i think. Really looking forward to getting it over and done with too.

Sorry about the audio in the wind.

I've been up to now (2:30am) doing blog, i have to wait for it to upload now, it should be ready by the morning.




It's been a pleasure to work with such amazing people thoughout uni and especially in IE. I will never forget it.

Thanks to everyone, stay in contact.

Mid-semester Break

Week 11

Yeah so this is going to be a text blog this week because my computer at home died.

Yes it is true i cannot manage my system effectively, but i do blame microsoft for all the problems, i'm pretty sure this shouldn't happen.

I was trying to install movie maker beta, so that i could do my video blog better, possibly, how ironic is it that i can't do a vlog at all now. anyways, during the installation it hung at like 86% for like half an hour, so i was like, f*ck this i'm going to run it again, so i canceled. It seemed to finish the installation just without the components, so i was like sweet, i'll just run the installer again and it should work. So i did, the installation ran to 100% and i closed it, and everything seemed to be sweet. But movie maker looked the same, so i restarted hoping that the changes would be made on restart, oh how wrong i was. I got the the windows home login screen, which does nothing for me, because i am the only user and have no password, and it just hangs there, forever. So i restart again, hoping that i can do safe mode or something, no i can't, it says i'm missing a windows file! A windows file, HOW????? What was playing with windows files, how did windows allow anything to delete it? Surely it would run if the file was not in the kernel, but it must be, so how the fudge does that file get deleted if it's in the kernel? Freaking weird, so i spent about 4 hours yesterday trying to repair it with the windows CD, to no avail, getting blue screens of death here and there and then getting the same problems i was having previously. GRRRRRRR.

I have backed up some of my stuff, i took the HDD out of the computer and attached it to elli's (my sister's) computer to back some up, but she has like no free space, so i'll try to just reinstall windows next, hopefully it won't hurt my current files. I'm going to do some research and see if there is a nicer way to fix it, but i'm pretty pissed off. I mean it's fair enough that when i use a beta that it wrecks some things, but this is a bit too crap for my liking. If i get scared i might backup almost everything on Alex's hard-drive and just do a fresh installation, that probably would be nice anyways, my computer would run extra fast again, but would be a pain in the ass.

But for now it's uni computers for me. It ruins my routine not having my home computer, normally i read the news or check my mail/fb whilst having my breaky, but i couldn't, it was like there was a massive hole in my life. To make things worse, it's week 11 now, how the devil am i meant to do work if my computer is broken at home, that means i need to come in to uni at like every opportunity if i wanna get work done. At least i will get fit from cycling so much, lol. Yes i know jake, you walk to uni and it takes ages, but i get my heart racing doing 150km/h down balaclava road, dodging trams and on-coming traffic alike.

IE!!!!! studentweb is playing up as you might have gathered from V. It's a bit of a pain, i think that the index.html got deleted from the root of the dir, so now when you go to http://studentweb.infotech.monash.edu.au/students/team13
it asks for login info, which is just wrong, but all the wiki and php works if you go to the direct links, so i'll probably be in charge of fixing that up lol.

Again with testing, it's being a bit of a pain as i'm still a bit chicken shite to test anything that isn't properly finished yet. And the coders keep saying, 2 more days, 2 more days. So i have no idea when this is going to get done, i keep delaying and delaying, soon it's going to need to be done, i'm waiting to get some pressure put on me for that, when they tell me to test something, then i'll do it. I'm not too optimistic about much coding being done during the mid semester because V has uni games for tap (touch).

Freaking wanker V made me come to uni today, monday, (i know i was going to come anyways) so that i could give him the parking permit, but he isn't here, i take it he is touching people and that's why he isn't here, but that's just unacceptable.

I'm a tiny bit worried about documentation because of the coding progress and that alex has a huge workload for php in web 2 so who knows what's going to happen there.

We had a group meeting about the expo this week, we have started the planning process, getting quotes and stuff for it. Trying to figure out how much we are willing to spend too. I think we have some interesting idea, i'll keep you in the dark about them, so that they come as a massive grade giving suprise, lol. We have also started getting quotes for printing our final docs i believe, i think some of the group members want copies of the docs, i personally couldn't care less about having the paper ones, but that's just me, i live in the digital ages and work in the IT industry, i don't believe in paper, not to mention that it costs money and the only value you get out of it is it taking up space on you shelve.

I guess we are still on track for IE, but i just keep wondering if they are going to end up using our system, they are still changing specs on us and we are having to say no to them about them, i don't really get home they sign off on the minutes and the spec and they still want to change things, it's like they have explained things and then decided that they are wrong, it's wack. It isn't scope creep, it's just changing the spec way to late in the waterfall, i mean we have already designed the whole system around the initial specs, and changed a few things to suit their needs, but we have to draw the line at week 11, i'm certain. Freaking annoying though, because our system is so important to the functioning of the business and used by idiots, if it doesn't work how they require they just won't use it and then we haven't really achieved anything for them, which is a shame. I think that we have done an awesome job, just wish that we had all the business rules earlier, and put our foot down more.

Anyways end rant.
Get well, PC.

I still feel like this (bellow) is my computer, the one on the bottom of the cart.


lol, this ad is clearly false, but funny. Macs completely have cryptic error messages, like "an error has ocured" at least on PC you get an error number or a meaningful message that you can look up the answer to. This is the best sum up of my frustration at macs:




till next week, bye

Week 10

This week i tried doing quick capture in youtube, but it didn't work, so here is the crappy product i created this week

needless to say that i am using gVideo after all this youtube stupidity over the last 2 weeks.

Week 9

Week 8

Week 7

Week 6

Week 5

Blogger has a new interface on the dashboard, interesting. Another video blog here. Please do enjoy.

Week 4

Week 3

This week is el crapo. Have to make test data for the database, but the db design keeps changing and i have to keep changing the test data. V can't even seem to get the what he is thinking in to the design. I have got like 2 to the power of a billion emails today from him and it's annoying for him and for me.

did the Open day thingo, i was on the student panel with the loverly alex and peter and the interviews dave, peter and jake. It was actually quite satisfying doing something for monash. Sort of marketing for them, something that i actually believe in. Not like when i promotted hawthorn memberships, grrr that was bad. Good thing i'm a bad promoter and didn't get any referals. Anyways christina was more than accomodating enough which made the day that much better. The deal sweetener of all the freebee and the loverly colourful balloons which now carress the celing of Ms. Alex do add to the warm feeling i received from the day.

Moving on to those things IE. IE has been going really well. The test data is all done now (to some degree, it's not a large set of test data), and the database seems to be working perfectly so that's definitely a bonus. I even made time in my busy schedule to get some PHP under my belt. It was supprisingly easy, i was shocked that i could just do stuff and it worked. I must be good at remembering that kind of stuff. The MySQL queries that I made look pretty unlike Vs and the fact that i'm doing a 3rd year database unit this semester deffo helps with that.

I do love PHP though, shhh... don't tell anyone. It's really nice sometimes to do some coding, and i think that that is only the case when you haven't coded in a while. So i will try to keep my coding to a minium. V is better at it anyways, although i am pretty quick at basic things.

My fingers are cold, my fingers are like never cold, even my toes are cold, maybe i should turn on the heater, maybe at 22:11 on a sunday night i shouldn't really be turning on the heating when i haven't had it on already. I'm just about to go to bed, i don't need all that extra heat, my bed will provide ample heating.

Never mind the heating situation, i need to focus on the industrial experience stuffnessability. WE are going well i think. We still have problems with our inability to meet with the client. We still haven't got all the business rules sorted out or the way that all the interfaces are ging to work and interact with one another.

I would like to cap off this week with a gmail chat convo w/ the darling and charming alex.
me: i think i'm hard of hearing at the moment

i think i'm getting a cold or something

Alex: why?

me: another weird symptom that i'm having is with my memory

i say something and then just afterwards i forget i've said it

so weird

i think i'm hard of hearing at the moment

i think i'm getting a cold or something

lol

Alex: ummm ....

i think you had to be there

That's all for this week, keep it classy blogoverse!

Week 2

POD asked asked us to answer a few questions and it could enter us in to the competition for a job interview. OOOOOOOHHHHH! well i consent for the job interview you can post my content where ever you like, i mean that's kind of the point of some of the questions, privacy, but we will get to that.

Why blog as a student?

Blogging is seen to be the undertaking of geeks and those with many of their friends far away, but it can be a useful reflection tool and can aid learning. Students often begrudgingly undertake blogging mainly because they are being forced to by an academic, but i think some student's really do cherish the opportunity to express themselves both to their tutor and to others if they wish.

Students will often find themselves saying things that they would not normally say to tutors and lectures in face to face sessions, which is both dangerous and a blessing. These thoughts that the students have while reflecting on the work they are doing, do help them, whether they like it or not. Reflection is prove in psychology to help people's development, both of expression and of what they are reflecting on [citation needed]. Furthermore, they may say something that they have never thought of before whilst ranting on in their blog, which could optimize their process in the subject, in the university or beyond.

Students also have a chance to vent their frustrations, which again could be dangerous, but by and large is harmless and just gets the anger off their chest and then they should be more able to undertake in learning more effectively because they aren't as angry about a stupid tutor, or a daft assignment, or the exorbitant cost of parking.

What are the costs and benefits?

COSTS:
Time: It takes ages to write a good blog, and if you are writing frequently that time multiplies out a lot. The time it takes could be used actually studying on something else.
People finding out what you really think: people tend to show their discuss a lot in student blogs, at least in the ones i read, and it is possible that the person that is the object of the dislike could find out about the dislike and get offended. This is even possible if they are restricted in viewing the blog, someone who is no restricted could email the content or print it out. This could be dangerous for the blogger's career at the university and also insult some people.
Privacy: There are lots of concerns on who can read blogs, there is no standard for who is and who is not allowed to view them. How personal are they? A blogger could easily have their privacy breached and not know it. The nature of the internet is such that it encourages redundant information, people want control over their thoughts, see intellectual property lawsuits.
Some students don't like it: Some students would rather be given an assignment than write a blog, maybe this is because they struggle to open up, they just don't like writing about themselves or any other reason. Many people would prefer just not to do them, and some do!

BENEFITS:
Venting: students get a chance to vent their spleen about what ever they like, and this has a hole bunch of benefits, such as relief, comfort and the fact they get it off their chest and don't have it burning in side of them.
Efficiency: writing a blog may seem like a waste of time for some but they underestimate the importance on reelecting on what they have done. If they look back on what they have done they can think of ways they could have done it better, that means that the next time they do it they will do it better. The blogging experience encourages them to rethink what they have done and thus, re-engineer their processes.
Remembering: If you write down what you have done, you are more likely to remember it. Remember wrote learning in school (i don't, they stopped doing that when i went to school) (maybe you don't remember because you weren't good at it), well it worked, it was boring and repetitive, but it works. Making people go over things again makes them remember it, it's a proven thing, you can ask any text book and they will agree. Remembering what they did could come in handy on the exam, who knows??
Cost: Well blogging is cheap, it doesn't cost the university anything, really (other than internet and paying for someone to read them), so that's an upside. Other learning activities cost much more than blogging, such as assignments and tutorial and their associated preparation.

Does it help your learning, how?

As mentioned above there are costs and benefits to blogs, but undoubtedly in the vast majority of cases it does aid learning. The real question is whether the time could be better spent doing a different learning activity.

The real problem is time vs learning. Is the time spent while blogging worth it for the learning that is done. Can the same amount of learning be done quicker by another method? I think so, but they all cost more money, i think tutorial work adds more practical understanding of the subject and vastly aids the development of the student. But the type of knowledge they gain is different. So i think blogging should be combined with a wide range of other activities. It is important to note that everyone learns differently, especially with the mixture of students from around the globe at the university. So blogging is a very good complimentary tool to conventional university lecture/tutorial structure.

What “rules” apply to blogging?

NONE! There is no formal set of rules set up for blogging yet. Perhaps, i should make some...
1. don't talk about blogging
2. don't talk about blogging
3. don't talk about blogging

sorry about the fight club reference. I honestly think there should not be rules about blogging, why should there be. If somebody wants to say something they should be able to say it. It's all about the free speech, i think that the only free speech that should be restricted is people who talk against free speech (note: that's a joke).

What is fair and appropriate language and content?

I think if they are willing to write it then it should be okay. As long as the blogger is aware of what the implications are of their content it should be okay. Obviously normal laws must apply, ie: pornography because they could get in trouble with that. The general university rules are probably the best guide for what is unacceptable and acceptable behavior. I don't agree with a lot of them but everyone has signed up to them already so they should abide by them.

this is starting to sound confusing, i think, which is the great thing about blogging, it's informal and i don't have to delete anything i write i can just apologize for it. But the real point is that if you wouldn't say it to the people who you are making the blog viewable to their face maybe you should think twice about saying it in the blog. Although it must be said that the stuff that isn't normally said face to face is the best thing about blogs, how they are free to say what they like in a wild west kind of way, minus the sheriff.

For example, is it OK to slag off about poor lecturers, lecturing?

Of course, just like in real life you can go up to somebody and say "damn that was a boring class today, what is on about" it could be private between mates. Although in cyberspace things can get passed around and you can get in trouble for something you said either in jest or in private. But really, this could happen in real life too, the lecture could overhear your conversation and could get in trouble.

In conclusion, blogging is good, it aids learning, it is cheap and the risks about privacy and the lawless nature of the blogosphere are outweighed by the benefits of ranting.

Semester 2 - Week 1

Yes, so i have done my part of the test plan so i was pretty much done w/ IE for the week once i did that. Was looking for other things to do mostly in other subjects so i didn't have to worry about them anymore. I really should have done my blog sooner instead of looking for more work.

Apparently i'm in much better shape than other ppl. This is very weird for me, i'm used to being very tired, but i'm note, i'm just surprised by how well i am doing, which is good.

Have a client meeting on tuesday, which should be a good chance to go through the interfaces and get sign off on the FRS.

Everything seems to be going a bit too well, it's like too good, like something is going to go really wrong.

V is a lazy git, he still isn't here and we need him, WE NEED TO CODE!

for another week,
Luke

Week 12 - Semester 1 Summary

OMG I dislike university. JAVA java java, all day every day. It's the only thing where you can understand it and not be able to do it. Configuring this mo-fo and finding that 1 error that is stopping the whole thing from working is a bitch.

needless to say that i haven't done a peep of IE this week and do not plan on it. maybe on the weekend, but that will even be pushing it.

This is meant to be a summary blog of how i feel the semester has gone, i don't think i can say everything about it because it's not over yet, and we still have to do design spec which we're planning on doing next week.

4/5 of our team members do java and that pretty much rules our any other work this week. It's so dumb that they have given us so little time effectively to do the assignment because we still had to do tut. exercises until last week. grrr.... damn time consuming, good for nothing unit, i don't want to program.

anyways this semester...
i think it has gone pretty well, the only thing that has been crap is other units impeding on this one. I think that when we spent the time on the working we got work done and to quite a high standard if i do say so myself. We are working well in the team and are roles are pretty well defined and we are able to know what we have to do to get the job done.

Now i think i'll go through the team members and talk about how i think they went.

V: Really enthusiastic at the beginning but that wanned. High quality of contribution and timely delivery of inputs. Important member of the team for design stage and implementation. He failed to see the importance of some of the analysis things that we did, but none the less did provide useful use case descriptions. Continuously fails to comply with standards and governance for attire, and i whole hearted disagree with. Never late, but can be self centered at times.

Vish: Out of the blocks slowly, we didn't really know what to do with him, so we didn't do much with him. We put him to good work in the analysis phase working on the work flows and really getting to grips with the system. He did several drafts in client meetings which was welcomed both by the team and by the client. Very useful for document writing although he struggles with our template and I don't think that he really understands word as much as we do. It is frustrating to change his stuff to fit the template, which i normally end up doing, but it's better that he has done the work though.

Alex: Very useful at notetaking and chairing meetings. Her understanding of the current system is not probably eclipsed by anyone in strike and the proposed system better than the client. She is very good at proof reading, which is very useful for both me and pokey for which english is our 3rd language, after leetish and java (not really). Her analysis skills are second to none, although she struggles to be confident enough to push herself to do more, which she is most likely capable.

Pokey: Project management expert. Emails were flooding in in the first few weeks, which was a poon. We got over that and we got fowarding working on strikesolutions@gmail.com email address so that he didn't have to loggin for us to get email. good PM, laid back but organised. pushy when needed, and also relaxed when needed as well. Good choice for PM although i tend to run the putting together of the doc, but he allocates me that job and he also assigns sections of the document for people to do, rather democratically which is a good style of leadership. he is open to lots of ideas and is easy to please and a great PM to work with, i would love to have him as a boss in the real world. All that being said he occasionally lets the team down, i'm thinking of incidences such as the document handing in problems, the graphics drivers on his laptop not ready for presentations and going away so that i was PM (although that wasn't really a bad thing), I appreciated the opportunity.

Me: I think i have worked consistently and to a relatively high quality all semester. I have been in charge of signing off on the quality of the documents before printing and i guarantee you that so far they have all been 99.99% correct, which i am very pleased about. i have played my part in the team well, especially in my role to put documents together. I am a bit of an all rounder so i think i will be helping everyone out over the course of the project. I think i lacked a little bit of understanding for the system at the start but quickly gained understanding after a few more meetings. I am troubled to find that different members of the team have understood the system in different ways, which is good, but also could prove challenging when trying to design the system. The main problem with me is that i am a bit arrogant and only want to do things my way sometimes, a bit anal you might say, which is probably good for a quality manager. Probably haven't done enough for the design spec as of yet too, but who has?

Week 11

My week can be summarized very simply. It was just like melbourne's shocking performance.

here is an article from the interwebtron, substitute the word "melbourne" for "luke" and then you will have an exact representation of how my week was.

MELBOURNE coach Dean Bailey says today’s 76-point defeat at the hands of Adelaide was a “step back” for his club after the round seven win over Fremantle.

Bailey kept the players in an unusually long team meeting after the match to emphasise the “two or three things that really let us down” – and it will be back to the training track for the Demons to work on their skills and decision-making.

“For me, it always gets back to the ability to execute a skill,” Bailey said after the match.

“Today, I reckon we took a step back. We probably fell back into a pattern we had before the Fremantle game.

“Our skills today and decision-making were really poor at times. We didn’t move the ball as well as we would have liked.

“And against the Crows here, they really make you pay.”

Bailey said the Demons were “playing in patches”, which was clearly not good enough at AFL level.

“I thought we started OK … (but then) they kicked two goals in the last minute of the first quarter which was disappointing. The second quarter, they got away from us, and from then on with the mistakes we made, they really hurt us.

“I was expecting us to use the ball better today, but we went back into our shells a little bit.

“There are signs in there, small snippets of the game where you can say we actually played reasonably well, but you can’t do that against a good club.

“You’ve got to play well and be competitive for longer than what we have been, and when we’re not competitive and not using the ball well teams are unfortunately scoring heavily against us.”

Bailey praised the efforts of Clint Bartram, who tagged Andrew McLeod and held him to just 12 touches, and also saw further good signs from Austin Wonaeamirri and Cale Morton, who kicked three goals and set up a couple more.

“He’s a work in progress (Morton), but he’s doing some things that would suggest he’s a good decision-maker and he’s going to be a very good player for us.

“I though Bartram’s job on McLeod and (James) McDonald’s job on (Tyson) Edwards, they stuck to their guns pretty well and they probably broke even or might have just pinched the match-up.

“We were happy with those two, but not enough done by everyone else, and the game’s about 22 contributors.”

Client meeting was good, some technical issues in the presentation, but that was okay in the end. Pokey made a pretty good presentation and he was fairly happy i think and so were the client.

Interfaces, alex and pokey are in charge of that and got some good work done on that on sunday.

We spent some time doing some ERD stuff with V that we are still fleshing out. The meeting room is pretty good for that type of stuff. Other units are really biting my balls at the moment. Programming is a poon, a big poon that won't gain you access to it's enterprise architecture.

We have done a fair amount towards the next doc, put i'm not expecting anything amazing to be done this week because of other assignments.

I really cbf with java especially, not to meantion that i actually do other units and IE and work. Freaking wankers making me work at 150% when i have worked at 110% for most of semester.

Week 10

coming off a massive win last weekend, i was in quite a good mood this week. I needed to be, the FRS was due this week. Many struggles to get work done and get everyone's work together.

It was my job to put everybody's work that they had done together. Formatting as always was an issue. Trying to make all the use case descriptions be similar and get them in the right order was not challenging as much as time consuming.

We stormed like the communists at the end of a month to meet their quota. It was all done by friday morning, all printed and pretty. Double sided *save the trees*! Was pretty good to get it all over and done with so that i could crack on with other assignments. It's not like i don't have about 20 million other assignments to do.

Went to the hall of fame tribue match at the 'G. JUUUUUUUDDDDD! Such a good inside player.... lol. There were fights in the crowd, a mexican wave and a guy who was fondling and kissing the girl who he was with and she didn't seem to be all that in to it and he seemed plastered more than a wall in Venice, lol.

Furthermore i don't have time to blog anymore, i've got assignments to do man.

OH I failed to meantion that i won blog of the week, thanks to everyone that voted for me. Thank you god, i love you, talk to you soon, stay well... and to my mother who has always been there for me when times get tough. To little Jimmy Chou who struggled through the Asian oppression at my primary school, i wish you all the luck in the world.

Blogging end

Week 9

Week 9, the week i win blog of the week. That's right i am going to be very bloggalitious. The way to win blog of the week is very complex and is done in a democratic way, and as we know the people don't always chose the right winner, ie: George W. Bush. So I appeal to all blog reading judges to assess my blog on its merits and also just give me blog of the week because i will ask you so nicely...

Please award me blog of the week!

If i lose i'm not going to be able to deal with myself, because this is something that i set my mind to do at the very start of semester. I will be completely distraught if i do not win this week. It won't be losing by it won't be winning either. There are many ways to get blog of the week; hard work (blogging really well every week), sudden extremely good blog (me) and sympathy (you write a blog about a really sad thing that happened to you). I think only the first should be awarded, but still... i want to win lol. It's not like i've blogged badly all year, and i have blogs for every week so far including the non-teaching week. None were too brief, i think all of them were on topic and to the point.

Furthermore, i put in paragraphs to make it easier to read. I don't make awful amounts of spelling and grammatical mistakes (thanks to Firefox dictionary), i hope, it should be a joy to read my blog. I wonder if anyone even will read this if it isn't very long. I mean the length is going to be the first thing that the managers see, and if it is short it wouldn't matter how powerful the content Jake would probably go to another blog and make sure he is protected against rick rolls.


Anyways i should probably talk about IE. This week is my week! I am the manger of the project, amazingly know as the Acting Project Manager as Pokey is away for the week with his beloved girlfriend and possibly fiance Mel who by all accounts is great and they decided to go have a romantic weekend in some mountain range that's near the poke's residence. All the best to them. I get the power over the masses this week, and boy how i'm not going to use it. I'm planning on just being a caretaker, not do anything dramatic and just make sure the ship is pointing in the right direction, not ordering a new ship and sailing it through the Suez canal on a stormy night.

We had a client meeting on Monday and as per usual we went for 2 hours plus plus. We had to change rooms again which is becoming a pain in the bung whole to tell you the truth. The lollies there are pretty good, and tim tams, oh yeah and the orange juice. I'm so glad they have them because without them i would struggle to concentrate for the full 2 plus hours. We had Hazel come in so that we could try and streamline the timesheet process but making sure that we don't leave anything out of the system. Thank god we did this, we have brought all those timsheets down to about 3 timesheets and a few claim forms.

A problem with the client meeting was Gerald, he was a senile old man who seems to have no idea about what we are trying to do with the system and he just seemed to disagree with things that Hazel and David were saying that were actually right. He also was talking over other people and staring at a member of our group so that they had to pay attention to him, it was really quite frustrating when he was doing it. He wasn't even invited, he just showed up and sat down and started talking. I think he was mainly there for the tim tams, considering that Hazel and David had commented on that and then Gerald said "Where are the tim tams?" about three times. He was really getting in the way of the progress of the meeting.

Hazel was really helpful, she seems to be a big fan of computers. She commented that she loves the idea that uses cannot screw up the calculations for hours and other stuff. We went through the proposed new system inputs for the 3 new timsheet templates and what fields needed to be included in the system and how the system would then process the fields. I know it is pretty late to still be doing analysis but I think due to the complexities of the system that time is needed and finally we are really getting somewhere in the meetings.

I find it very good that Alex leads the meeting instead of the project manager. She does a really good job and can really hold the client's attention, I'm not saying that I cannot, but i think it's easier if the person who is taking notes and is in change of communicating with the client primarily is the one to head the meeting. Also, it's useful that she clarifies points so as to make better notes and better minutes, especially without the recording that pokey normally provides for us.

I think we have a pretty good understanding of the system now and are in a good place to do the functional req. spec. but i think there are a few issues remaining that I think we need to iron out with the client and that will be done in the next scheduled meeting on monday. Where pokey will be back to knock me off my pedestal as Acting Project Manager. I really like how that looks in caps. it really looks powerful and offical, like Brigadier General or Chief Executive Officer.

I'm really enjoying this project as it is so hands on and real. I'm really growing to like the client now and the people who represent them in our meetings.

I have the job now to do a huge amounts of use case descriptions and diagrams, fun fun fun. i'm doing all the ones where the actor is admin. eek, so many to do. I think i should be done by the end of the weekend, i think we might have to meet sunday night or monday early morning to iron some stuff out though. That might be hard because pokey is going to be snowed under work when he gets back, which is understandable.

We are having problems with time management and especially with PASE, the program we use to record when we work on IE. Some team members are very behind in their logging of their time they are spending doing IE. The number of hours we are spending on this unit are huge I think I get close to doing the actual 12 hours a week thing in this unit which is really hard when i am doing 3 other units and working part time as well. I also have a social life (kinda) and an obsession with football and melbourne fc which needs to be quenched every weekend. I really wish sometimes that i didn't make supercoach, it's always waiting there for me to look at. I also curse facebook and to a lesser extend digg and news.google cos they are the main things i waste my time on. Imagine if i wasted my time actually working on stuff. that would be insane.

This blog is getting on a bit, i'm really pretty impressed with myself, i'm not even nearly running out of material yet.

I am actually annoyed at this use case thing. I made a template for the use cases and asked V if it was okay, then sent an email out to all my teammates telling them that i made it and attached the template to the email. I then proceeded to make some use case descriptions and then a day latter everyone gets back to me telling me that the template could be better and what they said that could be better was something that i asked V if it needed to be like that and that was the System and actor columns in the normal flow of events segment of the use case description table. It's going to be really annoying to go back and change the use cases I have done and replace it with the revised template that is still yet to be fully agreed upon.

I think that I am going to have a busy weekend this weekend, and next weekend for that matter. Systems integration is due week 12, enterprise prog every week and an end of year assignment too and i have to do a presentation in strategy and management, which will most definitely be a joy as I am doing it with this wanker I know, i can't remember his name correctly... it's something like curry, no... maybe it's tarri... no... varri, no.... oh yeah Varun Wijewoowoo.

I got forwarding to work in strikesolutions email to all the team members besides pokey because he uses outlook to check that email anyways and forward it to everyone in outlook. This process is now done by gmail, which is much faster, more efficient and saves pokey having to log in to his outlook for us to get strikesolutions email, now it should be instantaneous.

The team wiki is going really well, the team all know how to use it and we regularly use it to upload files that are relevant to the whole group. It's really useful really, the only problem is that the url is pretty long. if i make a link to it i'm sure that jake will think it is a rick roll. I actually want to attempt to rick roll jake again, but i'm afraid if i don't succeed i'll just get pod instead and everyone knows that's easy.

I should probably put some pictures in here, otherwise this is just going to look like text and text and nothing but the text so help me god.

That reminds me of the lecture this week, "The key, the whole key, and nothing but the key, so help me Codd." - Janet. The lecture was pretty entertaining, especially her throws in to the crowd with mintiest. I do wish that her animation/video did work, she seemed so disappointed when it did not work.

Jake commented on my crushed shirt during managers meeting... it wasn't even that crushed and i was going to be wearing a jacket the whole time. And POD was complaining about my button down collar not being buttoned down.

Week 8

This week was really challenging because there was a lot of other work that needed to be done as well as two client meetings. I attended the first client meeting and we spent most of the meeting going through the time sheets took about twenty million hours.

Unfortunately, i was unable to complete my java work cos i'm shit. V is so much better than me, even though i keep telling him he isn't. I'm about to get up and go get him a lemonade. Be back soon...

Obviously V is hijacking my blog. He was trying to convince me to go get him a lemonade from the caulfield plaza. The problem with that plan is that the machine is probably empty. This plan is further flawed by the fact i cannot be bothered to go get lemonade. Disappointing some might claim, i say, logical and lazy.

Back to IE then. Other work is getting the better of me some of the time. i am slightly struggling with the work load and get to grips with this heavily complicated system that they want us to implement.

We are trying to get them to simplify their time sheet system, but they are full of disagreements and hot air. That's really the only other thing, other than the other work we are doing that is stopping us from making progress on this.

Week 7

hey there blog world.

Client meeting today. I look so effing good. owww raaiight.

We handed in standards and governance again instead of handing in business case, lol. That was definitely pokey's fault man, such a wanker project manager that guy lol.

Apparently i am not fit to be deputy project manager, there has been a coup! Apparently alex is more well suited to the job as client liaison. This is actually relevant because pokey is going away. I feel a little less valued within the group after this display of affection.

The client meeting was very informative, but i'm not all that sure that is was that productive. We still can't really decide what we want to do with the system. we want to do what the client wants and we also want to do what is the right solution IT-wise. Jake is really pushing for us to do this proper system with full on digital signatures. Pretty interesting place that able head office, with carers there as well. It really made me feel that this actually was a charity and that what we are doing could in some way help these people.

Luke pocock is the best. We had a skype meeting he was there first one there. We lead the meeting very well, as well. Vish had technical issues and was using a mobile held up to pockey's mic and speakers for half the time. Was a pretty good meeting but it was hard to try and get points across well because of the problems of not having face to face contact for meetings, but all in all i think it went well. V, alex and I were at mine to do the meeting, to A) save bandwidth and B) because i had a good mic and speakers setup and they only had headsets.

We are meeting on sunday night to have a nice good old thrash out on this stuff before the client meeting on monday, which i am attending, i think i am attending the rest of the client meetings as we all need to know what is happening with the system and i think the client is much more comfortable with us now too.

the client meet and great was a royal waste of time in my opinion, i was sick and could not be bothered communicating with many people, i tried to talk to a few clients and other groups but I really wasn't up for it to be honest.

WHY DO I SUPPORT MELBOURNE!!!!!!?????????????!!!!!!!!!!! it's soooo depressing. I hate it when we lose to Carlton.

Week 6

week 6 already, wow.

Business case is due this week, we put all the sections together then asked for comments from jake. I think it was pretty good all in all, i did the exec. summary and recommendation along with the external risks.

the wiki is working quite well actually, i think every1 is getting the hang of the wiki, which i'm really happy about because i'm a wiki nerd.

i really can;t be bothered blogging today, which i know isn't really very productive when writing a blog, but u know, that's life.

really focusing down on this functional req. spec. now, really trying to drill the clients to give us the information we need to make the document, and in the end make the system. without these details that we won't we really are up shite creek sans a paddle.

client meeting on monday should be interesting, it's at Able in camberwell. we will have to put up w/ vish's driving to get there. how i value my life, please vish, just kidding, he's a 6/10 driver, just kidding, he is fine, i don't know why i am writing about this.

until next week,
happy hunting

Week 5

This is what we like to call "Rick Roll'd"! hahaha, never gonna let u down!!!! love that wranger hair.

Time to start blogging, this week jake was in the tut. I swear on the wrestle mainia XXIV title that he was here the whole time. ;) We had a little status report with each group in the cross-group meeting with the manager(s). I think we are going pretty well, getting a little behind on the business case, but i think that's manageable as long as the other assignments go away in time.

decided on an agenda for the client meeting on tuesday, pretty much seeing what the scope is and trying to figure out what the business case is in detail and going over what we did in last meeting. I'm not that involved in the process at the moment but that's okay, that means less work for now, i'm sure i'll have to pull my weight some more later.

Pokey as PM and as risk manager is going to give me some risk management stuff to do so that I'm not waiting as much for everyone to do the recommendations section.

Pokey has now given me the external risk section to do any is going to send me the section he has already done so that i can copy the style of it.

I sent out an email telling everyone to have their section of the document ready for monday so we can go over it together and then with the managers.

Looking 4ward to not going to the client meeting, seems like a lot of waiting for the other groups to show off before we actually get in to the meat of the issue when we get to talk, i say we i mean we as a group.

:D

Non-teaching Week

Easter, i don't really practice easter but i do like chocolate so that's nice. Went for I nice break on the mornington peninsular which was a nice break from the grind of uni for a while, was nice to get away.

Went to the IE social club aka IT future leaders society. It was a raving success even though i was first one out, because i was betrayed by Ms. Alex Louise Coronel, who latter finished second to benjamin. All's well that ends well. Ate way too much and drank way to much (soft drink, yes there was no alcohol yet). Went out afterwards so that rolled up a very relaxing start to the break.

Time to get working, did a lot of work on other subjects so i would have time to do work on IE when everyone was ready, so I could do the recommendations section.

Oh and MAITS have been at it again with their miss-communication and autocratic rule of the three groups. they went and had a client meeting without telling us. yet they want to jump in with our group's meeting, effing hypocrites.

Looking forward to next week's meeting.

Week 4

Client meeting. 17 team members 1 client. Board-room was super nice, had the projector going with the agenda on the screen. Client was really nice, commented on us all wearing jackets and he wasn't, surely somebody should have commented that monash make us wear jackets, but i think MAITS were too proud and the rest of us a bit scared to talk at first most probably. MAITS were tending to take over the meeting, and Sarah (PM) was taking over from Raph (client liaison) , which i thought was interesting. I wonder if their team is struggling from the tyranny that is the MAITS governance structure.

We got a skype call in the boardroom, but luckily i had the mouse and was able to cancel the call after 2 rings, so there wasn't too much disruption. I didn't really have anything to say in the client meeting, so i didn't say anything, which i am happy with. I don't really like talking and meeting people all that much so I was content with that. I probably won't meet the client again for ages anyways, just leave it to the PMs and the CLs.

We decided what each team member was going to do for the Business Case document. That was ok. I got the recommendations section, which means i can't really do much until the others have finished with their sections.

I set up the media wiki on studentweb. Was a bit of a bitch to set up, but i think it's alright now, trying to adapt our group's processes so that we use it for storing and updating documents. Made a redirect so that the index of our studentweb redirects to the wiki. Changed a fair amount of the settings so that we could upload lots of file types and adjusting the feel of the main page. All of which make me happy because i am an avid wikipedia editor.

See you over easter

Week 3

Oh sweet sweet standards and governance, how you bless me with your presence. Version 1.7 now, how exciting. i'm really starting to get pissed off at people failing to format the document properly. I really wish that they could do it properly. As quality manager it is my job to do it. I think I won't do it until the end any more, because it is so annoying to have people undo the good work you have done.

Otherwise I think the team is working quite well. I think we need to do sections of documents individually in the future. The pieces can be put together at the end. It is oh quite good quality though, the document that is. I think it's a good finished product.

The logo, the logo, oh it's so nice. The reflection effect is so web 2.0 man. and the font is to die for. what do you think? I think it's pretty sexy, it's a combination of ideas from different team members.

Oh the client is a poon too. I think that it is okay now, but when we thought the contact wasn't going to be here for a month it was very troublesome because both me and V go away for the mid-semester break and it could create problems with working together. But all is okay now that the client has assigned a new contact.

The other team, ie: dream resolutions, have stickers and labels for who the document is going to, completely unnecessary if u ask me, and u are asking me aren't u? And their name is like a new years eve fantasy. And their logo is a bit to angelic for me, but i'm just being a bitch now.

Oh congrats to Chandra on winning blog of the week. She is a good complainer, maybe i should complain even more than I am now to get blog of the week. Although i better time my blog complains to hit good old week 9.

Better be off. Love you all, my adoring audience.

Week 2

Week 2 eh? Yeah well, we got a NEW TEAM MEMBER who is awesome! Vish is our document expert. We are going to be a big group with the rest of our class. Pod is looking over my shoulder. This is very disruptive. He is trying to make me uncomfortable by being here. He should know that as a teacher that he shouldn't be disrupting me while i am trying to think, but he is much more interested in annoying me.

We decided on our team roles, organisational structure, communication plan, fees etc, etc.

All in all a very productive day. We are still going to use google calendar to show each person's personal availability. POD set up a facebook study group for us. Pokey setup a basecamp for us.

Really am looking forward to getting in to the meat of the project. Really would love to start getting functional req. spec. now but oh well. I'm in charge of standards and governance, well governance will be done by everyone as it is democratic. Standards is a good thing for me to deal with cos i am completely anal when it comes to that kind of stuff.

Really not looking forward to working with the other groups though, i don't really trust them... i hope they prove me wrong, i am worried about them stealing our resources. I am also worried about the integration between the systems. If we are sharing data and they are changing it. Also what happens if there is a collision or something.

It short, I am a little scared but excited, i think that's a good thing, keep me on my toes at least.

I also have plans to win blog of the week in weeks 9-13 when everyone is in a rush to finish assignments and don't really make the same amount of effort on their blog. Also I am going to be fairly consistent in the quantity and quality of my blogs so I can be in the running for blog of the year, although however unlikely i am of winning I really respond well to chocolate-based incentives.

Week 1

note: blog contains traces of sucking up.
POD and Jake are as funny as ever.
Jake is talking about everything that you need to talk about in week one. POD is taking down notes of what Jake is saying for prosperity.

Time to fill in th individual skills - self audit, i'm good at all of this stuff! 10 10 10 10 10, cooperation 2, 10 10 10... god this is the easiest test ever.

This unit almost sounds difficult, doesn't matter, i'm sure it will be fine. I am sooo not doing meeting minutes, i can't take notes at all. Even if you give me a laptop, which makes it readable, it's still not understandable normally, so i think somebody else will have to do that.