Worthless rubbish? - Friday

Today was spent doing one of three thigns. 1 - Playing Warcraft three (not much) 2 - Java (It now only needs the networking and it's done, I spent a lot of time looking for a networking tutorial and have yet to find a good one, I did of course completely forget to actually get the examples Ionnais gave us so I will try those tomorrow) 3 - Downloading cool stuff for my Mac Clearly only number 3 is going to be of real interest as besides telling you it doesn't look atrocious the Chess project is a bit naff in terms of blogging. Cool stuff for my Mac? Well, here is a list of some of the stuff I've gotten for it (all for free of course). Tilt Pong - I play it by tilting the laptop from side to side, who needs a mouse or keyboard when you have tilt sensors. For some reason I don't see myself playing this one a lot... Macsaber - I move the laptop around and it makes lightsaber noises Quartz Desktop - I already had something that played screensavers as a desktop background, now I have one that plays stuff that's half screen-saver half movie. Some of the effects are very nice. Of course, it's not a good plan if you're trying to concentrate and glowing stars of colour appear all over the place so I've not used it much Safari - Yeah, this comes with the Mac but I tried it and not only is it about 10 times faster than Firefox (and lets face it, you can never be too fast, on a computer like this one you really notice that extra second of load time) it also is much nicer for RSS feeds which I find myself using more and more. Specifically with RSS feeds it will display all of them and sort them by date. Oh, it can also pause downloads, automatically open Disk Images and even display Quartz Screensavers in it's window when I want to preview them before downloading! Time Lapse Screensaver - This one isn't even quartz, it uses the built in webcam to take pictures at given intervals and then plays them back, I plan sometime to leave it going and take a few hours of stuff so you can see what I do. The problem is that 1 - I am ugly, 2 - The light receptivity of the camera is not amazing and the pictures don't look that great. So, now you know what the interesting part of the day was taken up by. Still, I'm happy with today as the java is almost done and Chris told me that he'd done a load of the Digital too. This is good indeed.

Missed a Beat - Thursday

Well, the reason I didn't blog yesterday was because there was a problem with my internet, I spent twenty minutes today fixing it (with Pete's help). Wednesday involved a Java lecture where we (as a class) did a mock test. I scored 80% and reckon I can improve on that score. Later I helped setup for the open day then left to do some last minute revision for an exam I dislike. The exam itself however went better than I expected (hey, I prayed for it, what did you expect to happen?). I got to go up the Spinnaker Tower for free as part of being a tour guide, it's very high up, a very nice view and on the lowest viewing platform there is a section of glass floor. I walked across it and despite the fact that the glass is probably bullet proof and my reaction speed enough to grab a banister at the slightest sign of a crack, it was very unnerving. I also got about 30 packs of cookies (for a total of 60 cookies), a handful of sugar sachets, a litre of orange juice and also free food for most of the day. Not too bad methinks, oh, I was also paid for it in the region of £50. Lauren and I were the only ones in that evening so we had chicken (I had lots of vegetables at the insistence of Lauren). We watched "A fish called Wanda" and I later stayed up later than intended playing games. Don't worry, read on to find out how I've made up for it. Today (Thursday for those with a bad memory) I had my weekly lie in of until about 1000 and then went to my Digital Lab. Chris and I are working very very well as a team. He sits there puzzling over the Hardware for Digital Labs, I sit there figuring out the problems with Java. We then tell each other what we've done and both benefit. I did help with the Digital stuff and he's been helping with the Java so we do have some idea of what the other is doing. After the lab I got some supplies at Tesco and went home. There I relaxed by playing Warcraft 3 a little. I do mean a little because at the time of writing my Java is not too bad. Displays a Chess Board - Check Allow the User to move pieces - Check Determine if a move is valid or not - Check Watch for Check and Checkmate - Check (Pun intended if you think it's funny) Play over a Network - Not done yet Look remotely nice - Ummmm, you decide On the plus side, when it's done I'll release the compiled version of the code and give instructions on how to run it assuming Chris and Ionnais do not have a problem with it. It's currently 0016 on Friday and I've got one last thing I'd like to talk about. Checkmate. It's what I spent a lot of time today doing and getting annoyed over when I made a mistake. You need to know if something can move somewhere, that's not a huge problem but if you make a mistake here (guess where I made a mistake...) it'll come back to get you later You need to be able to check every single piece going to see if it can take a king, if it can then you need to declare a state of check and possibly checkmate Here's the fun one, Checkmate requires you to create a second board and simulate as many moves as possible until there are no moves left to make or the king gets out of check I will unashamadly say that my "vast" experiance of programming really really helped here. I've had to redesign my programs to incorperate something before, checkmate is a very good example of it as the program is based around "the board". All the functions such as finding out where something can move are based around that board, not a virtual one, that one. Of course, I solved the problem very compared to how problematic I thought it would be. To anybody thinking about doing a course at university that involves programming. Practice now, I'll happily tell you how to get started.

Not a vast amount - Tuesday

I got up, went to my Java lecture, got my laptop insured, went to Tesco, went to my other lectures and went home. I played some Warcraft 3 and did a lot of Java. The chess program now has some inkling as to the rules of checkmate, most of the Java time however was spent fumbling around with something in the User Interface (something important), however, after talking to Gareth about it I soon realised what to do (mostly because he told me what he'd done) In the evening I went over to Jo's house because it's her Birthday and she was having a social gathering/party. I left early and went to bed after doing some revision.

Sorry for the Delay - Monday

Friday involved some Warcraft 3, packing and playing around with my new computer. Saturday I travelled to Portsmouth. My plan was to amuse myself on the train by watching one or more movies. However, that was scuppered when I met a friend of mine from Secondary School called Thomas. He took a year out and is now studying Paleontology here at Portsmouth. So we talked for a while, played some 2 player games on the computer and then watched Ice Age 2. The computer battery is very very good and it would have lasted a whole trip watching a film, playing games required processor power so not so long. I got back quite okay and sat down for the night to watch the Incredibles and Lord of War. Sunday was somewhat more interesting. I first walked Becca to Eastney, on the way collecting Siän and Ceryn. The morning service was about the Magi and Jon used the pun that it was the first Star - Trek. I think I'll have to put it on a par with my Dad's poor jokes. The Hackers very kindly invited myself and some students back for Lunch, it was really nice and I would have liked to have stayed for longer after lunch but had to leave to do some work. I got some work done and also played some games. I then walked the ladies from their respective homes to Church, we also brought Lauren along this time (I'm not trying to imply that she's not a lady). That night I spent a little longer playing games than planned and so forgot to blog. Today was a very interesting day. Firstly I got to my lab quite on time, then I found out that I had the following deadlines. Exam this Wednesday (Almost nobody knew it was this Wednesday) Java hand in on the 17th (next Wednesday) Professional Practice hand in on the 17th Digital Coursework marking on the 17th This is not actually as bad as it sounds. For a start the exam I have on Wednesday is one of 4, I've had two of them (or maybe that marked lab counted as one, I'm not sure). In my first exam I didn't do too well, about 45% to my memory. However, the mark I received 80% from the last test. The Java program today started as something that allowed me to hard-code some moves and displayed a very basic board. It now displays a much better board, allows you to make moves and enforces most of the rules. It still needs castling, checkmate, check and also networking. In the evening the CU all went to the pub, there I played a very tough game of Chess against Dan, I won by a slim margin. I talked a lot to Huw about WoA, I'll not be doing much to do with WoA for the next week and a bit as I've got a lot of work. I got back, blogged and went to bed.