Being easily convinced is not a virtue.
Archive for June, 2006
Exam 4 – Computer & Logic Essentials; Complete
Jun 30th
Today was probably the most enjoyable day yet for my time at university.
It started out with the exam of my second favourite subject. Computer and Logic Essentials. The exam required students to display their knowledge in graph theory, set theory, predicate logic and a bit of binary.
I found the exam was pretty much what I expected. Some easy bits, and some hard bits. But overall I was pretty happy when I walked out. Half the happiness was because I’d finished semester 1, the other half of the happiness was because I felt I did well on the exam.
But this was just the start of the day. For today we were to have our PSD DEBREIFING 
Thanks to the great guys that are running our course (Andrew, Clint, Raj, Jean-Guy), we got to celebrate the end of our first semester as PSD students by playing X-BOX from 11:00AM till 6:00PM!!
It was a great chance to have some fun and chat with each other about how they felt now that we were quite settled into uni. It was heaps of fun. We had 3 XBOXes set up, and 2 XBOX 360s! That’s 5 XBOXes! And they all had their own dedicated projector screen. Lovely 
It was my first time playing the XBOX 360. I played Fight Night Round 3, which had stunning visuals and some effects which made players queezy. An excellent game, but you won’t see it in my top 10 list ^_^
After the seemingly endless session of playing XBOX, we all got shouted a meal and some drinks at the Hawthorn. Really nice of them. I thouroughly enjoyed it. This was another great chance to sit down, relax, and discuss with the students and teachers about the past, present and future of the PSD.
Everyone had a great time. Semester 1 PSD was AWESOME
Sunday Trip
Jun 26th
A week or two ago, Jessica bought a car. She loves it!
And she has always said in the past, that once she gets a car, she’s going to drive to Leongatha; her home town, which she has been eager to revisit.
So this was a great opportunity for her to get a nice big drive in her new car, and revisit ‘The Gatha’ to see what has changed since her last visit.
On sunday (yesterday), we decided to make use of this opportunity and go for a day trip to Leongatha.
Jess loved the long drive in her new car. She also loved driving around her old town having a look at the houses she lived in and her old school and also the houses where her friends lived (or still live, who knows)
We had a really good lunch at one of the local parks, had a coffee at some coffee shop and then headed off to the Leongatha cinema where we saw Adam Sandler’s latest film; ‘Click!’
It was a good movie, lots of laughs. Although I think I could only give it a 6/10. I’m a hard marker when it comes to movies.
Overall the trip was very relaxing and enjoyable. Now I have three grueling days of study before my last exam: Computer and Logic Essentials!
Stay tuned.
Pure Pwnage Episode 11 Released
Jun 24th
Hey folks. As usual there was quite a wait before the most recent release of the Pure Pwnage series. But we don’t mind right? After all, Jeremy and Kyle put alot of work into making the show.
Anyway, Episode 11 is finally available, actually it’s been available for a couple of days now.
It’s called “I <3 U IN RL”, and I found it to be quite good.
It was good to finally get another episode with some more storyline focussed on Jeremy’s progress as a student of Teh_Masterer.
Also, you’ll see FPS_Doug means business with his plastic gun lol. The episode is not one of the best, but enjoyable nonetheless. Pure Pwnage is always worth the bandwidth, so go get your fix of Episode 11 here: http://www.purepwnage.com/episodes.html
Also, the Pure Pwnage crew have been featured in a magazine called VideoGiochi. I won’t copy their material onto my blog, so you can read their news urself if u want to read about it
Exam 3 – Algorithmic Problem Solving; Complete
Jun 23rd
I’d have to say this is the exam I was most looking forward to. My favourite subject ^_^
The exam required us to do things like correct invalid source code, write algorithms in pascal, convert code to flow charts and structure charts, define parts of syntax, and other algorithmic tasks like recursive programming and showing understanding of pointers and sorting algorithms etc.
All in all I think I did pretty well, with the exception of a few small mistakes which I am bound to have made. But I do look forward to finding out my mark for this exam
prOxi vs Esc-
Jun 23rd
Tonight my StarCraft team ‘prOxiteam’ had a clan war vs another Australian team called Clan Esc
It was really fun, as it always is when vsing Clan Esc. The results were really tight.
I was really stoked after winning my 2 games vs Esc-Backlash 2-0, and hearing about kurtis and max winning their matches 2-0 aswell.
But things JUST slipped away from us with rob and graham losing their games 0-2.
Not a huge issue I thought, we’re still up 3-2. But then we had to play the 2v2s.
We lost both the 2v2s, so it ended up a loss 3-4 (7-8) 
Ohwell, at least we won last week’s round of WSCL vs Team_]i[nflow 4-3
What’s important is that proxiteam managed to have a really fun evening and have some great games with some very skilled gamers.
You can read the full post here:
http://proxiteam.com/comment.php?comment.news.30
Adios
Exam 2 – Intro to Business Info Systems; Complete
Jun 21st
Today I had my second exam. Introduction to Business Information Systems.
If you read my PSD Semester 1 summary, you’ll understand why I’m so glad to be able to put this subject behind me. I won’t count my chickens though, I have to have passed the exam to fully leave IBIS behind me. But I’m confident. See, I think I actually did really well on this exam. Typical business subject, vocab vocab vocab, just talk their lingo and they’ll assume you know what you’re talking about.
It’s why I hate subjects like that though. The tests and exams are purely just a memory game. So you can remember words like competitive advantage and facilitator; big deal? That’s not intelligence.
I’d much rather be studying APS or CLE. The ones which actually push you to understand something new, interesting, and relevant.
Anyway, I did well on the IBIS exam as far as I could tell from finishing it. All is good so far I think (or hope?)
Exam 1 – Database Analysis and Design; Complete
Jun 16th
My first ever University exam. It had to be Database didn’t it! >_<
Ah it was OK. I think the multiple choice questions were a bit mean seeing as each one had 2 really obvious wrong choices whereas the other two were quite arguable.
But all in all I think I did pretty well. Should get a credit at least.
Next exam is Introduction to Business Information Systems
‘Tis 5 days away, stay tuned.
XPSP2 Integrated ISO Recorder
Jun 14th
Alot of people out there probably already know about this, but it’s news for me.
Just tonight after finishing the big weekend project, my uncle showed me a neat little add-in to Windows XP SP2.
It is an ISO Recorder, integrated into the Windows interface! For example, with this add-in, you can right click a CD in your optical drive, and select ‘Create Image from CD’
You will be prompted with the ISO Recorder asking you where to save the ISO etc, etc.
But not only can it record images, it can also burn these images onto a blank disc. I love it.
Get it here: ISORecorderV2RC1.msi (320kb)
ENJOY
Weekend project complete
Jun 14th
Since monday I have been working with my uncle and my Dad to finally (after more than a year) get the house fully networked with easy access data points.
Previously, we had one computer in the pool room (family computer) with a 4port NetComm NB1300+4 ADSL Modem/Router connected to it. But my computer had a cable running from the router all the way through the house to my bedroom. Not ideal. And when I wanted to use my notebook on the net I had to disconnect my desktop and connect my notebook. So pretty much, up until now my house has been a geek’s hell!
After the project, we now have our family computer plugged straight into the wall, which runs to one of 7 new data points behind the bar, under the direction of one netgear GS608 8-Port Gigabit Switch and a netgear DG632 ADSL2 Modem/Router.
8 Port Gigabit Switch (above)
ADSL2 Modem/Router (above)
The 7 data points under the bar lead to various locations, as can be seen in the following network diagram (click to enlarge):
The cables that don’t connect to nodes indicate a datapoint that is not yet used, or is there for when people may need a laptop in that section of the house. Note: it is likely a new lazer printer will be using the second network port to the pool room.
It was a big project. Alot of crawling around under the house and drilling holes. Also we had to install some new electrical outlets for the new router and switch.
Also, since I’ve been locked out (don’t ask) of ALPHA(see network), I took the opportunity to hook ALPHA’s HDD up to the new family PC to store my important files while I reformat and reinstall windows onto it. So yay, I have ALPHA back.
Also, since the shitty old IBM is no longer in use (new family pc renders it useless) I may be using this as a server for a whole heap of junk. I mean, hell, while I’ve got a copy of WinS2K3 I might as well use it right? Or maybe I’ll use it to muck around with an OS I’m unfamiliar with.
Nevertheless, it was really a huge project. Alot bigger than I expected it to be. But it was definately worth it.
Samurize
Jun 9th
Just found a cool peice of software
It’s called Samurize
Samurize is basically just a program which enables a user to display monitored data on their desktop easily and clearly. Such data may include your currently playing mp3, cpu usage, ram usage, weather etc, etc… There are tonnes of different scripts you can download and use with Samurize to display all sorts of different things
Here’s some examples from my desktop:
This is an example of me using Samurize to display my current playing song
This is an example of me using Samurize to monitor my cpu, ram, hdd, uptime, and date/time
Samurize is an excellent program. But who knows maybe in a week I’ll have deleted it like most desktop tweaking programs I install.This seems legit though, no bugs or any negative effects so far. Very stable, and even has an excellent config editing tool.
Rating? 10/10 – There’s just nothing to deduct points for
Download Samurize here: Samurize (5.56mb)
You’ll want the crystallite monitors: Crystalite (15kb)