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My moral was a little lifted this week. There was an article in the Tuesday Australian (for those that don't know, the Australian on Tuesdays has a special IT section), which reported that the IT industry is starting to pick up again, and that there is light at the end of the tunnel for the students that have been studying IT during the slump in the industry over the past few years. (see the online version here) Basically, it said that graduates over the next year or two should be quickly snapped up. While i'm hoping this will be … Read more →

Had an alright weekend. Spent most of it attempting to write out the rest of my HIST2606 essay. I've almost finished it: i've just got to finish of my conclusion and find some more primary sources to put into my argument. Not planning on toally finishing it soon though, as a plan to study for my INFS3200 exam that is in 2 weeks.

I've worked twice since my last blog entry. I worked last night and tonight. Tonight at work something happened that I never thought would happen at the supermarket that i work at: we ran out of plastic … Read more →

I'm at uni and we have just done our COMP3804 Stage 3 Demo. So ends another Stage in this protracted torture of a subject. We did pretty good, but there was some unexpected bahaviour in printing out a report because they used a pdf printer program instead of a real printer. Won't go into the details but i'm pretty sure we got full marks.

I've also just submitted my COMP2502 Assignment 1. I got through it ok and am expecting some pretty good marks for it.

Yesterday was interesting. I planned to go to my 8am COMP2502 lecture, but i … Read more →

Well i have spent the last 4 frustrating hours removing, installing, and removing SP2 for Windows XP.

A growing list of bugs on my computer has forced me to remove it. Among the top on the list are: not being able to view a folders properties (you'd be surprised how often you do it) and the System Restore facility not working at all. The realisation of the latter not working prompted me to remove the Service Pack.

This afternoon i was installing some software, after which i wanted to create a restore point before screwing around with something. I tried … Read more →

After finishing all the timings for the COMP2502 assignment, i've now got to do my analysis. This includes plotting the values against different cases of n (the size of the array it had to sort). I quickly realised that i hadn't done any MS Excel probably since year 10. After spending a few hours screwing around with it, i finally realised that i needed to do an XY scatter chart with a line through the points instead of a line chart.

So i'm going to finish off that assignment today.

I'm finding really hard to believe that we are in … Read more →

I've put the HIST2606 essay on the backburner for a bit, because my first COMP2502 assignment is due next Monday, while the essay is due in October. For this assignment, it is all about measuring the time of 3 different sorting algorithms and doing an analysis. These algorthims sort numbers, and we have to feed all three algorithms 3 different sets: one of random numbers, one of an already ordered list, and one of a reversed ordered list. I chose my test cases from lists ranging of 5000 all the up to a million.

I think i almost burnt my … Read more →

Service pack 2 for Windows XP has just been released. Microsoft are only releasing this one via their Windows Update site and are not allowing anyone to mirror the service pack. My brother got it a few days ago, and me just now. I can just imagine the stress that the Microsoft servers will be undergoing throughout the next few weeks.

I've just finished the install, which took a lot longer than i expected and took me away from some valuable time i could have spent on uni stuff. The main new thing is this "Security Center" which manages the … Read more →

Today is one of my days off uni. I spent the morning updating and creating COMP3804 DB scripts, finishing off my HIST2606 essay outline that is due this week (in my opinion a huge waste of student's time), and printing out notes for tomorrows lectures. I worked from 4-8 which was really busy because 2 cashiers called in sick which left us really short handed for most of my shift. Got home finished the DB population script and am now typing this out (obviously).

I'm going to bed now. I've got to get up early to be at uni by … Read more →

I had a very busy, very hectic, weekend. On Saturday I started fully writing m HIST2606 essay, I want to get it out of the way quickly. Saturday night I ended up going down to the Gold Coast to attend the wedding reception of a woman that i have only met once before. I ended up getting home probably just after midnight.

Sunday was of course the Walkathon. For those that don't know, I have been on the organising committee for the Walkathon since its inception in 2000. This year was the 5th Annual Youth and Charity Walkathon, and we … Read more →

I drove to uni today. I was really lucky, because i was the last to get through the lights on Hawthorne road, because further down the line at Wynnum Rd. there was a really bad accident which closed 3 of the 4 lanes. So they had 1 lane servicing both directions of traffic in peak hour. I took a detour at got to the Gabba via Stanely St. The unlucky people behind me would have to wait because each change of lights after that would only let one or two cars through.

Today i had my first HIST2606 tutorial, which … Read more →