Approval!

My project proposal was approved by my teacher!!! woot woot!

Now only 150 more hours to get an A...

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Happy Holidays!

Work has officially begun on my senior project. I'm getting more and more excited as I start actually making progress. I've have made a decision about what I'm going to be doing, designing and building a QR code reader for either the WebOS platform or iOS5. I'm leaning towards the WebOS, because I'm currently not really willing to pay money just to test my app out on my iPod touch. As I get further into the project I'll hopefully be posting some of my code and such, but I may just be too busy procrastinating to get anything posted before the end of the semester.

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End of the Year

The semester's over and now I have more free time than I know what to do with myself. The goal is to at least start working on my senior project. I'm planning on doing something with either reading QR codes, OCR, or a genetic algorithm. I have to do a little more research to turn in my proposal and then hopefully I'll be able to start the coding part and get things moving. Next semester is going to be crazy busy!

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Moments

Don't you just love those moments when you look at an old program you wrote and just say, "what the HECK was I thinking!?!?!?!?". At least those moments prove one thing, that you've learned and matured... or just forgot why that way was the only way to make things work.

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Finals Week

The end of the semester is here and finals week is next week...

So any projects I'm wanting to start are being put on hold so I can pass my 2 part algorithm final... It's the only one I'm really worried about, the other ones will be pieces of cake.

But I have been doing some small and simple programs to make my homework easier... or to just do the monotonous boring parts for me. Like my beginning math class I have to take. We had to go through specific verses of a book and see how many times specific words appeared... No way was I going to actually do that...

for (int i = 99; i >= 0; i--)
{
   counts[i] = 0;
   int found = -1;
   do
   {
      if(found != -1)
      {
         counts[i]++;
         verse.erase(found, words[i].length());
      }
      found = (int)verse.find(words[i], found + 1);
   }while(found != -1);
}

The c++ string class has some nice features but not quite up to the standard java features. If I had used a vector instead of an array I would have been able to not do any hardcoding on the for loop but since I've been working with arrays quite a bit recently it was just simpler to implement at that specific moment.

It has a little bit of hardcoding and it technically doesn't require the words to be sorted in alphabetically order but it works better if it does, so it takes care of the longer words first if some phrases have other phrases in them.

If I ever have to do an assignment like this again, I'll be way more efficient but throwing this program together probably took about as much time as if I had done the actual looking up each verse.

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Sleep Deprevation

Last night I couldn't fall asleep... at all. But I did figure out a solution for a programming problem I working on. It only took me a couple of hours to code it up and get it working.

I hate it when my brain refuses to stop thinking when I need my sleep.

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Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I love Google.

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Stable Matching/Marriage

I don't know if you've heard about the stable matching/marriage problem, but for a class my group had to present on it. And I decided to implement it using c++ (it's my goto for simple programs I need to just throw together quickly because I've had about 7 years of experience in it and only about 5 in java). The nice thing is that it actually worked. The Gale-Shapley algorithm is what we used to solve this problem. I'm currently working on implementing a solution to the stable roommate problem. I've run into some errors but hopefully once the semester is over I'll have a little more time to perfect it.

Here's the link to the Google Code Project.

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WebOS Calculator

I made a simple calculator for the WebOS platform. I know I definitely enjoyed it a lot more than when I did that first app because instead of having to use the emulator, I got to test and run it on an actual HP touchpad (thank you husband for wanting one :)) It was a lot better than using the emulator plus it's hands on.

The only problem I'm having is trying to manipulate the height of the buttons to be relative to the full screen... I got the width working correctly but not the height.  Currently I'm changing the font-size and not the actual height. But as you can see from the screen shots below it would be better to adjust the height relative to the total space available.

Currently I just created a class style in my .css file here's what it looks like:

#buttons

{

   font-size: 400%;

   width: 24%

}

I've tried height: 20% but it does absolutely nothing...

Portrait

Landscape

So all in all, besides the fact that it's purely javascript and html, I actually enjoyed getting something done tonight. Granted it does next to nothing but still it works, and that's really all I care about right now.

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Big No No's

Currently I'm working in the computer lab on campus, where beginning students can come in and work on their projects and get help.

Oh boy have I seen some awful coding practices... REALLY AWFUL stuff.

Here's a list of my top 5:

5. Arrays start at 0... NOT at 1.

4. Not reading the assignment and then asking for help is just plain dumb... I'll only be able to help you AFTER I READ the assignment, which you could have done.

3. Please don't forget that your general program runs linearly. That means that the if a line of code is after another, then it'll be executed afterwards... so if, for example, you want to output something after another thing, make sure it's after it in the code...

2. Seg faults... ugh they are frustrating, but if you don't know where it is I can't look at your code and just magically know the answer... use cerr statements!

1. If your using arrays to get the same sort of information (such as grades) and then finding an average... please, please use a loop of some sort... and just don't write it out for every single index and then make me read basically the same line of code over and over trying to find your error... please...

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Ugh...

Things have been so busy lately... and yet they haven't. I need to start a project and get my hands dirty but homework has been getting in the way... frustrating.

Sadly it's so true... I feel this way a lot.

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Algorithms

I haven't been able to do much in the coding world, except a simple program to demonstrate the stable matching/marriage problem for my algorithms class.

I have quite a few ideas for projects I want to start, but school and work has been taking up way too much of my free time and the rest of that free time is spent playing minecraft and portal... yeah... I'm calling it research...

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Monty Hall Problem

Today in my beginning Math class (I have to take it to graduate and needed an easy A... but basically it's just pure torture and I'm constantly bored) we discussed the Monty Hall problem. It goes as follows:

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1 [but the door is not opened], and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

So what do you think the answer is?

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WebOS Part 2

After a very long argument with my WebOS emulator, and frustrating moments with a "simple" tutorial, I finally was able to create a simple RSS Feed Reader in WebOS.

What did I learn? I hate javascript... with a passion.

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WebOS: Bitter First Taste

I may be delusional and sick but the WebOS emulator for HP development is frustrating me.
I have no idea how to get back to the main screen from any where, I hate have to turn my head sideways in order to see my program running at the proper viewing angle. It's just awful! Like I said it may just probably be me being dumb and any tips would be much appreciated.

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Senior Project

So in order to graduate I have to do a Senior Project. Some major individual project that is kind of a big deal. I know lots of people are doing genetic algorithms, stuff with graphics and OCR. But I think I've figured out what I want to do... THIS!!!

Really though this would be the coolest Senior Project Ever!!! If only I could get the funding for it.
For reals though I'm looking into creating my own QR decoder for some mobile device (either iOS5 or WebOS). I think this would be interesting although slightly difficult and would really push me (which is the goal). So if anyone out there has any good advice or tips, please let me know!

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Deck of Cards

I did some coding today, still not a complete working game but the deck class works pretty well I think. I haven't figured out a good way to create different cards... right now hard coding for loops is not the best way... so I'm thinking of either reading in a file or something... they only problem is when I want different types of cards... that'll make thinks a little tricky.

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I Have a Plan

So I finally figured out the next "fun" project I want to work on. It's this pretty awesome card game called Guillotine. So my first item of action is to obviously NOT do any planning or design but to jump straight into coding. So I'm going to create a deck of cards that I can manipulate and such and then use in my final game project. I think I'm going to write it in c++ or java but eventually I want to port it over to a mobile app... which I'm not liking the whole idea of having to learn cocoa c... but in my opinion developing apps is more and more becoming necessary. Simply not wanting to learn a language is not an excuse.

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Finally!

Well good news! I finally stopped the putting off of my algorithms assignment and got it done! I think I'll do well but you never know... those write ups tend to sometimes kill me.

I also have a couple of ideas I'm wanting to do for some app development but I currently don't have the skills to actually do most of them... which is sad because I need more time to work on those skills. But currently that's a commodity I don't have enough of.

This always makes me laugh... and worry at the same time because I'm too lazy to actually do the math and find the answer and if I'm ever in a situation like this... I'm in trouble...

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New Projects and Putting off More Homework!

Ever since I got my Mac I've wanted to work on developing some apps but haven't really had much time to do it. I finally set aside some of those precious hours and quickly was able to build a simple calculator. It was really easy... which is upsetting because not many of my ideas have to do with simple buttons and labels... most of them involve graphics which has to be much more complicated...

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JPanel Success!

So remember how I was having that one problem with trying to give JPanel's a background but it wasn't working quite right? Well I got that fixed! I just had to override the paintComponent function and volia everything worked as planned.

Except the actual bottom component I was working with was a JFrame not a JPanel... so yeah... that was a fun discovery... but I did figure out a way to fix that. I just added a new JPanel to the JFrame and then added everything originally on the JFrame to the JPanel... a slight hack but it works!

So I didn't get my algorithms assignment done at all... but I got my java program working so I think it was a day well spent... tomorrow I might disagree with myself...

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Being Lazy

I spent the majority of my time today, not doing my homework and downloading and installing iOS 5... I'm in love but that's besides the point. I did get a little homework done... sorta. The sorting programs I've been working on is for a project to compare the time it takes each sort to run. Well me being the lazy programmer I am decided that it would be a brilliant idea to use Numbers/Excel or SPSS to compare all my results. Unfortunately the formatting I had at the time took forever to get into cells so I spent the next little while having my programs output into a .csv file instead and guess what it works brilliantly! Which is really good since I have almost 90,000 data points and I'm going to be collecting some more tomorrow before I write my paper. Copy and paste does NOT like that much data... at all!

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Daily Doses of Insanity

I'm sure you're all sick and tired of my postings but it really helps me to actually get some fun stuff done to have to blog about it... so you're stuck hearing from me more often... sorry.

Today was homework day but I got to work some more on my sorting algorithms (which that bubble sort on the 1,000,000 elements never actually finished... I had to kill it). After a frustrating random seg fault on my quick sort implementation, I was able to also write my n^2 algorithms in Java. Hopefully this will give me plenty of information on timing to write my paper up with.

On a not as boring note, I was able to watch a 40 minute video about app developing for iOS. I've been wanting to really get into this ever since before I got my mac, and now that I finally have some free time I can. I've already built a simple calculator and binary/hex/decimal number converter (I had a homework assignment and was being lazy... ). Hopefully I'll be able to come up with better ideas and figure out the graphics and animation. Then I can really get going.

I saw this on Facebook (my only social life... sadly) and I giggled... uncontrollably...

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Algorithms and Bubble Sorts

When I was a younger programmer bubble sort was king. I never had to worry about any large data sets and it was easy to remember. Then I learned just how bad it is... like n squared bad and I swore I would never write that bad of a sort again. 

I am eating my words just like I always end up doing. I have a project where I have to compare to n squared sorting algorithms... so here I am once a again writing a bubble sort... waiting for it to finish sorting my array of a million numbers... 

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I've figured it out.

I have finally realized why I haven't gotten to do any fun coding projects lately.  It's this whole school thing. I have a test almost every other week and a ridiculous amount of homework every night. Plus a part-time job and just getting married, too much stuff going on. Sadly I don't think I'll be able to work on anything new for a while unless I force myself to do something I enjoy. On a side note iOS 5 comes out on Tuesday! I get to spend a good chunk of my free time that day downloading and installing and the playing with all the new features. Eventually it will all get put to good use when I actually start using all this software I own to develop some apps... maybe I'll just call that wasted time "research"... that'll justify it in my mind...

On a side note: I found an angry birds poster at the dollar store... It's now hanging on my wall for inspiration. :)

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Apple Announcement...

What did I get out of the Apple announcements today?

THERE'S A WHITE (my favorite color) IPOD TOUCH!!!!

I wish I had an extra $400 lying around...

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JPanel's and Backgrounds

I've finally started to get back coding after my summer vacation.  It's good to be getting my feet wet again, I've missed it! I've started working on a updating and adding to an existing java project, mostly for fun. I've been trying to get a background picture to show up on JPanels but haven't found a really good way of doing that. Currently I'm using a JLabel but when the other elements are added to the JPanel it pushes my picture off the screen.  So, I'm going to try to override the paintComponent method and see if that works... Hopefully I'll find a solution quick and my homework won't start to suffer!!!

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Excuses, Excuses...

This summer has been crazy busy and I haven't gotten to get my hands dirty in any programming projects.  But with the new semester starting and having to do a senior project and hopefully having some free time to play with some coding projects I have in mind, I will be updating more with hopefully more interesting code snippets and projects I'm working on.

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That's Right!

I'm a senior in college, I'm majoring in computer science, and yes I am a female. I fell in love with programming after taking a basic programming class my sophomore year in high school. From then on, I knew what I wanted to do with my life, Software. I'm going to start working on a project and hopefully get some stuff done before school starts, just to keep up with the coding aspect of programming. I haven't had to do a lot of that lately because of the classes I've been taking so my skills are getting a little rusty, so this will help enormously.

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