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!

//END OF LINE

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.

//END OF LINE

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.

//END OF LINE

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...

//END OF LINE

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...

//END OF LINE

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...

//END OF LINE

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!

//END OF LINE

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...

//END OF LINE

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... 

//END OF LINE

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. :)

//END OF LINE

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...

//END OF LINE