Hi guys,
The project is almost up to the final stage. We are still adding the finishing touches of building it. At the same time, we’re testing the already completed parts of the database. These included the GUI and functionality testing for the Asset Module. User manuals are at the very preliminary stage and we cannot do anymore until Aaron and Tari have finished building.
The major problem for us now seems to be getting the coding finished on time. This seems rather difficult at this stage. So far, the coders have been meeting up every single day, but when they hit problems, they tell me that it takes a long time to overcome them. So worse comes to worse, we will hand in the test documentation on time (on as much as we have tested) and the User manuals will be developed with regards to the most likely way the system will be implemented.
The major reason for our time constraint was the 4-week delay we encountered at the start of semester 2, when it took 4 weeks for My-SQL to be set up in the K block labs. This held us back significantly and we are way behind other groups in terms of building. Despite our early requests for it to be set up, it was quite disappointing that it took 4 weeks to be finally set up. Therefore, we could not start coding till after those 4 weeks. I’m confident that if we even had 2 more extra weeks (instead of 4), we would be well on our way to finishing the project by now.
The biggest challenge within the next week or so will be getting the client sign-off based on what we have managed to code so far. Hopefully, we can convince them that ‘this is what the end system will be like’. However, we do have some of the major functionality working now. It is only a few more things we have to do. So hopefully by this Friday (when our next client meeting is), we will have something to present to the client.
Fingers crossed.
It’s 2.17am now so I’m off to sleep
Nite
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Sunday, October 7, 2007
2 weeks of uni left!
Hey there peeps,
Omg, we have juz 2 weeks of uni left!
Well, last week was the mid-sem break so I had an excuse not to blog…lol. Anyways, the building and testing is running simultaneously at the moment, with Tar and Aaron working tirelessly night and day to get the database up and running as ‘streamlined’ and ‘efficiently’ as initially promised at the start of the year! Thusiya and Ishara and myself have been involved in creating test cases over the past week or so and we have managed to come up with multiple likely scenarios that the typical users will encounter. Based on these, we have developed appropriate test cases to test every single possible implicit assertion that was integrated into our system. These scenarios have also been helpful for us in considering the types of ‘Help’ functions to create. Other than that, I feel pretty confident in delivering the system on time with a significant standard of quality assurance.
Other than IE, I’ve been studying for exams already coz I got 2 exams on the same day on the first week! I kno it sux….but gona have to deal wit it.
Also, it's hard to believe that I'll be finishing uni in two weeks time. Thinking back to my first day at uni back in first year (2004), it seems like yesterday. It's kinda sad in a way, but on the other hand I cant wait to finish, which would eventually bring some closure to all this study and exams and assignments. It would be awesome juz to get the feeling that there will be no more tests or exams in 2 or 3 weeks time. But of course then we gota look for work....but i'm desperately in need of a vacation first of all...LOL.
At the moment it's 1.55am and I'm so tired from catchin up on some previous tute work for accounting. So I think I shud head off and snooze now.....so catch ya later. :)
Nite
Omg, we have juz 2 weeks of uni left!
Well, last week was the mid-sem break so I had an excuse not to blog…lol. Anyways, the building and testing is running simultaneously at the moment, with Tar and Aaron working tirelessly night and day to get the database up and running as ‘streamlined’ and ‘efficiently’ as initially promised at the start of the year! Thusiya and Ishara and myself have been involved in creating test cases over the past week or so and we have managed to come up with multiple likely scenarios that the typical users will encounter. Based on these, we have developed appropriate test cases to test every single possible implicit assertion that was integrated into our system. These scenarios have also been helpful for us in considering the types of ‘Help’ functions to create. Other than that, I feel pretty confident in delivering the system on time with a significant standard of quality assurance.
Other than IE, I’ve been studying for exams already coz I got 2 exams on the same day on the first week! I kno it sux….but gona have to deal wit it.
Also, it's hard to believe that I'll be finishing uni in two weeks time. Thinking back to my first day at uni back in first year (2004), it seems like yesterday. It's kinda sad in a way, but on the other hand I cant wait to finish, which would eventually bring some closure to all this study and exams and assignments. It would be awesome juz to get the feeling that there will be no more tests or exams in 2 or 3 weeks time. But of course then we gota look for work....but i'm desperately in need of a vacation first of all...LOL.
At the moment it's 1.55am and I'm so tired from catchin up on some previous tute work for accounting. So I think I shud head off and snooze now.....so catch ya later. :)
Nite
Monday, September 24, 2007
Some good news
Hola senoras and mah sexy senoritas,
I've juz been on the phone to Aaron and he has confirmed some good news....we can finally start testing one of the major modules (Asset Form) by the end of this week. We intend to conduct user acceptance testing and module testing. However, we will only do GUI testing if we think its necessary and if we have time, since the client did not place a heavy emphasis on the GUI. Therefore, we intend to get stuck into creating test plans and writing the test report while conducting tests.
Also, we need to get started on user manuals. We intend to only make one big user manual intended for our client, since they will be the only ones (or people with similar knowledge and expertise) that will use this system. Therefore, it would be pointless to create a user manual for the general public.
Now that all my assignments have finished, I have been catching up on some tute work for my other subjects and I intend to use this mid-sem break to study for exams. I got 2 exams on the same freakin' day! It's never happened to me before....has to happen on the final semester in my final year! Those 2 subjects have the most amount of theory as well! So I'm gona ensure I'm damn well prepared...lol!
On friday night, I went out clubbin wit a few frenz...after quite a while...didnt drink tho...stayed nice and sober...lol...feels kinda nice to be sober when out clubbin (for a change!)...lol. We ended up hittin Bond Bar in the city (this sazzy lil' place juz off Flinders street). Met a few chicks too :P:)..lol
Anyways, I'll leave u to ponder wat happened after that...I'm gona hit the bed now....wow..its 2.00 am!
Nitey nite amigos! :)
I've juz been on the phone to Aaron and he has confirmed some good news....we can finally start testing one of the major modules (Asset Form) by the end of this week. We intend to conduct user acceptance testing and module testing. However, we will only do GUI testing if we think its necessary and if we have time, since the client did not place a heavy emphasis on the GUI. Therefore, we intend to get stuck into creating test plans and writing the test report while conducting tests.
Also, we need to get started on user manuals. We intend to only make one big user manual intended for our client, since they will be the only ones (or people with similar knowledge and expertise) that will use this system. Therefore, it would be pointless to create a user manual for the general public.
Now that all my assignments have finished, I have been catching up on some tute work for my other subjects and I intend to use this mid-sem break to study for exams. I got 2 exams on the same freakin' day! It's never happened to me before....has to happen on the final semester in my final year! Those 2 subjects have the most amount of theory as well! So I'm gona ensure I'm damn well prepared...lol!
On friday night, I went out clubbin wit a few frenz...after quite a while...didnt drink tho...stayed nice and sober...lol...feels kinda nice to be sober when out clubbin (for a change!)...lol. We ended up hittin Bond Bar in the city (this sazzy lil' place juz off Flinders street). Met a few chicks too :P:)..lol
Anyways, I'll leave u to ponder wat happened after that...I'm gona hit the bed now....wow..its 2.00 am!
Nitey nite amigos! :)
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Heyyy
Wow I'm soooo tired! Just finished my last assignment (for marketing). That was officially the last assignment in my entire uni life. Phew! Now I just got exams and IE to worry about...lol. So at the moment i'm juz chillaxin' wit a lil' bit of Rn'b (Lloyd ft Nina Sky - Get it shawty & b4 that it was Dr. Dre and 2Pac - California Love)...lol. Ohh and watchin the ICC 20/20 match b/w Australia and Bangladesh....Aust is whoopin ass!!!
In terms of IE, we are nearly done building the system and will start testing over the mid-sem break. Also, we shall simultaneously start on user manuals. So its gona get pretty hectic. Over the implemetation period, the programmers have hit a little bit of a problem and that has slowed down the whole process a little. But its nothing too big and nothing team Velocitec cant handle. lol.
Ohh hang on ...Australia officially won the match just now....124 runs and 1 wicket (Australia) defeats Bangladesh's 122 all out..Lol!!..hilarious....wats even more funny is ricky ponting's smile on his face as if hez just won the damn world cup!....for gods sake it bloody bangladesh! They're shit! Get over it Ricky!!! That guy's way too up himself! Even more than brett lee!
Anyways I got work 2moro at 9am. So goin to sleep now....catch ya l8er :)
Nite and peace out!
Wow I'm soooo tired! Just finished my last assignment (for marketing). That was officially the last assignment in my entire uni life. Phew! Now I just got exams and IE to worry about...lol. So at the moment i'm juz chillaxin' wit a lil' bit of Rn'b (Lloyd ft Nina Sky - Get it shawty & b4 that it was Dr. Dre and 2Pac - California Love)...lol. Ohh and watchin the ICC 20/20 match b/w Australia and Bangladesh....Aust is whoopin ass!!!
In terms of IE, we are nearly done building the system and will start testing over the mid-sem break. Also, we shall simultaneously start on user manuals. So its gona get pretty hectic. Over the implemetation period, the programmers have hit a little bit of a problem and that has slowed down the whole process a little. But its nothing too big and nothing team Velocitec cant handle. lol.
Ohh hang on ...Australia officially won the match just now....124 runs and 1 wicket (Australia) defeats Bangladesh's 122 all out..Lol!!..hilarious....wats even more funny is ricky ponting's smile on his face as if hez just won the damn world cup!....for gods sake it bloody bangladesh! They're shit! Get over it Ricky!!! That guy's way too up himself! Even more than brett lee!
Anyways I got work 2moro at 9am. So goin to sleep now....catch ya l8er :)
Nite and peace out!
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Building, Testing, Clients, Rugby World Cup '07 and some stuff in between
Hi all.
Only 6 more weeks of uni left (including mid semester break). So it’s time to get cracking on testing soon, hopefully by the end of this week. But there’s a lot of building yet to be done and we are striving to get that done by the end of the week so we can start testing. Last Tuesday, me and Aaron met up with Bill (our client) and we gave him a copy of the legal documents and also showed him a few prototype interface screenshots of the database. The meeting went well and went for about 20 minutes (Bill was on the phone to someone for 15 minutes, and the rest of the 5 minutes we talked about the database … lol).
But the good thing about Bill is that he’s not as fussy as Andrew…Bill juz looks at our design and goes “ohh yep, yep, I see wat u hav done there…nice nice…ok ok…cool….i like that yes…of course I know where ur coming from…” and so on. But Andrew is a bit of a pain in the wrong place..lol….he would query nearly everything and ask really complex questions like we’re sitting for a bloody exam!!!…lol…damn engineers! Aaron can do a really good impersonation of Bill and how he talks…hilarious!.. :)
Ok, enuff about the clients. Tarindra and Aaron have been working relentlessly on the implementation of the system. Thusiya and Ishara are involved in a bit of designing of the screens and telling Aaron “hmmm good design but this and that shud be added” or “ooooh that looks pretty in pink!”….lol…lmao! I have been slowly updating the documentation as we go along (such as the functional spec and also the detailed design, with the help of Tar and Aaron). We will hand them in by week 10.
At the moment I’m watching the Rugby World Cup (South Africa vs Samoa) and I watched New Zealand vs Italy, and Australia vs Japan yesterday. Great games – Japan and italy got their asses whooped! All Black and wallabie legends! Cant wait for the finals!
So I guess that’s it for now. Cya next time. :)
Chao!
Only 6 more weeks of uni left (including mid semester break). So it’s time to get cracking on testing soon, hopefully by the end of this week. But there’s a lot of building yet to be done and we are striving to get that done by the end of the week so we can start testing. Last Tuesday, me and Aaron met up with Bill (our client) and we gave him a copy of the legal documents and also showed him a few prototype interface screenshots of the database. The meeting went well and went for about 20 minutes (Bill was on the phone to someone for 15 minutes, and the rest of the 5 minutes we talked about the database … lol).
But the good thing about Bill is that he’s not as fussy as Andrew…Bill juz looks at our design and goes “ohh yep, yep, I see wat u hav done there…nice nice…ok ok…cool….i like that yes…of course I know where ur coming from…” and so on. But Andrew is a bit of a pain in the wrong place..lol….he would query nearly everything and ask really complex questions like we’re sitting for a bloody exam!!!…lol…damn engineers! Aaron can do a really good impersonation of Bill and how he talks…hilarious!.. :)
Ok, enuff about the clients. Tarindra and Aaron have been working relentlessly on the implementation of the system. Thusiya and Ishara are involved in a bit of designing of the screens and telling Aaron “hmmm good design but this and that shud be added” or “ooooh that looks pretty in pink!”….lol…lmao! I have been slowly updating the documentation as we go along (such as the functional spec and also the detailed design, with the help of Tar and Aaron). We will hand them in by week 10.
At the moment I’m watching the Rugby World Cup (South Africa vs Samoa) and I watched New Zealand vs Italy, and Australia vs Japan yesterday. Great games – Japan and italy got their asses whooped! All Black and wallabie legends! Cant wait for the finals!
So I guess that’s it for now. Cya next time. :)
Chao!
Saturday, September 1, 2007
5 more weeks of uni left
Aloha again!
Wow another week has flewn by, leaving us with just 5 short weeks to deliver the project to the client. It's interesting to see how we said 'yep, no problems, we can finish this project by week 8 or 9...lol :) and it's the start of week 8 now and implentation's only about 50% complete. I heard Aaron and Tari are goin to work on it some more and get it up to about 70% by the end of this week. This is because we have planned to have testing finished by the end of the mid-sem break. So we have weeks 11 and 12 to fully finish off updating any documentation, prepare for our presentation (ohh and not to forget, finish off the user manuals...which will be started on very soon). So that's the low-down on the project status at the moment.
This week has been quite a hectic run, with assignments and all....but the gud news is I only have 2 more assignments left in my whole university experience....lol....hopefully it will be that way if i pass everything at the end of the year....which i sincerely hope i do!!! One of them is a 3000 word essay (due week 10) ...and this auditing assignment (also due week 10)....u can imagine how much I cant wait till week 10 is over!!!!....Ahh well, then it will be exam cram time...(not to forget the final phases of IE of course!)
On a totally unrelated matter, me and a couple of friends ended up watching Starsky and Hutch last nyte at a friend's place. Never seen that movie before....but it was gud...worth a watch...lol :) It had a couple of hot chix in it too (one of them was Carmen Electra...dayummm!!!).lol.....made the experience even more worthwhile...haha..:) Apart from that, I really wana see Bourne Ultimatum, but its so hard these days to get time out coz of bloody uni work! Also, Rush Hour 3 is coming out...and I definitely gona see that on sept 27th..lol...it will be the mid-sem break by then, so that shud be ok.
Finally, spring has sprung and I can look 4wd to some long-awaited warm weather coming up..yay!...lol :)
Anyways, time for bed :)....damn it's 2.15 am already!
Nite nite...dont let da bed bugs bite..............no really, look out for bed bugs!!!
Wow another week has flewn by, leaving us with just 5 short weeks to deliver the project to the client. It's interesting to see how we said 'yep, no problems, we can finish this project by week 8 or 9...lol :) and it's the start of week 8 now and implentation's only about 50% complete. I heard Aaron and Tari are goin to work on it some more and get it up to about 70% by the end of this week. This is because we have planned to have testing finished by the end of the mid-sem break. So we have weeks 11 and 12 to fully finish off updating any documentation, prepare for our presentation (ohh and not to forget, finish off the user manuals...which will be started on very soon). So that's the low-down on the project status at the moment.
This week has been quite a hectic run, with assignments and all....but the gud news is I only have 2 more assignments left in my whole university experience....lol....hopefully it will be that way if i pass everything at the end of the year....which i sincerely hope i do!!! One of them is a 3000 word essay (due week 10) ...and this auditing assignment (also due week 10)....u can imagine how much I cant wait till week 10 is over!!!!....Ahh well, then it will be exam cram time...(not to forget the final phases of IE of course!)
On a totally unrelated matter, me and a couple of friends ended up watching Starsky and Hutch last nyte at a friend's place. Never seen that movie before....but it was gud...worth a watch...lol :) It had a couple of hot chix in it too (one of them was Carmen Electra...dayummm!!!).lol.....made the experience even more worthwhile...haha..:) Apart from that, I really wana see Bourne Ultimatum, but its so hard these days to get time out coz of bloody uni work! Also, Rush Hour 3 is coming out...and I definitely gona see that on sept 27th..lol...it will be the mid-sem break by then, so that shud be ok.
Finally, spring has sprung and I can look 4wd to some long-awaited warm weather coming up..yay!...lol :)
Anyways, time for bed :)....damn it's 2.15 am already!
Nite nite...dont let da bed bugs bite..............no really, look out for bed bugs!!!
Sunday, August 26, 2007
week 6 gone
hola,
6 weeks of the semester have flown by. We are in the process of implementation and currently, we're happy with the progress that we're making. At the moment, I'm also juggling 3 assignmnets and 2 mid-sem tests. Cant wait till week end of week 10...all assignments will be finished (except for IE)...and we can work on more IE during the mid-sem break....by then we'll be working on user manuals and finishing off testing. And of course, we'll need to prepare for our final presentation. Whole lotta things to look forward to..lol :)
Our clients have been quite dormant for the past 2 weeks.....havent heard from them...therefore, i'm assuming that there are no dramas and all is gud for us to be building the system as agreed at the meeting.
Also, I have talked to some other teams to see where they're up to in their projects....and most teams still seem to be building as well...i dont think anyone's started testing yet.
Wow it was 21 degrees today...and will be 25 tomoro....and 2 days later it will be 16 again..lol....talk about melbourne weather!!!
It's 2.00 am now...and I remembered to blog juz b4 i sleep..lol...and i gota get up 4 work early tomoro...at 8-ish..gota be there at 9.30...so i better be off then.
L8erz!
Nite nite :)
6 weeks of the semester have flown by. We are in the process of implementation and currently, we're happy with the progress that we're making. At the moment, I'm also juggling 3 assignmnets and 2 mid-sem tests. Cant wait till week end of week 10...all assignments will be finished (except for IE)...and we can work on more IE during the mid-sem break....by then we'll be working on user manuals and finishing off testing. And of course, we'll need to prepare for our final presentation. Whole lotta things to look forward to..lol :)
Our clients have been quite dormant for the past 2 weeks.....havent heard from them...therefore, i'm assuming that there are no dramas and all is gud for us to be building the system as agreed at the meeting.
Also, I have talked to some other teams to see where they're up to in their projects....and most teams still seem to be building as well...i dont think anyone's started testing yet.
Wow it was 21 degrees today...and will be 25 tomoro....and 2 days later it will be 16 again..lol....talk about melbourne weather!!!
It's 2.00 am now...and I remembered to blog juz b4 i sleep..lol...and i gota get up 4 work early tomoro...at 8-ish..gota be there at 9.30...so i better be off then.
L8erz!
Nite nite :)
Sunday, August 19, 2007
hey there,
Week 6 is about to begin already. Wow...there's only like 8 more weeks of uni left...flown by i guess. Regarding IE, implementation is underway and the database is mostly complete. We are also making progress bit by bit on the coding as well. At the moment, there are no major dramas or worries...and I really do hope we can keep it that way till week 12.
In terms of other things, I just finished a 1500 word marketing essay today (feel so proud..lol)...can finally get that out of the way and look forward to the next 3000 word essay for marketing....lol. I know, it never ends.
I cant wait for the Bourne ultimatum to come out...coz i'm such a huge fan of the whole bourne series. I even have a dvd of the bourne supremacy (pirated copy from Sri Lanka...lol)....managed to sneak it into melbourne somehow..lol...customs are so shit..they cudnt detect it..hahaha..:)
Anyways, nutin much else to report on, other than just cruising along thru semester 2....................LET US CRUUUZZZZ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> into a SNOOOZZEEEE >>>>>>>> i'm off 2 sleep....nite nite.....
TaTa
Week 6 is about to begin already. Wow...there's only like 8 more weeks of uni left...flown by i guess. Regarding IE, implementation is underway and the database is mostly complete. We are also making progress bit by bit on the coding as well. At the moment, there are no major dramas or worries...and I really do hope we can keep it that way till week 12.
In terms of other things, I just finished a 1500 word marketing essay today (feel so proud..lol)...can finally get that out of the way and look forward to the next 3000 word essay for marketing....lol. I know, it never ends.
I cant wait for the Bourne ultimatum to come out...coz i'm such a huge fan of the whole bourne series. I even have a dvd of the bourne supremacy (pirated copy from Sri Lanka...lol)....managed to sneak it into melbourne somehow..lol...customs are so shit..they cudnt detect it..hahaha..:)
Anyways, nutin much else to report on, other than just cruising along thru semester 2....................LET US CRUUUZZZZ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> into a SNOOOZZEEEE >>>>>>>> i'm off 2 sleep....nite nite.....
TaTa
Sunday, August 12, 2007
It's official...the client has SIGNED-OFF!
yes u heard right...REHAB Tech has officially signed the agreement on the acceptance criteria and the database design, hence allowing us to build the system. The meeting went for about an hour this time....fairly quick compared to last time. So we hav to give them a copy of the agreement by next week now. Overall, they seemed pretty impressed with the way we hav been working on the project and it was gud to finally get some closure that they hav formally accepted the design criteria. Other than that, hopefully we will have MySQL installed on the K block labs, in order for us to make a more productive start. Dave is currently looking into that.
Other than that, I have to write a 1500 word essay by not this wednesday but next wednesday for Consumer Behaviour (a marketing elective). I shud really get a start on that...tomorrow!!..lol.
Our project plan has had a few changes to it over the past three weeks or so, due to a few changing circumstances. Other than than, no other major events to report on this week for IE. It has been a smooth run, (besides the client sign-off)....there fore, this will be a very brief blog...lol.
The time now is 1.20 am and I have to get up 2moro at 7.30am to get to work by 9..lol...so yes i shud really get some sleep.
Therefore, nite nite...cya next time. :)
Other than that, I have to write a 1500 word essay by not this wednesday but next wednesday for Consumer Behaviour (a marketing elective). I shud really get a start on that...tomorrow!!..lol.
Our project plan has had a few changes to it over the past three weeks or so, due to a few changing circumstances. Other than than, no other major events to report on this week for IE. It has been a smooth run, (besides the client sign-off)....there fore, this will be a very brief blog...lol.
The time now is 1.20 am and I have to get up 2moro at 7.30am to get to work by 9..lol...so yes i shud really get some sleep.
Therefore, nite nite...cya next time. :)
Sunday, August 5, 2007
The Most Boring Client Meeting Yet!
Hi again,
I have just finished doing some accounting tute work and just chillaxing in front of the TV. Just watched the Melbourne comedy festival. Pretty funny. Not as gud as the International comedy festival tho...lol
On a more important note, we had our eagerly anticipated client meeting last friday at Clayton. It was the most boring damn meeting ever! Went for 2 bloody hours!!!....So much for the pre-estimated "20 minutes or so..."...hahaha...I was literally trying to stay awake! Andrew was drilling us with questions regarding the data dictionary...of which Aaron answered most of the questions. While Aaron was sitting to my right all nervous and anxious as to what Andrew will ask next (poor bugger), I was snoozing away on a chair next to him...(well, not "snoozing" snoozing...juz wishing I was asleep!!)...About an hour into the meeting, Bill (the manager dude), got up and went to "check his email"....i'm not surprised if he was bored outta his mind too..hahaha..
But the important thing is we managed to sort everything out in the end and get this:
WE CAN FINALLY START BUILDING THE BLOODY THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are formally getting the sign off this friday, but Andrew has fully assured us that there are no problems with the way we are planning to implement it. It's just that he wanted us to make a few corrections on our diagrams before he could formally "sign" it. We can have them ready next week without any problems. Meanwhile, Aaron and Tarindra have been discussing suitable times for them to meet up and start building. Last time I checked, I heard they will be meeting up this tuesday to start on the database. I think (hopefully), by the end of next week, the database should be completed. Then the coding can begin. We have like 8 weeks (or less) to do this and it's time to get cracking!
Other than that, nothing much else is new I dont think, apart from me getting a huge mobile bill this month....not too happy....lol...they said it was "gud to be three"....bullshit...lol
So until next time, Ta-ta! :)
I have just finished doing some accounting tute work and just chillaxing in front of the TV. Just watched the Melbourne comedy festival. Pretty funny. Not as gud as the International comedy festival tho...lol
On a more important note, we had our eagerly anticipated client meeting last friday at Clayton. It was the most boring damn meeting ever! Went for 2 bloody hours!!!....So much for the pre-estimated "20 minutes or so..."...hahaha...I was literally trying to stay awake! Andrew was drilling us with questions regarding the data dictionary...of which Aaron answered most of the questions. While Aaron was sitting to my right all nervous and anxious as to what Andrew will ask next (poor bugger), I was snoozing away on a chair next to him...(well, not "snoozing" snoozing...juz wishing I was asleep!!)...About an hour into the meeting, Bill (the manager dude), got up and went to "check his email"....i'm not surprised if he was bored outta his mind too..hahaha..
But the important thing is we managed to sort everything out in the end and get this:
WE CAN FINALLY START BUILDING THE BLOODY THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are formally getting the sign off this friday, but Andrew has fully assured us that there are no problems with the way we are planning to implement it. It's just that he wanted us to make a few corrections on our diagrams before he could formally "sign" it. We can have them ready next week without any problems. Meanwhile, Aaron and Tarindra have been discussing suitable times for them to meet up and start building. Last time I checked, I heard they will be meeting up this tuesday to start on the database. I think (hopefully), by the end of next week, the database should be completed. Then the coding can begin. We have like 8 weeks (or less) to do this and it's time to get cracking!
Other than that, nothing much else is new I dont think, apart from me getting a huge mobile bill this month....not too happy....lol...they said it was "gud to be three"....bullshit...lol
So until next time, Ta-ta! :)
Sunday, July 29, 2007
The simpsons, miserable weather...ohh and IE!
Hola!
Wow, 2 weeks of the semester have flown by already. It's amazing to see how fast it can go.
Our test plan was completed and handed in on last friday. We're gonna get the sign-off from the client tomoro morning at 11am....hooray! Finally! Other than that, we look forward to starting the implementation process of the database, along with test cases and conducting unit and module testing and of course updating our project plan as we go along.
Other than that, there is not that much work for my other subjects as yet. So I had a fair bit of time devoted to IE lately. However, assignments for most of my other subjects are likely to come in within the next week or so.
Lucky for Aaron and Tarindra...coz they only have IE to worry about since they have finished all their other subjects. Me Thusiya and Ishara still have the usual 4 subjects per semester to take care of.
The weather for the past month has been so damn miserable and so damn cold....makes you appreciate summer so much!....although this is not what we would be saying in 40 degree summer heat...lol. But overall, I think I would prefer summer way more over winter...I dunno how much more of this weather I can take..hahaha...one minute it's sunny and the next minute it's hailing and thundering!!!
In more exciting news, I watched the Simpsons last thursday nite. It was quite good. But I gotta admit i expected it to be a little more better and longer....but nevertheless, it was a hilarious movie...I specially loved the start. We booked the tickets well in advance (for the vmax screen at Knox)....and I'm so glad that we did....coz the whole cinema was packed. My favourite part was Homer singing:
"SPIDER PIG SPIDER PIG
Does whatever a SPIDER PIG does
Can he swing
From a web
No he cant
He's a pig
LOOK OOOUUUTTT!!!!
He is a SPIDER PIG!! "
HILARIOUS>>>> I laughed my head off!!!
Well, that was my exciting week. Hopefully, this week will be fun too...let's hope so...lol :)
Adios Amigos :)
Wow, 2 weeks of the semester have flown by already. It's amazing to see how fast it can go.
Our test plan was completed and handed in on last friday. We're gonna get the sign-off from the client tomoro morning at 11am....hooray! Finally! Other than that, we look forward to starting the implementation process of the database, along with test cases and conducting unit and module testing and of course updating our project plan as we go along.
Other than that, there is not that much work for my other subjects as yet. So I had a fair bit of time devoted to IE lately. However, assignments for most of my other subjects are likely to come in within the next week or so.
Lucky for Aaron and Tarindra...coz they only have IE to worry about since they have finished all their other subjects. Me Thusiya and Ishara still have the usual 4 subjects per semester to take care of.
The weather for the past month has been so damn miserable and so damn cold....makes you appreciate summer so much!....although this is not what we would be saying in 40 degree summer heat...lol. But overall, I think I would prefer summer way more over winter...I dunno how much more of this weather I can take..hahaha...one minute it's sunny and the next minute it's hailing and thundering!!!
In more exciting news, I watched the Simpsons last thursday nite. It was quite good. But I gotta admit i expected it to be a little more better and longer....but nevertheless, it was a hilarious movie...I specially loved the start. We booked the tickets well in advance (for the vmax screen at Knox)....and I'm so glad that we did....coz the whole cinema was packed. My favourite part was Homer singing:
"SPIDER PIG SPIDER PIG
Does whatever a SPIDER PIG does
Can he swing
From a web
No he cant
He's a pig
LOOK OOOUUUTTT!!!!
He is a SPIDER PIG!! "
HILARIOUS>>>> I laughed my head off!!!
Well, that was my exciting week. Hopefully, this week will be fun too...let's hope so...lol :)
Adios Amigos :)
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Back for semester 2
Hi all,
Wow it's been quite a while hasnt it? Now I'm in my final semester of uni...so I'm tryin to make it as exciting as possible...while at the same time tryin to concentrate hard and pass everything.
Anyway, with regards to IE, we are very close to getting the sign-off from the client. We have emailed them an acceptance criteria and still awaiting their reply as to whether the criteria is complete. Apart from that, the test plan is underway and close to being finished. This being the end of semester 2's first week, there's not much else to report on IE, other that what i've just talked about.
Other than that, last friday and saturday nite, I had two 21st b'days....i know i'm still in holiday mode...and it's so hard to get back into uni mode after the holidays....i'm tryin my best to concentrate...
I also think that i hav had enuff of uni..lol...4 years at caulfield....when u think bout it...yep thats quite a while.
Anyways, I'm not normally this brief...i wud luv to sit here and keep typing ...but i hav to dash off to work now (mondays are my day off so i mostly work on mondays)....so until next time...bye byez
L8erz :)
Wow it's been quite a while hasnt it? Now I'm in my final semester of uni...so I'm tryin to make it as exciting as possible...while at the same time tryin to concentrate hard and pass everything.
Anyway, with regards to IE, we are very close to getting the sign-off from the client. We have emailed them an acceptance criteria and still awaiting their reply as to whether the criteria is complete. Apart from that, the test plan is underway and close to being finished. This being the end of semester 2's first week, there's not much else to report on IE, other that what i've just talked about.
Other than that, last friday and saturday nite, I had two 21st b'days....i know i'm still in holiday mode...and it's so hard to get back into uni mode after the holidays....i'm tryin my best to concentrate...
I also think that i hav had enuff of uni..lol...4 years at caulfield....when u think bout it...yep thats quite a while.
Anyways, I'm not normally this brief...i wud luv to sit here and keep typing ...but i hav to dash off to work now (mondays are my day off so i mostly work on mondays)....so until next time...bye byez
L8erz :)
Sunday, May 27, 2007
My thoughts on Melbourne weather, Aliens, ohh and of course IE!
Hey peeps howzit hangin?
Its been quite a while since i last blogged huh. Ohh actually think it was just last week, but it has seemed like ages till now. I guess it's all coz of the exam cramming I been doing lately. Tax law and accounting mostly. In terms of IE, we are going strong still. We were granted an extension for the detailed design (thanx Jake) till week 13, and we are taking advantage of that to the fullest extent, to deliver a high-calibre piece of work...lol....'high-calibre'..lmao!!:)
It's cloudy outside. The weather report said on friday that it will be a "fine and sunny day for monday". Those were the words of Mike Larkin the weatherman on Channel 10 news. Shows how accurate they are. I hate it when they are wrong. Especially during the holidays when they say its gonna be fine...and we organise a game of cricket on that day..then on that day u hear the forecast again saying "thunderstorms are predicted for the south-eastern region"...lol....doesnt that piss u off!!!...ahh well melbourne weather is quite unpredictable. I guess its the whole southern hemisphere thats screwed up!
Now raindrops are falling on my window. I see a gray sky as I gaze up and search for the sun. But all I get is a sad dark sky staring back at me. I continue to stare, astonished at the sky's enormity and terror. It's kinda frightening when u think bout it. I dont wana think bout it too much. But it has got me hooked. I wonder about the millions of stars and spaceships and aliens out there. And the possibility of all the other different lifeforms on other galaxies and what they must be like and wonder if they are also sad and depressing places to live on (just like our planet). I gotta admit our world is pretty f'ked up! Sometimes I wanna just fly off to another planet, hook up wit a hot alien chick with lots of "superpowers" and live for thousands of years like they do in Futurama. OK maybe I been watching too much Futurama. But u gota admit that one-eyed chick aint bad! I wouldnt mind a piece of that :) All of a sudden, I slap myself really hard on my cheek and snap back to reality.
On a more important "Earthy" subject, our IE project is fast approaching the half-way mark. We havent heard from our clients and they havent heard from us (in like 3 weeks).. shows how much they care about wat we're doing now!!! Hope they havent forgotten us. We kinda miss them....NOT!!!...lol. Ohh by the way, I forgot to mention that in the detailed design, most of the work is done, except for the interface views and a description of the language we'll be using. I will need to consult with Aaron this week to obtain some of that info and convey it back to Ishara or Thusiya as may be necessary. Those two chickpeas have been working so hard on GUI (the subject "GUI"...not IE GUI) and I think their assignment for that is due today. So I do wish them all the best for that, but thank god thats over we can focus more on IE now.
So I hope to see everyone in the lecture tomorrow. And I shall say laterz until next time. :) Tc. Bye bye.
Its been quite a while since i last blogged huh. Ohh actually think it was just last week, but it has seemed like ages till now. I guess it's all coz of the exam cramming I been doing lately. Tax law and accounting mostly. In terms of IE, we are going strong still. We were granted an extension for the detailed design (thanx Jake) till week 13, and we are taking advantage of that to the fullest extent, to deliver a high-calibre piece of work...lol....'high-calibre'..lmao!!:)
It's cloudy outside. The weather report said on friday that it will be a "fine and sunny day for monday". Those were the words of Mike Larkin the weatherman on Channel 10 news. Shows how accurate they are. I hate it when they are wrong. Especially during the holidays when they say its gonna be fine...and we organise a game of cricket on that day..then on that day u hear the forecast again saying "thunderstorms are predicted for the south-eastern region"...lol....doesnt that piss u off!!!...ahh well melbourne weather is quite unpredictable. I guess its the whole southern hemisphere thats screwed up!
Now raindrops are falling on my window. I see a gray sky as I gaze up and search for the sun. But all I get is a sad dark sky staring back at me. I continue to stare, astonished at the sky's enormity and terror. It's kinda frightening when u think bout it. I dont wana think bout it too much. But it has got me hooked. I wonder about the millions of stars and spaceships and aliens out there. And the possibility of all the other different lifeforms on other galaxies and what they must be like and wonder if they are also sad and depressing places to live on (just like our planet). I gotta admit our world is pretty f'ked up! Sometimes I wanna just fly off to another planet, hook up wit a hot alien chick with lots of "superpowers" and live for thousands of years like they do in Futurama. OK maybe I been watching too much Futurama. But u gota admit that one-eyed chick aint bad! I wouldnt mind a piece of that :) All of a sudden, I slap myself really hard on my cheek and snap back to reality.
On a more important "Earthy" subject, our IE project is fast approaching the half-way mark. We havent heard from our clients and they havent heard from us (in like 3 weeks).. shows how much they care about wat we're doing now!!! Hope they havent forgotten us. We kinda miss them....NOT!!!...lol. Ohh by the way, I forgot to mention that in the detailed design, most of the work is done, except for the interface views and a description of the language we'll be using. I will need to consult with Aaron this week to obtain some of that info and convey it back to Ishara or Thusiya as may be necessary. Those two chickpeas have been working so hard on GUI (the subject "GUI"...not IE GUI) and I think their assignment for that is due today. So I do wish them all the best for that, but thank god thats over we can focus more on IE now.
So I hope to see everyone in the lecture tomorrow. And I shall say laterz until next time. :) Tc. Bye bye.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Week 12 begins
Sup peoplez,
Ohh my god. Cant believe its week 12 already! The semester has gone so fast. And with it, we are almost approaching the halfway mark of our journey through IE. It will be a major checkpoint, because we will be assessing where we are and what we have achieved to date and seeing how we can improve the way we do things and make it better for the second half of the project. I gotta say, so far I am impressed with every single person in my team and have absolutely no regrets in joining Velocitec. It's a team that can maintain a positive, cohesive and co-operative work environment, while not forgetting to have a blast! I am confident that if we keep this up till the end of november, we can deliver a successful project with all the required deliverables, to the highest standard possible.
Speaking of deliverables, by this thursday we were hoping to get the detailed design completed. However, due to requests made by my documentors Ishara and Thusiya and (also Aaron who is awaiting reply from client regarding some attributes), we have managed to get an extension on this till the 29th may (tuesday) thanks to Jake.
I reminded Aaron just before to give me an update on what's happening with the sorting out of the attributes he was supposed to do. So I'm hoping for a reply tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, Tari has been checking out some asp.net sites and getting himself familiar with a few asp related websites, forums and various other online sources, as we are looking to use asp.net. Tari is a good problem solver when it comes to programming related issues and is very quick in debugging errors. I have seen him previously debug many complex errors in Java before and I gota say, he will surely become a kick-ass programmer one day. He may even build his own language one day!...who knows! Good stuff brotha! Keep it up, Velocitec will need ya!
In terms of me, I would say I have quite good Java skills (excellent knowledge in object-oriented programming concepts), "OK but not too good" SQL skills, and ummm, think that's all the programming lingos, ohh also throw in a bit of C#. ...lol...I guess not too bad after all.
Anyways, lets see what else is new this week. Oh yes, it rained today! Very exciting, i know!...lol. Umm, also, I been catching up on a lot of tute work (accounting and tax law)....very depressing days indeed....this blog is probably the highlight of my day (the most exciting), apart from watching the simpsons today!...lol....sad sad dayz....cant wait till exams are over.....gonna party like its nineteen ninety nine....ohh and of course get whateva we can get done for our database over the holis.
Apart from that, nothing else new. Think that's it for now. So I'll say hasta manana and bounce!
L8erz peeps :)
Ohh my god. Cant believe its week 12 already! The semester has gone so fast. And with it, we are almost approaching the halfway mark of our journey through IE. It will be a major checkpoint, because we will be assessing where we are and what we have achieved to date and seeing how we can improve the way we do things and make it better for the second half of the project. I gotta say, so far I am impressed with every single person in my team and have absolutely no regrets in joining Velocitec. It's a team that can maintain a positive, cohesive and co-operative work environment, while not forgetting to have a blast! I am confident that if we keep this up till the end of november, we can deliver a successful project with all the required deliverables, to the highest standard possible.
Speaking of deliverables, by this thursday we were hoping to get the detailed design completed. However, due to requests made by my documentors Ishara and Thusiya and (also Aaron who is awaiting reply from client regarding some attributes), we have managed to get an extension on this till the 29th may (tuesday) thanks to Jake.
I reminded Aaron just before to give me an update on what's happening with the sorting out of the attributes he was supposed to do. So I'm hoping for a reply tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, Tari has been checking out some asp.net sites and getting himself familiar with a few asp related websites, forums and various other online sources, as we are looking to use asp.net. Tari is a good problem solver when it comes to programming related issues and is very quick in debugging errors. I have seen him previously debug many complex errors in Java before and I gota say, he will surely become a kick-ass programmer one day. He may even build his own language one day!...who knows! Good stuff brotha! Keep it up, Velocitec will need ya!
In terms of me, I would say I have quite good Java skills (excellent knowledge in object-oriented programming concepts), "OK but not too good" SQL skills, and ummm, think that's all the programming lingos, ohh also throw in a bit of C#. ...lol...I guess not too bad after all.
Anyways, lets see what else is new this week. Oh yes, it rained today! Very exciting, i know!...lol. Umm, also, I been catching up on a lot of tute work (accounting and tax law)....very depressing days indeed....this blog is probably the highlight of my day (the most exciting), apart from watching the simpsons today!...lol....sad sad dayz....cant wait till exams are over.....gonna party like its nineteen ninety nine....ohh and of course get whateva we can get done for our database over the holis.
Apart from that, nothing else new. Think that's it for now. So I'll say hasta manana and bounce!
L8erz peeps :)
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Umm can't think of a title for this week...lez call it week 10 shall we?
Hey guys,
Woke up this morning (well midday to be precise...coz its mah day off) half dazed. Then came the shock of the day. I realised I hadnt blogged before "roughly around 2pm" on this glorious monday (when Jake checks peoples' blogs). I instantly jumped on the computer like a rabbit high on ecstacy and here I am. And no, I'm not insane, I just have a fried brain!...A bit like the CPUs in our clients' heads a couple of weeks ago. They have seemingly been repaired prior to our previous meeting though.
On the being-productive side of things, the functional spec was slipped through Jake's pigeon hole last thursday evening around 6pm. That night, it was me who spent 3 bux on binding. Damn university...they shud be ashamed....greedy sons of bitches!....3 bux juz 4 that! >>> (to bind frekin 17 pages)..my god....shud've juz stapled the damn thing. Anyhow, that is a "sunk cost" in accounting terms...and shall be forgotten becoz it's irrecoverable no matter what (I sound like such a nerd). Unless I go and threaten them to give me mah money back coz they ripped me off!..lol...OK lets not go nuts.
Other than that, we shall be looking into the detailed technical design of the project sometime this week. A meeting shall be arranged this tuesday and everyone shall attend. They shall not make up some shitty retarded excuse saying "ohh I have work"...coz its a frekin tuesday and they shall (and must) rock up to da IE lecture! Otherwise I shall frown at them the next time I see them.
Speaking of work, I have that at 3 pm today. At Kmart. At (classified location)...lol...ok its brandon park...not like anyone will bomb the damn place coz its such a hole! There must be one ATM for the whole centre! And its filled with retarded hobos and frekin irritating customers who come to the checkouts and bitch about their day! The other day this lady got pissed off coz I forgot to ask for her frekin Fly Buys card. It was a bloody $5.99 purchase. Think she bought some garden seeds or some shit. Anyways, she was furious! I was like "damn she needs to get a frekin life." Yeh with that sort of frequent flyer points she would have reached as far as the airport tarmac..lol.!!
Back on the topic of IE, there was no client meeting this week coz it wasn't necessary. Aaron said he was gonna email Andrew asking some stuff ....dunno if hez done it....hope he has. Ishara and Thusiya will be looking into the detailed design templates...and Tar....well, Tar is Tar for now. Wait till the implentation and coding phase comes...hahaha!!! (EVIL LAUGH). He will be fully drained!!!...As Mr. Burns says .."excellent".
That's it for the moment. Thanx for being a kick-ass audience as you always are. I shall holla at ya'll l8er...lol..
Ciao :)
Woke up this morning (well midday to be precise...coz its mah day off) half dazed. Then came the shock of the day. I realised I hadnt blogged before "roughly around 2pm" on this glorious monday (when Jake checks peoples' blogs). I instantly jumped on the computer like a rabbit high on ecstacy and here I am. And no, I'm not insane, I just have a fried brain!...A bit like the CPUs in our clients' heads a couple of weeks ago. They have seemingly been repaired prior to our previous meeting though.
On the being-productive side of things, the functional spec was slipped through Jake's pigeon hole last thursday evening around 6pm. That night, it was me who spent 3 bux on binding. Damn university...they shud be ashamed....greedy sons of bitches!....3 bux juz 4 that! >>> (to bind frekin 17 pages)..my god....shud've juz stapled the damn thing. Anyhow, that is a "sunk cost" in accounting terms...and shall be forgotten becoz it's irrecoverable no matter what (I sound like such a nerd). Unless I go and threaten them to give me mah money back coz they ripped me off!..lol...OK lets not go nuts.
Other than that, we shall be looking into the detailed technical design of the project sometime this week. A meeting shall be arranged this tuesday and everyone shall attend. They shall not make up some shitty retarded excuse saying "ohh I have work"...coz its a frekin tuesday and they shall (and must) rock up to da IE lecture! Otherwise I shall frown at them the next time I see them.
Speaking of work, I have that at 3 pm today. At Kmart. At (classified location)...lol...ok its brandon park...not like anyone will bomb the damn place coz its such a hole! There must be one ATM for the whole centre! And its filled with retarded hobos and frekin irritating customers who come to the checkouts and bitch about their day! The other day this lady got pissed off coz I forgot to ask for her frekin Fly Buys card. It was a bloody $5.99 purchase. Think she bought some garden seeds or some shit. Anyways, she was furious! I was like "damn she needs to get a frekin life." Yeh with that sort of frequent flyer points she would have reached as far as the airport tarmac..lol.!!
Back on the topic of IE, there was no client meeting this week coz it wasn't necessary. Aaron said he was gonna email Andrew asking some stuff ....dunno if hez done it....hope he has. Ishara and Thusiya will be looking into the detailed design templates...and Tar....well, Tar is Tar for now. Wait till the implentation and coding phase comes...hahaha!!! (EVIL LAUGH). He will be fully drained!!!...As Mr. Burns says .."excellent".
That's it for the moment. Thanx for being a kick-ass audience as you always are. I shall holla at ya'll l8er...lol..
Ciao :)
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Sigh of Relief!
Konnichiwa peoplez,
Some very good news this week. Our client has finally come out of his disillusioned coma and agreed to alter the structure of their existing crappy database. Phew! Finally, we can utter a sigh of relief. Here’s how it went down. Prior to the meeting on Friday, Tarindra and Aaron were busy coming up with a good, understandable DSD (Data Structure Diagram) to show the client with regards to the proposed system (with the assistance received by Jake and David on Thursday). This was a well spent 8 hours in total, because as I’m about to tell you, it turned the tables around 180 degrees in our favour.
Once at the meeting, Aaron gave this DSD to Andrew (the technical fellah a.k.a “the engineering dude” a.k.a “the guy who was so reluctant to break-down the current data structure and AssetList table containing 25 attributes!”), and explained to him exactly how we propose to break down the AssetList table and make their lives a lot easier. My nervousness climaxed at this point and as soon as Andrew murmured “umm…..yea OK”, the anxiety slowly went downhill from here, because I knew Aaron was doing a good job convincing him. I believe one of the major reasons why Andrew agreed with us this time was the fact that he could visually see right in front of him a detailed diagram of what the database will look like after being modified. Looking at this and thinking of how it will be much more efficient definitely must have made him reconsider our proposal. Also, I think we should have done this at last week’s meeting (instead of waiting till this week), because if we had shown him a diagram (rather than just explaining it verbally last week), he may have agreed to it then as well….who knows!
Some minor modifications to our design were also made at the meeting, such as changing the relationships between certain data structures and getting rid of a few entities in our ERD (Entity Relationship Diagram). Other than that, the clients also supported us providing them with a familiar view to manipulate data. This way, a query can be set up to call the relevant attributes from the corresponding tables to be shown on a view resembling what the client is already used to working with, even though the underlying internal schema of the database would have changed.
Now we can properly finish off the functional specification since we now have a better understanding of what the client expects from us and can document it with confidence. This whole issue with the clients has affected the schedule of delivering our functional specification document due to the fact that we weren’t sure of the proposed system’s functionality and structure. Also, now remains the task of normalizing attributes and we still need the client’s approval to normalize certain attributes of some tables. This will most likely be obtained by next week, but won’t affect the functional specification in any way.
The meeting went for an hour and fifteen minutes. On the way home, everyone was relieved! Aaron was like “I’m so happy I’m gonna go home and get pissed tonite”. Tar was like “I can’t go out these days, mum’s been telling me I been going out too much and want me to stay home more!” And I was like “Damn I need to go home and blog!” See how much I go through just to keep you guys entertained???
Anyways, that’s it for now. At the end of the day, it was a good result and everyone’s satisfied. (Even the database! It must be going ‘yay, I have more room to spread my arms and legs around a bit more!’)…lol….I know…it’s very lame homour…but I cant help it!!! :)
Sayoonara peeps.
Some very good news this week. Our client has finally come out of his disillusioned coma and agreed to alter the structure of their existing crappy database. Phew! Finally, we can utter a sigh of relief. Here’s how it went down. Prior to the meeting on Friday, Tarindra and Aaron were busy coming up with a good, understandable DSD (Data Structure Diagram) to show the client with regards to the proposed system (with the assistance received by Jake and David on Thursday). This was a well spent 8 hours in total, because as I’m about to tell you, it turned the tables around 180 degrees in our favour.
Once at the meeting, Aaron gave this DSD to Andrew (the technical fellah a.k.a “the engineering dude” a.k.a “the guy who was so reluctant to break-down the current data structure and AssetList table containing 25 attributes!”), and explained to him exactly how we propose to break down the AssetList table and make their lives a lot easier. My nervousness climaxed at this point and as soon as Andrew murmured “umm…..yea OK”, the anxiety slowly went downhill from here, because I knew Aaron was doing a good job convincing him. I believe one of the major reasons why Andrew agreed with us this time was the fact that he could visually see right in front of him a detailed diagram of what the database will look like after being modified. Looking at this and thinking of how it will be much more efficient definitely must have made him reconsider our proposal. Also, I think we should have done this at last week’s meeting (instead of waiting till this week), because if we had shown him a diagram (rather than just explaining it verbally last week), he may have agreed to it then as well….who knows!
Some minor modifications to our design were also made at the meeting, such as changing the relationships between certain data structures and getting rid of a few entities in our ERD (Entity Relationship Diagram). Other than that, the clients also supported us providing them with a familiar view to manipulate data. This way, a query can be set up to call the relevant attributes from the corresponding tables to be shown on a view resembling what the client is already used to working with, even though the underlying internal schema of the database would have changed.
Now we can properly finish off the functional specification since we now have a better understanding of what the client expects from us and can document it with confidence. This whole issue with the clients has affected the schedule of delivering our functional specification document due to the fact that we weren’t sure of the proposed system’s functionality and structure. Also, now remains the task of normalizing attributes and we still need the client’s approval to normalize certain attributes of some tables. This will most likely be obtained by next week, but won’t affect the functional specification in any way.
The meeting went for an hour and fifteen minutes. On the way home, everyone was relieved! Aaron was like “I’m so happy I’m gonna go home and get pissed tonite”. Tar was like “I can’t go out these days, mum’s been telling me I been going out too much and want me to stay home more!” And I was like “Damn I need to go home and blog!” See how much I go through just to keep you guys entertained???
Anyways, that’s it for now. At the end of the day, it was a good result and everyone’s satisfied. (Even the database! It must be going ‘yay, I have more room to spread my arms and legs around a bit more!’)…lol….I know…it’s very lame homour…but I cant help it!!! :)
Sayoonara peeps.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Hectic timez of semester 1
This week has been hectic, not to mention very stressful. And it isnt over yet. I had two mid-sem tests, 1 jumbo-sized essay due (2moro) and the functional spec for IE due on Thursday. We tried our best to finish the functional spec last thursday, but due to the other commitments of team members, we had to extend the deadline until this coming Thursday (an example of a schedule overrun). Also, in 15 minutes, I will be getting the marks for the accounting mid-sem test I did last Friday….I’m dreading the result, because the average was apparently 13 out of 30!!!. Just praying that I get more!
With regards to our project, I have emailed Andrew requesting another meeting on Friday. I emailed him last Thursday, but I’m still awaiting his reply. Other than that, the functional specification (at least a draft version) will most likely be ready by this Thursday. It is highly unlikely that it will be 100 percent complete, because there is a lot of things to cover, including explaining in great detail, using diagrams and tables and showing relationships between entities and so on. One of the problems we faced with this deliverable was whether to design the proposed system the way the client wanted it, or the way we wanted it. Just to refresh your memory, the design we proposed to the client involved a great deal of normalisation. However, the client rejected this proposal and only a very small portion of the database was allowed to be altered. Given the circumstances, we decided that it is best to design the proposed system according to the client’s preferences. This is because we had no other choice and didn’t want to put excessive force and pressure on our clients, in getting them to comply with our proposal.
I met up with Aaron today at the IE lecture (yes, Aaron, because he seems to be the only one in my team other than me who rocks up to the IE lecture every week) Ishi, Tar and Thusiya need to make more of an effort to rock up on Tuesdays I reckon. This way I can save money when trying to get in touch with them (i.e. using mobiles to ring them and asking for an update on progress every week…other than in the studios on Thursdays of course). So I’m gonna call ‘em up tonite and ask them for the reasons of not rocking up. They better be good reasons!..lol..And I will ensure they will turn up next week, because I would hate for this to become a weekly habit of them avoiding the IE lecture, as there are some valuable hints and ideas given at this lecture that can be used within the project. I think everyone can benefit to some degree by attending the lecture.
Other than that, I was a bit sick during the past week (as in coughing and runny nose and uurrrgghh!!!....so annoying when I get sick! It hasn’t impacted our work a great deal though, although sometimes I tend to slow down my pace of work. Also, I tend to drift off to sleep at night much earlier than I would normally sleep. Therefore, I have started eating more and more apples!!! (At least one a day….hoping it would keep the doctor away)…hahaha….lol….Please ignore my lame homour!
Anyways, that’s it for now. Cya next time :)
Ciao!
With regards to our project, I have emailed Andrew requesting another meeting on Friday. I emailed him last Thursday, but I’m still awaiting his reply. Other than that, the functional specification (at least a draft version) will most likely be ready by this Thursday. It is highly unlikely that it will be 100 percent complete, because there is a lot of things to cover, including explaining in great detail, using diagrams and tables and showing relationships between entities and so on. One of the problems we faced with this deliverable was whether to design the proposed system the way the client wanted it, or the way we wanted it. Just to refresh your memory, the design we proposed to the client involved a great deal of normalisation. However, the client rejected this proposal and only a very small portion of the database was allowed to be altered. Given the circumstances, we decided that it is best to design the proposed system according to the client’s preferences. This is because we had no other choice and didn’t want to put excessive force and pressure on our clients, in getting them to comply with our proposal.
I met up with Aaron today at the IE lecture (yes, Aaron, because he seems to be the only one in my team other than me who rocks up to the IE lecture every week) Ishi, Tar and Thusiya need to make more of an effort to rock up on Tuesdays I reckon. This way I can save money when trying to get in touch with them (i.e. using mobiles to ring them and asking for an update on progress every week…other than in the studios on Thursdays of course). So I’m gonna call ‘em up tonite and ask them for the reasons of not rocking up. They better be good reasons!..lol..And I will ensure they will turn up next week, because I would hate for this to become a weekly habit of them avoiding the IE lecture, as there are some valuable hints and ideas given at this lecture that can be used within the project. I think everyone can benefit to some degree by attending the lecture.
Other than that, I was a bit sick during the past week (as in coughing and runny nose and uurrrgghh!!!....so annoying when I get sick! It hasn’t impacted our work a great deal though, although sometimes I tend to slow down my pace of work. Also, I tend to drift off to sleep at night much earlier than I would normally sleep. Therefore, I have started eating more and more apples!!! (At least one a day….hoping it would keep the doctor away)…hahaha….lol….Please ignore my lame homour!
Anyways, that’s it for now. Cya next time :)
Ciao!
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Toughest client meeting yet
Hola!
Well, the time now is 1.22 am on a sunday morning. And yes, I'm sitting at home blogging! I feel like such a loser. At the moment, I'm also listening to "Get it poppin" by Fat Joe and before that it was "Shake that ass" by Eminem. Anyhow, I have been at work in the morning (Kmart) and the rest of the day, studying for two unit tests and preparing the infamous tax law assignment. Ohh and of course, I did the minutes for our client meeting yesterday with Andrew and Bill.
Well, yesterday at the meeting, we discussed the issue of normalisation with Andrew and Bill. Everytime we asked Bill (the non-technical fellah) a question about the database, he would point his right index finger towards Andrew (the technical fellah). This 'technical fellah' who is an 'engineer' proved to be extremely difficult to convince, when it came to normalisation. He wanted to keep the way he had the tables structured so badly, that he tended to come up with some sort of negative remark for our approach. In a way, it was good to explore the possibilities by brainstorming the pros and the cons of normalisation, but Andrew just couldn't see the benefits they will receive by dividing the tables up as we had planned, instead of keeping all attributes in one big table. Furthermore, there are sooooo many repeating attributes and attributes with similar names! What's even worse is that Andrew reckons that "[he] needs them all"!!!!!!!! Also, he reckons keeping a whole chunk of attributes (like 25 or so) in one table would be convenient to him when it comes to data entry.
I think the whole issue here is that he just doesn't want to take the time to learn how to do things a little differently, which will derive far greater benefits. He also made it clear that they want to be able to enter data and manipulate data the same way they have always been doing.
I felt sorry for Aaron, who was standing up in front of their whiteboard and drawing diagrams and what not trying so hard to convince them. Me and Tarindra and Ishara also backed him up. At times, I could tell Aaron was getting so cut at Andrew, that he was fidgeting with his ear and gritting his teeth together. (He does this when he's mad, thats how I know...other than that Andrew and Bill won't have realised he was mad!..lol). I was trying so hard not to laugh at certain times...lol!!!!!
Finally, we managed to settle somewhere on the border. We got some things we wanted, and they got some things they wanted. Andrew gave us the 'ok' to normalise some parts of the database, but another half of it we cant touch. In a way, fair trade. Ahh well, at the end of the day, if they dont want our expert solutions, then we wont waste our breath and energy trying to convince them! Not our problem they are plain stupid!..lol. (But dont get me wrong: they are nice people and we dont hate them! :D).
On the way back home from the meeting, I have never heard Aaron swear so much (haha), joined in by Tari and me occasionally. lol... (he gave us all a lift home...nice fellah). Well, the important thing is, we believe if we are persistent, we should be able to eventually get somewhere with the clients with normalisation.
Also at the meeting, we were able to identify what some more of the attributes meant.
Apart from that, the functional spec is being prepared by thusiya and ishara (the rest of us are helping them too!!!)
Anyways, I dont wanna bore you too much more and I shall say 'Hasta Manana' till next time.
L8erz amigos! :)
Well, the time now is 1.22 am on a sunday morning. And yes, I'm sitting at home blogging! I feel like such a loser. At the moment, I'm also listening to "Get it poppin" by Fat Joe and before that it was "Shake that ass" by Eminem. Anyhow, I have been at work in the morning (Kmart) and the rest of the day, studying for two unit tests and preparing the infamous tax law assignment. Ohh and of course, I did the minutes for our client meeting yesterday with Andrew and Bill.
Well, yesterday at the meeting, we discussed the issue of normalisation with Andrew and Bill. Everytime we asked Bill (the non-technical fellah) a question about the database, he would point his right index finger towards Andrew (the technical fellah). This 'technical fellah' who is an 'engineer' proved to be extremely difficult to convince, when it came to normalisation. He wanted to keep the way he had the tables structured so badly, that he tended to come up with some sort of negative remark for our approach. In a way, it was good to explore the possibilities by brainstorming the pros and the cons of normalisation, but Andrew just couldn't see the benefits they will receive by dividing the tables up as we had planned, instead of keeping all attributes in one big table. Furthermore, there are sooooo many repeating attributes and attributes with similar names! What's even worse is that Andrew reckons that "[he] needs them all"!!!!!!!! Also, he reckons keeping a whole chunk of attributes (like 25 or so) in one table would be convenient to him when it comes to data entry.
I think the whole issue here is that he just doesn't want to take the time to learn how to do things a little differently, which will derive far greater benefits. He also made it clear that they want to be able to enter data and manipulate data the same way they have always been doing.
I felt sorry for Aaron, who was standing up in front of their whiteboard and drawing diagrams and what not trying so hard to convince them. Me and Tarindra and Ishara also backed him up. At times, I could tell Aaron was getting so cut at Andrew, that he was fidgeting with his ear and gritting his teeth together. (He does this when he's mad, thats how I know...other than that Andrew and Bill won't have realised he was mad!..lol). I was trying so hard not to laugh at certain times...lol!!!!!
Finally, we managed to settle somewhere on the border. We got some things we wanted, and they got some things they wanted. Andrew gave us the 'ok' to normalise some parts of the database, but another half of it we cant touch. In a way, fair trade. Ahh well, at the end of the day, if they dont want our expert solutions, then we wont waste our breath and energy trying to convince them! Not our problem they are plain stupid!..lol. (But dont get me wrong: they are nice people and we dont hate them! :D).
On the way back home from the meeting, I have never heard Aaron swear so much (haha), joined in by Tari and me occasionally. lol... (he gave us all a lift home...nice fellah). Well, the important thing is, we believe if we are persistent, we should be able to eventually get somewhere with the clients with normalisation.
Also at the meeting, we were able to identify what some more of the attributes meant.
Apart from that, the functional spec is being prepared by thusiya and ishara (the rest of us are helping them too!!!)
Anyways, I dont wanna bore you too much more and I shall say 'Hasta Manana' till next time.
L8erz amigos! :)
Hola!
Well, the time now is 1.22 am on a sunday morning. And yes, I'm sitting at home blogging! I feel like such a loser. At the moment, I'm also listening to "Get it poppin" by Fat Joe and before that it was "Shake that ass" by Eminem. Anyhow, I have been at work in the morning (Kmart) and the rest of the day, studying for two unit tests and preparing the infamous tax law assignment. Ohh and of course, I did the minutes for our client meeting yesterday with Andrew and Bill.
Well, yesterday at the meeting, we discussed the issue of normalisation with Andrew and Bill. Everytime we asked Bill (the non-technical fellah) a question about the database, he would point his right index finger towards Andrew (the technical fellah). This 'technical fellah' who is an 'engineer' proved to be extremely difficult to convince, when it came to normalisation. He wanted to keep the way he had the tables structured so badly, that he tended to come up with some sort of negative remark for our approach. In a way, it was good to explore the possibilities by brainstorming the pros and the cons of normalisation, but Andrew just couldn't see the benefits they will receive by dividing the tables up as we had planned, instead of keeping all attributes in one big table. Furthermore, there are sooooo many repeating attributes and attributes with similar names! What's even worse is that Andrew reckons that "[he] needs them all"!!!!!!!! Also, he reckons keeping a whole chunk of attributes (like 25 or so) in one table would be convenient to him when it comes to data entry.
I think the whole issue here is that he just doesn't want to take the time to learn how to do things a little differently, which will derive far greater benefits. He also made it clear that they want to be able to enter data and manipulate data the same way they have always been doing.
I felt sorry for Aaron, who was standing up in front of their whiteboard and drawing diagrams and what not trying so hard to convince them. Me and Tarindra and Ishara also backed him up. At times, I could tell Aaron was getting so cut at Andrew, that he was fidgeting with his ear and gritting his teeth together. (He does this when he's mad, thats how I know...other than that Andrew and Bill won't have realised he was mad!..lol). I was trying so hard not to laugh at certain times...lol!!!!!
Finally, we managed to settle somewhere on the border. We got some things we wanted, and they got some things they wanted. Andrew gave us the 'ok' to normalise some parts of the database, but another half of it we cant touch. In a way, fair trade. Ahh well, at the end of the day, if they dont want our expert solutions, then we wont waste our breath and energy trying to convince them! Not our problem they are plain stupid!..lol. (But dont get me wrong: they are nice people and we dont hate them! :D).
On the way back home from the meeting, I have never heard Aaron swear so much (haha), joined in by Tari and me occasionally. lol... (he gave us all a lift home...nice fellah). Well, the important thing is, we believe if we are persistent, we should be able to eventually get somewhere with the clients with normalisation.
Also at the meeting, we were able to identify what some more of the attributes meant.
Apart from that, the functional spec is being prepared by thusiya and ishara (the rest of us are helping them too!!!)
Anyways, I dont wanna bore you too much more and I shall say 'Hasta Manana' till next time.
L8erz amigos! :)
Well, the time now is 1.22 am on a sunday morning. And yes, I'm sitting at home blogging! I feel like such a loser. At the moment, I'm also listening to "Get it poppin" by Fat Joe and before that it was "Shake that ass" by Eminem. Anyhow, I have been at work in the morning (Kmart) and the rest of the day, studying for two unit tests and preparing the infamous tax law assignment. Ohh and of course, I did the minutes for our client meeting yesterday with Andrew and Bill.
Well, yesterday at the meeting, we discussed the issue of normalisation with Andrew and Bill. Everytime we asked Bill (the non-technical fellah) a question about the database, he would point his right index finger towards Andrew (the technical fellah). This 'technical fellah' who is an 'engineer' proved to be extremely difficult to convince, when it came to normalisation. He wanted to keep the way he had the tables structured so badly, that he tended to come up with some sort of negative remark for our approach. In a way, it was good to explore the possibilities by brainstorming the pros and the cons of normalisation, but Andrew just couldn't see the benefits they will receive by dividing the tables up as we had planned, instead of keeping all attributes in one big table. Furthermore, there are sooooo many repeating attributes and attributes with similar names! What's even worse is that Andrew reckons that "[he] needs them all"!!!!!!!! Also, he reckons keeping a whole chunk of attributes (like 25 or so) in one table would be convenient to him when it comes to data entry.
I think the whole issue here is that he just doesn't want to take the time to learn how to do things a little differently, which will derive far greater benefits. He also made it clear that they want to be able to enter data and manipulate data the same way they have always been doing.
I felt sorry for Aaron, who was standing up in front of their whiteboard and drawing diagrams and what not trying so hard to convince them. Me and Tarindra and Ishara also backed him up. At times, I could tell Aaron was getting so cut at Andrew, that he was fidgeting with his ear and gritting his teeth together. (He does this when he's mad, thats how I know...other than that Andrew and Bill won't have realised he was mad!..lol). I was trying so hard not to laugh at certain times...lol!!!!!
Finally, we managed to settle somewhere on the border. We got some things we wanted, and they got some things they wanted. Andrew gave us the 'ok' to normalise some parts of the database, but another half of it we cant touch. In a way, fair trade. Ahh well, at the end of the day, if they dont want our expert solutions, then we wont waste our breath and energy trying to convince them! Not our problem they are plain stupid!..lol. (But dont get me wrong: they are nice people and we dont hate them! :D).
On the way back home from the meeting, I have never heard Aaron swear so much (haha), joined in by Tari and me occasionally. lol... (he gave us all a lift home...nice fellah). Well, the important thing is, we believe if we are persistent, we should be able to eventually get somewhere with the clients with normalisation.
Also at the meeting, we were able to identify what some more of the attributes meant.
Apart from that, the functional spec is being prepared by thusiya and ishara (the rest of us are helping them too!!!)
Anyways, I dont wanna bore you too much more and I shall say 'Hasta Manana' till next time.
L8erz amigos! :)
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Sitting in IE studio
I'm just sitting in the IE studio room with Tari, Aaron and Jake. We are talking about the simpsons. Yes, very relevant to building a medical asset management system. Thusiya and Ishara are in their own little girly world at another table. Well, on the being-productive side of things, me, Tari and Aaron are waiting for this other dude to send the database tables that we designed last week. Apparently, Tari accidently left that piece of paper inside a book belonging to that other dude. Ahh here we go, he just sent it!!.. He scanned the piece of paper and sent a jpg file...lol...so we cant correct it...we have to type it up in excel again..lol..idiot :) Still on being productive, Thusiya and Ishara (our documentors for now) are busy at getting the Functional specification started.
Jake has now left. There's about 10 people in the room now and most of them are in a non-IE world of their own, judging by their conversations. By the looks of it, only Ishi and Thusiya are doing work. Wow, they look really focuses. I'm scared to interrupt them! Aaron and Tari are asking me what we did last week. My answer was 'not much.' Well, good question, what DID we do last week. Lets see, we started to normalise a few tables, created a few tables, and tried to build relationships with them where necessary. Tari wasnt too good at normalisation, but he was an excellent analyst. Aaron and I were mainly involved in normalising. There's still a lot to do with normalisation, prior to the client meeting tomorrow evening at 4.30 at Clayton.
Having said that, I better run off and provide some assistance. Oh yes, I should probably go and have a sneak peek at what Thusiya and Ishi are doing. After all, I'm the project manager and it is my job to oversee all aspects of the fascinatingly mind-blowing project.
Until next time, Ciao ! :)
Jake has now left. There's about 10 people in the room now and most of them are in a non-IE world of their own, judging by their conversations. By the looks of it, only Ishi and Thusiya are doing work. Wow, they look really focuses. I'm scared to interrupt them! Aaron and Tari are asking me what we did last week. My answer was 'not much.' Well, good question, what DID we do last week. Lets see, we started to normalise a few tables, created a few tables, and tried to build relationships with them where necessary. Tari wasnt too good at normalisation, but he was an excellent analyst. Aaron and I were mainly involved in normalising. There's still a lot to do with normalisation, prior to the client meeting tomorrow evening at 4.30 at Clayton.
Having said that, I better run off and provide some assistance. Oh yes, I should probably go and have a sneak peek at what Thusiya and Ishi are doing. After all, I'm the project manager and it is my job to oversee all aspects of the fascinatingly mind-blowing project.
Until next time, Ciao ! :)
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Easter break!!!!!!!!!
Hi all,
Easter has been somewhat fun and somewhat dull and iritating and boring. Fun was taking a small break from the hectic and demanding world of uni studies. Went clubbing a couple of times. One of these nights (at lions bar @ melbourne central), got fully trashed, wasted, plastered. The other (at DMD @ the exchange hotel), stayed nice and sober and drove all my drunken friends home. Other than that, stayed at home, relaxed a bit (not too much) and tried to catch up on my work. Ohh and yes of course, there was a lot of easter eggs which I treated myself to.
Now I'll get to the dull aspect. There was the accounting and tax law essays which I began writing. The length of these essays really put me off! I would rather prefer a unit test!
In terms of IE, it has been quite interesting and moderately fun. Our group met up on tuesday and we normalised some of the tables in the database. I think we made quite a lot of progress that day from 3pm to 5pm. We had initially planned to meet the clients (Bill and Andrew) on the following thursday. But we decided that it was best to postpose this by another week. Our decision was due to the fact that we could prepare more questions and ask all these questions at
once. So now, the meeting will be on friday 20th april.
I'm guessing Andrew will be impressed by our analysis of the database to date, because of the quality of the questions we have planned for him. In particular, we will be popping the question of whether he would like us to normalise the database tables. This can go either way, because initially, they did not like us to change the structure of the database by a great deal. Therefore, we are hoping that they will see the advantages of normalisation and agree with us in allowing us to normalise. We believe normalisation is necessary, because of the vast number of repeating attributes. Sometimes, some attributes even have two different names. Some attributes aren't even being used! We sat around the computer, looking at these extremely poor design practices, laughing our heads off at the people that made this database!!! We had quite a blast!!! Specially funny, were Tarindra's comments when he said "these people must have been drunk when they built this!!!"...lol.
Apart from this, we have been thinking about how our functional specification will come along. We will be thinking more about this, early this week. Other than that, there is nothing much else to reflect on for this week. See you again soon. L8erz :)
Easter has been somewhat fun and somewhat dull and iritating and boring. Fun was taking a small break from the hectic and demanding world of uni studies. Went clubbing a couple of times. One of these nights (at lions bar @ melbourne central), got fully trashed, wasted, plastered. The other (at DMD @ the exchange hotel), stayed nice and sober and drove all my drunken friends home. Other than that, stayed at home, relaxed a bit (not too much) and tried to catch up on my work. Ohh and yes of course, there was a lot of easter eggs which I treated myself to.
Now I'll get to the dull aspect. There was the accounting and tax law essays which I began writing. The length of these essays really put me off! I would rather prefer a unit test!
In terms of IE, it has been quite interesting and moderately fun. Our group met up on tuesday and we normalised some of the tables in the database. I think we made quite a lot of progress that day from 3pm to 5pm. We had initially planned to meet the clients (Bill and Andrew) on the following thursday. But we decided that it was best to postpose this by another week. Our decision was due to the fact that we could prepare more questions and ask all these questions at
once. So now, the meeting will be on friday 20th april.
I'm guessing Andrew will be impressed by our analysis of the database to date, because of the quality of the questions we have planned for him. In particular, we will be popping the question of whether he would like us to normalise the database tables. This can go either way, because initially, they did not like us to change the structure of the database by a great deal. Therefore, we are hoping that they will see the advantages of normalisation and agree with us in allowing us to normalise. We believe normalisation is necessary, because of the vast number of repeating attributes. Sometimes, some attributes even have two different names. Some attributes aren't even being used! We sat around the computer, looking at these extremely poor design practices, laughing our heads off at the people that made this database!!! We had quite a blast!!! Specially funny, were Tarindra's comments when he said "these people must have been drunk when they built this!!!"...lol.
Apart from this, we have been thinking about how our functional specification will come along. We will be thinking more about this, early this week. Other than that, there is nothing much else to reflect on for this week. See you again soon. L8erz :)
Thursday, April 5, 2007
The 411, the lowdown, the week-in-brief, watever u wanna call it
Ahoy hoy!!!
It's been quite a hectic week. Not just because of IE, but due to other work as well. I have a 3000 word tax law essay which I should start on, a 2500 word accounting report, and an accounting mid-sem test to study for!. And on top of all that, we have to build this database for our wonderful clients. This project is turning out to be quite interesting, coz everyday we seem to be coming up with more and more questions to query the client on.
These clients aren't that easygoing either, they are watching over us like hawks! They want us to ask "intelligent" questions. And they (especially Bill) say that that's how they will judge us. I was a bit reluctant to go to the client gathering on wednesday, coz I thought it would be boring. Yet, I didn't wanna ditch my team coz we're 'VELOCITEC' and we just dont do that to each other (except for Aaron who supposedly "had work and couldn't get time off to come" ....haha lol..yeh rite matey). On my way to this function, as I was about to turn into the Monash Freeway, Tarindra calls me up and goes "hey bro, do you have an extra tie? Can u plz quickly turn around, run home and get one, coz i dont wanna look like the only idiot!!!) So I turned all the way around and drove back another 5 km in the opposite direction back to my house and found another tie for him. (That's why we were like 15 minutes late)...lol.
Anyhow, just to let you know, the gathering wasn't that bad. There were Savoy biscuits and cheesy dips and champagne so it was well worth it. However, I just wish I had my phone turned off when that lady (forgot who she was) was addressing us all. It rang, momentarily attracting most people's attention. She also looked at me and gave me a funny look. Panicky moment, but good lesson learnt. Afterwards, we talked with Bill and Andrew (our clients) a bit more, until they ditched us to go and chat with a couple of young ladies....lol...:) We kinda spoiled their moment when we went and joined them again, hence chasing away the girls!!! Bill and
Andrew then left about 15 minutes later. Overall, it was a good event.
We have scheduled to meet up with Andrew on thursday to discuss the database a bit more. More and more and more questions keep popping up out of the blue like jack-in-the-boxes! We have decided that we wanna be ahead of the game, by applying a proactive attitude when it comes to querying the client, hence demonstrating our dedication to this project, in front of Bill and Andrew.
Other than that, we have completed and handed in our business case (1st version) and when we did this doc, we took into account all the feedback that Jake gave us regarding our other 2 docs (ie: no orphans, intro sentences and so on). I was initially expecting HD for the standards and governance docs, and was a little disappointed with only a D. But I think (I hope) we have taken into account all those weak points when doing the business case.
Now we got a whole week ahead of us for easter. I'm planning to catch up on all my work (all subjects) and meet up with my team sometime during the week (most likely tuesday) to discuss wat to ask at the client meeting on thursday. Other than that, I'm sure you can imagine what writing a 3000 word tax law report is like. Sooooooooooooo boring. On top of that, we have the most boring lecturer for that subject!!!. But she's not as bad as the guy we had for microeconomics in first year. Anyways, I think I'm going off track here. Time to focus. The next deliverable is the functional specification. We should get started on a draft next week and
plan to hand it in by week 8 the latest. This is because we want to be "one of those clever teams" like Jake said and be "ahead of the game" like I said earlier on. Hope everything goes well. Ahh well, pray for me coz tax law is giving me a headache!!! Thank god for easter though. Phew!
Until next time.................................
Cuidados, Feliz Pascua!!! Hasta luego !!! :)
It's been quite a hectic week. Not just because of IE, but due to other work as well. I have a 3000 word tax law essay which I should start on, a 2500 word accounting report, and an accounting mid-sem test to study for!. And on top of all that, we have to build this database for our wonderful clients. This project is turning out to be quite interesting, coz everyday we seem to be coming up with more and more questions to query the client on.
These clients aren't that easygoing either, they are watching over us like hawks! They want us to ask "intelligent" questions. And they (especially Bill) say that that's how they will judge us. I was a bit reluctant to go to the client gathering on wednesday, coz I thought it would be boring. Yet, I didn't wanna ditch my team coz we're 'VELOCITEC' and we just dont do that to each other (except for Aaron who supposedly "had work and couldn't get time off to come" ....haha lol..yeh rite matey). On my way to this function, as I was about to turn into the Monash Freeway, Tarindra calls me up and goes "hey bro, do you have an extra tie? Can u plz quickly turn around, run home and get one, coz i dont wanna look like the only idiot!!!) So I turned all the way around and drove back another 5 km in the opposite direction back to my house and found another tie for him. (That's why we were like 15 minutes late)...lol.
Anyhow, just to let you know, the gathering wasn't that bad. There were Savoy biscuits and cheesy dips and champagne so it was well worth it. However, I just wish I had my phone turned off when that lady (forgot who she was) was addressing us all. It rang, momentarily attracting most people's attention. She also looked at me and gave me a funny look. Panicky moment, but good lesson learnt. Afterwards, we talked with Bill and Andrew (our clients) a bit more, until they ditched us to go and chat with a couple of young ladies....lol...:) We kinda spoiled their moment when we went and joined them again, hence chasing away the girls!!! Bill and
Andrew then left about 15 minutes later. Overall, it was a good event.
We have scheduled to meet up with Andrew on thursday to discuss the database a bit more. More and more and more questions keep popping up out of the blue like jack-in-the-boxes! We have decided that we wanna be ahead of the game, by applying a proactive attitude when it comes to querying the client, hence demonstrating our dedication to this project, in front of Bill and Andrew.
Other than that, we have completed and handed in our business case (1st version) and when we did this doc, we took into account all the feedback that Jake gave us regarding our other 2 docs (ie: no orphans, intro sentences and so on). I was initially expecting HD for the standards and governance docs, and was a little disappointed with only a D. But I think (I hope) we have taken into account all those weak points when doing the business case.
Now we got a whole week ahead of us for easter. I'm planning to catch up on all my work (all subjects) and meet up with my team sometime during the week (most likely tuesday) to discuss wat to ask at the client meeting on thursday. Other than that, I'm sure you can imagine what writing a 3000 word tax law report is like. Sooooooooooooo boring. On top of that, we have the most boring lecturer for that subject!!!. But she's not as bad as the guy we had for microeconomics in first year. Anyways, I think I'm going off track here. Time to focus. The next deliverable is the functional specification. We should get started on a draft next week and
plan to hand it in by week 8 the latest. This is because we want to be "one of those clever teams" like Jake said and be "ahead of the game" like I said earlier on. Hope everything goes well. Ahh well, pray for me coz tax law is giving me a headache!!! Thank god for easter though. Phew!
Until next time.................................
Cuidados, Feliz Pascua!!! Hasta luego !!! :)
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Client and project introduced
Hi again,
I know it's been a while since the last blog. Anyhow, here's the 411 on what's been happening so far with Velocitec. We have met our client (REHAB Tech) which is a research organisation located inside the Biomedical Engineering department at Monash Uni's Clayton Campus. They have asked us to modify their existing Medical Asset Management System. The main modifications being that it needs web access and various security access controls depending on authorisation levels of different users and so on.
The three client representatives that we met that day seemed to know a fair bit about the database (they knew more than we anticipated they would know....and yes, this was a bit scary at first, because we knew instantly that they were not dumb and we couldn't fool them!!!...NOT THAT WE WERE PLANNING TO :)). Andrew Smale (who we will mostly be communicating with) seemed to have the most technical knowledge behind the system.
The system is currently fully written in Microsoft Access. However, we feel that it would be a good idea to use a language like MySQL, because (after consulting with Jacob), we felt that it would make the database more streamlined and efficient to use (specially when simultaneous users will be accessing it from the web). We will be discussing this matter with the client at our next meeting tomorrow.
The clients also commented on our dress (which was formal business attire at the last meeting). They said "please feel free to wear normal casual clothing next time we meet. You can save the suit for the final presentation". Therefore, we will be going in smart casual dress tomorrow. I guess here, the client wanted us to feel more comfortable with them and was probably trying to create an open and friendly atmosphere. Overall, they seem like 'OK' clients. Not the best as we expected, but I'm sure that over time we will get along (hopefully...we will need to!!!).
At the end of the meeting, we exchanged phone numbers as well, just in case there were any urgent issues. However, email was the most preferred way of communication.
In relation to team, we have finished making a team governance document. In relation to the project, standards for documentation and design were completed. Yet, we still need time to come up with coding and GUI standards. This will occur as the project progresses a bit more, because it was really difficult to stipulate these standards at this very preliminary stage of the project.
As the project manager, I have kept team meeting and client meeting minutes, where I basically outline who was present, what happened, what was discussed, what conclusions were reached and so on.
So far, I feel that all of Velocitec's team members are working hard, co-operating with each other and have really made a significant contribution to our two major documents to date. This is only the beginning, so I hope this will continue through to the end of the year.
I know it's been a while since the last blog. Anyhow, here's the 411 on what's been happening so far with Velocitec. We have met our client (REHAB Tech) which is a research organisation located inside the Biomedical Engineering department at Monash Uni's Clayton Campus. They have asked us to modify their existing Medical Asset Management System. The main modifications being that it needs web access and various security access controls depending on authorisation levels of different users and so on.
The three client representatives that we met that day seemed to know a fair bit about the database (they knew more than we anticipated they would know....and yes, this was a bit scary at first, because we knew instantly that they were not dumb and we couldn't fool them!!!...NOT THAT WE WERE PLANNING TO :)). Andrew Smale (who we will mostly be communicating with) seemed to have the most technical knowledge behind the system.
The system is currently fully written in Microsoft Access. However, we feel that it would be a good idea to use a language like MySQL, because (after consulting with Jacob), we felt that it would make the database more streamlined and efficient to use (specially when simultaneous users will be accessing it from the web). We will be discussing this matter with the client at our next meeting tomorrow.
The clients also commented on our dress (which was formal business attire at the last meeting). They said "please feel free to wear normal casual clothing next time we meet. You can save the suit for the final presentation". Therefore, we will be going in smart casual dress tomorrow. I guess here, the client wanted us to feel more comfortable with them and was probably trying to create an open and friendly atmosphere. Overall, they seem like 'OK' clients. Not the best as we expected, but I'm sure that over time we will get along (hopefully...we will need to!!!).
At the end of the meeting, we exchanged phone numbers as well, just in case there were any urgent issues. However, email was the most preferred way of communication.
In relation to team, we have finished making a team governance document. In relation to the project, standards for documentation and design were completed. Yet, we still need time to come up with coding and GUI standards. This will occur as the project progresses a bit more, because it was really difficult to stipulate these standards at this very preliminary stage of the project.
As the project manager, I have kept team meeting and client meeting minutes, where I basically outline who was present, what happened, what was discussed, what conclusions were reached and so on.
So far, I feel that all of Velocitec's team members are working hard, co-operating with each other and have really made a significant contribution to our two major documents to date. This is only the beginning, so I hope this will continue through to the end of the year.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Blog setup
Hi,
Welcome to Charuka's blog for the IE project for 2007. So far, the project team has been put together and roles allocated. We also brainstormed our skills (technical and personal) and recorded them. Our organisation is called 'Velocitec'. This name originated as follows: Veloci is the Spanish word for 'fast' or 'speedy' and 'tec' is for 'technology', hence putting the two words together gives a meaning of 'fast-technology'. I'm the project manager for Velocitec. Tarindra and Aaron are our main developers. We believe they will serve best in this role, based on their previous experiences of programming in Java, asp.net, php and a few other languages. Ishara and Thusiyanthi will be involved in documentation, testing and quality management. Exact roles will most likely be allocated by next week. But for now, we have a fair idea of what to expect from each of the team members.
We have not been allocated a project yet. However, it seems like it's going to be exciting and interesting to see how we all work together as a team to tackle the problem and come up with a good solution. Our ultimate aim is to make the client happy and hopefully maintain good contacts even after the project is completed.
Thanks for visiting my blog for this week. That's all for now.
Charuka Fernando
Welcome to Charuka's blog for the IE project for 2007. So far, the project team has been put together and roles allocated. We also brainstormed our skills (technical and personal) and recorded them. Our organisation is called 'Velocitec'. This name originated as follows: Veloci is the Spanish word for 'fast' or 'speedy' and 'tec' is for 'technology', hence putting the two words together gives a meaning of 'fast-technology'. I'm the project manager for Velocitec. Tarindra and Aaron are our main developers. We believe they will serve best in this role, based on their previous experiences of programming in Java, asp.net, php and a few other languages. Ishara and Thusiyanthi will be involved in documentation, testing and quality management. Exact roles will most likely be allocated by next week. But for now, we have a fair idea of what to expect from each of the team members.
We have not been allocated a project yet. However, it seems like it's going to be exciting and interesting to see how we all work together as a team to tackle the problem and come up with a good solution. Our ultimate aim is to make the client happy and hopefully maintain good contacts even after the project is completed.
Thanks for visiting my blog for this week. That's all for now.
Charuka Fernando
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