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!

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Accidental double postage!

Sorry guys, I posted the last blog twice!!!.hehe...:)

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! :)
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! :)

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 ! :)

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 :)

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 !!! :)