First of all, i would say this course was my first experience of working in a real working environment; and it helped me to catch a proper image of how everyone work together to get a big project done. It is true that in programming, we may not know what we are building until all the codes are integrated and form a product. A big project would be broken down into several different parts and each part would be handled by a group of programmers. Then, every group has its own task to do. Some parts of the project do not need to know how the other parts are going. Team-working, brainstorming, setting up tasks for each group are all the important initial steps of the process. That would help to work efficiently.

A project leader or advisor is also very important to help get the project’s process on the right track and make it move as quick as possible. 

Beside those, real working environment involves clients. We need to stay informed and updated with them. Although clients do not always know what they talk about programming, we have to focus on what they would like the product to function so that we can both come to a happy ending of a contract.

Communication is the very important thing to get the project done efficiently. Beside emaillist, Git and GitHub were new to me and they were great tools. They are also the great tools for out teams to manage, share, and contribute on our project. I would learn more about them.

Since our big project was broken into smaller parts and each group had a different part to work on, besides my team’s work, i did not know about other teams’ works – how they had their tasks finished. there were many things that i would like to work on but i did not such as data base, server, user interface, and testing the codes. However, the priority goal of the course was to learn how to work together in a real working environment, to have the ability to process, analyze corporate, and get the job done; and i felt like i already had the achievements for those from this course.

For this course, i wish i could know more about git and the language used for the project before. 

For the weekly post, we were asked to post weekly, but with the lack of programming languages, being stuck on how to get problem solved, some weeks i was on the same thing. Rather than just post a sentence to say about that, i waited until i got something done to post. That caused the lack of my posts.

From the blog daunguyen10's Blog » CS-WSU by daunguyen10 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The final decision was to go with the previous screensaver for the better compatible with the iPad. Also, Tim wanted us to modify the introPage format a little bit by putting the navigation button back to the middle of the bottom edge. And that will be it, the final version of screen saver.

From the blog daunguyen10's Blog » CS-WSU by daunguyen10 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Now, our screensaver part seems to be done.  Tim wanted the introPage’s response to the wipe actions to be quicker. We could decrease the time delay for transition effect to have an improvement, but it isn’t a really significant improvement. We believe the reaction speed to the swipe actions depends on the realization of jQuery to the swipe actions/touches.

With the sense of improving, i also made another screensaver as a second choice since i also like a continuous motion pattern (beside fading or popping) for our screensaver. To me, this design makes a sense of showing a collection of all the images related to the Orantes at the first glance with the continuous movement. Here is how it looks like (these images were captured at different moments of the movement).

The background color can be changed flexibly for an attractive look.

I let Tim know and Im waiting for his response on this new pattern.

From the blog daunguyen10's Blog » CS-WSU by daunguyen10 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Finally i got the access back to my blog. For some reason i have not been able to receive the password-reset email for my WordPress account.

Now, for the screensaver part, we have the code almost ready. According to the design Tim asked us to make on our app, the screensaver part has 2 parts as i mentioned on my previous post: a screensaver and  a introduction page.

Here is how they look like:

1st: it is a slideshow of the statues and their pieces.

2nd, when any touch is done to the screen, a instruction box will pop up, and after that is the introduction screen.

By swiping back and forth, we can navigate the slide of the introduction.

3rd, when the “Skip to Home” button is touched, the homepage will pop up.

.

Previously, there was another introduction page we came up with with the design from the website http://www.bttls.com:

But due to the incompatibility of this version on the iPad, the jQuery mobile version above was chosen.

From the blog daunguyen10's Blog » CS-WSU by daunguyen10 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

In the class time this week, Tim told us more about how he wanted the screensaver to look like and how it works. Previously, we are asked to create a screensaver with pictures or video; and the screensaver will appear after a fixed amount of idle time. Then, touching the iPad’s screen will lead the user to the home page.

Now, before popping to the home page right after the touch , we were told to add a kind of slideshow/presentation with some pictures and short introducing texts, which will appears after the first touch. The second touch will pop up the home page.

So now, the work of screensaver has 3 parts: 

– making a screen saver appearing after a fixed idle time.

– making a kind of presentation with some pictures and introducing texts appearing right after the touch.

– linking the two parts above together.

The first part seems to be done so far. For this week, we are going to work on the second part.

From the blog daunguyen10's Blog » CS-WSU by daunguyen10 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

For the last week, i learned how to work with Github basically. We saw on Sompop’s post before, there were some commands that we can use to clone, pull, push, fetch. After the class time on Monday, Sompop helped me know more about using git and Github. I’ll write all the commands i learned out now to be my record firstly, and it would be great if anyone finds it helpful.

1- cd, ls list and change your directory. In the terminal, using cd command to move to your desired directory, which is used to save your files from Github.

2- git clone  https://github.com/CS-Worcester/CS401Spring2013.git to clone the our class’s repo.

3- Now there is a sub-directory in your your desired one named CS401Spring2013. Change to that directory by using cd command.

4- git remote origin to remote the cloned repo.

5- git branch to list all the branches on the repo.

6- git branch <name of your new branch> to create a new branch.

7- git branch -D <name of your new branch> to delete your new branch.

8- git checkout <name of another branch> to switch to another branch.

9- git status to show which branch you’re on currently.

10- git pull origin to fetch then merge everything on the current branch to your local directory.

11- git push origin to push your files to the branch on Github.

12- git fetch origin to fetch everything on the current branch (just getting updates, not merge them to your local branch).

13- git pull origin <name of another branch (different from the branch you’re currently on)> to pull everything from another branch and merge to your current branch. With this command, you need to commit the merge before continuing by using: git commit .Then you need to commit again for the change you made to the current branch.

Here is a similar infer. for that kind of pull: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1709177/git-pull-certain-branch-from-github

Similar to push and fetch.

14- git add < file name> to commit and let the tracker track the file for any change you make on it.

That is all i know about using Git and Github for now.

More on next post for this week….

From the blog daunguyen10&#039;s Blog » CS-WSU by daunguyen10 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

For the past fews weeks, beside learning more about Javascript, HTML and CSS myself, i and my group was doing researches on how to save data on the local machine within the web browser. We came to the decision that we were going to use a hosted server to save data because although we can store data inside web browsers, we can not access them. By using a hosted server and Kiosk, we can save data on the hosted server (of course it is accessible) and also provide the copy of the data to the local machine (so it wouldn’t cause any problem if the connection between the machines and the hosted server is lost). 

While my group is waiting for the server provided, i and Sompop formed a team working on the screen saver for WAM project. The way it works is that when the iPads are in idle status, the screen saver will be activated. When a user comes and touch the screen, the screen saver will be deactivated and the homepage will pop up.

For the last week, i was searching around and found some sources of information on how to make the screen saver. I’m still not clear on how to make the screen saver, except some ideas of where possibly to begin. Here are what i found: 

Create screensaver using jquery | jquery screensaver

http://www.getallfix.com/2012/08/create-screensaver-using-jquery-jquery-screensaver/

How to Create A JavaScript Web Page Screen Saver

http://www.webreference.com/programming/javascript/gr/column7/index.html

Create Your Own Web-based Screensaver

http://www.wynia.org/wordpress/2005/08/create-your-own-web-based-screensaver.

I’ll have what i got more organized and try to have something to show class next week.

From the blog daunguyen10&#039;s Blog » CS-WSU by daunguyen10 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Hello everyone,

This week, i did not started to work on the app yet. Instead, i spent time on learning HTML 5, CSS, and javascript. I have never learned those concepts before and had no idea about how they will be used to program the WAM app. Hopefully, the next week will be the week full of ideas to start off woking on the app.

From the blog daunguyen10&#039;s Blog » CS-WSU by daunguyen10 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Hello everyone,

My name is Dau Nguyen,  a foreign student from Vietnam. Currently, I am a full time student at Worcester State and i am in Junior year of computer science. I’m also taking a minor in math. Taking this course as a requirement of CS major and i’m really excited about it. Since the beginning of my major, i have found that this course is going to bring to me the real experience of a real working environment. It’s also going to help me build up my team work skills.

Through this semester, i and my teammates will work together to develop an application for Worcester Art Museum. This is my first time programing an app that can be used in a real event. And i see that i am going to spend a lot of time on this course because there are many concepts, which i currently don’t know yet, will be used to complete the app…

Anyway, a excited semester ahead, and i’m looking forward working with my teammates to complete the app. Hopefully, we will have a successful semester on this course.

From the blog daunguyen10&#039;s Blog » CS-WSU by daunguyen10 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.