The IT Student Blog

After a long summer and a long break from this blog… school is about to begin again.

SO it’s time to fill up your cup with hot coffee, plug in your machine and start absorbing new information. A fresh start! Now you’ve got the chance to do all your assignments on time, pre-order the new course literature, be the first to borrow what you need in the library and avoid the snooze button in the mornings (as the mornings are still quite sunny, and it’s nice to get up).

As to all the new students…

My absolute best advice for you guys (including everyone else) is to start up with things early. Even though you might get a soft start… do pick up your books. Google the things you don’t understand. Ask questions. Be curious. And never underestimate the power of Wikipedia. Keeping yourself up to date is invaluable.

Time flies and the exams always come faster than you think… so start up your work right away and you will increase your chances of surviving itu.

Act NOW, tomorrow might be too late. You don’t want to catch up with re-exams, trust me.

I wish all new students good luck with their studies and don’t run away if the more experienced guys talk about stuff you haven’t heard of when you’re having your first lunch breaks. Eventually you’ll undestand just as much… or even more. Just hang in there. Be cool. Keep on reading.

Time flies. Three years have passed since I began studying at the IT-university. Three pretty amazing years I might add! Having been interviewed twice about why I started at the Software Engineering and Management programme I’m still not sure I know or remember the answer. However, in retrospect I don’t really care either as it has been a perfect match and I’ve enjoyed (almost) every moment of it. And since this is my last blog post on this blog, allow me to explain why.

• Problem Based Learning (PBL) – Without a doubt the projects that we’ve carried out at the SEM programme has been the most rewarding, as well as the most demanding. Getting a group with members of extremely broad backgrounds to collaborate and produce quality results is as fun as it is challenging.
  

  Some dude (aka Jonte) enjoying the cleaning after a Christmas party

• Work space – I wrote about it last year and I got some harsh critique on the post in the lines of “How much did the ITU pay you to write that?” but I stand for every word I wrote. Having open areas, and areas in general, which students can go to everyday and basically use as an office has allowed, at least me, to pick up on questions, material and facts that I’m sure would have missed if I stayed at home.
• Flexibility – almost every course have allowed the students to, to some extent, choose their topic of specialisation themselves. Not only is it motivating, but it also allows me to early on discover which areas I’d like to follow up and perhaps specialise in.
• Diversity – roughly 60% of our class were foreigners. This provides a tremendous cultural experience. Enough said.
• Teachers – (and for my classmates reading, yes, I know it’s controversial) Actually we happen to have had the luxury of having Gothenburg University’s best teacher, Carl Magnus Olsson, as he was this spring awarded with the university’s finest pedagogical prize. However, without giving any names, we’ve also been unlucky to have some pretty crappy pedagogues and thereby also had the opportunity to practice our course evaluation skills.

Overall though, my ITU experience will be remembered for the amazing moments: hacking late nights with crazy and fun friends still somehow managing to deliver on-time, Emil Janitzek and my thesis writing, the crappy free coffee, the countless number of pranks a common result of either too much free coffee or too much intensive programming.

There’s tonnes more to say but it is time to move on. Many of my classmates are already busy earning money at various companies around Gothenburg, some are about to start any time, some are continuing to study. Myself, I’m continuing with an Erasmus Mundus Master’s degree in Distributed Computing starting as an exchange student in Portugal this autumn.

Two final remarks: One, if you have any questions feel free to contact me (marcus at quandoo dot se). Two, if you’re interested in blogging here contact me too and I’ll forward your request.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Computer geeks, listen up! I just received a brilliant link from my friend Reza. (Reza who always stumbles upon all the great stuff) Go ahead and enjoy this awesome trailer for the film Java 4-ever; From the acclaimed director of Javatar and .not. JavaZone Entertainment presents stars like…

Eddie Larrison

Scala Johansson

William Windows

Mona Lisa Harddrive

and (the cute little) Lenny Linux…

-If this film were real it might be even better than Kick-Ass! Even though I thought that was impossible.

“One of the most compelling dramas of our time” -The Java Posse

“Truly gripping…” -Wired

“…a masterpiece!” -James Gosling

Keep

It

Simple,

Stupid!

It’s amazing how easy you forget about that principle. I don’t know how many times I’ve found myself doing things way more complicated than they have to be. Reading old programs I’ve written sends shivers up my spine. Files with monstrous lines of unnecessary code… Code that desperately needs to be cleaned.

When programming something difficult, the easy solution is generally the best solution. More efficient, simpler to read, to update… and so on.

I think you get the point now, do you?

K e e p  i t  s i m p l e

HELLLOOOOOO!!!!!! HOW ARE YOU DOING?!

Waffler the Paincake says: I love this pic. It reminds me that even when the computor seems to be smarter and better then me about everything, I can just rip it up to show that I am the alpha male.

*oh my*

How often do you intentionally use the caps lock key?

Not too long ago I vacuumed my keyboard (another brilliant idea) and of course, a key disappeared. It was not caps, but the alt button. Alt is very useful. It took me a long time to dig out that key in the grotesque lump of hairs and dust…  (You can read all about the details in my personal blog, miss783)

I dropped my iPod in the toilet as well. But that’s another story.

Anyway, what made me think about caps lock was when my friend, who is quite unfamiliar to computers, didn’t notice that he accidently hit the caps key when he typed in search words on YouTube. CHOCOLATE RAIN IS CRAZY AS IS, BUT WRITTEN IN CAPITALS IT GETS EVEN CRAZIER.

My friend and I started a long discussion about how stunned you get when you receive e-mails with capital letters. Capitals are serious. Loud. IMPORTANT.

No wonder spammers love to abuse caps lock.

Btw, I never knew that chocolate rain is under the creative commons license.

-You gotta learn something new every day.

Texting is very convenient. You can say exactly what you want in a few words, using some smileys to emphasize your intent and just wait for a reply. No real interaction needed.

-How wimpy can you get!

It just hit me when I texted a friend of mine I haven’t been talking to for five years, that I didn’t dare calling him. I just wrote my question and felt so secure I didn’t have to use my voice to ask him if he would like to hang out some time. But hanging out means meeting up and why should that be less scary than making the call?

Where do you draw the line between virtual and real?

What happens in the virtual world certainly has consequences in the real world. Since the beginning of all these new ways of communication, this line has become harder to draw, and this might be an issue. What you wouldn’t do IRL, you might not find inappropriate in virtual life. But what is the difference when everything has consequences?

Facebook is like a huge gossip magazine containing the latest news from your innumerable “friends”. Friends like the guy in high-school you never talked to, but borrowed pencils from. Friends like your colleague’s boyfriend’s little sister. Or your old math teacher. But of course there are the real friends as well. Pardon my cynicism. Anyway, all these connections with “friends” really puzzle me. Why on earth would you like to see pics of your “friends” having a dinner party? “Friends” drinking a glass of red wine? “Friends” posing with ice-cream in their hands?

Facebook is rather creepy. Just found this vid on YouTube… this shows how weird these friendships are. *POKE*

I AM STILL ALIVE

Yes I am.

Still alive!

-Still alive….

Alive yet again.

Alive today as well.

…

I have already written a post about how meaningless I think Twitter is (even though that post disappeared when the old server took its last breath).

There is this feed that just consists of innumerable tweets saying “I AM STILL ALIVE” by some artist called On_Kawara. And believe it or not: it has 990 followers in the moment I’m writing.

Maybe you’re thinking “another weirdo out there”. But when thinking deeper about it, it kind of sums up the whole Twitter idea: a little tweet everyday to state your own existence.

Because, hey! -I am still alive.

My gosh, what if I didn’t update my Twitter all the time… you would all think I’m dead.
-UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE!!!

Be sure to always be available.

Be sure to ensure your existence.

On Kawara is not dead.

河原温 IS TILL ALIVE

Working with a CCD camera and image recognition is one of the things you can do in if you choose to.

This time I want to highlight another student project carried out at the SEM program; the semester four Embedded Project. Linda, one of ITU’s PR responsible, wrote about last year’s project in Swedish on our institute’s (Applied IT) website and I have probably mentioned it before. But, this project is just so cool it deserves a mentioning on its own.

Muggy – the nextgen cleaning assistant
Each project is defined and organized by the students themselves and all students in the year two are involved. In practice this means that a few weeks before the project kicks-off a group of students voluntarily sits down, bangs their heads against the walls (banging is highly optional as it is not mentioned in the course plan), and comes up with an idea or concept for the class to realize. We did the so called ‘Mars Explorer‘. This year they’re making the world, or at least the IT-university, a better place by literally moving dirty mugs to the kitchen. The image recognizing, dockable, weight-sensitive beast built using multiple Arduino micro-controllers and some more will revolutionize the world. Right…

50 students, 1 product
Those of you with me so far realize that this project is doomed to fail. That is, of course, dependent on what you consider a failure. For me this project:

1. provides a massive educational experience, as it
2. is a complex social experiment with groups and individuals collaborating
3. gives each student a chance to improve in his/her specialization

Despite the best planners and skilled students some parts of the project is going to fail, or put it more gentle, there will always be room for great improvement. This is surely not the first project for SEM students, most of our education is problem and project based, but it is surely the first of its size. Integration and communication are two challenging areas of work. In the end most of it is down to social skills*.

What’s that cool?

Apparently the LED indicates that the scheduling is working...

Basically, it boils down to this: you have tons of fun working together with friends building a single tangible result. Even if your robot won’t drive straight or mistake bananas for mugs, your robot will kick-ass. Because you’ve made it. Together.

Friends have often asked if I ever got the chance to do the same project over again, would I do it? At first my answer was simply no (it is quite tiring to work that much), but when I think about it, didn’t I just have too so much fun? No project is ever the same, with a new scope and new set of resources, of course I would do it!

Learn more
If you want to follow this year’s students’ progress check out their project blog: http://itupw056.itu.chalmers.se/trac/emb10/blog

* I realize here that many will probably disagree, that technical skills is a prerequisite for producing something at all. That could be true, but a techie not able to communicate his excellence is no good techie to me. Feel free to disagree (and please comment if you do).

Believe it or not, this is useful data!

As usual at the SEM programme, a lot of the studying takes place in project courses, and possibly culminates in the bachelor thesis. In this, and a following post, I will highlight a few projects which in my opinion is really cool and fun.

Finger-tracking interaction device
Imagine using your fingers to steer, maneuver, or in some way interact (this is the keyword) with a device. This is what Ludvig and Gustav are working on in their thesis currently named “Pushing Towards Embodied Interactions.” On a practical note they are using low-tech image capturing devices (read: two off-the-shelf web cameras) and then, with real-time constraints, filtering the images to outline the contours (see image to the left). With this information isolated they can bind certain movements to events and thus you are able to control your computer.

What is the applicability of this you ask? Well, a lot of research is currently being done in human computer interaction, in which this project also can be categorized. One possible scenario is found in their introductory text: “As an example, the BMW research and technology group has implemented a head- and gesture system for controlling infotainment systems [in cars] and mention that in contrast to speech recognition, it can be used in noisy situations.”

Modeling complex software models in 3D
Jonatan and Joacim are working together with Ericsson AB on an implementation of a previous thesis conducted by one of this blog’s co-authors, Linda. In essence, they are testing if it is easier to understand a complex UML software model if it is visualised in three dimensions. By using the programming language python and the 3D library Panda they have successfully built a functional prototype. Watch the video below for an introduction.

Their research falls into a category called Model Driven Development which means that applications and systems are no longer developed in pure code, but rather with the use of sophisticated modeling tools in which you express a system’s behaviour through, for example, state charts.

Stay tuned for more projects!