The IT Student Blog

My first keyboard

Robert Broberg, a Swedish artist, once wrote a song with the following paragraph “Det som göms i snö, kommer upp i tö” which roughly translates to “What’s hidden underneath snow, will show in thaw.” Since we actually have a white Christmas this year and most everything in my dad’s garden is covered in snow I thought it would be more wise to do some cleaning in my old room. It has basically been aggregating stuff over the years I’ve been living on my own, of which a large part is old computer hardware that’s been rendered unusable.

In the cleaning process I uncovered my first computer keyboard, later elegantly marked “UBC-Router 1″ short for United Broadband Clan which a friend and I created sometime in the very very early broadband days. This has been the keyboard for my router ever since the 28kbps modem served our house. (Yeah, for those older than me there was a time before 28kbps too but I’m not that old!) The router has been running various versions of GNU/Linux, including Mandrake, Debian, Gentoo (for a long time) and when the hard disk crashed, it was replaced with FreeBSD which it ran up until this summer when a lightning finally killed the whole thing. Poor bastard.

Dual CPU Sockets

There was also an old web/mail server running on a Pentium Pro. The motherboard supported two CPUs, however, I only ever acquired one, but it was definitely a killer. This machine was running Gentoo from the start to the very end. I hope to recover the data on these disks when I get back to Göteborg, who knows what crap I’ve been storing on them over the years?!

Today, my so called server room was transformed to its original purpose again. Its glory days are well exceeded, but it will be remembered as the place where I began experimenting and for taking me into a field in which I’m studying today. Who knows what I will uncover in years to come?

What have you found beneath the snow this Christmas? Do you already know where it has taken you or are you still waiting to find out?

Learning to program is tricky if you lack the passion or interest for it. People who like it have no difficulty at all to focus for hours, since they don’t actually notice that they’re making an effort. Being able to just play around and find it fascinating is a great way of learning. But others might not feel this way. Subsequently, the effort needed to actually master programming is insurmountable.

Many students say that the only way to learn programming is by doing it, without minding books. Trial and error, learning by doing… you name it! Phrases like that have constantly been echoing in the corners of the university as well as in my brain. But being a newbie, it is frightening to stare at a blank page in Eclipse. The anxious feeling not knowing how or where to start just overwhelms you.

Personally I think many beginners think it’s more complicated than it is. One reason might be the endless books with an endless number of pages that are just too serious. Although there is one book that I’ve found totally amazing. Head First Java -the funniest programming book on the market so far.

This is from the section Life and Death of an object:

…then he said “I can’t feel my legs!” and I said “Joe! Stay with me Joe!” But it was… too late. The garbage collector came and… he was gone. Best object I ever had.

Suddenly life seems a bit brighter. With this book I get the feeling that everyone can program. The weight of a little humor bends your brain into submission. Trust me.

The question you’ve probably heard all too many times by now. Well, maybe it surprises you to hear that this is something you’ll learn in the LAD-course, taking place in the 2nd term of the SEM-program.
LAD is the abbreviation for Logic, Algorithms & Data structures. But could also stand for:

• Long Agony Death
• Lucky Adamant Determination
• Life Affirming Decision
• Lethal Anxiety Disorder
• Likely Axiomatic Disorder
• Long Axis Delight
• Love And Despair
• Life Annihilating Destruction
• Long Awaited Date

I was cheerfully copy pasting everything that my class mates came up with as personal messages on msn. The nearer the exam we got, the more creative abbreviations they came up with.

Btw, I need to warn you all: The matrix is just a simple table with data.
…
I know. It’s the harsh reality.
No binary numbers in neon green. IT is nothing like the matrix. It’s like in the real world.