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--- blog:spring2016:mbeard2:journal [2016/03/15 04:15] – [March 14, 2016] mbeard2
+++ blog:spring2016:mbeard2:journal [2016/04/28 03:21] (current) – [April 20, 2016] mbeard2
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 ====March 14, 2016====
 Our last project took me forever to do, but finally I got all of my arrays and loops figured out to make the program work the way it should. This weeks project for c programming is making a circle out of squares using gd. In class we worked on them and saw how images are created using gd. The hardest part about this project is trying to find out where the squares that are not on the x and y axis are positioned. Not only do you have to have them positioned correctly, but when given the right argument the circle of squares has to adjust to the inputted radius that the user wants. There is still a lot to work on when it comes to this circle of squares project, but I am sure I am not the only one struggling to figure out the key to make it work correctly. I am sure tomorrow when I go in there on my free time I can work a few problems out with it. There is a lot to work on with me when it comes to programming, because sometimes the programs work but I am not entirely sure how one thing works or how it is coming up with the answer entirely. This project helps in that way because when it compiles, you can actually see what is going on and what part of it is wrong. This program will take some time to figure out completely, but it will be worth it to see the program up and running correctly. The class work that we do always reflects directly to the project and that is good, because it keeps me up to date on the stuff we have learned previously and the new stuff. Over all it combines well and makes it easier to sit down and work on a project without having to look for online resources to help you. Sitting down and writing a program that works is very satisfying, especially when you have an idea of how to do it and it works perfectly that way. I never get the program up and running on the first try, it is always a constant step by step of finding the error, trying to correct it, and recompiling the program to solve the next error. I still need to work on my loops and arrays, but with more practice I should be able to grasp the concept some more with time.
+====March 21, 2016====
+Well this week was a frustrating one. I could not figure out how to get the circle of squares to work and never got it finished. I kept getting a segmentation fault and could never get it working. I definitely had many other problems than that while I wrote the code, but that was one of the big problems. This weeks project is to encode a text file. We have to encode it by changing the letters to a different letter and not just change the ascii value into a symbol or whatever. It is definitely not that easy, but it is good practice with the a to i function to change that ascii character into a decimal number and increment that to change the ascii character entirely. We had a good example in class that changed the spaces into hyphens and stuff like that, but the project will be a little more in depth than our example we had gotten in class. I still do not know exactly how I want to accomplish this project, but it is definitely one I have to get a good grade on because the last one was a big let down. Hopefully this week I can finish the project and have it work without too many errors. The class work we do makes it look pretty easy and straight forward, but it is just an example and not a key to how to do the project exactly. All there is in the example is one little piece to the big picture using that one piece correctly can lead to the final product, but it is never quite that easy. It is hard to write code sometimes because you might have other work for other classes, but you get caught up in it and do not want to stop until it compiles and runs perfectly. This encoding project will be really cool when it is done. It will also be cool to see the differences in each person's code when we all are working on the same project. Last year we had a few projects that dealt with reading in a file and doing a word count or character count, but it never dealt with reading in a file and modifying it in a way. That is why this project is going to be good to finish and see the final product. Well that is all for the opus this week, more info coming in one week...
+====April 4, 2016====
+Well another week of c programming and yet there is a lot more to learn. Using the work that we had done in class, I figured out a way to implement the encoding and decoding function into a working c program, but unfortunately I could never get the arguments to work correctly. Using arguments is something that I really need to work on for sure. In class I think I understand using arguments, but once I have to use arguments for a project I get all screwed up and leave myself with a code that does not quite work all the way. This last project was called Secret Agent Message and it intended to write a code that, given the right argument, would encode a message and also decode the message if prompted to do so. The only thing that I got to work was the encoding and that only worked half the time. It had to do with the arguments which probably were not right at all. I was getting it to encode just fine but when I added the arguments I was getting a lot of errors and it left me stumped to where I just submitted the project as it was without getting it completely right. In class we went over making our own classes and working on a little bit of c++. We really just talked about how it worked, but never really got to writing much code. It is obvious that the projects are going to get more difficult and I have to take the time into learning how to use arguments as they should be. Our new project I have looked at and worked on, but not much has been accomplished though. A lot of errors on just the first couple parts of the code. I can never sit and write the whole code. I take the time to piece it together which works some of the time for me. This new project is going to be a tough one, just like the others, but it is going to take a lot of time and persistence to get it up and running like I want it to be. More stories of LAIR next week...
+==== April 20, 2016 ====
+ Well it seems that I missed my last opus entry, but that was the first one I missed so whatever. This past week we worked on a grade figure outer in both c programming and unix. I've been working on trying to figure out how to get everything started correct. I had some code written and it just was a mess so its time to start from scratch and hand it in late. We have the end of semester experience coming up so i am sure there will be a lot of confusion and work to do in the near future. Grade figure outer is supposed to take all the info from the "status" command and input it to calculate our current grade in this class. The numerical data is not the same though. For instance the journals are graded in 1's and 0's where our projects are given a number out of the total amount of points for that specific project. The projects vary in points so it will be a little difficult to add up the points awarded and divide it with the total amount of points for that project. It will not be too easy , but I am sure with a little bit of help and some devoted time it will all come together at some point. Happy 4/20.
+====April 27, 2016====
+Well its the time of the year that we have all heard about. It is now the end of the semester experience where we have multiple projects that span what we have learned entirely throughout the course. The projects are an assortment of different ideas, but ideas that we are able to tackle from our knowledge in class. Now we are not required to be in class because there is no more teaching to cover but now class time is dedicated to working on our projects. I have a rough start on a couple of the c programs, but none are working properly. This last project is a bit stressful because I have two big projects for two classes. Both c programming class and unix have this EoCE that have to be finished but hopefully with a lot of time, the projects will sort themselves out. Next week I plan on being in both classes to get a little help on projects and break through a few barriers I am having with certain projects. This could potentially be the last "real" opus entry for this semester, but next semester I am taking two more of these classes in the LAIR so there will be many more opus entries in my future. Time to work on EoCE....
 ======UNIX/Linux Fundamentals Journal======
 ====MONTH Day, YEAR====
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 ====March 14, 2016====
 Well last weeks project was a little boring for what I am used to when it comes to unix projects, but still useful. We had to go into config files and change some configurations to make it the way that we wanted it and set it up so that it worked properly. At first I made changed but could not figure out how to make them work. I quickly learned that using ls -a command would show all of the files in your home directory and make it that much more clearer on how to get them working. For example, I configured my vim but did not know how to make it work. Using that ls -a command I found a .vimrc file that was like the original, so I saved the configured file under where the original was found and restarted the terminal and boom, it worked. The configurations were nothing special but I like them and find them useful for many things. In my bashrc folder I made a few variables, do not know if that is the correct term or not, like $cprog and $unix which would go have the path to my cprog and unix subdirectories. I use them a lot now and make it quicker by a little bit instead of typing in whatever to get to those directories. This weeks project is a memory dump that we have to recover data and I heard at the end we unravel a meme. I do not know what the meme is, but I am sure this project is going to be fun and almost like the puzzle box adventures in a way. I am sure when this project is completed I am going to look back and say "that should not have taken as long as it did", but that is why some of these projects are literally a puzzle. Once you get some things started, it leads to another obstacle to overcome. I like using the file system and definitely have been trying to get used to how it works. Although the filesystem is getting easier to use, each project seems to stump me and I get caught up somewhere. The fix is usually simple but most the times with the projects, I do not know what certain error or text means when I am doing something wrong.  There is still a lot to work on and there is a lot to work on when it comes to writing scripts. We have been working on scripts in class and even wrote the best game ever script that works the same way as the one we made in c programming. I still need a lot of help with writing scripts, but just like everything else, I am going to need a lot of practice. More stuff to learn tomorrow during class...
+====March 21, 2016====
+This last weeks project was a very good one with a funny outcome. This project was called udr0 and it definitely is competition in best project with the puzzle box projects. Just the intro to the project was funny and showed you how to get ready for this project. We used the dd command and it took a little time studying the manual pages for it, but after a few failed attempt you find a way to do it correctly and you are one step closer. All these projects make you feel that they should not have taken you that long when you get all done with them. The biggest hurdle is to use new command that you have not really used before and implementing them correctly with the risk of screwing everything up and having to start all the way back at the beginning. On top of the dd command we had other commands that we have never used and took a lot of time to study the manual pages and do the same thing with other manual pages that corresponded with the one that you originally were looking at. After dding and getting each part to the puzzle it was time to decompress some files or change them into regular data using the deencode that we used for the original puzzle box projects. Once they were in their correct file form you had to cat them and put them all into one file. I originally forgot how to do it and took me a few attempts but the command is simple and once I remembered part of it, I remembered the rest of it. It is just cat whatever file or files < new file. Something that simple that stalls you a little while with a puzzle is pretty frustrating at time, but that much more enjoyable when it works correctly. When the data was all re-sized and everything you had to change it from and rle to a pnm data and then a pnm to png file just so the file would show as a meme in your public_html directory. At the end of the confusion and manual pages, you get a taco cat meme that says, "TACOCAT IS A PALINDROME". It was definitely a good ending to a good project. Now this next project is udr1 and is hopefully as good as udr0 and the puzzle boxes. In reality udr0 was just another puzzle box but a little more in depth than the other ones. There will be more to come with this UNIX stuff because it is actually quite fun to work out the projects and figure out how they work. More to come in the near future...
+====April 4, 2016====
+This last weeks project was another example of the udr projects. This one was a lot more difficult than the last one and really emphasized using the mtools to gather information. It was not very easy to figure out how to use the mtools correctly but the most important one was the mdir which is kind of like using the file command in unix. It told you what the file consisted of and all the parameters. Mdir was a life saver when first trying to use mtools effectively. Just like the last project, dd was a very useful and powerful command to take a specific part of a file out and create its own file. Using dd more shows how useful it is and it shows how it can be used in many different ways. Our next project is udr2 which looks very difficult and will definitely take a lot of time, because we are looking at sleep patterns. Although analyzing sleep does not seem that exciting, finding way to sort the information and understand it will make things go a lot smoother in the project. These udr projects are getting very difficult and very time consuming. I guess that is how most projects will be from here on out. We are learning more and more about this crazy unix system, but now a few things are easier and showing me how much more there is to it, making it very difficult. There are so many commands to memorize and most the time you have to refer back to the manual pages to remember how to use them correctly. Hopefully this week in class we can get a few hints on how to tackle this udr2 project and learn how to use this file system better. There is a lot of stuff to do and learn. As you think you know how to do something, you find many ways how to do it the wrong way. More information in the upcoming weeks...
+====April 20, 2016====
+ Well it is time to take our scripting notes and put them into work with this last weeks project. We have to use a script to produce our current number grade in this course. There are a lot of pipes being used and a lot of loops also. I am still trying to figure out the best way to make the calculations. I know that you just need to take the data and send it to "bc-l". With all projects there are some difficulty and a lot of confusion on my part, but hopefully it will soon all work out. Scripting is something that is very different to me for sure. This has been the first year of programming for me so to go from java in problem solving to c and c++ this semester and now shell scripting in unix. It all is a lot to learn and it is brand new to me and my education. There is a lot of work to be done on my script, but sooner than later it will be done hopefully. We did not have class on Friday, not to hurt anyone's feelings but it was awesome to have a day off basically to do work and not have to wake up early. It gets old waking up an hour and half before class to get there early especially when I do not like mornings. Well it is time to finish this opus entry and get to class on time tomorrow to finish some work and get a few things working properly. Happy 4/20.
+====April 27, 2016====
+It is time for the EoCE to single handedly stress me out and force me to pull my hair out I am sure. We are given projects that vary in different processes that need to be done in order to complete them. I am excited that we have another puzzle box in this EoCE because they were some fun projects to complete. I am sure when I am doing that project I will not think it is fun but when it is all said in done I will be happy when it is all over. There is a lot of scripting in these projects which I struggle with, but hopefully with some research and time spent I will figure it out. I have been focusing on the c programs for now but hopefully next week i can get a few of the UNIX projects done. Well this could potentially be the last opus entry of this semester, but I have data structures and discrete structures next semesters so there will be many more opus entries in my near future. Time for the EoCE to wreck my life....

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