This is a sample format for a dated entry. Please substitute the actual date for “Month Day, Year”, and duplicate the level 4 heading to make additional entries.

As an aid, feel free to use the following questions to help you generate content for your entries:

• What action or concept of significance, as related to the course, did you experience on this date?
• Why was this significant?
• What concepts are you dealing with that may not make perfect sense?
• What challenges are you facing with respect to the course?

As a first exposure to a new programming language it is just as scary as it seems. Many new things that I have never used or actually heard of when it comes to C/C++ programming. The first programming I have ever done was last semester and it was with java and that was not fun at first but once you are around it enough it starts making a little more sense and that is how I hope this class will become to me. New programming languages are not only useful, but they are fascinating to learn how many different things you can do with them. Not only am I learning a new language, I am starting to learn the many things about lab 46 and the lair as it is my first time using either one of those. This semester is going to very different to me, but I know once I get the hang of how things work it will be just as enjoyable and interesting as my other classes.

Well our first real project of programming is almost due. It is still causing me some confusion, but I have never considered myself real strong in the programming field. It is a new learning curve, but through the books, online resources, and in class instruction, I am starting to understand simple concepts more than I did in a previous programming class. Programming is not supposed to be easy, but even when the simple things start to work it is satisfaction none the less. This is going to be an important class, because both c and c++ are both fundamental languages in the computer field.

There are many “simple” things that when you try to put them into a program, are not that simple. This project is another easy mental math project that sounds not that challenging, but in the grand scheme of things, is just as hard as any other project we have done so far. I have been looking online and trying some of my own ways to conquer this project as efficiently as I can, but sometimes being more efficient can cause more errors. The few things that I am still struggling with is the carry in this project. When adding two number that add over ten, I want to show the carry and how the math operation is done, not just a final answer. I like how these projects are going so far. They follow on what we have done in class and give us an idea that sounds easy to us, but is not the easiest when implementing that idea into a program. So far so good, but there are many more errors that I need to correct to get this program up and running successfully. Many things that we do in class have helped me out on these programs and that is the main reason why class time is so important to a person like me, because this programming stuff does not come easy to me but it is still rather enjoyable when I finally get a program up and running smoothly. Sitting down and writing some code takes a lot of time and takes even more time to solve the error messages without the help of someone else. Programming is meticulous and that is why it is always fun to make something that works correctly. Now I just need to remember to comment enough stuff into my code to make sure my grades are better than what they are now.

This week is a prime number calculator and I never really like prime numbers so making it into a program is not that much fun either. There are many different ways you can tackle this challenge, but sometimes when you think it works it is missing a couple prime numbers. A prime number is a number that is divisible by only itself and one. There are a couple patterns but that is only depending how far up in value the numbers are. I have tried loops and if statements and that has gotten me pretty far, but I am sure there is an easier way than what I am doing. This week in class we learned about arrays and how to use them. In lab we discussed arrays and how they are just a list of values which can be used instead of making new variables for each value. There is still a lot of learning I need to do on arrays, but at least I am starting to understand how to use them in a program effectively. Also in the prime number program, bonus points will be awarded for the fastest processing time, but I am really struggling on how to optimize the program and have it still work completely correct. Optimizing is very useful obviously, because the program works faster, but it is not as easy as just simply putting some code together and having it work. Optimizing digs down deeper in the code and makes it go through less steps to find the correct answer. My project is far from completed, but there are still a few ideas in my head on how to get it up and running. I don't know about getting it running faster but I can work on that once it works the first time.

These mental math program are a lot easier said than done. Although they are not the easiest to me when it comes into making them into a program, they are making me understand some of the basics of the c language. The way I start doing the programs works good until the final part and then that is where the errors come in when I try to compile it. This project, the day of the week, prompts the user to input a year in the twenty first century and then the program runs and tells the user what the day the first of the year fell on. The math behind it makes complete sense, but I am trying to use integers to my advantage when it comes to all of the mathematical steps involved to reach the final answer. I am still having difficulty when it comes to the exception of leap years and the best way to make the program say what day of the week it is without using a ton of “if” statements. I can see how all of this mental math programs that we have been doing teach us the basics and that is good for me, because if I understand the basics then it will not take as long to understand more in depth programming. The next projects is another mental math project and it will be just as fun as these last two I am sure.

There are many “simple” things that when you try to put them into a program, are not that simple. This project is another easy mental math project that sounds not that challenging, but in the grand scheme of things, is just as hard as any other project we have done so far. I have been looking online and trying some of my own ways to conquer this project as efficiently as I can, but sometimes being more efficient can cause more errors. The few things that I am still struggling with is the carry in this project. When adding two number that add over ten, I want to show the carry and how the math operation is done, not just a final answer. I like how these projects are going so far. They follow on what we have done in class and give us an idea that sounds easy to us, but is not the easiest when implementing that idea into a program. So far so good, but there are many more errors that I need to correct to get this program up and running successfully. Many things that we do in class have helped me out on these programs and that is the main reason why class time is so important to a person like me, because this programming stuff does not come easy to me but it is still rather enjoyable when I finally get a program up and running smoothly. Sitting down and writing some code takes a lot of time and takes even more time to solve the error messages without the help of someone else. Programming is meticulous and that is why it is always fun to make something that works correctly. Now I just need to remember to comment enough stuff into my code to make sure my grades are better than what they are now.

This week is a prime number calculator and I never really like prime numbers so making it into a program is not that much fun either. There are many different ways you can tackle this challenge, but sometimes when you think it works it is missing a couple prime numbers. A prime number is a number that is divisible by only itself and one. There are a couple patterns but that is only depending how far up in value the numbers are. I have tried loops and if statements and that has gotten me pretty far, but I am sure there is an easier way than what I am doing. This week in class we learned about arrays and how to use them. In lab we discussed arrays and how they are just a list of values which can be used instead of making new variables for each value. There is still a lot of learning I need to do on arrays, but at least I am starting to understand how to use them in a program effectively. Also in the prime number program, bonus points will be awarded for the fastest processing time, but I am really struggling on how to optimize the program and have it still work completely correct. Optimizing is very useful obviously, because the program works faster, but it is not as easy as just simply putting some code together and having it work. Optimizing digs down deeper in the code and makes it go through less steps to find the correct answer. My project is far from completed, but there are still a few ideas in my head on how to get it up and running. I don't know about getting it running faster but I can work on that once it works the first time.

This next project for this week is the same type of project that we have done before except a little more complicated. We are now doing the same multiply by eleven trick that we have done before except now we are changing it to be able to multiple up to an eight digit number by eleven. This time we can also use arrays and loops unlike last time. Arrays are very useful if known how to use them properly, but I am still learning how to make them work the way I want them to. This week in class we covered functions and using multiple main type functions in a single program. Lab we went over the same type of thing except in a different way. We were using different functions and making a loop out of them. The class work we do really helps me wrap my head around exactly the functions or whatever topic we are going over and seeing where they can make my program better and more efficient. There is still a lot of things to work on in my case but you have to piece it together instead of just trying to make the programs come together in one big piece in one sitting. There is literally so many different ways to do the same thing in programming and on top of that, one little thing like a missed semi colon can mess everything up dramatically. As that is also a downside of programming it is also a benefit, because once that program works perfectly without any errors it is so satisfying. The program compiles and you get to see what your work turned into. Although these programs are simple to many people, to me they are difficult and take me a lot of time to figure out how to make a mental math program. There are a lot of people in the class that are very good at programming, but this is still only the first year that I have ever seen it and it is not that simple to me. My first programming class ever was last semester and it was problem solving, so there is a lot to improve upon in my case. Also I am still trying to figure out how to make vi work as good as I want it to. Some of the simple things I can handle, but I am still trying to get used to cutting and copying lines and stuff like that. It is something I need to spend a lot of time on to get used to it and make myself use it correctly. Vi is something that would definitely make writing code a lot easier, but learning it is not that easy when you are used to pointing and clicking where you want to write or copy. Still a lot to do when it comes to c programming, but there is a lot of time to learn it.

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.

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…

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…

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.

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….

This is a sample format for a dated entry. Please substitute the actual date for “Month Day, Year”, and duplicate the level 4 heading to make additional entries.

As an aid, feel free to use the following questions to help you generate content for your entries:

• What action or concept of significance, as related to the course, did you experience on this date?
• Why was this significant?
• What concepts are you dealing with that may not make perfect sense?
• What challenges are you facing with respect to the course?

So this UNIX/Linux stuff is all completely new to me as I have only read about it in a few books and the internet. It is not very easy for me to do the simple things yet, but it is just going to take some time before I can use it to its full benefits. We did “little” things like set up emails, our accounts, and learned a few simple commands to work our way around the operating system and although they were merely small tasks, they were not very easy for me and I am sure others. I have been a windows user my entire life and now I know that all this pointing and clicking stuff has a bigger meaning when I switch over to a computer in the lair. The only challenges I have right now is the inexperience I have with the UNIX/Linux system, but I am sure that with time those problems will be dealt with and new, more complicated problems will arise. It is good to be learning something brand new doing things that I have done before to see how it works on multiple different systems.

Still having confusion with how this new operating system works, but it is definitely getting easier and I can see where many people enjoy using it. It is very different than the normal windows operating system that I am so used to using on a daily basis. The first project is due on Wednesday and I would be lying if I said that everything going on was completely normal, because this is a brand new system to me and there is a lot to learn for sure. It is fascinating how simple certain things are that seem very complicated and that is for sure a plus when it comes to this operating system. We are starting to learn how to move and edit files, it is not with ease yet, but it will with time and experience. There is a lot to learn and with each more you learn, you realize that you still do not know half of what is going on yet.

The hype of these puzzle box projects have not let me down because they are truly a puzzle and fun to solve the riddles and hints found in them. Although at the same time I wonder how hard these puzzles are to make. They can not be easy to make but solving them is not the easiest but very enjoyable. At the end of the puzzle it is nothing more than a message saying you have completed it or just regular text that is unscrambled and readable to people. It is a project that is hard to put down once you start it and you always try everything you can to get the next piece of it. Also this past week we started learning about using vi and that it something that is going to take time to learn. Just like learning this new operating system, vi will take some getting used to before I learn how to use it with ease. That type of modifier would make programming quicker and highlight the important parts of any type of code. Using the computers in the lair have opened my eyes to how different things can work the same way and how important it is to know what kind of files you are messing with. With the puzzle box I learned quick not to try and cat them out because it changed everything on my screen to ascii characters and changed where the prompt was on the screen. Now I know that everything that is done with a file should be looked at before to see what it really has inside of it. The puzzle box projects, although a lot of fun to uncover, they show you what all these files could contain and what commands to discover exactly what they are made up of. I got lost a few time trying to figure out what commands to use to sort the messages in them, but once you got to the end you figured out the pattern and got through a few of them with ease. A lot to still learn, especially with vi, but I am sure the projects are what is going to help me understand more and more as each week passes.

Starting to figure out the basics of how to move around the system without all the confusion as before. I still am not as quick as others are, but more things are starting to make better sense. Reading the book of the beginning mage has helped clear some confusion on a few steps, but overall I like the change of this new operating system. It makes things easier like programming and setting files to the way the user wants to set them at. The last project was to unscramble pieces of a picture and at first it was hard to even save the file into my own directory. After asking a few dumb questions and reading up tips and ideas from the two books I have available to me, it was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. Just understanding those little three letter commands can help a lot and I found out the man command was super helpful with figuring many things out. Although to some it may not look like unscrambling those pieces was an easy project, on a new system and a whole new environment changes the difficulty of the overall assignment. Getting things to work properly on a new system is very rewarding and when I start to do things without thinking to hard about it means that I am starting to get it. There are many projects in the future that may make me think otherwise but for now, I am confident that I can learn this system and make it work the way I want it to work.

The hype of these puzzle box projects have not let me down because they are truly a puzzle and fun to solve the riddles and hints found in them. Although at the same time I wonder how hard these puzzles are to make. They can not be easy to make but solving them is not the easiest but very enjoyable. At the end of the puzzle it is nothing more than a message saying you have completed it or just regular text that is unscrambled and readable to people. It is a project that is hard to put down once you start it and you always try everything you can to get the next piece of it. Also this past week we started learning about using vi and that it something that is going to take time to learn. Just like learning this new operating system, vi will take some getting used to before I learn how to use it with ease. That type of modifier would make programming quicker and highlight the important parts of any type of code. Using the computers in the lair have opened my eyes to how different things can work the same way and how important it is to know what kind of files you are messing with. With the puzzle box I learned quick not to try and cat them out because it changed everything on my screen to ascii characters and changed where the prompt was on the screen. Now I know that everything that is done with a file should be looked at before to see what it really has inside of it. The puzzle box projects, although a lot of fun to uncover, they show you what all these files could contain and what commands to discover exactly what they are made up of. I got lost a few time trying to figure out what commands to use to sort the messages in them, but once you got to the end you figured out the pattern and got through a few of them with ease. A lot to still learn, especially with vi, but I am sure the projects are what is going to help me understand more and more as each week passes.

This week is another fun adventure and a project all in one. Our task is to create an eleven page, web based adventure game using html. I have prior knowledge of using html, but I definitely need some studying to create something like this project. The previous knowledge I have of html was from high school and the class was really brief and more of an introductory course if anything. I made some simple web pages, but nothing as fancy as a web adventure game. It is a good project because it is programming language that does not need to be compiled. I might be wrong by saying that but that is my perception of it. The best part of this whole project is the freedom of making it whatever we want it to be based on. There are no guide lines of how it should be done besides html and eleven pages. That makes it a truly fun project and it is not hard to find the time to work on it. My project might not be the best but I am excited to see what everyone else has done with their web pages. In class we have been going over commands on how to further our experience in the lair using the computers to out advantage. What we specifically are learning is how to make the computer work for us by giving it a command. I know one day we were using the computer to sort out files or directories that started with a given letter or had a vowel inside it. Using ? to show how many characters or * to tell the computer that it could have zero to any amount of characters in between. For example if I was in a directory that had a bunch of files in it but I was only interested in a file that started with a vowel and ended in a vowel I could give a command of something like: ls [aeiou]*[aeiou]. That command is just simply saying that it starts with a vowel, has zero or any number of letters in between and also ends in a vowel. That makes the computer work more for the user and can definitely make things go by a lot faster when traversing through and expansive file system. Also in the lecture we were given control commands. I can't remember all of them obviously, but each one we learned we tried out and saw how useful they were. The one that I use a lot is control l,because it clears the screen. I find my self very often writing commands on a full screen of text and it gets confusing and hard to read at times. Now that I know it is just really two button I have to press it all goes by much smoother. Another useful command is control u and all that does is paste a line you have recently cut. They are nothing special, but once you have learned a few of them and get used to using them all the time then it really makes it look like you know what you are doing. The computers in the lair are truly getting easier to use for myself and I will never admit that I know completely what I am doing but certain tasks have become a lot easier for myself. A lot of learning still left to do but that is what I am taking the class for after all.

This week in our unix class we were going over how scripts are made and work. It is a lot to learn because it is pretty much a new language to learn just like programming, but with enough time and practice it will come easier or at least make a simple script. Just the beginning scripts that we made in class showed how they could help make a lot things easier like using a bunch of different commands by just running one script. One command can run multiple sequential commands after it. Scripts are one single command that can implement multiple commands to run or run some sort of logic and run more commands. What we have learned so far is probably just the tip of the ice berg when it comes to scripts, but the intro of scripts that we learned have showed how they can make computing go by a lot faster and easier if done correctly. Also this past week we worked on a web page adventure using html code. My web page was not pretty and probably not that good but through the process of making the web page I learned new commands that help me copy an image from the internet and change the permissions to make it available to be seen by typing in the correct url. Even something like that is interesting on how one command can make my files available on the internet given the url. For some reason I had some trouble with the html code, but most the time it was something stupid like forgetting to close a header or not spelling something correctly. I feel that this last project was to get us ready for writing scripts given the type of code html is. You do not need to compile it just like a script, if it is done correctly, it just works how it is supposed to. More scripting coming up and new projects to tackle in them mean time. Time to learn more about this unix/linux file system that is starting to get easier for me to handle. I feel I am starting to grasp the basics and can understand how some things work on it. Also I have found how to play tetris in the usr/games directory which is very useful when I am stuck at the school bored. Traversing through the file system is getting easier and understandable and I can definitely see a foundation has formed in a way of using the system. Instead of looking up every single command on a manual page I am starting to remember them without even thinking about them. More to come with UNIX this upcoming week…

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…

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…

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…

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.

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….