Dan Rooke’s Blog

Well I have decided on my module options for the final year of my degree course. I shall be posting them back this morning!

I have chosen to go for:

• CHS2575 - Mobile and Pervasive Computing
• CHS2525 - Advanced Databases

I feel these will give me the additional skills I need for my intended career as well as adding a bit of variety to my final year work.

One thing I have noticed is that we appear to be doing modules totalling 140 credits, as opposed to 120, for the final year. I will have to ask why that is!

Below are the module synopses for the two optional modules I have chosen.

CHS2575 - Mobile and Pervasive Computing

The range of networks and devices to provide computerfacilities in flexible and unrestricted environments is growing dramatically,and is likely to be one of the major growth areas of IT development in the nextfive years. The technologies provide a broad range of challenges, bothtechnical and commercial. This module presents the state of the art in mobilecomputing, and examines current applications.

CHS2525 - Advanced Databases

Database management systems have been through a history of progressive evolution from hierarchical and network systems through to the relational systems which currently dominate the marketplace. More recently, object-oriented database systems have begun to occupy a small but significant niche and some of the world’s largest databases are supported by object database management systems. Database management systems must continue to evolve as the demands for database services evolve. These demands include support for complex 3-dimensional and 4-dimensional modelling, database accessibility across networks and realtime performance response.

I have now completed my final assignment and submitted it for marking. All I have left now is to complete my placement diary, my final appraisal and potentially another placement visit.

My replacement started two weeks ago and I have trained him up. He has been doing the job by himself for the last week, he’s doing well!

My placement officially ends 5th July but I have decided to stay on over the summer until September. I will be doing a different role however, this will involve working with our new ASP Senior Developer, Paddy, on the CCL Online website as well as the company intranet.
I have been working with Paddy for the last week now doing some ASP exercises and also an accessibility analysis on CCL Online. I come from a PHP background and so I’m having to adjust to ASP through doing a few exercises.

Our first little project will be to redevelop the company intranet as it is many years out of date! After the intranet has been redeveloped, we shall be working on further development of the CCL Online website. There is currently a very long list of work to be done, this is to be split between the external company who developed the site and the in-house team. I feel that some experience of ASP will work in favour in the future, however I still would like to stay in a PHP development environment.

I will be choosing my final year module options this week, they have to be in by Friday - I will keep you posted!

The final assignment for my placement is due in on 5^th June! I need to get a move on and get cracking with it. I have been very busy doing lots of other little things such as having my birthday weekend off, looking for a house for next year and tinkering with computer components etc. over the last few weeks, now all I need to do is not get too distracted over the next four weeks!Once this assignment is in, all that remains of the Uni side of things for my placement is the final appraisal, diary entry and competency summary. This has to be completed for 5^th July when my placement officially ends.

I have talked with my supervisor and I should be continuing to work for CCL up until the first week of September. This allows me to keep the money coming in for a couple more months with the bonus of doing something a little more interesting for the remainder of my time with the company.

I have received my marks for my first assignment as part of my placement. I got a B grade which I don’t think is too bad. I have to say it didn’t seem like much effort was put into the marking of it, with the grades for the breakdown all being Bs as well.