Scorched Silicon :: Southern WV Community & Technical College (News)

Glad to see the 2 of you updating your blogs and pages. We had just a general meeting and we will be holding class as normal from now on. The games will stay the same and we will continue your previous work just as outlined at the beginning of the semester. As for this weeks assignments you will need to cover the "Learning from Others" and "Finding Solutions" topics. Not sure how much you will take away from the second topic being that you are graduating IT students and it covers things like how to use Google but we will cover the topic anyway.

IT192 2/2 - Lot's O' Options

Turned in the homework from this past weekend. We spent the rest of the class doing examples from the book such as the rich textbox control and tab indexing. We also hit on how to group controls such as a radio button using a panel so that more than one can be selected on the form at once. No assignment for tonight. We will just go over a few more things on Thursday.

IT180 2/2 - What's That ???

Spent the entire time researching 25 random computer related parts and accessories + 2 mystery parts. Using the spreadsheet in the downloads section, fill it in and find all of the requested information. If you do not get this completely done between now and Thursday, we will spent the first 30-45 minutes on finishing it up. This assignment will be worth 100pts (I changed my mind). That way it gives me more flexibility on giving partial credit. If anyone missed this assignment you will need to see me during office hours to make up the work. Remember if you are not there you had better bring a doctor's note to make up work. No excuses on this one, it is too much of a pain to drag out all the parts from storage.

Snazzy New Intro

Hehe I've been playin with some new software that generates Flash ad banners. I managed to put a new one for the site together in just a few minutes. I'm thinking I like it well enough to get rid of the logo at the top and replace it with a Flash banner.

This is all I gotta say about the iPad

Click for larger image.

IT215 1/28 A Skypin' We Will Go!

Great meeting tonight. Missing one or two from the class but other than that great attendance. I'm going to start giving points for meetings because that will encourage you all to attend regularly. I don't like doing that but temptation is very great to miss online classes. Anyhoo we talked about chapter 3 since it was basically a review from IT183. I did this because we still have several people without books.

After an hour or so I didn't want to go much further without books or software so we decided to talk about tech news. Unfortunately we got some interference and it killed about 20 min of audio. I edited out that portion of the video. The screencasts section has been updated with out newest edition. Please please please setup and test your audio and video connections before class. Skype has built in functions for you to do that. It only takes a minute or so to properly configure your connection so I'm at a loss as to why folks continuously fight their mics and webcams the entire time. To add something else, this is a class, please do not be gaming or doing other things while we are online it is very very distracting.

IT275 1/28

We had a nice conversation via Skype this evening. I just wanted to remind you both of the due date for the first two learning modules was tuesday 2/2 and that you will need to have posted all your work to the wiki and blogged about it. As discussed David is implementing some extras on you as far as the assignments are concerned. It looks like that on top of your game we are to do a group assignment. I'll work on that and see what we can come up with. I am glad to learn that the two of you are keeping up with each other. We just need to document what all your doing. If you could please take a moment and drop a comment on each other's blogs for me. Talk to you as soon as you get back from Ohayocon. Have fun and happy con'ing.

IT192 1/28

Talked a bunch about pseudo code today and how you need to break down the steps of your program to figure out what order you need to do things. Thanks to Alton for being the guinea pig and writing everything on the board for us. I had you all do the program on pages 57-59 for a an in class assignment for a reason. Although the code was there it was an exercise in seeing how well you listen and how well you label and organize your items. With as many bugs as I saw being fixed, it looks like you got a taste of what level of organization I'm talking about.....seriously anal. The compiler has 0 tolerance for misspellings or labels that have been improperly named. You must remember what you named something in order to program it.

As a homework assignment I want you to do a modified project 1-5 from page 63. I've included a pic of the drawing I did to show you what it should resemble. You need to add price, tax, and total to the form and fill them in for each menu item ordered. Due Tuesday 2/2. Hint: Click the image to make it larger.

IT180 1/28

Started the day by doing a little troubleshooting with Windows 7 after several of the machines had been imaged. I learned today that only 1 Win7 Homegroup can exist on a local lan unless you subnet machines into another homegroup. This is rather annoying but whatever. I then lectured on chapter 1 and got it out of the way. Your questions sets for chapter 1 were due today for on time points. Just looking ahead I'll make chapter 2 due for next Thursday 2/4.

IT145 1/27 - Mad Selectin Skillz!!

Wow huge class tonight! All 21 people showed up. Lots of laptop users. I was disappointed a little in seeing that a 1/4th of the class was still installing Photoshop. That should have been done a week ago folks. It's been posted on my website for a while now. You lost valuable instruction time waiting on an install. Let's come prepared next time please.

Well after a little intro we started with our selection tools. These will be your most used tools in Photoshop. We went over the use of the marquee tools, the lasso tools, and the magnifying glass.

I've uploaded several pis to the downloads section that were used in the demo. I also have last year's video tutorials online in the screencast section if you don't remember how to do something. CS3 (the version the videos were done in) and CS4 do not differ enough to matter in the video. They will both work the same.

Your homework will consist of removing the backgrounds from the dollar bill and the coin from the demo pics. You will also turn in the 2 other pics of the fried food and fruit. You must de-construct those by pulling the pieces away from one another or you can copy them over into a blank document. Put all your work into a clearly labeled folder with your name on it on your USB drive. Be ready to turn it in at the beginning of class.

IT275 1/27

By next Tuesday I want you to have worked though Intro to Actionscript, and Programming Practices. Upload any work you complete to the wiki. Shoot me an email to let me know you have completed the assignment. Then I want 1 blog post a week about what you are doing (usually the assignment will give you the blog topic, if not just put something down about the program in general. C’ya soon.

IT192 1/26 - Hello World

Well we got underway with our programming. Instead of just outright lecturing on chapter 1 I thought it would be best for you all to get hands on right away. We started with a little intro to the chapter and then went to work on our Hello World project. You will need to have it completeed for Thursday having at least 4 different languages to say hello. For those without books I've placed chapter 1 and 2 in pdf format on my website and in the network drive.

IT180 1/27

Started out the morning by going over to the lab and having a little quiz on the various parts of a motherboard. From what I'm seeing you guys need to begin reading the material and get up to speed on a few things. We then headed back over to the warmer classroom and I played show and tell with my toolkit. Keep in mind what I said about all of the tools. There are some you just can't do without and many others are occasional use tools, but they all get used at one time or another. Definitely get yourself a couple of screw drivers, the usb to sata/ide/laptop adapter, a small assortment of screws, some zip ties, a can of compressed air, and a set of pliers. Those will be your most used tools. Reminder for Thursday that you need to have the online question sets for chapter 1 done.

New Job Announcement Section

I've decided to add a job announcements section to the website. I will post as many as I can. The IT274 Capstone students will also start submitting these soon as well. I will need the description and url of where you found it. This will help everyone in finding work, be it part or full time.

IT215 1/21

Met this evening to get a few basics out of the way. The syllabus is wrong. It needs updated to Server 2008. I listed the proper ISBN for the book/software bundle on the whiteboard. I would list it here but I ran out of the classroom without writing it down. I'll update asap.

We then downloaded Virtual PC and got it installed. Then we managed to install Server 2008 120 day trial ed. I'm glad I had everyone do this since the consensus was that you could do it and didn't need help. From what I saw you guys struggled with it. Folks virtualization is going to be a big part of what you do in the near future. You had better get on this and learn how it is done. Meeting via Skype next week. We will also meet in the classroom every 3rd thursday of the month, May being the exception. Skype ya next week!