Reborn!

Right, this time I WILL keep this updated.  For a bit.

I’m having an awesome summer so far – I got a placement at Lab901, which is a small company based on the outskirts of Edinburgh.  They have designed a machine that does electrophoresis in just 10 minutes, allowing analysis of DNA to be completed in a fraction of the time that it currently takes.  Its quite exciting, it actually feels like I’m doing a real job and being given real responsibility!

So what am I doing there?  I was genuinely surprised when I found out that I managed to get the placement as my interview wasn’t exactly brilliant.  It was one of those where a lot of words that were said didn’t actually mean much to me, and I had to spend a while using Google to find out what I’d just claimed I could do.

So when I started, I was expecting to be doing a lot of programming and maybe some IT Support style stuff.  Turns out I got thrown in at the deep end – I ended up doing a lot of electronics for a new prototype which involved a lot of soldering, burnt fingers and frustration at my general lack of electronics knowledge.  Definitely a steep learning curve for the first few days!

I eventually produced a couple of constant current circuits that use a transistor to keep a constant current across the load.  These were then mounted in a small black plastic box, and I made a connector so the whole box can be connected to a PCI relay card – thus allowing the individual outputs of the circuits to be switched on and off.  In this case, the circuits are used to drive some super bright LEDs.

After 5 or so weeks at my placement, I was given my first programming assignment!

I have to program a controller for the new development rig, that will be used to capture images of the electrophoresis in action, as well as controlling the LEDs and recording video from one of the cameras.  This is all to be programmed in VB.net, which was kind of good for me.  At least it wasn’t C#!

The controller is just about finished – image capture, video capture and LED control are all working successfully with the original two USB cameras that we have from a German company.  However, there was a lot of code I could reuse from other projects, so it wasn’t as difficult as it seemed from the outset.  But, as with all projects, a manager got involved and said he wanted to try a couple of new cameras from Canada to compare performance, which arrived at my desk on Thursday.

Now I’m writing a new wrapper class which allows the camera to be used as an object within the controller, allowing integration to be fairly painless.  Well, at least that’s the plan.  The wrapper is quite hard to write, but so far I have the camera capturing images okay (apart from the fact they are upside down), and the ability to set various parameters without needing to write the explicit code seems to be working.  Not too much more to do, but I’m sure the integration will lead to a huge amount of problems!

Its finally over…

So my promises of keeping this updated went quickly downhill, however I have been snowed under with work of late.  But our pesky group project is now over, so I can have no excuses for not updating this!

Our project was mostly a success, but because of the lengthiness of writing a GUI in Java, it seemed excessively overcomplicated.  It also turns out I’m pretty lame at programming, but we’ll keep that one quiet for now (seeing as I AM studying Computer Science).

I read quite a bit on the BluRay vs. HD debate over the past week, and my feelings have swayed towards BluRay as being the VHS of the two, and going on to enjoy relative success.  I originally thought that HD would be the winner of the duo, mainly based on the name.  It does what it says, its High Definition video… which makes more sense to me that BluRay (which sounds like some sort of space gun).  But BluRay seems to slowly be winning over the population, I’d imagine its inclusion with high spec Dell machines, the Playstation 3, and generally all modern Sony equipment would have something to do with this.

Although BluRay media is more expensive, it can hold a great deal more information due to the track size (physically allowing more information to be burnt to a disc).  But this requires a smaller protective layer in order for the laser to focus on the smaller tracks, leading to an increase in production costs.  However, the theoretical limit to the capacity of a BluRay disc is three times greater than the limit of a HD-DVD.

But the most important fact to the success of one of these two new medias will probably rely on which type film studios, software manufacturers and game companies agree to side with, and unfortunately for HD-DVD, BluRay is definately winning that one.

Old friends and new spots..

This weekend was quite satisfying, in many many ways. I had a nice meal on Saturday night, that’s always pleasing. And I saw two of my old band mates who moved to London a few months ago, and generally had a few beers at someones flat with them on Sunday night. That’s also awesome.

Then the other stuff… I was pretty hungover on Monday, so got up late and missed a bit of uni. I should be more bothered by this after realising there might actually be a direct correlation between attending lectures, not playing games and paying attention, and exam results. Possibly… I’m not completely convinced yet, but am not exactly enthused about the idea of using myself as a test subject.

Sad times on Tuesday though, I attended my girlfriends’ grans funeral, which was a pretty sombre affair. Although it was followed by a nice afternoon in crammond, and topped off by a takeaway from our favourite chinese.

Back in uni at 9am this morning and on to some report writing skillllz…

New Post… Chicka Chickaaaaaah

So I haven’t updated this nearly as much as I meant to BUT I do have an excuse.

I have had sooo much work to do over the last week, its been crazy.  But now I have created an amazing Java class that will mail merge HTML Templates with a MySQL database (or any database in SQL), and replace all the fields correctly in a new HTML file.  Impressed? You should be, it took long enough.

Apart from this monumental breakthrough in programming in Java, I have also had the joy of partnering (in a non-commiting way) with a fellow student to do a graphics project for Computer Graphics.  It should be banterful if nothing else!  But on a more serious note, we should fly through it… with my ghetto programming skills and his ghetto report creating skills (Open Office?!!1) we’re sure to pass with flying colours.

The only other interesting thing to happen since my last post is that I feel like I now live on buses or in bus stops.

Stevie Wonder…

Today at work, me and Danny had a revelation – Stevie Wonder’s “roar” is a sonic palindrome.  Its fact.

On another note, I have now had my laptop for over a week.  Its awesome!  I bought a Dell XPS M1530 (2.4GhZ Intel Core 2 Duo, 4Gb Memory, 250Gb HDD and a NVidia GeForce 8600M GT) and I’m insanely pleased with it.  I considered many other laptops before purchasing it, and have definately arrived upon a good choice.

One thing I am really really happy about, is that I didn’t buy a Macbook.  A lot of people seem to think that Apple are the ethical version of Microsoft, but you can see from their monopolising of the mp3 player market that this is simply not the case.  Besides, Bill Gates is a major shareholder in Apple, so how can they be an ethical alternative?

Then again, Apple have created some amazing products.  For example, lets take the Macbook Air – a genius invention.  I mean, the world was crying out for a laptop that was really thin and just as functional as say… a jiffy bag.  The thiness clearly didn’t compromise the functionality – lets have a look at the specs:

1.6Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2Gb Memory, 80Gb HDD… oh, and lets not forget the lack of a CD/DVD Drive and only one USB port.

You have to question the use of such a small hard drive (but its solid state!!11), combined with only being able to plug in one external hard drive without the use of a hub.  I don’t know, but I think I’ll stick with a laptop that has some practical use, rather than an innovative design – not to mention a whole £400 smaller price tag!

Anyway, I have a large amount of work to do and little time…

Another day… no real news

So, another early start, more programming in the lab on the mighty group project, general stress at anal sql syntax. Interesting compilers lecture, although it was just reiterating what I already knew. Another hour was blissfully spent swearing at my code, then a further hour being screeched at in AI. Now I’m in the union with a cup of tea with 20 mins to kill. There was an interesting Spanish guy in here just now, I believe the best word to describe would be “quirky”. He was dancing to Miss Dynamite, which was just plain bizarre…

Nothing exciting has really happened, as you will probably gather by me finding a Spanish gentleman interesting, so perhaps I should mention something that has been bothering me for a while now:

How are there so many fat people on my course?!

First Post!

The post that hurts the most!

This is my new blog, I will aim to update it often and will no doubt fail miserably. I say “new” blog, but it is in fact my first – me losing my adult socialising website virginity I believe. Blogs definately do seem to be the adult version of social networking websites, it is mostly adults who seem to have them. Or is this just my misguided belief?

Not that I’m an adult.

The story today:

Get to university at 9.15, do some joyful programming for our group project – a delightful Java front end for a MySQL Database storing information about horsebreeding. Other students got much more interesting sounding projects – one of the first things we discovered about ours was that our manager thought it had been dropped. Probably a good sign of the predicted lack of success with this project.

Had a computing graphics lecture at 10.15, no standing on tables today. Shame.

Bummed around in the lab doing some more programming after a meeting with a seemingly under-optimistic manager regarding the group project. Ate some food, got a bus home.

Anyway, more programming awaits…