So, I had a couple thoughts come to me while I was sitting in one of my offices, today.

The first is about software… I think that the term “open source” is misinterpreted by some people. What a lot of people don’t understand is that many times, open source software is open because the author(s) just really like what they do. Granted, this is not valid for all programs or code that is open, but I think that it applies to most. To make the code open just shows that they are really proud of their creation.

I heard something today that made me lean towards that methodology (open source, joyous code) a little more. I heard that because a convenience wasn’t documented as a feature, it had no business being put in the software being developed. Now, I can see that deadlines must be met, but I also see that sometimes you need to impress the customer. After all, what good are deadlines if you have no customers… Also, I would think that if you can spend an extra hour or two implementing a feature that makes the software MUCH easier to use for the end user and will probably save them many hours of time, that feature should be implemented… This is probably just due to my ignorance in managerial roles and having the experience of freely developing my own software, purely out of joy/curiosity.

The other thought has to do with asteroids and other celestial objects… why don’t we attach DNA, information, possibly a solar map, etc to every asteroid/comet that comes somewhat near us. Apparently, they are moving way too fast for us to keep up with them for extended periods of time, and they definitely get further into space than we have been. So why not attach some information to the object, in hopes that it gets intercepted along its path. I would think that a civilization capable of getting near/examining a comet or asteroid, would also be able to view the information that we “stash” on it. Or at least realize that the objects that we stash on it are not typical of asteroids/comets. Then, that same civilization would hopefully be able to use mathematics to sort of plot a course to where we dumped the information onto it. That is where the solar map would come into play… say it’s just a 3d holographic type display that shows our solar system in the center of or more highlighted than near by solar systems… Anyway, this is just a thought of how we could sort of get the word out that we exist…

I have decided that I will get Microsoft certified at some point this year.  I’ve just come to the decision that it won’t hurt me to have certification(s) under my belt.  Ideally, I am going to go for my MCSD, but I’ll start off and see how it goes…

This is an initial roadmap of where I plan to go:

• Exam 70-315: Web Applications w/ C#
  
• Exam 70-316: Windows-based Applications w/ C#
  
• Exam 70-320: Xml web services and server components w/ C#
  
• Exam 70-300: Solution Architecture
  
• Exam 70-229: Designing and Implementing databases w/ MS SQL Server 2000

I think that the first three exams should go pretty smoothly.  I should only need to brush up on a few areas that I’ve just briefly touched in the past.  The last two exams might be more difficult, but I have done those tasks in the past.  If anyone has any tips/study resources, I’m all ears… Otherwise, I just plan to study on my own using some (free) web resources. 

This week been pretty busy for me so far; I started my new job with e.magination and have been trying to have a social life, also.  e.magination has done a great job so far with making me feel comfortable in my new surroundings.  The people who I work with are very outgoing and friendly, but on of the huge bonuses that I do enjoy is that I’m not sitting in a cube.  I sit in a large room that has a series of big wooden desks; it’s pretty hard to explain so I sort of “sketched” the layout below.   Each ‘o’ represent where a person sits.  There are two of these giant wooden desk structures in the open area where I work.  Anyway, it’s quite nice, since I can just pop my head up and talk to the people around me.  Also, a the people around me are not developers, so it’s somewhat easy to get into “normal“ conversations with them… I think I prefer this over being surrounded by developers.  If I ever need to speak with a fellow developer, they’re not far away…

My first day started out with introductions to various people around the company, and just getting setup with internal systems, etc.  I was taken to lunch by my boss, which was an added bonus.  The introductions, etc lasted about 2 hours after which I was presented with some tasks to accomplish.  I have since been working on those tasks and am somewhat surprised by how I “was thrown into“/“jumped into“ all of this work so soon.  Tuesday started off with a meeting with the company COO.  He basically went through a company overview and general business direction and ideas.  So before I keep going on and on, I’m going to get back to my third day.

Desk structure

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     o | o

       |

       |

     o | o

——-|——-

     o | o

       |

       |

     o | o

——-|——-

     o | o

       |

       |

     o | o

——-|——-

I suppose I should have been aware of how SLOW things can move in the non-corporate world.  A while ago, I wrote about an idea that I had for school kids.  Since I’m lazy, I’ll just post the original email and the response that I just received.  Notice the over one month delay from the date of my original email?

Mr. Geurts,

Thank you for your explanation and clarification.  We continue to look for ways to not only deliver our curriculum, but to do so in a way that is effective and motivating to students.  Your suggestion is a delivery method we may consider at a later time.

During this academic year, the district will be conducting  a limited number of student e-mail pilot projects following a district approved application, documentation, and evaluation process.  Classroom teachers, like your mother, are eligible to participate in one of these pilot projects. Teachers interested in participating should contact their school’s Technology Coordinator to receive the application form.

I’ll copy the appropriate Curriculum and Technology Departments’ staff on my reply to you so that they will be informed about your proposal.

Thanks again for your clarification.

Jim Bowen

*******************************************************
James M. Bowen
District Library Media/Audiovisual Coordinator Green Bay Area Public Schools 200 South Broadway Green Bay, WI 54303
Telephone: (***) ***-*****
Fax: (***) ***-****
E-mail: ******@greenbay.k12.wi.us
*******************************************************

>>> "James Geurts" <jim@biacreations.com> 12/11/03 09:33PM >>>

Hi Mr. Bowen,

It appears as though my idea was mistranslated from my original description, to the description that you received from my Mom (Jane Geurts).  What I envision for the kids to use is a closed chat program.  I’ll explain what I mean about closed chat program further in the email.  They could use this program (along side the existing typing books, if necessary) as a way to speed up their typing.  It can be used for education, as they could each research a topic and then tell each person (via the chat software) about what they researched.  If helpful, you could even place those little dots over the keys, so that the students are somewhat forced to memorize key position.  By chatting, in my personal experience, you learn where the letters are for common words and build a memory of the key locations based on that.  Similar to the repetition illustrated in the learning to type books, the kids would get their repetition of letters by typing out words.

Since they would be chatting about a research topic, this would allow the students the opportunity to use unique words and, ultimately, utilize the lesser used keys.

If I’m correct, Preble High School and possibly other schools in the district offer Microsoft certification.  Because of this, students in those classes could write this chat software, possibly as an extra credit project.

The software is trivial to program and Microsoft offers related examples in some of their courseware.  Also, students focused more on security could audit the software, to make sure that it is secure.  This would give a useful "real world" experience to those students in the high school certification programs while at the same time, providing the district with free, useful software.

Now, to answer some of the concerns that you brought up:

I am currently not in a school district.  I recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science.  I am currently living in Maryland and am the president of a computer consulting firm.

To handle privacy concerns, the students developing the chat software could implement several security features:

  1.  The author(s) of the software could encrypt the traffic sent to and from each chat client. 

  2.  The author(s) of the software could implement a "master chat server" that the instructor would operate.  The instructor would then be sent all posts by the students and approve each post individually.  Only approved posts would then be displayed to all of the chat clients.

  3.  The author(s) of the software could implement an automatic text scan that would replace words not appropriate for school use with alternate words, or remove them outright.

Along with that, the chat software could be written to use a certain designated port number for communication.  The school network administrator would then block this port from accessing the outside network and block any incoming requests to that port.  That way, the traffic pertaining to this chat software would be confined to each lab individually.  This is what I mean by a closed chat program.

I have only touched on a few of the security options available, but this would alleviate some internal and any external threats to the students.

The amount of network traffic increase would not be of worry.  Since the network traffic from this chat software would be confined to the lab, there would be no apparent increase in network traffic on the WAN.  LANs, in general, are designed to handle higher amounts of network bandwidth than their WAN connection, so the amount of increased network traffic on the LAN would be minor and would probably not be noticeable.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Thanks

James Geurts