Blog

Ok, this is just a quick little post and I did already tweet about this, but ‘Rome’ has impressed me so much that I felt a blog post was needed too!

Basically Rome is a short feature film created by Chris Milk in partnership with some Googlers,  which depicts you travelling though a sequence of dreams. Its not just a simple movie though! As the rendering is done in real time, you the user can actually impact the movie (by moving the mouse cursor). Its quite hard to explain, but its pretty damn cool!

It has been constructed using HTML5 and more importantly: WebGL. WebGL allows rich 3d graphics (with hardware acceleration) to be rendered within the HTML5 canvas element. I believe the consequences of this technology will dramatically shape the future of the web and ‘websites’ as we know them.

You can view the movie here. Please note that this is fairly cutting edge technology and so browser support is not widespread. The latest stable version of Chrome will sort of work, but (as they recommend) Chrome Canary (a beta build) will provide better performance.

One things for sure, with WebGL in its armoury, the future of the web looks… sick.

Over Easter I went back to home to Devon to visit my family and friends. While I was there I was looking through some photos on my old home PC and found some particularly nice ones showing just how beautiful the Devonshire countryside can be. I thought I would add them here so you can appreciate it too!

Jurassic Coastline

Wintertime

View from East Hill

I know this was a random post but I have been a bit lazy with the blog recently and needed a break from revision. Hope you enjoyed!

Towards the end of my time at university I was tasked with creating a basic e-commerce website to sell mobile applications. Whilst the requirements for the assignment focused on the security and reliability aspects of the site, I thought I may as well make it pretty as well, so it could find a place within my portfolio!

Appstore Product Page

Going into the project, I wanted to see how fast I could develop the site (as it seemed smaller than the projects I had worked on previously). To my suprise, I found that I was able to produce the majority of the functionality / design within a day. This was made possible due to the sheer awesomeness of the 960 grid system in combination with my favourite Javascript library: jQuery.

The 960 grid system (or a similar CSS grid) is an absolute must have in modern web development. It enables the developer to split the layout of a website into logical sections which just work! Its a major bonus not having to play around with floats to get things aligning correctly. Furthermore, the system boasts a great level of cross browser compatibility, which again saves a great deal of time.

On the Javascript side of things, the site is relatively simple. jQuery was used quite extensively to implement the websites ajax features. In addition to this, the validate plugin was used to ensure all user input was in the correct format. Perhaps the most interesting use use of jQuery was the Isotope plugin. This was used to filter the product listings and I must say that I love the outcome.

I then spent a second day tweaking the design and removing some bugs. Overall I’m quite pleased with what I created. The e-commerce elements of the site are obviously quite basic (specifically the credit system), but that aside, I think the design is relatively nice given the timescale! It was especially useful experience to implement the Google checkout payment system which was very quick and easy to use.

You can check out the site here. (I will add this to my portfolio soon)

The huge time-lapse since my last post here is because its the end of term at university, which means only one thing: deadlines, deadlines & more deadlines!

Perhaps the most significant deadline of them all was for our final year project Shouse (a student housing website). This means that development on Shouse has been postponed for the time being. Considering that we have been working on the project since last September, this will be quite a shock to the system!

Just before the deadline, we had the opportunity to demo our application to the masses (well, other UKC computing students at least!). The university holds a project fayre, where all final year students can show off their projects. The fayre was a great opportunity to obtain some feedback from fellow students about both the website and the concept in general. Thankfully the vast majority of feedback was positive, with most students seeming very positive about the idea. We are now armed with a range of potential new features / improvements for the future.

The project fayre

The fayre marked the end of our development phase. The project in its current state can be viewed at http://www.shou.se (cool domain right ). Please feel free to check it out – we would be grateful if you could leave us any feedback using the facility provided. Please note that this is NOT the finished product!

I just quickly wanted to thank Edwin and Rory for their efforts during the course of the project – I certainly couldn’t have done it without you!

We will most likely resume development of the application after university depending on our employment situation. This would result in us aiming to officially launch the website during August / September.

I recently entered a competition held by my University placements department for which I had to review my placement year (which would in turn be used to encourage future students to take part in the scheme). After I wrote the report I realised it may be of interest to some people so I thought I’d post it on here as well

My Year in Industry

After a relatively straightforward search for suitable placement vacancies, I found an ideal position as a ‘Support Developer’ at a small software development company based in Exeter called ‘MSM Software’. I sent off an application which was followed by an interview (which in itself provided me with good experience), and my placement was confirmed.

If I’m honest, I was a little daunted by the prospect of replacing my student lifestyle consisting of relaxed timetables, regular socialising and lie-ins with repetitive work, early mornings and a forty hour week. However, as soon as I started my placement I quickly realised that my concerns were unnecessary. I was instantly made to feel welcome and the induction process got me up to speed quickly.

From the beginning I was entrusted with a wide variety of diverse tasks for real clients. This ensured that the work was both challenging and satisfying. The work itself consisted of a mix of software maintenance, website development and database administration. In turn I was exposed to a good range of modern technologies including C# .NET, MSSQL & PHP – providing me with valuable, up-to-date technical knowledge.

Working for real clients also provided a sense of pressure and responsibility, making me push myself, ensuring I got as much as possible from the role. This also made the work far more rewarding, knowing that it was making a difference to another organisation.

Whilst I do appreciate the technical elements of the placement, I feel the major benefit lies in the business / office experience I have acquired. This experience cannot be taught in a university environment but is highly rated by employers. As a result, I now feel I am much more employable than someone who does not have such experience, meaning my future job prospects are greatly improved.

Something I did not expect was that I actually enjoyed working life. Whilst the workplace was a professional environment, it was also perfectly possible to have fun there. The office was a very social place and company social events were organised regularly. By the time I left the company I felt as though I was leaving behind many friends as opposed to just colleagues.

Overall I cannot recommend an industrial placement enough. If someone said that you could improve your self-organisation, learn additional skills, strengthen your CV and get paid for all of this, you’d be crazy not to. If I had to describe the year in three words they would be:

• Valuable
• Rewarding
• Fun!

To top it all, I have received an offer of employment for next year, removing the hassle of searching for a job during my final year. This means I can focus on finishing my degree, as well as enjoying everything else that university has to offer.