21/11/07 Wednesday morning double period

As our new blogging website (www.finnegas.net) is not working currently, I will use this blog to report on progress.

Today, there has been no progress with coursework because I am currently stuck trying to add an editable 'DetailsView' table, which does not seem to work and there does not seem to be a solution, unless I just use a table which shows all the records at once.
However, even this table has problems, such as the inability to add drop-down menus to fields, like in my MS Access database.

Also, I can not move any further with reports because we have not covered them yet. I have a rough idea of what I have to do though so I'll try and add some reports.

8/10/07

On Monday, we continued on with our coursework project. I spent more time adding new pages to the site and linking up the new buttons to the right pages. Then, I added the REACH Across database to my website using the Database Manager and successfully added a list of all members (which can be edited and sorted) table to the website. However, I found that on editing the table, you do not get drop-down menus like you did with the database I created with MS Access. This means for typing in religion for a member, the usual two options are either 'Catholic' or 'Protestant', but on the website, there are no options or clues to what is to be entered there, meaning data inconsistencies could result, if for example someone spells 'Catholic' wrongly when entering it here.
I had trouble trying to add new tables, which I based on queries of which I used on my database from last year.

We had to summarise the Network security chapter from the textbook on Tuesday and complete questions for homework. This has been completed.

2nd November 2007

Our homework over the mid-term break was to complete section 3 of the normalisation workbook. I have completed the majority of the 9 tasks, but some I have not because I have not been able to understand them. One task asks me to normalise a database, but this one has two repeating groups, and there are no clear instructions as to how you go about normalising when there are two repeating groups.

And in task 9, it asks you to normalise a database, but this situation is different from any of the given examples because it only has 1 primary key (and one foreign key) rather than 2 primary keys and a foreign key and I do not know how you should group the attributes into which tables.

The textbook homework has been fully completed (Deadlock notes and main terms: revisited sections).

19/10 Classwork

Today, we were asked to start creating our websites for our coursework. I will be using the REACH Across database and creating a website so that it can be accessed online at any time. Here is a map of the layout of the pages:

It will be similar in design to the switchboard I used for my database last year.

17/10

Today, we started watching a series of videos to learn how to use Visual Web Developer which we will be using as part of our coursework.
The first video went through the basics of Visual Web Developer, explaining how to set up a new website, how to use visual basic code in construction of pages and which toolbars can be used for what functions (like adding new items to pages or accessing the toolbox to add elements to a page or how to switch between design view and source view).

Software Development quiz

Software Development Quiz

1. A ___________________ is a software solution developed with a particular organisation and its needs in mind, developed by their own ICT department or by a third party. 2.
ANSWER: Bespoke solution



2. Underline/highlight two advantages of off-the-shelf software:

* There will probably be operations that users require but the software does not support.
* It meets the customer's precise needs and unnecessary features are removed.
* Software is immediately available for use. - ANSWER
* Training is available from a far wider variety of sources. - ANSWER
* The customer will pay for functionality they may never use.
* It can be designed to interface with the organisation's existing systems.

3. What does CASE stand for?
- Computer and System Engine
- Computer Aided Software Engineering - ANSWER
- Computing and Software Efficiency


4. People management is when a system automatically makes sure team members are motivated and focused on the objective. True of False? FALSE

5. Which of these are used to compile periodic reports to show progress and highlight issues or concerns?

* Progress Monitoring
* Budget Control
* Reporting project status - ANSWER

16/10 Tuesday's Class

Our homework over the weekend was to summarise page 206-207. This is complete. Our homework for Thursday is progress questions 1-8 on page 216 from the textbook. This has yet to be completed.

Today, we did a System Development test. My intial results were 27/36 and on a second attempt 31/36 because I mixed around a few steps in the prototype model and got a question wrong about a type of diagram which describes the functionality of a system as a series of step-by-step instructions (and I didn't use a textbook for answers!).

Also, I have decided not to repeat any AS exams in January (or June) of this year (I already have 3 A2 modules and 2 AS repeats to do in January).

Today, we also have to devise our own test on another subject, similar to the one we took today (eg. multiple choice questions, true/false).