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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<html lang="en-US">
<meta name="description" content="staf's projectJournalling project">
<meta name="keywords" content="HTML, CSS, JavaScript">
<meta name="author" content="Stafngrimr">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<link href="main.css" style="text/css" rel="stylesheet">
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="img/skull.ico" />
<title>myJournal</title>
<head>
<body>
<div class="menu">
<a href="aboutme.html">
<img src="img/staf.png" alt="stafLogo" width="150px">
</a>
<br>
<br>
<script src='https://storage.ko-fi.com/cdn/widget/Widget_2.js'>
</script>
<script>kofiwidget2.init
('Support Me on Ko-fi', '#496270', 'Z8Z564F4J');kofiwidget2.draw();
</script>
</div>
<div class="flex_container">
<div class="text_container">
<small>10-07-22</small>
<p>Hello boys and girls. It's been quite some time.. I got pretty distracted by other things in life and then I decided I would use that time to have something of a break. And then I was at Hellfest for almost 2 weeks. I got back on the 27th very late, and slowly have been working my way back into things.</p>
<p>This last week I've really kicked things back into gear, by checking up on some website stuff, mainly what I need to do with my host provider to not be with them anymore. No one is reading this right now because the journal website is down, but stafngrimr.com will still be up a while longer. I'm going to make sure that in the next month or two both websites are back up and running, shops and all and they're being run on my own virtual server provided by Digital Ocean.</p>
<p>But, for now, to get myself back into gear I am redoing the CS50 course, just the new iteration. I've decided it will be good revision for some things but also I might as well just spend the money on the certificate. I wasn't going to, but I've spent money on worse lately, so why not. It might be useful after all.</p>
<p>I'm also going to be taking a pause between C and Python within the course, to really concentrate on finishing the Adventurer's Bag idea that I had. I'll be building that out with what I repractice in C and it'll be nice to have that finished off and put on github.</p>
<p>I've already done the first 3 weeks of the course within the last week and I'm hoping that in this coming week I can at least do two more. This is the way.</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>30-05-22</small>
<p>This week I got the TOP stuff to javascript but didn't yet start it. Most of the week has been about pushing for the journal site to be done. The part I'm stuck on, but making some steady progress is the login. Creating a login, saved on the database but doesn't have anywhere to create a new one or input a user It's just going to be a page for me logging in, doing an entry and then kicking me out.</p>
<p>I figured out the update page quite nicely I think, though the translation between update page --> database and then back again when displayed on the front page will be the next challenge.</p>
<p>The login has brought up a lot of issues. Even though the site I made on CS50, "Finance" used similar code there were a lot of helpers involved, including using their library for talking to the database. Alchemy works differently, though from what I can tell it'll be more powerful once I actually learn how to use it fully. It'll be good to know I think so I'm taking the time to learn it properly, not just quickly finding the bits that I need right now.</p>
<p>It'll all take longer but that's the point.. next time will be faster.</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>22-05-22</small>
<p>Been a few weeks since I made an entry so this might be a long one. Havn't yet finished the new version of the journal site. It's been a week or so since I looked at it actually, but just taking a look at it now, the database is done and linked. I've also played with the layout somewhat, though it's not quite ready for mobile. I've got the front page displaying the last 3 entries in the db, and that works nicely. I've got the login/updates set up, but I need to get the entry making part of the back end working. I also need to work out how to create new lines, and separate paragraphs nicely updating into the db but then also displaying on the main page.</p>
<p>Basically the bulk of what needs doing is there, but ther are lots of niggly things that need to be worked out. I started doing TOP most days in the last few weeks which takes up some time, and then I briefly also started doing CS50 again to have some C work going even if it's just a little bit per week.</p>
<p>I created a new layout with TOP which was good to do. Great practice for flex and layout designs in general, and quite fun to put together really. CSS can be a pain in the arse, but I'm working it out more and more as I go on of course.</p>
<p>I also created the new temporary stafngrimr.com, which took me about a day. I've got it running on the digital ocean server already, I just need to look about changing over the domain name again, which I havn't done for many years so will require a bit more reading.</p>
<p>With all the little things being added to making the site and doing the TOP course, I realised that I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. Lots of little jobs going on at once, and I felt like I wasn't giving any time to linked in, upwork or the first contributions website that I found. First contributions is about helping with open source projects on Github, breaking the first one open and just getting into the habit of doing so. I figured this would be great practice for how to git, since I use it often but only ever interacting with my own contributions and projects.</p>
<p>Going to be looking at setting up either a Miro or something similar to help with organising all the various parts of what I'm doing. Folders and notes are great but maybe something bigger and better.. I do have an actualy whiteboard downstairs. Maybe that's the solution? Would be cool to have a white board in the room that could then print off from behind the image of what you've done on that day and save each days version via Github or something similar. Kinda like those remarkable notepads that allow you to create pdfs on whitepaper screens. Cool stuff.</p>
<p>Anyway, lots going on. Will hopefully have the journal site done before the upcoming holiday on the 15 the June!
</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>24-04-22</small>
<p>First week without the structured course and it's been good I think. It's
felt a bit slow in parts, but I think that's inevitable as there is some
reaching out of comfort zones and reading documentation on your own to figure
things out.</p>
<p>I decided to start with revamping this journal site and to get that going. As
I think I mentioned last week I want to have it so that I'm not hard coding
these journal entries into the html, but rather creating a unique login that
takes me to a page to make a new update. I think the best way to do this
involves having a small database for the journal entries, so for that I was
looking into SQLAlchemy, which was the first part of new documentation to
go through. It works differently to CS50s database connectivity code, but
what I want to do is quite simple so I've just about got it down I think.</p>
<p>I also had to install flask and all it's recommended dependencies, as well
as learning about virtual environments and their importance, which went
fine and I've got it all up and running. I want to read into things like
Flask and Jinja a bit more, to see what else I can do with them and make
the most of it. I figured this is the first framework I'm learning so I
best dive deep to see how these things operate and what can be done with
them.</p>
<p>I've also decided to use Bulma as a CSS framework, to try something different
from bootstrap. Since this is something a lot simpler, I might do some
research to try a completely different one for the art shop, but we'll
see about that when I get to it.</p>
<p>I don't think this will take me too much longer to put together, but I wanna
do it properly and also get it working on my own virtual server. I'm going
to just do this site for now and then move onto something else before I
do the art shop, mainly so I can have it up for a month, see how easy/cheap
it is to do it through Digital Ocean and spend some time doing some research
on other options.</p>
<p>During that time I wanna go through TOP, and I was also considering regoing
through CS50, as the course material I did was for last year and it'd be
interesting to just go through the problems again one by one and see how
quickly I can do them again from scratch. I think since conceptually I already
know how to solve each one it'll be more about reinforcing some C code into
my brain.</p>
<p>Then when that's done I can finish the C-Game and do the Final Project!
Till next time.</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>18-04-22</small>
<p>So, we missed a week, but that's fine. There's a lot more to talk about
this week than there was last week. I've finished the CS50 course, apart
from the final project, but I'm going to concentrate on something else
before jumping into the "final project."</p>
<p>I finished the Flask tasks, which were a lot of fun. The Birthdays application
was a good easy one to start with and then there was the implementation of
a webapp that allowed you to buy/sell stocks, checking the prices via an
IEX.com API and also have a database where users had their information/stocks
saved. It took all of last week but each piece was easier than the last
as I was understanding more and more of how all the pieces fit together.
It also gave good practice for things like sql and jinja. I'm definitely
going to see if I can use something similar to make my websites now so that
I can make them more dynamic, and that's why I'm not going to be jumping
straight into the final project.</p>
<p>I'd like the final project to be something totally different. Something
like a game, or a mobile app. Something that will require reading the documentation
for a language I've not really delved into before and it might make it
harder but that's half the point. The other reason being that in a month
or two my annual sub for one.com is open and I don't want to renew it. I
want to have this site and my other site on my own servers, and ideally
completely redone using all the new knowledge. I'll build my own shop that
links with creativehub/printful for my artist stuff, and I'd like the journal
to have it's own database where all the entries are saved so that I can
show them/add to them and search through them dynamically through the website.
(At the moment these are all being hardcoded into the site via my IDE).</p>
<p>So apart from finishing the Flask app, there was also the last lecture
to watch which was something of a recap/conclusion but also included an
interesting talk on the ethics of sharing information and web/software design.
Definitely a topical and interesting discussion that I saved for today and
went through at a leisurely pace.</p>
<p>Next steps then are to start desigining mentally/on paper and in whatever
other way the websites. I think I'll start with this one as I suspect it'll
be the easier one to do. It'll also involve playing with the virtual server
I have with digital ocean so that'll be something of a learning experience also.</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>03-04-22</small>
<p>This has been a busy week in more ways than just the studying but I've
managed to get a few things finished which felt good. Firstly, we finished
the first Flask lab which was to make the trivia site. There was an option
to play with the CSS but I wasn't interested in that; I mainly wanted to
make sure I understood how the framework worked and get it all working
together. It ended up being very simple though, so I finished that off
quite quickly.</p>
<p>Then I went back and refocused on the "Homepage" that was left somewhat
unfinished from the previous lecture. In the end I made a homepage for
Anne Boleyn rather than myself because I've done a few sites for myself
over the years and really it was more interesting to do one about Anne.
I was quite happy with what I added and spent a whole day reworking the
CSS to fit what I had intended and then adding more javascript to change
parts of the site.</p>
<p>The javascript I ended up using was pretty simple, and though what it
did to the site was really cool it wasn't overly complicated to put together.
I was still happy that it all worked and felt like I understood what had
been shown.</p>
<p>I was however, a bit stumped on the CSS, the flexboxes specifically, not
doing what I ended up wanting them to do for a while. I stopped and did
a little doodle of what I wanted and planned out the flex boxes on paper
and then basically removed most if not all of that code and redid it according
to the new plan. Definitely something to take away was the idea that you
should stop and replan flexboxes/grids once they start to really become
complicated. All the lower levels boxes containing the content of each
page itself were fine, it was just making them sit on the page in the right
way, so I only had to manipulate those high levels ones.</p>
<p>All in all, it was good to spend the extra time on the website design
and javascript, as that's the bit that I should be concentrating on.</p>
with session logins, updates using APIs from IEX and higher level javascript
so that'll be good! We'll tackle that from tomorrow as the focus. Also
setting myself at least an hour a day to go through upwork and find some
freelance jobs! That parts a bit concerning, but gotta jump in and start
getting it done.</p>
<p>I've been looking back at the C-game. It's been ages since I looked at
it or even thought in C but I do think it'd be good to push doing that and
getting it finiished. Whilst I don't intend to go down that route, it will
be good practice and I don't want to be leaving projects unfinished. I was
tempted to just do it in Python, but we'll ignore that temptation. A better
temptation will be, after it's done, to do it as a web app and make it
a graphically viable game, even if it retains it's simplicity.</p>
<p>Alright, that's a lot. Till next week!</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>27-03-22</small>
<p>Well, I definitely didn't do any more of the job hunting that I should
have done, but that's fine. This week turned into focussing on finishing
off the part time job that ended on Friday.</p>
<p>Apart from that stuff though, I managed to finish the Trivia website,
as well as the home page and I watched the Flask lecture. I'd like to come
back to the website though a bit and work some more on the javascript. I
wanted to spend more time on it, but I didn't really want to delay watching
the next lecture and because I'm so close to the end now I just want to
sprint.</p>
<p>The website ended up being a homepage for Anne Boleyn, just for funsies
and because it's easier to make stuff up for a historical figure. All the
pages are down and organised so that they look good on both desktop and
mobile, but I want to add more interactivity with javascript since that's
the part that I'm weakest on.</p>
<p>I watched the Flask lecture though which was very interesting and tied
together a lot of loose ends that I myself have had over the years with
web application development. My focus has always been websites and I've
always managed to make do with mostly html/css and just stealing bits of
javascript here and there to make certain things work.</p>
<p>This coming week I've gained a lot of hours so I'm hoping to be able to
split my time nicely between being able to start the Flask lab/problem and
also give some time to my Anne website project and maybe even my C game
which I havn't touched in several weeks.</p>
<p>I also saved a few more examples of SQL murder mystery websites which
inspired the SQL Fiftyville problem from a few weeks ago. I think that
will be a fun thing to do when I have some time and also help reinforce
any SQL commands.</p>
<p>Till next week!</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>21-03-22</small>
<p>Hah. Overly ambitious I thought. Smashed it.</p>
<p>Firstly, the SQL/databases lecture was very interesting and I found the
syntax and the concepts very easy to to grasp. I found myself being able
to wizz through the labs and the problems, which were set out very nicely
by giving you a bunch of increasingly specific and complex queries to search
through.</p>
<p>Then the final problem was "Fiftyville", which was set out as a murder
mystery where you were given a relational database worth of clues to solves.
There must have been about 10 tables in there with relational information
and you had to make a not of all of your queries whilst you worked things
out one clue at a time. Definitely the most fun I've had with any of the
roblems and it was very satisfying to complete.</p>
<p>This happened around the middle of the week which allowed me to also watch
the next lecture which was about HTML/CSS/Javascript. Good lecture even
if I felt a little bored during the parts that I felt I already knew. It's
always good to have things explained to you from a slightly different perspective
or in a different way though, and they always do a good job of presenting
and keeping things interesting.</p>
<p>The javascript kept me busy though and I'm glad to say the initial lab
was mostly about the javascript, or atl east that's how it seemed to me.
So I managed to complete that before the end of the week and now I'm on
the build a homepage part. I'm quite looking forward to it, as it's been
a while since I worked on a website and also I'm going to try and make it
interactive and challenging, and also make sure that I'm using good html/css
practices that I may not have been aware of before.</p>
<p>So, last week was smashed and this week I'd like to get this website done
by the endo of Tuesday at the latest giving me time to watch the next lecture
which is "Flask", which I think is a framework...</p>
<p>I should have done more on the jobhunting, profile building side of things
by now. This is the beginning of my last week of part time employment, and
I thought I'd be much further ahead than where I am. I am going to complete
some of these things before the end of the week but also being so close to
the end of the course has made me really want to concentrate on this and
get it done and out of the way so I can start TOP.</p>
<p>Perhaps next week's post will be more about that side of things. Until then.</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>13-03-22</small>
<p>Illness definitely gone and this has been a good productive week. We finished
off the dna.py program on Thursday but it did feel slightly hacky. I started
watching the next lecture which is on databases/sql and there were a few
examples that gave me clues/ideas on how else I could have solved the
problem.</p>
<p>I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, because the problem was solved
and it went through the check50 program that CS50 put together and passed
with flying colours, but it just made me stop to think about how in the
future when I feel like I have the time to do so I can reread some code
and perhaps try and think of there's a better to way to have done things.
From some of the posts you see come up on reddit from professionals though,
it seems like this is not uncommon and that perhaps having the time to
clean up code is something a lot of developers wish they had more time
for.</p>
<p>Anyway, we're on databases and we've managed to watch 2/3rds of the lecture
before the end of the week with good notes. It reminded me that I did actually
play with SQL once before, but just in a casual way and not for very long.
I just recognised some of the commands and the format of input. Either way,
I have a feeling this will be a somewhat easier week with the 2 problems
that I skim read, and after that is html/css/javascript week, which I am
hoping will be a breeze for me.</p>
<p>After that it's just 2 weeks of lectures left and they seem to be a bit
more concept/ethics focussed so perhaps it's just building up to whatever
the final project is going to be. Either way I feel excited and focussed
and ready to get there so I can finish this course off and start focussing
more on website design properly.</p>
<p>The probably overly ambitious goal for this week then is to finish off
the lecture as well as complete both problems, and then watch the next
weeks lecture. Here goes.</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>06-03-22</small>
<p>Well, this week has been something of a writeoff.. the cold/flu that I thought
I was all but over last week seems to have come since Monday. I've been in bed
for 2-3 days this week watching a hell of a lot of Netflix/TV. Next week..
bigger, better, more things.</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>27-02-22</small>
<p>It's been a good/fun week! Managed to get through all but 1 of the Python
challenges, and the last one was just finished yesterday (Saturday). The
last one I've only really glanced at but I suspect is going to be the long/hard
one, which is fine. They've all been copies of old C programs that I've written
until now really, apart from the lab so a bit more of a challenge will be
welcome.. though if I'm still working on it in the next journal I'll be less
than impressed.</p>
<p>I also worked some on my 'game' which is what's in yoru pack? I don't actually
remember if I mentioned this in the journal or if I was keeping it secret,
but either way I don't care anymore. It's just a program that lists items
in a pack at random and then allows the user to add more items or relist
them. It only quits when promted, which is different for any program I've
written so far in C, (or anything else).</p>
<p>It's been interesting going back to C after spending so many days on python.
The difference is definitely noticeable, but I still think it's worth the
time and effort sticking with C and eventually probably C++ now and again
as it's meant to be so difficult.</p>
<p>This week is also get a job week. I'm going to be redoing my LinkedIN,
signing up to Upwork to see what that's all about and just generally looking
for what's out there. I also wanna make sure the github is all cleaned up
and presentable and then we'll see how far behind I am for getting an entry
level webdev job!</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>20-02-22</small>
<p>Missed a week, BUT we've managed to get through the speller problem and
also finish off the next week's lecture in that time which is nice. It was
the intro to Python, which has been very interesting and raised a few ideas
of how I can change up the Adventurer's pack program. It also gave me the
idea that it would definitely be nice to have a few of these projects on
the go and that perhaps the best way to keep a track of these but also link
them to this, is to have a separate little list of projects to the side on
this journal site that I can then also link to my github for anyone who
might be interested.</p>
<p>Python does seem a lot more powerful, but after doing some reading I do
definitely see some benefits to keeping up with the C and then eventually
maybe C++ programming. Learning the harder way to make the more powerful
programs even easier seems like a smart move in the long run. We'll see how
that one goes..</p>
<p>The Python problems seem a lot smaller, but there are 6 of them to tackle
so it's hard to tell if this is going to really take me a long time or not.
We'll also have to see about that. Since it's mostly concepts that make sense
in C I'm hoping that it won't be too bad and I'll be able to work things
out quite quickly. I've also seen ahead and the next lecture will be on SQL,
which will be very interesting I think. And very useful for when I tackle
the ODIN project I would have thought.</p>
<p>Also looking ahead on the calendar and have confirmed the last date of
my current contract which is the 25th March. This means that I should really
start looking for the next step at the end of this coming week and seeing
what's out there and how far behind I might be to get myself in the door.</p>
<p>Exciting... terrifying?</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>06-02-22</small>
<p>This week has been focussing on CS50 of course. Finishing off the lecture
for Week 5 and then hitting the problem, Speller. It's been interesting
seeing how linked lists really can function properly as well as learning
about Hash tables. Still working things out, but I've also had a fun idea
for a side project to help me grasp this, which is to create a little program
of an adventurer and what's in his pack. Adding items to the pack dynamically
and perhaps taking user input to make all sorts of things appear in the
bag and then make the program spit out the results whenever prompted.</p>
<p>Was considering starting up the ODIN stuff again, but really I want to
concentrate fully on finishing this now so that I can then concentrate on
more web dev stuff fully as well, rather than do half and half of both.
I'll still I think keep trying to think up these little side programs to
write in C and maybe other languages later on to keep up those skills and
build on them alongside html/css.</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>30-01-22</small>
<p>Well, we did not get quite as far as we'd hope, but that's fine. It is
what it is. We spent a few days going over our notes and also going over
the notes in the lecture writeup and comparing and adjusting. Definitely
happy with that side of things, and it made me feel more ready to take on
the lab challenge. I did not, however, get to complete it. To be fair to
myself, I did not have the full 3 sessions/days to work at it, as there
was quite a lot of other stuff going on. We'll definitely do it this
week.</p>
<p>We did, though, finish the last days of the Linux skillupchallenge which
was great to do. It really felt useful right up until the end, and I'd like
to think that this week I'll continue to go back into the webserver and
plan what to do with it properly, whilst also researching the prices of
the service that I picked. Perhaps I could even take a look at AWS and
whatever else is recommended by the course to see if there is a better
one. As long as it's not crazy expensive, I think I'd like to move my two
websites over to that. That'll be one move off the provided service and
then hopefully as I delve deeper into the js/php side of things after CS50,
I'll be able to move off of Shopify also.</p>
<p>This week though, is focusing back on the CS50 lab and then the problem
so that at the very least I am ready to be moving onto Lecture6 at the
beginning of next week.</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>23-01-22</small>
<p>So another week gone by, and we've finished watching the lecture for
Week 5 on CS50, which was surrounding data structures and different ways
to create "linked lists". It was very interesting and I definitely made
a bigger effort on the note taking which I'm hoping will pay off. We're
going to go in hard this week on finishing the problems. There's only
1 lab and 1 problem this time, so hopefully it won't take too long to
do. I'm also going to re go over the notes and make them better, re-reading
if necessary the notes on the website.</p>
<p>This week has also been 5 more days of the Linux skill up challenge,
which has been great to get back into. Introducing some things I already
knew, but giving more depth to them. The resources given are all really
interesting, and I think it'd be good even, later in the year to do
it again and see what new resources are added and also see which things
I use more myself and how I can commit some of those commands to memory.
In general, since I've been using a lot of Linux, I think a lot of it
has come back to me already.</p>
<p>We've still not touched back in with ODIN, but perhaps when I've finished
Januarys skill up challange with Linux, it'd be a good thing to get back
into. Perhaps with a focus on using my webserver for my own purposes
and seeing what I can do to host my websites myself rather than rely
on one.com.</p>
<p>We'll see about that though. This coming week is focusing on more Linux
learning and finishing off Week 5, whilst also hopefully getting into
the Week 6 lecture. This has all taken a lot longer than I thought it
would, but that's fine we're getting through it the best we can.</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>09-01-22</small>
<p>Well, it's the new year! Time flew by it seems and I'm already at the
end of the first week of 2022. This week I decided to jump into the Linux
Skill Up Challenge over on reddit,
(https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxupskillchallenge/). Saw this around the
end of November and decided that December wasn't the month to start it,
but January would be. It's been really good so far, I've set up a remot
webserver with Digital Ocean for 5$ and gone through the first week of
very basic learning of commands. It's all rehashing of things I already
feel pretty comfortable with, but there were a few good tips in there,
so I'm enjoying having that to do in the evenings, alongside some maths
and typing practice.</p>
<p>I've also jumped back into CS50, feeling better about the things that I
wasn't so sure about at the end of last year. Finished off lesson 4 and we're
going to be going into lesson 5 later today. Something I was thinking about
a lot last week is that I spent a lot of time during lesson 4 going back
over things way too many times, and I think that's partly because I've been
getting worse at note taking as the weeks have gone by during the first
watch of the lecture.</p>
<p>So this week I'm going to be taking more time on the video, pausing it as
necessary to make the best possible notes. This way I think I'll get more
comfortabel with the material and probably have to spend less time working
things out when I'm doing the problems.</p>
<p>Something else I've been thinking about lately is what to do when I finish
CS50. I am going to be doing the ODIN project more of course, and concentrating
on javascript. But I thought it'd be a fun project to go back to the CS50
problems and solve them using javascript. Then also creating some webpages
to present the solutions in a website. They are ready made problems after
all, and this would let me flex the html/css as well as have something to
play with using javascript. We'll see how that one goes..</p>
<p>Anyway, that's that for now! Hopefull should be talking about how I completed
Lesson 5 in the next one!</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>19-12-21</small>
<p>Alright! It's the holiday season coming up so we're mostly going to be
taking a break from all of this. I think I'l be very tempted to keep looking
at it here and there and I'm certainly not going to be stopping myself,
but we're also not going to pressure ourselves into feeling like we need
to do that.</p>
<p>I've got those two books that I could read also, as a half leisure, half
learning thing to be doing. It'll be helpful without straining too much
over the holiday break. I think I'll aim to do the next one of these on
the 9th Jan. I could do the 2nd but I won't really have anything to talk
about studywise, so till Next Year!</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>12-12-21</small>
<p>Holy Crapola. I don't actually say that. I finished the problem from before
and it took way longer than it should have. Though I a quite glad that it's
done and I've moved onto the "recover" problem. This one is more about
file manipulation with some conditional statments there in to manipulate
data and create files... easy. Right?</p>
<p>I've also actually started watching the video for the next week which has
been good to do. It's felt good just to start watching and taking the notes
nd feels a bit more like we're back on track with how things are meant to
be going. Apart from that Xmas is coming up, so I am thinking about when
to take the break.. Will think on that a bit more before making a decision.</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>21-11-21</small>
<p>Another week has gone by, and this one I did make some actualy progress
with Week 6, Lecture 5.</p>
<p>The difficulty has been of pointers and the associated lab problem. It's
been tricky to get my head around, but I'm definitely also been procrastinating,
probably because I was finding things a bit difficult. The problem was to take a
BMP file and create a little program that can either make a new image from
the original, but greyscale, another that creates a sepia image, another
that creates a mirror image, and finally one that blurs the image.</p>
<p>This last week I managed to create the part of the program that turns the
image grey and sepia, and now I'm thinking about the mirrored image. Essentially
it's about going through each pixel one at a time and then reversing each
row of them. The first two problems did not actually require pointers at
all, which threw me. I figured I'd definitely need to be using them, but
when I solved it and realised they didn't actually need them at all, I
had to look at it differently.</p>
<p>Mirroring will require pointers. I've been reading/watching the notes and
lectures again though to make sure I get it..</p>
<p>This coming week I really need to have finished that problem and there's
still one more from this lecture after. My goal of finishing this course
before xmas seems unlikely now, but we'll see how the lectures after go.
I might speed through a few of them if this is meant to be the hardest
concept to grasp? We'll see.</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>14-11-21</small>
<p>Another week has gone by and this time I've made no progress on CS50,
nor really on TOP. I did some flexbox work and I read over some of the notes
from the CS50 one, but I really hit a wall on that. One which I intend
to smash through this coming week.</p>
<p>I did, however, get back into the regular Maths studying. I've also noticed
a real different from doing the daily typing tests on keybr. It's been a
little over a month now of regular practice and I can feel the speed is
up and my accuracy on punctuation is better than before. Speed on the
letters/numbers is harder to tell but probably also better.</p>
<p>Not really learning/coding related, but I've reconfigured my Ubuntu VM to
work with the i3 window manager and configured that to my liking. Works
nicely with the two monitors and feels good for studying. Definitely feels
good to have a separate environment for this side of things against everything
else.</p>
<p>This coming week, smashing through CS50, as well as the HTML side of TOP.
Once I get through the wall happening with pointers the rest should come easy.</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>8-11-21</small>
<p>This last week has been a bit of a blur. I worked on the module that deals
with file pointers and such, and I really find it quite confusing. I think
I can grasp all of the concepts separately, but then working with them,
I get lost quite easily. As mentioned before though, this is apparently the
most difficult concept to grasp, so I'm giving myself time to absorb and
doing the problems to help and I'll probably see what other reading I can
do on the subject that will help. Always helps to hear things explained
in more than one way.</p>
<p>Apart from that I recaught up with TOP so I can work my way through something
a bit easier but also remind myself of some things.. That was fine.</p>
<p>Not much else to tell apart from that! These coming weeks I have a lot less
planned socially, so I'm going to really try and get my head down and focus
on studying.</p>
<p>Till next week.</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>31-10-21</small>
<p>Alrighty, I managed to miss last week's entry, that's not so good is it.
Anyway, onto this week, it was really a week of being back properly and not
having to catch up with things, so I got through a fair chunk of CS50.
Finished off Weed 3 (0 indexed) and started Week 4. Week 4 introduced the
idea of pointers and file manipulation, which made some past things click
and reveals the use of some training wheels with regards to string manipulation.</p>
<p>I found it quite complicated and difficult actually, but David whatshisface in the
videos says that's likely to be so, so I wasn't overly worried about it. I watched the
extra videos as well, which do add up altogether but it felt worth it this week.
I managed to complete the lab where you edit the sound volume of a wav file,
which was mostly given to you but still good.</p>
<p>I havn't worked at all on TOP these last few weeks as I've been concentrating
so much on Inktober as well as studying. Today is the end of the month so that's
all finished now which feels great. Also it means I can concentrate more
on studying again, and putting some time into TOP and also putting a bit
of extra time in the maths side of the Khan Academy, because that's been a
bit neglected this month also.</p>
<p>This coming week I'd like to finish the Labs for Week 4, and get a start on
Week 5 of CS50. I've noticed that there are new recordings going up from this
year which is interesting.. I might take a look at some of them, or at least
the notes after I've finished CS50 2020, to see if there are any differences.
I'm also going to concentrate as mentioned above on TOP, and hopefully get
myself past the HTML/CSS stuff, (though I don't want to rush them in case they
have useful tidbits I don't already know) and get to the javascript and beyond
sections.</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>17-10-21</small>
<p>This week I have been sick as a dog... started last Sunday night and for
most of the week I have been completely useless to the world. I did a little
reading from the Pragmatic Programmer, but really not enough to be noteworthy
and that's the extent of my progress this week.</p>
<p>But that's fine. Feeling a lot better tonight and tomorrow we begin again
properly.</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>10-10-21</small>
<p>Another week down
</p>
<p>This week was mainly concentrating on working up the Odin Project stuff
as well as prettying the website for the Inktober stuff. Got that down well,
and happy with it for something nice and simple. The Flexbox stuff made it
easy for the site to work well on desktop & mobile without having to create
a separate site like with my regular works, which is nice.
</p>
<p>I also made a bit more progress with CS50, though less so than other weeks.
I had to finish off last week's Problems/Labs, and then only watched this weeks
lecture on Thursday/Friday. It was mainly focussed on sorting algorithms,
so there wasn't too much more code added to it. I'll have to try and tackle
the problems from tomorrow and we'll see how that goes for the rest of
the week.
</p>
<p>Part time job plodded along easily this week, and hopefully that will be
the same from now on. It'll just happen for 3 hours a day and that'll be
that.
</p>
<p>Less programming/study related but a lot of my time after the job was dedicated
to inktober as it will be this coming week. Enjoying doing that again but
I'm also kind of looking forward to doing a bit less of it come November,
and maybe not feeling like I have to keep catching myself up for anything
missed.
</p>
<p>Next week going to focus on CS50, and more of the Odin Project. I did start
reading the Pragmatic Programmer a few weeks ago, and that's something else
I've let slip so I'd like to pick that up again more heavily.
</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>03-10-21</small>
<p>Did more of the same this week study wise. Moved onto the third lecture on
CS50, and that went alright. A bit trickier, but still feeling good to get
through the lecture and test out the various concepts that we learn on the
given problems. Don't think there was anything in particular that stood out,
just more C.
</p>
<p>I also tried pushing through the Odin Project stuff some more and made quite
a dent in that. Have moved passed all the initial stages as well as the initial
delving into HTML, and I think I'm at the CSS parts now. There was a whole
page on flexbox which was good to try out since I never really played with
that before properly.
</p>
<p>I also made a separate site using the flexbox stuff for the inktober posts that
I'm going to be doing. Though I did run out of time these last few days on
finishing that off properly, so I need to do that. I want to add a story page
for each piece and I don't want to have to make a secondary site so that things
look good on mobile. I want it to really work across both. I'll finish that
off tomorrow.
</p>
<p>This week I started both the part time job as well as Inktober. Both are going
to take a fair bit of time on a regular basis, but I think it'll be good to
help me get back into regular art making.
</p>
<p>I do feel like I was more distracted this week away from studying than last
week, but I have nothing extra coming up this week until the weekend so I
should be able to get back into the higher gear. I'd like to be able to
finish off the inktober website, complete another lecture on CS50, and make
a further dent on the Odin Project.
</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>26-09-21</small>
<p>Week one, completed. It's felt great.</p>
<p>But anyway, I've started with the CS50 course that Harvard offer for free,
(as long as you don't buy into the certificate); as well as pushing through
with the Odin Project foundation. CS50 has started me off with C as well
as general Computer Science, and the Odin project is HTML/CSS focussed
so far. The C stuff is interesting, kinda like javascript on the outset,
but the end of lecture challenges have been really good and interesting.
I managed okay with the first few but one of them really stumped me and I
ended up googling the answer. I was a bit bummed, but after seeing the answer
I definitely made the right choice.. I was not going to guess my way into
that this early on. There are 9 "weeks" left on the CS50, but I know that
some of them cover areas of computer science that I already know pretty
well so I will be aiming to finish that off quicker. Either way it'll be
done before the end of the year.
</p>
<p>The Odin Project so far is just covering areas I already know, but it's
still been useful since I never really learned this stuff properly. I only
ever covered the networking side of the CIW course I did many years ago,
pretty much everything I know about html/css was self taught, so there are
gaps. Also there are things that weren't around back then like flexbox, and
although I know what it is and how it works it's still useful to get to
grips with it and practice it. I'll get though the html/css quickly and
then it moves onto javascript which will be the more interesting part.
</p>
<p>Something else I've picked up again this week was going through some maths
courses on Khan Academy. I started doing this a few months ago but dropped
it because I aimed too low.. It's good practice though. I've gone through
a bunch of arithmetic practice and now doing fractions/decimals. It's all
coming back nice and easy, it's just good I think to get used to dealing
with numbers often again. It'll definitely help with the javascript/C stuff.
</p>
<p>The other thing I've been getting into the daily habit of doing is practicing
getting my typing speed up and stable on some typing test site. It's been a
good thing to do first thing in the morning before I get going.
</p>
<p>This coming week will be more of the same, but I also want to be starting to
spend time buildin up a separate project and the first one I want to work on
is this site. At the moment I'm hard coding these weekly entries, and I'd like
to build something where I can login and put in an entry, and maybe add
some more features along the way as I pick things up.
</p>
<p>Part time job starts tomorrow, 1-4. Means 3 hours less time to study but
also means not burning through savings for the next 6 months as long as I
remain sensible... we'll see how that one goes.
</p>
</div>
<div class="text_container">
<small>19-09-21</small>
<p>Alright, first entry. Technically I’m starting this journey from tomorrow,
so this weekend has been more about mentally preparing, as well as making
sure physical space is clean and food is prepped so that tomorrow can be
full focus.
</p>
<p>I’ve got a few ideas in mind about where to start, and I’m not exactly
sure how it’s going to go. I think that I’m going to explore a bit the
various resources and then make a timetable as the day goes on to map
out how much time different things get. I’ve used the ODIN project before,
and I’m currently signed up to the Harvard CS50 course. I’ve done the first
lesson of it and it’s pretty decent, but I don’t want to sit around watching
videos all week, so I’ll probably do some of that as well as play with
other things.
</p>
<p>I’m doing all of this on an ElementaryOS flavoured VM that I’ve set up
purely for this purpose. Nothing wrong with Windows for me, but it made
sense to set something Linux based up so that I can practice using it
again.
</p>
<p>Main goals for this week then are to get going, have some idea about
which resources to focus on at first, and maybe even have a rough timetable
in mind for the days. Also to spend the week using Linux, and make sure
that I’m not just reading/watching things, but also trying to build something,
even if it’s simple.
</p>
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