Facebook: turn off chat
Did you know you can turn off Facebook chat? It’s something that a few people have mentioned to me: they log on to Facebook and want to be on just quickly, or want to get through all those notifications, when someone sees they are online and pops up a little chat box to talk! Being polite people they don’t want to ignore their friend, but since Facebook added chat they haven’t been as productive.
Here’s how to log out of chat:
![[ Screenshot of the chat button, showing user is online ]](FBchat2.png)
The chat button is located at the bottom right of the Facebook window. If you are online, the chat button will have a green circle and a number indicating how many of your friends are online right now. Click on this button to expand the chat menu, allowing you to see who is online and also how to go off line.
![[ Screenshot of Facebook screen, pointing out the chat mini application at the<br />
bottom right corner. ]](FBchat1.png)
Now that you’ve got the chat “mini application” open, look for the Options menu, the one with a gear icon next to it. Click on Options to expand the Options menu. Right near the top are those magical words: Go offline. Click on that to go offline.
![[ Screenshot of the expanded chat menu, pointing out the OPTIONS menu item . ]](FBchat3.png) |
|
![[ Screenshot of the OPTIONS menu, pointing out the GO OFFLINE option. ]](FBchat4.png)
![[ Screenshot of the minimised chat button, showing user is offline. ]](FBchat5.png)
The chat application will minimise down, and you’ll see that Chat (Offline) is showing on the Chat button. Once you click on the Chat button you will be automatically put online, becoming available for people to talk to you. If you minimise the Chat application you will still be online, you need to select “Go Offline” from the options menu to turn off chat, becoming unavailable to talk to, leaving you to browse Facebook in peace.
COMMENTS
FIT2001 Week 8: design
Well, the main thing I’m working on this week is the Assignment 1b Functional Specification Report. I’m glad the things I learned in ENH1260 Introduction to Professional Writing and FIT2043 Technical Documentation for Software Engineers are coming back to me, so I’m pretty happy that I can format my report and make it look business-y. Unfortunately I last took FIT2010 Databases FIT2008 Networks in 2007, so I’m going to need to brush up on the Diagrams for the Assignment and Terminology for the Design lecture! I’m still struggling with converting my event table into a Use Case diagram, so I just have to do the other diagrams and then ask lots of questions in the next tutorial. It just feels bad and wrong every time I attempt it, so I’m a bit discouraged there. Anyway, on with this week’s topic.
Thoughts
Good design involves creativity. While you can just put in tech solutions with the goal of meeting the Acceptance Test document, that isn’t really design. Design is a creative process where the designer (perhaps the Information Architect) makes IT solve problems in really efficient and useful ways, to inspire the business to use IT to add value, not just as a problem solver.
So let’s think “Blue Prints” so the designer can tell the programmer (either another person or their own future-self) how to build the system. Design works at both high-level and low-level. Of course, while Analysis works out what the system should do, Design looks at how the system should do it. There are three big areas that System Design focuses on: Network, Software and Database, which are inter-related.
The main points of the lecture were: Networking (enough to talk to the networking specialist) Application Architecture, User Interface (muck it up and the users will hate your system), System to System Interfaces. Database is a big deal, because a system is basically a Database with a graphical front end.
Security: besides passwords and encryption, also include Audit trail and logs.
Client Server Architecture is important. Having multiple servers lets us separate the different components of the system out.
3 Tier Architecture
- View Layer: user interfaces, etc
- Business logic layer: applies all the business rules, contains programs that do this
- Data Layer: interacts with Database.
Middleware is the glue that holds the layers together and lets the different software objects in the layers talk to each other.
The Quiz
This week I didn’t do well on the quiz: showing there is some specific knowledge to pick up here, rather than apply existing knowledge to new problems.
I managed to guess the answers involving stuff I already knew, such as LAN, distributed architecture, cluster, intranet, extranet, database relating to the Data Layer as well as the questions about the Analysis phase.
However, this is the stuff that I missed:
- Project Schedule: important to co-ordinate activities
- CASE Tool: used to record and track project information (used in a lot of places)
- System boundary: identifies what is in and out of the system (automated and manual processes)
- User Interface: (I think I went general and said system) first thing: think of user dialogue with system, inputs and outputs.
- Network Controls: obviously control the network, protecting communication
- System Interface Controls: make sure other systems don’t harm the system.
- Application Controls: make sure that transactions and other system work is recorded correctly.
These were all Free form answer questions, and I think I could have improved my score by reading the question more carefully, or if I had been asked to define each of these rather than guess the word that matches the definition.
- Design Phase = breaking complex components into smaller, understandable components (ie, top down.)
- When designing prototypes, ask: “Have we specified in detail how we can be sure that:
- the system operates correctly and
- the data maintained by the system are safe and secure?”
The Tutorial
The most memorable thing from the Tutorial? “What is the internet?”
“A Box.”
COMMENTS
FIT2001 week 7: wrapping up analysis on the run
I noticed with great excitement that analysis is finishing up this week and that we’ll be getting into the design next week. This week seems to be very similar in content to Project Management. I also heard on the recording that POD had just written the exam for the subject, so if he says something “might well be on the exam” it would be good to listen up!
This week I didn’t manage to listen to the lecture on Friday, as per my usual schedule, but listened on the go with my iPod during a youth group scavenger hunt: I was a leader and the groups had to find me as I moved around the Ringwood/Eastland area. I was annoyed to find out that my “video ipod” didn’t actually play the video podcast that played fine on my computer. Oh well, I got the “no slides” version of the lecture, but managed to listen and take notes in 4 different locations while ‘hiding’ from scavenger hunting teenagers.
Actual Thoughts on the Content
Of course, we are taught Analysis first and then Design, but in real life they often run semi-concurrently. This weeks lecture also talked about when Analysis isn’t the precursor to Design, but the precursor to a Request for Proposal, which is a big list of requirements with an introduction for the system that you want to buy from some one else.
The “end of analysis” is gearing towards a massive report (much like our Assignment 1b) that a Senior Analyst and Project Manager would discuss with each other and present to Senior Management and major stake-holders, who have the power to decide the future of the project. The report consists of lots of diagrams. The big part of the report is prioritising the requirements and deciding the Level of Automation.
The Level of Automation is a good one to look at first- basically it is deciding how much the computer is going to be involved in that component of the system. There are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to automated (computerised) systems. It sounds like any time you automate something you need to take care, because of course, Computers are Stupid (only doing what they are told to do.) For example, the Monash Swipe Card security system relies on user honesty as well as the computer reading the barcode/chip on the ID card. If security was really important a tough human security guard would be a better bet. Sometimes automation makes a work flow really simple, easy, and cheaper. Or it could make the system really complicated and expensive. That is why we do Analysis, to find out which.
As well as working out how much we need to automate the different components, we also need to look at whether it is worth building the components at all. No project has an unlimited budget and unlimited time, so no project can implement all of the features that it wants. So, we need to limit what the system does (Scope) so we can complete it. Scope Creep is when the client (or Analyst!) keep changing the scope of the project by requesting more, well, Bells and Whistles, usually. If something comes into the system, something else usually has to go, or be less automated.
Of course, all this info needs to be communicated to the Senior Management (by the Project Manager and Senior Analyst) so they can make decisions. So while we’re thinking about the technology now it still is at a high level so we don’t confuse the boss. All compromise is political and the big IT companies make sure to network with the Board members and Senior Management.
We also talked about scoring systems to make decisions, which is also covered in Project Management (FIT3086.) What you do is have different categories (such as price, quality, time, etc) and for each category assign a “weight” (maybe price is more important to you than, say, colour), and for each option assign a score under each category.
| Option | Price | Quality | Time |
| A | 1 | 4 | 4 |
| B | 2 | 4 | 3 |
| C | 5 | 4 | 1 |
The Assignments
I found out that my tutor has marked my assignment and is just waiting for the nod to release the marks on Moodle. It was good during the tutorial to discuss my event table. I had mistakenly said “the end of analysis” in my little blurb at the top of the assignment- of course the Functional Requirements Specification marks the “end of analysis”. I was a little confused as to what the first assignment was for beyond practising the Event Table, but I think it was a “touch base” kind of thing with the client, with the major report to come in Assignment 1b. Now I get why they are 1a and 1b.
The Quiz
The quiz shows me what I knew before I learned it, this is what I didn’t know.
- A Turnkey System is one you get from a vendor and just “turn the key” ie switch it on and start using it.
- facilities management contracts are very expensive apparently.
- ERP is another word for Turn Key
- A Request for Proposal is so we can buy another company’s services for the product after we’ve worked out what kind of product we want/need.
I like how Dilbert seems to be on the Systems Analysis and Design wavelength, maybe there is some conspiracy theory there! Does POD look like Dilbert (a little) without the curly tie? I haven’t posted Dilbert in a little while, so here is another one:
Dilbert on Vendor Comparison.
I’ll be posting some resources useful for the assignment (such as links to tutorials on how to write a business letter) as I get around to it.
COMMENTS
FIT2001 week 6
The first week back from the holidays, with the Event Table assignment looming, as well as two other assignments due this week. I’m feeling a little behind, but haven’t turned anything in late yet. The Clayton lecture was quite short, I thought, for such an important topic. I did enjoy the Tutorial with the hands on practice with Visual Paradigm, and I’ve downloaded VP for use on my own computer, which should be good. (Hooray for Mac versions!)
Some of the points that stood out to me in this week’s lecture (besides the ominous clump of a microphone cutting out):
- Sometimes we model for documentation, but be careful that the model is still useful and that you’re not just modelling for the sake of generating models.
- Sometimes an actor might be another system or organisation rather than a person.
- repeat or loop = asterisk * in UML
This week I found the most helpful method for studying was the quiz, because there were a lot of terms I didn’t know.
The Quiz!
This quiz was useful, because it shows what knowledge I’m missing and what I was able to guess based on the knowledge I have already (encouragingly 70%). However I did miss some stuff, these are the questions and observations that I have as a result of the quiz.
- woops the answers are shuffled randomly, so “All of the Above” appeared as “a” the first answer option, above the others! When you see “all of the above” it is most likely the answer.
- what are System Sequence Diagrams?
(A) System Sequence diagram is one that shows the sequence of messages between an external actor and the system during a use case or scenario.
- what is an object life line? No, not a part of the new game show Who wants to be a
MillionaireSystems Analyst. The object lifeline is used in a System sequence diagram to show the passage of time for an object, it’s a vertical line. - what is a scenario? A scenario is a version of a use case, such as when two use cases are similar enough that they can be made into one with a minor variation that is the scenario.
- you can create temporal events manually.
- what is an interaction diagram? a System sequence diagram is a kind of interaction diagram.
- return of data is shown as a dashed line with an arrow.
- I protest: clearly object oriented is the same as object-oriented, this highlights issues with open ended quiz questions with specific answers required.
The ____________________ approach to systems development requires several interrelated models to create a complete set of specifications.
Answer: object oriented
Incorrect
Correct answer: object-oriented
Well, now to finish off my Event Table.
COMMENTS
good quality free applications for mac
First of all, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get around to this skribit suggestion!
The original suggestion asked for “freeware” applications for mac, but I reckon you get better quality by going for open source applications, for a variety of reasons which I won’t go into here.
This is a list of some of the open source and free applications that I have on my mac:
- Adium is a really good chat application that supports lots of protocols like msn messenger, gmail talk, facebook and others.
- Firefox is a brilliant browser. It isn’t perfect but is my favourite browser.
- Seashore is a cocoa derivative of The Gimp, a graphics manipulation program. While both will run on the mac, seashore avoids having to run X windows.
- Fluid is used to make a standalone app out of a web app- personally I use it for wordpress.
- Cyberduck is what I use for FTP, Secure FTP, and SSH transfers.
- Audacity is a handy sound recording application
- OpenOffice.org is great for opening up almost all Microsoft Office files, though I prefer to either use a plain text editor or google docs.
- VLC is a brilliant video player. It is particularly useful for avi files and DVDs, because it doesn’t care about zones, unlike Apple’s built in player.
- Gawker is a fun little app for taking timelapse movies with a web cam.