So I decided to do all of Matthew’s questions as the question Phil wrote contained too much that I didn’t know. Details of the questions are given below:

Question 1

• A – Functionality of DigitalDesk focusing on user context [3]
• B – Affordances, descriptions of basic affordances illustrating via the DigitalDesk example [9]
• C – Ubicomp, description of and examples of “focusing on the task, not the tool” [5]
• D – Weiser’s ubicomp approach is “unachievable or incomplete”, argue for this claim [8]

Question 2

• A – Name 3 wide area positioning systems, outlining coverage, accuracy, cost and availability [6]
• B – RF positioning for ubicomp, factors that affect quality, transmission and detection in terms of objective and subjective satisfaction [6]
• C – Outline two design methods for using RF tags with spacial and temporal variation taken into account[7]
• D – Critique the notion of separate physical and digital worlds, explain why ubicomp can be treated as part of language [6]

Question 3

• A – Outline Wegner’s proof that human interaction with a computer cannot be reduced to an algorithmic representation [3]
• B – Describe basic functionality and interaction design of Coordinator workflow system [4]
• C – Draw upon this and ‘situated action’ critique to discuss limitations of the Coordinator’s central representations [6]
• D – Describe the Placeless Documents systems, and the SE tool built with it [8]
• E – How does Placeless’ design fit with philosophical and sociological theories? [4]

Question 4

• A – Describe the GOMS model of task performance [5]
• B – Fitt’s Law, relationship between it and GOMS-based predictions of task completion times [6]
• C – Text entry on mobile devices, findings of performance studies and relationships to GOMS performance measures [7]
• D – Plasticity, reference models and how they are linked to task modeling and empirical studies [7]

I was sitting through the whole exam, missing out the questions which I couldn’t do, but still feeling like it was all going fine because I knew that come 11.15 I would be finished. It feels good. From there it was off to the pub for a night out.
- Chris

I have been hoping to work in the department after doing so last year, and heard of a scholarship that was up for grabs to do with olfactory tagging of photos.

Anyway, I applied a while ago and managed to get an interview yesterday (after my last exam and before the pubbage). I heard back earlier today and I have been offered the job, it’s a ten week scholarship in the department which pays £240 a week. The main idea is to tag photos with smells, much in the same way that flickr.com uses words to tag photos. I’m not set to start until the 1st of July but thought I would post some early details I have on the project.

Below is an extract from the outline of the project, defining exactly what it is about:

In order to investigate the use of olfaction as part of HCI, the work undertaken during the studentship will centre on the construction of an application which will be intended to both exploit the advantages of olfaction (memory and learning), and apply these advantages to a current problem in human computer interaction – the browsing of large non-textual media collections such as digital photographs. The design and construction of this application will contribute to the general aims of the studentship to improve our understanding of olfaction in HCI and the expected outcomes which are described in detail in the following sections.

The problems of browsing large collections of non-textual digital media are well known, with ineffective tools currently available for browsing and searching such collections. Most of the proposed methods to overcome the problems of browsing and searching involve the tagging of individual, or groups of photographs, with keywords which can be later used for retrieval. However, other research has found that many people find such tagging of photographs inconvenient and many do not store digital photographs in any systematic way. In any event, such a system may still break down if inconsistent labels are given to different photographs.

The application to be constructed as part of this studentship will build on existing research with Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs), to allow users to build search queries over digital photograph collections via RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags attached to “smell cubes” (small plastic cubes containing a fragrance impregnated in a cotton wool pad – www.daleair.com). This would allow users to associate smells easily and quickly with collections of photographs by moving the appropriate cube close to the RFID tag reader, and would help to make the process of recall easier by using the powerful memory effects of smell to remind users of the environment in which they took the photographs and thus aid their recall. For example, photographs of a holiday in India may be quickly associated with the smell of spices. In years to come the user may be looking for a particular photograph of a friend. The user can remember the friend was standing outside a building but cannot quite remember where or when the photograph was taken (such attributes being the current way in which images are tagged). To find the photograph the user would waft each smell cube under their nose. On using the spice smell cube, the user is transported back to their holiday in India and can remember where the photograph was taken. On passing the smell cube (with attached RFID tag) over the RFID sensor, the system filters the photographs on screen to show only a small subset, one of which is the photograph desired by the user – the user’s friend standing outside the building.

The work will be broken down in the 10 weeks as follows:

• Weeks 1 – 3
  The student will carry out a literature review into olfaction. Additionally the student will begin to elicit requirements for the photo browsing application. Participants will be recruited and categorisation of photographs will be undertaken.
• Weeks 4 – 7
  The student will construct the photo browsing application based on the literature review and derived requirements.
• Weeks 8 – 10
  The student will carry out an evaluation of the photo browsing application to determine the usefulness of the incorporation of olfaction. The student will produce a report on the design and evaluation of the photo browsing application that will form the basis of a paper submission to the ACM SIG CHI conference.

Anyway, I’m quite pleased with getting the scholarship and look forward to an interesting summer working on it. Sorry to the other guys who were in for it (Dave et al), I’m sure you’ll all find something soon enough.
- Chris

Question 1

• A – Definition of Turing Test in AI [4]
• B – Advantages and disadvantages of learning capabilities in intelligent agents [3]
• C – Define problem generator give trade-offs [3]
• D – Define memes and how they play a part in agent design [4]
• E – Compare behavior-based, classical and hybrid approaches to robot design [5]
• F – Issues related to evaluation functions in search-based game players [3]
• G – Alpha-beta pruning, effects on computational cost and quality of results [3]

Question 2

• A – Defining precepts and actions [3]
• B – Three novel features to be included in mobile system [6]
• C – Define utility function and give refinations for the features in part b [4]
• D – Fundamental issues in perception, examples with features in part b. Sensor fusion. [6]
• E – Role of emotions in design of agents, relevance to mobile agent [6]

Question 3

• A – 3 reasons for not using deterministic logic in medical diagnosis [3]
• B – Definition of belief networks. Benefits in terms of computational, knowledge elicitation and interpretability [6]
• C – Define maximum expected utility, relationship with AI and human decision making [4]
• D – Explaining away in belief networks [3]
• E – Probability computations [5]
• F – Same as part E, using natural frequencies [2]
• G – Draw and explain risk-averse utility curve for a lottery [3]
• H – Equation to support decision process [4]

The exam was not as bad as could have been expected. I did manage to draw some random graph for the risk-averse utility curve, with axes labeled risk and averse respectivley. Hope I managed to scrape a decent grade.
- Chris

Then PD pulls off an exam which was, not easy, but not the complete enema which I was expecting.

So the exam wasn’t easy as I said, but I managed to do some of the questions, unlike I had expected – I even did the programming question!

Question 1

• A – Define interfaces/classes for a remotely-accessible membership service [12]
• B – Lamport clocks, illustration of wrong orders amongst messages [7]
• C – Token-passing, failure modes, impact on dissemination of messages [7]
• D – Vecotr clocks, description and how it doesn’t solve the ordering problem [4]

Question 2

• A – Spanning trees, building a spanning tree [7]
• B – Description of problem efficiently solved with spanning trees [7]
• C – Spanning trees vs. diffusion trees [4]
• D – Wave vs. Traversal algorithms, either totalling values or finding maximum in a 2-D torus [12]

Question 3

• A – Large-scale distributed file systems, problems, solutions, trade-offs and design issues [23]
• B – Problems when implementing a CMSS [7]

Question 4

• A – Distributed workflows using tuple-spaces. [10]
• B – 2 aproaches to leader election with a tuple-space [10]
• C – Different ways a Byzantine node can disrupt distributed tuple-spaces [3]
• D – Why if > N/3 Byzantine nodes cannot have consensus on common value [7]

I managed to do question 2, which I felt most comfortable then questions 3 and 1. I didn’t have a clue about tuple spaces, having briefly read the notes on them and not feeling too confident about how to use them, there was no way I was going to do a whole question which centered around them!

Anyway, not as bad as it could have been. But then again, I said the same about OS3 last year and it didn’t turn out too well for me! Hope everyone else did shit, and thus making my grade slightly better!
- Chris

The exam was not actually as bad as it could have been. For a lot of stuff I answered I could have gone into a lot more detail. I managed, however, to write for the entire time and wouldn’t have any more time to go into more detail for most of the parts of the paper.

Question 1

• A – Requirements capture with respect to plan-driven process, details of prototyping [5]
• B – Verification and Validation definition and specification within agile methods [6]
• C – URP, use case driven? [5]
• D – DSDM, links to agile processes [4]
• E – “Agile processes rely heavily upon tacit (undocumented) interpersonal knowledge for success”, discussion [5]

Question 2

• A – Axis of the Boehem & Turner polar chart. Identify home grounds for plan-driven and agile processes based upon the chart. [7]
• B – Examples of two axes where polar chart don’t capture necessary system characteristics. [4]
• C – Position waterfall development on polar axis. [5]
• D – Position web-based application/agile process on polar axis. [5]
• E – Problems for plan-based software teams undertaking agile-based project. [4]

Question 3

• A – Discussion of features of XP programming from The Manifesto for Agile Software Development. [8]
• B – Show how points in question are radical moves away from plan-based design [8]
• C – Limitations of XP that make it unsuitable for some types of software design [4]
• D – Potential problems of plan-based development switching to an agile process. [5]

The exam consisted of question 1 and then a choice of either question 2 or question 3. I chose to answer question 3, as I had forgot what one of the axis of the polar chart was supposed to be labeled (I knew what it was and what it was for but just couldn’t get the name!). Anyway, I was very happy with the way it turned out, so happy that I decided to go out to the pub and got really drunk.

Only 3 more to go!
- Chris

Being four out of four questions, I was a bit dubious about some of the course material that I was less clued-up-on coming up. The spread, however, was quite pleasing; covering all the main points of the course – none in too much detail!

Question 1

• A – Definition of statelessness wrt HTTP, naming an advantage and disadvantage[3]
• B – Outlining DNS resolution[5]
• C – Comparison of UDP to TCP [3]
• D – Discussion of IPv6 improvements on IPv4 [7]
• E – Public key algorithms, use for encryption and integrity verification [7]

Question 2

• A – Passing parameters to middleware applications [2]
• B – Scripting for DB update (I used PHP) [12]
• C – Justification of technology used in B and comparsion with other technology [5]
• D – Benefits challenges of using JavaScript, example solution to earlier problem [6]

Question 3

• A – Define valid and well-formed wrt XML documents [2]
• B – Writing DTD for specified XML document [7]
• C – Schemas question, advantage and disadvantage of use [3]
• D – XPATH question [3]
• E – Main differences between SAX and DOM [4]
• F – SAX or DOM pseudo-program [6]

Question 4

• A – E-commerce effects on offline shopping [5]
• B – Increasing search engine exposure [4]
• C – Desirable features of DB for web content [5]
• D – Web service advertisement and location [6]
• E – CORBA expansion and explination of how a request is demultiplexed [5]

Although most of the paper went fine, I forgot how to update a DB using PHP! Also I just didn’t know the CORBA expansion and didn’t have a clue about the demultiplexing (didn’t read it). I did however draw a COBRA in the exam, labeled it and gave it red eyes.

Here’s hoping tomorrow goes as well,
- Chris

As anyone who reads my blog will know, I own pet gerbils. Having exams just now means that they are not getting played with as much just now, to make room for study, this seems to have lead onto my dream. In the dream I have pet gerbils as they currently are, a pet cat and an aquarium full of tropical fish. When I was a kid we used to have tropical fish in the house and these fish seemed to be the same ones I had in the dream.

(more…)

As was foretold the exam contained all the topics that Chris had suggested it would. The questions are outlined below:

Question 1

• A – Redundancy, hot and cold standbys [3]
• B – Risk assessment, describing and writing [7]
• C – Situation awareness [10]

Question 2

• A – White box testing [5]
• B – Contrast in software checking [7]
• C – Software checking [8]

Question 3

• A – Electromagnetic interference [3]
• B – Demonstration of EM safeness [7]
• C – Use of redundancy to combat EM protection [10]

Question 4

• A – ALARP [20]

From an initial look at the paper it became apparent that I was going to be doing questions 1, 2 and 3, because I knew nothing about ALARP at all (I couldn’t find anything about it in the course). Question 1 stared off reasonably well with a redundancy question, then got slightly harder with the inclusion of risk assessment and situation awareness. This wasn’t helped by my inability to recall half the things I knew about either subject. A quick semi-FMECA and some utter dribble about situation awareness (where I repeated the same paragraph thrice), it was off onto question 2.

The initial white box testing part of this question was reasonably straight forward. The second and third parts were rooted in the realm of checking the software used in Formula One cars. ‘Nuff said really. Didn’t know what to write for all the marks, waffled a lot and hopefully picked up a few stray marks.

Question 3 was one which I thought I would have got on well with, all about EM interference (a topic I had read just 2 hours before coming to the exam). When I started to answer the question I was totally stumped for anything meaningful to say. Again, more waffle and then some padding with even more waffle. Chris is going to have fun marking this!

Quite a disappointment, I was feeling Ok about this exam until looking past the first question – probably due to the intoxicating tiredness. I’ve been up for 29 and a half hours, so I’m off to bed!
- Chris

Chris Johnson, as many of you will know, has the (self proclaimed) reputation for giving out the content of questions in his exams before the exam date. He did it last year for IS3, kinna.

Anyway, here is the low-down on what will apparently be in the SCS4 exam tomorrow, broken down into four main topics covered:

• Redundancy
  • Issues to do with hot and cold standbys
• Risk assessment
  • Application of risk assessment
  • FMECA, fault trees (key elements)
  • High-level system description, describe a risk assessment
• Situation awareness
  • White box testing
• Electromagnetic interference
  • ALARP

This is the list which I made in the revision lecture, although some of it makes no sense to me (probably copied it down wrong!). We’ll just have to wait and see, not for too long, if the stuff he has listed will actually come up in the exam.
- Chris

The exam was one which I was dreading, I was ill prepared and shitting myself. Hoping like hell that the questions would be on something which I had some clue about. Fortunately (or unfortunately) some of the stuff that I knew came up.

The rubric for the exam was 2 questions out of 3, both for 25 marks. Choosing which question to do was a tough decision. All the questions contained parts which I knew and some which I didn’t.

Question 1

• A – Integer arithmetic and homomorphism [10]
• B – Knapsacks, normal and super-increasing [10]
• C – Secret key storage, 3-part keys [5]

Question 2

• A – UNIX user authentication [5]
• B – Kerberos authentication and weaknesses [10]
• C – Electronic voting [10]

Question 3

• A – Exponentiation in encryption, Diffe-Hellman algorithm [10]
• B – Weaknesses of Diffe-Hellman and how Oakley improves it [5]
• C – Weaknesses of three tier web interface [10]

I had a fair idea about parts of each of the questions, none more so than the others, so I decided that I’d do questions 2 and 3. Not the best exam I’ve ever done, managed not to answer a few points, writing some bullshit to try and pick up some marks.

Hope it went better than I thought, or that everyone did as badly as me!
- Chris

I’m now at home drinking a 710ml bottle of Beck’s, but no less than 35 minutes ago I was walking out of a Real-Time Embedded Systems exam. The once project supervisor turned torturer lecturer was in style today, producing a not-so-bad exam (says he who knows not his result!).

The paper consisted of an answer 3 out of 4 structure with questions roughly falling into the categories of:

• Schedulers
• Servers
• RT Networking
• RT Operating Systems

Question 1

Question on schedulers as was expected. Did this question as it’s the typical RTES question. The content was from the start of the course, slightly easier than the rest and covered to the death in the lectures. Contained a some server points but on the whole focusing on the scheduling.

Question 2

The second of the typical RTES questions. Again, as expected this question was on servers, mainly sporadic ones in my answers (not sure if this should have been the case though).

I had a few concerns with this question as the section of the course on servers was all pretty much similar throughout. This meant that it was slightly like writing the same answer for both of the 8 mark parts at the end of the question (one of which I am sure I got totally wrong!).

Question 3

The third main section of the course was covered in this question, Real-Time networking. Being a toss up between this and question 4 for my final choice of question, and due to my slightly greater knowledge in this area, this question won.

Parts of this question were about networking problems and quality of service concerns, implementations of weighted fair queuing algorithms (WFQ) and comparisons of that with the weighted round robin algorithm (WRR) with respect to RT networking.

The last part of this question was a random 4 marker about the behavior of traffic flow through the network when using WRR vs. WFQ, emphasising on the load on the servers. Took a wild shot in the dark and hopefully scored a few marks.

Question 4

Question 4 covered the RT operating systems section of the course with a mention of the word POSIX was greeted with a pass from me. Mainly about choice of schedulers to run on a Linux based set top box, some stuff on two-level schedulers and the performance comparisons of RT operating systems against general-purpose operating systems with RT extensions.

This paper seemed a whole lot easier than the sample that Colin produced, however that may just be because I don’t know what the answers to this exam should be. Well, 1 down 7 to go!
- Chris

Tomorrow sparks the start of my exam digest for this year. The line-up looks like this:

• Thursday, 12th May: Real-Time and Embedded Systems (M)
• Monday, 16th May: Security and Cryptography 4
• Tuesday, 17th May: Safety Critical Systems 4
• Thursday, 19th May: Database and Internet Technology 4
• Friday, 20th May: Software Engineering Processes 4
• Monday, 23rd May: Distributed Algorithms & Systems 4
• Tuesday, 24th May: Artificial Intelligence 4
• Thursday, 26th May: HCI Issues in Collaborative & Distributed Systems 4

This is it then, the final haul of my honors course at Glasgow, other people have already had some exams. Right now I’m sitting trying to study more of this RTES stuff in-between crying and trying to hang myself (and writing this post!). RTES (with perhaps the exception of DAS) promises to be the most traumatic of the exam diet I have, still, you have to laugh!

Good luck to all those who are starting/have started their exams, I hold some hope that we’ll all get through this alive.
- Chris

So anyway, I upload, name and tag all my photos. The tags on the photos dictate which ones will be shown to users when they search for them on flickr.

Upon just checking this most viewed list I find my second most viewed photo has had 146 hits, whereas the most viewed photo has just reached 400 hits, all because it has been tagged with blowjob.

I give you BJ?:

I’m wondering what the most frequently searched tag is?
- Chris

I was just getting to the end of this list when I came across an e-mail entitled “Re: your web site needs something like this…” from katief@mail2katie.com on 30th October 2004, which I had replied to.

When I wrote the reply I was midway through writing my DAS4 assessed exercise and therefore tired and very pissed off. Here is a copy of the reply I sent:

This is not spam!

The thing is, I’m sitting trying to write a distributed program which is perhaps beyond your comprehension (Ed: it certainly was beyond mine). I am pissed off as it is and getting shitty emails which are RE things which I haven’t mailed out is making my rage even more!

Bernadine Williamson (“katief” ???), you can suck my balls!

Please remove me from your mailing list as I no longer wish to be subject to your inane babbling, if you send me anymore spam I will be tempted to visit your house and shit on the driveway… have a nice day

I can’t remember writing it, but think it has all the qualities of a good e-mai. I realise that it probably didn’t reach anyone, but it probably made me feel better.
- Chris

World of Warcraft is an amazing game! Having played Warcraft all those years ago, then Warcraft II, and more recently Warcraft III, I am a huge fan of the genre.

This game, although costing £8 a month to play and can only be played online, is still an instant hit with me, I have managed to rack up more hours playing this in the last few days than I have studying (no great feat some will be saying!).

Anyway, the game is amazing, you should definitely buy it, here are some screens from it:

Later, I’m off to slay something,
- Chris