I, Curtis

Category: Getting It Together Interface

  • Mobile GITI

    Today I started a project I have been meaning to work on for years, a mobile version of GITI. I kept holding out, waiting for myself to learn how to write the application to not be Internet dependant, but for the most part, there is wireless access almost anywhere that I will need GITI. My iPAQ is the target platform for GITI Mobile.

     

    So far I have completed the conversion of the login page, and the command evaluator. They are the foundations of GITI. In addition, I have modified one of my C# projects to be an effective simulator for the mobile device. With JavaScript off and the smaller window size, its a perfect representation (at least for the limited features GITI uses).

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  • GITI Arcade

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    Since June 2003, when GITI was created, it has been an interface of seriousness and record keeping… last week I decided to deviate from that just a touch. I have added a few games to the interface using some games from Google Gadgets. I’m hoping to write some games of my own to put in GITI soon, but for now these interactive versions of PacMan, Tetris, Frogger, Invaders, Hangman and Mario are keeping me entertained.  Unfortunately, there is not yet a Google Gadget pong… or it would have been in there too.

    P.S. No one make fun of my score… I was trying to get an interactive-looking screenshot and that isn’t easy with those things chasing you.

  • Solution Planned

    I think I have the solution to the GITI crisis.

    1. GITI will register the special cases in its "fields" table

    user

    module

    field

    info

    data

    value
    $user education institutional_grade $institution $grade $points

     

    2. Education will follow the new v2 protocol for managing its own fields entries, allowing it to take over inserting records about institutions and maintaining information about them, including their grading system.

    3. GITI will loose all "combined" GPA and "quality points" functions… since they aren’t really valid anyway.

    4. All current GPA calculations will be modified to cause a database check for the existence of a grading scale, if found, it will be referenced  for all calculations, if not, the default grading scale will be used, and a further check will not be run for the situation.

    5. All grade input screens will be modified to use the special systems in their lists… this will be done on an array to prevent the database from having to handle a query for each course on the record. As in #4, defaults will be used if no special case has been logged.

     

    I really hate how GITI feels like i’m flying by the seat of my pants when shit like this comes up. I guess I have to work harder at expecting this type of thing.

     

    All of this sounds good in theory at the moment, but I’m way too tired to code this fucker right now. 

  • Varying Grade Systems

    GITI’s education module was written to be very simple, it understands standard letter grades (A, B, C, D, F) as well as a few other concepts (Pass [P], Incomplete [I]), but it doesn’t know how to deal with anything other than whole letters on a 4 point scale. Currently this is hard coded in GITI, and there is no flexible grading system stuff available. Perhaps this was short sighted when I originally wrote GITI. When I think about it, there are a lot of problems here, including the absence of understanding for "Credit By Exam" grades… those are currently handled as "Pass" with a note on the course’s record. Yet another area I have missed is "Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory" grading as might apply for a graduate program.

    There are just too many grade systems to try to adapt for, so maybe on GITI’s next update I should bring in the ability to attach a grading system to each course using the fields module (which has handled way too few things lately). It would be cool to let the thing use a different scale attached to each school (but fall back to standard 4.0 when none is specified). I had a way not fun trip through the website for the UNC Registrar’s office the other day, finding stuff like graduate programs that use grades like H (High Pass), HP (Above Average), L (Low Pass). Each school at UNC has its own grading system. It would be impossible to interpret all of these possible systems and integrate them into GITI, so a per-school system input would be the only way to make this work.

    When did it become so hard to just get an "A"? Confused

    I just hope I don’t have to figure out how to tell GITI how to handle the possibility of me getting an "A-" in Digital Photo.

  • Time for GITI Repairs

    Now that I have a week of free time, I believe it is time to work one some stuff with GITI.
    Keychain – an odd little module I wrote to move all of my software keys out of the GITI notepad and into a separate space. The module is somewhat effective at what it does, but it needs a lot of work in the area of user friendliness as well as a bit more of a pretty interface. There are some critical flaws like not being able to edit information for keys once they have been entered.
    Education – This module will never truly be complete or functional. This time I plan to hook up some code I wrote in January. I wrote very elaborate code for moving classes between statuses and being able to apply grades too all of my classes at the same time and also close them at the same time (as a result of the grade posting process). Unfortunately after writing all of that code, I never connected it to itself to enable it to work. I don’t remember why I did that, all I remember is that I didn’t have a use for it at the time, since classes had just begun. I must make it functional before grades are posted in a few days.
    Schedule – There have been some functional changes to what schedule understands recently and not all parts of the module really understand what is going on with the new changes.
    I am considering writing a new grocery list module, and also fleshing out the library module more. In addition, there are a lot of things that need to be done for any type of GITI public interface to exist. Presently GITI is only for GITI users, and there are a few public components that exist but aren’t part of any type of unified interface. I wish to change that and make GITI more friendly with the general web, and not just a stone face to the world that no one can do anything with. GITI has a new domain, one all to itself, so I am looking forward to utilizing that to make something public happen soon.
    There are a lot of bugs that need to be fixed in GITI, but most of them are minor things or tiny repairs, perfect for this week of nothingness.

  • GITI Gets Fit

    As with any great change in my life, the Getting It Together Interface will be changing with me. In the next few days, the Health module (to be called Heath and Fitness Module) will gain a nutrition component to supplement the existing workout component. The components will then be integrated into the common module. During this change, the Exercise module will likely become more complex and more able to handle the complexity of routines I will be doing. Exercise will become more about planning and scheduling than recording data. For too long GITI has been about recording data that won’t mean shit to anyone in 6 months, so its time for a change, time to get GITI more involved in my life and helping in its improvement. The new nutrition component will be able to calculate my dietary needs based on information that it knows about me and will be able to make suggestions as to the profile of foods that I should eat. Maybe eventually I will get the cookbook module written and it will be able to suggest specific foods that I should eat.
    One thing I think this will reveal about GITI is that it is a very personal thing. GITI isn’t the type of application you can create an account on and instantly get what you need from it. GITI has to know a lot about you before it can help you. If I ever open GITI to the world, each module will require a “getting acquainted” survey, as well as probably a synopsis of the logic used to write each module. Some things are too specific to ever be for everyone though, such as the sneaker management utility (its friendly name is “collection”).
    I think if I put enough effort into GITI’s Health and Fitness module, I will learn more than I ever wanted to know about the topic of fitness, but also will be more dedicated to it than before the existence of the module. The fun part will be using the creation once its finished and having it dictate what workouts I do and what I eat.

  • GITI Reaches 1000 Education Items

    During the summer of 2003, I began work on “Journal” project, after spending the Spring working on Address Book with Chris. Working on the Address Book project gave me a lot of experience with PHP and introduced me to the database driven web application. A few weeks into the Journal project, I began work on a Schedule utility. It seemed silly to me to have multiple applications for tasks that were so similar. There we have “The Interface”. The third “module” of the Interface was written in late July 2003, the module was called “homework”.
    The “homework” module was later renamed to “Education” once class tracking support was added. The first assignment was added to GITI (named such after education was written) on August 4, 2003. Since that day, 1000 assignments have been recorded, executed and tracked in GITI.
    One-thousand Records from August 4, 2003 to October 3, 2007.

  • todo, v2_todo, or list

    I’m starting to think that GITI is going to get a new module, “List”, a hybrid of v2_todo, notepad and just a general linked tree structure for storing information that isn’t very long.
    This evening I realized that GITI’s v2_To Do module isn’t really used at all and isn’t really practice. The v2_ToDo module doesn’t even use due dates. I am planning to bring the old Todo code back from the dead, as well as its old database table and work to make the code better than it was and maybe change the table structure to make it more usable. The module used to be useful in GITI v1, even though it was kind of privative, but at least I used it.

  • Frustration with Previous Self

    In past few days I have looked at more of my own old code for GITI (Scheduler, PIM, the Interface, whatever) than I ever have before. The things I am finding in my old code are not pleasant. I left myself almost no code comments, there is no spacing, no indention and everything is basicly one giant lump of code. To make things worse, I am discovering that a lot of the identifiers I used for queries previously are not things that will always be unique, therefore there is room to confuse GITI as to what records I am requesting. I did a lot of stupid things in my past before I had any formal CS instruction.
    It is difficult being in my old code again, but I am gradually working towards making things sane again, one function and one module at a time. I should have no difficulty getting the education module and its dependancies fully audited, corrected, converted (to v2 standards) and functional before the semester starts.

  • Notes Module Converted

    The GITI Notepad module has been successfully converted and extended for GITI v2.