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The Year has started.

Wo0dY — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 06:40:02 -0700

So, this year is off to a flying start. I have most of my books and started with systems analysis last night. Tonight I will be starting with business informatics. The course is very business oriented and is aimed at training us to become systems analysts. The programming is in high level languages like python, VB, JavaScript, PHP and HTML/CSS. We did some C++ in the first year but never got to the more complicated coding.

The second semester of this year has digital logic and OO analysis and design and 3 other modules including MORE business informatics. I can't wait. I think after I finish this diploma in IT next year I'm going to go and start studying towards a CS degree. Either that or electronic engineering, I'm still deciding.

Long time no see.

Wo0dY — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 04:43:13 -0700

My goodness, I forgot about this page. I haven't posted here in ages. A lot has happened since then.

I taught myself a lot since then and have actually written a complete system on my own. It is not very good but I learned a lot and I will be writing a better one next. I didn't really plan much and this is what makes it bad.

I have started studying towards my degree in IT and did really well on my first year, my results were:

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT IA 72 Passed
INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAMMING I 84 Passed with Distinction
PRACTICING WORKPLACE ENGLISH 57 Passed
END-USER COMPUTING 88 Passed with Distinction
INTRO TO INTERACTIVE PROGRAM 64 Passed
INTRODUCTION TO WEB DESIGN 70 Passed
INTRODUCTION TO DATABASES 75 Passed with Distinction
WORKSTATION TECHNICAL SKILLS 70 Passed
NETWORK TECHNICAL SKILLS 76 Passed with Distinction
BUSINESS INFORMATICS I 62 Passed

The modules for next year are:

Semester 1
FAC1501 - Introductory Financial Accounting
ICT2641 - Business Informatics 2a (Needs FAC1501)
ICT2621 - Structured Systems Analysis And Design
ICT2611 - Graphical User Interface Programming
ICT2613 - Internet Programming

Semester 2
ICT2622 - Object-Oriented Analysis (Needs ICT2621)
ICT2642 - Business Informatics 2b (Needs ICT2641)
ICT2632 - Digital Logic
ICT2631 - Operating Systems Practice
ICT2612 - Interactive Programming

This has attracted some attention and got me some more freelance jobs. I hope it picks up this year so I can quit my job and start freelancing full-time. I will be doing some more marketing and networking to see if I can get more clients.

I am learning a lot every day! The beginning was the hardest but I think from here on out it's a gradual learning curve. I must say the advice I got here was simple but the best, the theory is okay but practice makes perfect!!

At this rate...

Wo0dY — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:55:52 -0700

I don't think I'm getting anywhere. All this learning and still no PROPER program to call my own work and be proud of. I've tried some Java(it looks A LOT like C#) and almost made a game in Java Script, started but never finished. That seems to be happening a lot...

At the moment I'm thinking of just doing one of those 1 Year C# courses so that I can formally put C# on my CV and not just call it a hobby. Then I'll go and get a diploma in programming. I want to see if this gets me into the software world as an intern or something. I really don't want to be a simple technician all my life. I'm still 19 though so lots of time :). Any advice on how to actually get a job as an intern would be appreciated! I live in Namibia so I would need to look at South Africa for ALL programming work because this place is populated by idiots that think businesses are fine without IT...

I'm in a "jack of all trades but master of none" position. I know some C, C++, C# and Java(though still doing the book on Java).

Kyk noord en fok voort...

Wo0dY — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:20:26 -0700

Well, in the last few weeks I' have been doing some HTML but lost interest about half way threw the book. Now I finished the CSharpBook but kind of rushed threw the last few chapters.

Now I've done a bit of work on my calculator, which is giving me more trouble than i originally thought. First off I would like to get the textbox to only accept numbers and the "-" or "." characters. I also still have to fix some other bugs. I'll post the code when I'm done so that real programmers can point out the mistakes and all that's wrong with my code... that's if they notice it my post.. :)

More to this than I thought...

Wo0dY — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:18:04 -0700

Well, I must admit there is a lot more to HTML than I thought. Not difficult at all so far but it looks like one of those things that is easy to learn but hard to master. The only part that is slightly difficult is getting the pages to work on different resolutions but that's no biggy ether.

I've had two versions of my portfolio so far. Hated both of them... Now starting my third and writing some C# programs to put on it(no point in making a C# portfolio with very little to no good programs to show off).

How to go about doing this...

Wo0dY — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:09:34 -0700

Ok, so now Geek-at-Large gave me a pretty cool idea to make a online portfolio of my C#. I've done a bit of the book but I'm already starting(even though i know I'm gona scrap the first few pages I make), but the page(s) are still very ugly and not very interesting. I guess all i need to do now is learn more C# and actually rite something cool. Any ideas? I'm still a beginner though, but I am open to challenges...

This XHTML is VERY easy actually. I'm spending almost all my time on it at the moment.I think just about any one can learn it, maybe they should teach it at schools? Just think of the possibilities!

oh and I want to try something: CSharpBook

Onward to (X)HTML and CSS

Wo0dY — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:27:43 -0700

It cought my eye when I got my grubby hands on a PHYSICAL book on the topic of web development, I will look into it but I don't think I'll spend much time on it. I'll finish the book, maybe create a website on who knows what, then continue with C#. Or maybe I'll just do it on the side when I'm not feeling like C# at the moment. OR maybe I'm just a very indecisive idiot not actually knowing where I'm going with this but it doesn't matter.

Still doing C#, did some learning for a change, I'm still using Programmer's Heaven's CSharpBook. I'm at string manipulation, very interesting...

Program more, study less...

Wo0dY — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:25:13 -0700

Been programming for a bit now. Not one big project but LOTS of small progs in Visual C#. I have actually learned more this way than i did with the book. i will not stop with the book but will continue at a latter point. This is kind of fun! NOt very difficult, just takes some getting used to!

My buggy calculator prog.

Wo0dY — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:11:58 -0700

At the moment I'm taking a brake from learning and writing a calculator(dono why and don't ask). At the beginning it was quite easy, i made the number buttons just add text to the text box and when you press the +, -, * or / button it stores the symbol for it and stores the current value in the txtbox. Then the txtbox it cleared and you can add the next value. Press = and presto, the answer is displayed in the txtbox. this is done by a switch statement that checks which symbol has been pressed and then performs the appropriate task with the stored value and the value currently in the txtbox.

This all was a good idea at the time but now I have quite a few bugs to fix like for instance: if you continuously pressed the +\- button or the . button it would continue to print them in the txtbox and if you try to calculate any thin with a mess like that you can probably imagine the errors I've seen...

The one that is can't seem to figure out why it won't work is my division. I've put a if(y !=o) {} to make sure i don't start some kind of black hole when someone tries to divide by zero but is keeps complaining that "Use of unsigned variable 'z'". if i comment out the "if" part the program works fine but then some idiot can also try to divide by zero...

Will be working on these for now.

I've been doing some reading...

Wo0dY — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:21:39 -0700

Is C# worth the trouble after all? I've been reading up on some comments and opinions of some "experts" and most of them say that C# is slow. The reason they say so makes sense to me, but will it really make that muck of a difference on small apps?

I think (after all this reading) that C# is grate but when will be a good time to switch back to learning C++? Well that would probably be whenever i get used to the .NET framework. How much will VC++ differ from VC#? Well I don't know but I guess I'll find out, that's IF I go there. So far it just looks like a good idea to stick to C# for the long run. I'm not having ANY performance issues at the moment but that could be because my PC is a bit above average, need to go test some on slow PC's now...

A need of some change!

Wo0dY — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:49:31 -0700

Ok, let me first explain my situation, I live in Namibia where the average PC is a P3 with about 256mb of RAM and a mere 10 to 40gig of storage. The people here ONLY know of Microsoft, they have no clue of the existence of any other software! They think it's part of the PC or something...

Now the big problem here is that I'm interested in software development. How the hell do I go about convincing people from the stone age that my software is worth their money? There are A LOT of PC's here, they all just suck, but they should be a lot of PC's with MY software on them! I would like to convince all these small businesses that letting me write them a specialized program for their "special" business is worth more than using damn Excel for everything.

These are just a few of the problems that I have to solve while I study.

Or I could just move...

I can't believe this!

Wo0dY — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 01:22:00 -0700

I started with C# a few DAYS ago and I'm already on GUI programming. It took me weeks to get to a point where I can draw a window in C++. Now I'm gonna stick with this for way longer but the question is, can C# only be used in Windows?

WOW! C# is heaven to use!

Wo0dY — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 06:06:55 -0700

OK, so I finished The C-Book. I tried Windows programming again to no avail! Now I started C# and I think I have fallen in love! C# is SOOOOOOO much easier than C++/or C! OK that could partly be because I know C++ and c but still, I have started working threw CSharp_ebook which is Programmers Heaven's book on C#, and would recommend it to anyone that wants to start Windows programming from scratch. I think after I have programmed with C# for n bit and gotten used to the .NET classes I will start using VC++(for performance). I think they use the same classes. Correct me if I'm wrong.

http://www.programmersheaven.com/2/CSharpBook

This is were you can find the book, go try it out!

This is getting intresting.

Wo0dY — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 03:36:59 -0700

C is actually not as bad as I thought it would be(accept for the type casting though) it is a bit more work than C++ because it sometimes takes a bit more code to do the same thing but that makes it obvious to why they changed it in c++. some of the features may even be useful...

Haven't posted in a while... it's Cs fault.

Wo0dY — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:48:01 -0700

It's been a while since my last post because I started going thew "The C Book".

C seems to be a lot like C++ but with less features and more work to achieve the same result. But it's very interesting because I now relize why some features have been added to C++.

It all makes more sense now...

New years resolution.

Wo0dY — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 02:04:53 -0700

I would like to write at least 1 program in the first quarter of this year.
Not a very complicated one but something functional. I have an idea for n program.

It will be for the use of the technicians and sales-department in the company I work for. At the moment there is no fixed system for billing the clients and for the communication between the technicians and sales departments. It's just a bunch of Word documents being mailed around. There are always slip ups and it causes tension in the workplace.

I will solve the problem by writing a prog that the technician can enter the client name, hours, items used and order number the clients issued. the sales will be able to see this info and bill accordingly, they then make out the invoice, enter the invoice number into the prog.

the prog will keep track of hou many hours have been billed, how many hours each technician works(this is currently calculated manually threw all the word documents), and which clients usually fail to pay there bills. the reason it will keep track of the hours the technician works is because we get incentives if we exceed a determined value and the manuel calculations just don't seem right.

I'm getting better.

Wo0dY — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 01:13:14 -0700

Actually using VC++ is the best way to learn. with every day of just messing around I learn something. I've done some pretty cool things so far(OK, cool for me). I'm now going to try and make a moving and click-able box\button.
I don't know how to approach this but I'll try and keep it simple.

A mess of a program, but at least it works.

Wo0dY — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 16:30:50 -0700

This is a first attempt. every button does something. changes a color, text, size of something else. it's not much bu took me some time to figure out to do the tabs.

My buttons do more!

Wo0dY — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:30:11 -0700

I started fiddling around with buttons and the code associated with them, got them to do more tan just change their own color. they now change the color of something else... in another tab.

Just need to get my functions to work when i call them from n button.