Tonight was a nice end to the week of minimal work. With only one class and rest of the time being University work, this semester’s Fridays are excellent for starting the weekend. While it seems fairly far away, finals are about 6 weeks away and that means the end of my undergraduate era. It is unlikely that I will return to a traditional school setting and guaranteed not to happen if I ever have to pay for a class again.

Two years ago about this time I dropped my last math class and decided to switch majors to MIS. Management of Information Systems has its tedious aspects but Education and abstract math classes had run their course. Even though I have tons of group projects, their substance is actually of interest. For instance, in DB I we set up a database with a web-front end for the inputing , updating and extraction of data for a real business. Now in DB II and Systems Analysis and Design we are doing same, except now we utilize more advanced concepts that allow for a more efficient design and implementation of a system and/or database.

Stop being so laissez-faire

The MIS major is fairly small in terms of other business majors at Iowa, so ‘each vote counts more.’ This is especially important since the MIS department is considering changing their course requirements by dropping one course and making the open space another elective. As a senior MIS student, my concerns about the major requirements are actually being heard by the MIS faculty, giving hope to the notion that students’ opinions matter. Now these are some politics that I am actually interested in participating in. Juxtapose this with state and national politics, where persuasion and rational thought are wayside concepts to the partisan lobby machines. Politics that have an effect on people that I know and/or may decide the future of people in my profession and passion are worth investing time and energy in, not party-controlled, power mongers.

So… There’s why I design websites, why I want to graduate and why I don’t vote. Oh, and South Park is god!

- Another Bloc Party inspired title

Sunday mornings usually entail watching excessive amounts of pro football analysis, provided by ESPN and FOX. Today is a little different though since I am without a TV for my reality and fantasy needs, no jokes people. So, I am stuck with using Yahoo’s online video fantasy analysis, which is mainly provided by Brandon Funston. Most of my fantasy options are closed off since I’ve got three players on a BYE and I’m not dropping Frank Gore, even if he fumbles twice a game.

In non-fantasy news, group projects continue. My last test was Wednesday and boy was it a mother of a time. Database Management II is a challenging and interesting course, but there wasn’t enough time in an hour and a half, not to mention 50 MINUTES, for this test. For DB nerds out there: 10 mc, 3 short answer using an ER diagram, 2 difficutl SQL statements, draw an ER Diagram from a client rqmt, normalize to 4NF a 1NF table, and some more stuff. So, thank goodness its a small class and that test will have to be curved.

In fun news, my boss and a former co-worker got married yesterday. Now there’s on honeymoon in Disneyworld, so if anyone sees them roaming around Epcot, shout out: ‘HEY mark and reka!”

Well, I’m off to the Airliner for 1.50 slices of pizza and a salad while we all watch football. How much better can a weekend get? Oh wait, the Hawks lost, but that was expected, even if there apparently a horrendous call made. For details and development in the latest Hawkeye screwjob, keep posted to Oculon

Midterms week is done and I am relaxing to the max, NOT! That means I’m working on Scruple Enterprises’ business. We’ve got two projects ready to go out the door to clients and one project that is about one-third of the way done.
In other Scruple news, we’ve got our own office now! We’re located on the third floor of the BELL, Bedell Entrepreneurship Learning Laboratory and the space is free. We had to apply for the office with The University of Iowa’s John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center (JPEC). The program is pretty great and allows Iowa students interested in pursuing a personal business to have an office and advisor. JPEC also offers group roundtable sessions that let all of the entrepreneurs get together and talk about their respective businesses as well as listen to guest speakers, ranging from lawyers and accountants to CEOs and consultants.

The Scruple group has worked on the big project all day and its now time for rest. Dinner at HuHot Mongolian Grill, a nice brew and maybe a movie. Sunday will bring professional football, fantasy football and more Scruple work.

Audios, Bienvenue, Au revoir, Audieu and all that shiz

Peace out

One of the nice about web design is the fusion of creativity with functionality. Creativity usually applies to the graphical elements, whereas functionality hinders your design quite a bit. This is good and bad. For example, link navigation belongs on the top or left, if you’re in Latin-based countries, because people read left-right, top-bottom. So, this hinders where your content and links can go and you begin to fall into a rut where you use the same 1, 2 or 3 column layouts.

That’s why graphics are oh so important to the web and probably why people misuse them so much, boredom! But, alas, there is another way: Databases! Databases are what I’ve devoted much of this summer and semester to for work and school. Dbs are the fundamental way to add functionality and still get the creativity out of work. Dbs add creativity in three ways 1)db design 2)db output 3) social interaction
Db design

At the University of Iowa College of Business, Professor Currim teaches the intro and advanced database courses. These courses give a strong foundation for database design and application. Throughout the past year, I’ve learned the value of a well-designed db and the pit-falls of a poor one. Now that we’re beyond the basics, our class has started implementing triggers and complex design models that better explain a db and its constraints and functionality. Databases are the backbone of information systems and a good design will always give you better security, functionality and confidence in your data.

Db output

Once you’ve stored your data, now you want to display for others to see. Some would ask, why not just put in an excel spreadsheet and display as a table? Uh, how about sorting based a column (in a browser) or doing a query to find the users that a last name starting with K and in the Iowa City area. Now run that query manually over 100,000 lines of data. So, since we both agree that dbs are useful, how should we display that data? There are a few ways, first a standard table. Sometimes all you need is a basic layout for your complex query. Second, AJAX! This is all the rage and the wave of the current. Asynchronous db entry and querying allows for users to have almost no lag in accessing and inputing data. Combining Javascript, XML and HTML, AJAX is used whenever databases on involved on the web.

Social Interaction

The database is a key tool for storing information, so the question is: how do we get people to store their information in our database? If you are a company, then you pay your employees to do it so that they can either sell, support or design something that makes money. If you are an unassiocated individual, then you db entry and db querying/viewing needs to be fun. Hence, the founding of facebook, slashdot, digg and other social networking and news sites. These sites are built on the notion of storing lots of information about yourself and selectively sharing that information with others (friends & stalkers).

All of that was written in about 10 minutes, think about all of the things that databases can do for users and the web if you really put your mind to it!

-Derrick

this post was partly inspired by Db II and Bloc Party’s ‘Pioneers’