Last meeting before Christmas

Christmas is a time for having a long peacful work-free break away from college. Not going to happen. lol. A lot of work has to be done on my overall design and implementation of the project. Cannot wait!

To Do:

• Get SMS Functionality working -- Find Software API

• Get Map Interface up and running -- Services provided with information

• Get data into Database!!

• Begin Web Development :P:P

• Don't worry about presentation until January. :P

• Get Finished at beginning of February

• Study for exams

• etc. etc. etc

Happy Christmas to all!!!
P.S Interim Report Finished!!

FYP Update

Last meeting was on thursday the 27th November. I had finished Chapter One and began the Layout of Chapter 2, as well as typed up a good bit of research topics into it. Not too well last week, worse now! Went the doctors yesterday, suppose to be resting til thursday but had to go in today to get stuff so could work at home. In bed all weekend, horrible!! especially when working away... Anyway back to FYP stuff, need to Finish Chapter 2 and begin Chapter 3. This includes Existing Systems and Jakob Nielsen. Hopefully have a good start on this by next meeting on thursday. Have to review Inchicore.info and state an evaluation criteria for it. Also need to head in tomorrow for DS demonstration in lab!! Need to work on Database and GIS assignment and also have to start Interim Report!!! Always so much going on, cannot complain that i am bored anyway! At least i have a start on my dissertation and a big chunk of this will go into my interim report anyway, so all is good. i hope!

To Do:

• Read through Chapter 1 - ensure everything is okay

• Finish Chapter 2

• Begin Chapter 3

• Work on DB, GIS assignments

• Do demo for DS

• Work on Interim Report.

3rd Meeting with FYP Supervisor

Well went for an early meeting this week due to meeting last Thursday. A bit of an emergency meeting to ensure i wanted to add a big feature into my project. I discovered that there is a alread a web service out there that does what i was proposing to do. Therefore had to find something that would make it completely different from the previous site, called Inchicore.info. Last Thursday decided to add SMS functionality into my application. In order to concludewheter i wanted to add this in, i had to do a lot of research on SMS technology and how it is integrated into a web application and what the functionality of it is. Anyway, i had a meeting this morning with Damien..

Now that i have decided to add this feature in, i have to do even more research to ensure it will work... I have to update my proposal and edit Chapter One and also get Chapter 2 done... Should be fun. :P:P:P:P

To do for next Thursday:

• Finish Chapter 1--edit--add in new feature
• Update Proposal--get signed off...
• Work on Chapter 2. Do rough draft
• LAYOUT OF CHAPTER TWO
• Introduction
• Research
• GIS
• Technologies
• SMS
• RSS
• Review Existing Systems
• Inchicore.Info (CIE)
• Develop a list of functionality
• EXAMPLE
• Ability to Filter through Different Services
• Evaluation Criteria --> Compare with Nielsons Top 10 Application Design Mistakes...

7 weeks Left :P:P

Well, only 7 weeks left now for interim report submission... :( Went for 2nd meeting with my supervisor. He had told me to work on introduction, i never realized chapter ONE was to be finished.... Ah well. The research i started reviewing wasn't enough. I need to know more. To be honest do not know where to start!!!

Anyway things to do for next week:

• Finish Chapter One

• Draw Block Architecture of overall System (Review all technologies!)

• Compare Arc GIS with Google Maps and see which is most efficient

• Be confident before next week LOL

As well as this work on AID(Who wants to be a millionaire game) , DS(online auction) and Advanced DB assignments (ER diagram...) GREAT!!!!

Introduction and Research Time!!

Well I went to the meeting with my supervisor and everything went well, I think. I was extremely nervous and freaking out before i went in because to be honest as much as i like my project idea, i know i won't have a clue how to do ANY of it. lol. Well hopefully this perspective will change, i should feel a lot more confident about what i am doing in order to move on. I had a chat with Damien and in his opinion he thinks my project is not a GIS project. It is more an Information System that just uses GIS element (map). I don't even think i will need to use spatial databases anymore, maybe a normal database will hold all of my information as well as spatial information..

I went through the whole project layout and what i see the project doing and is it useful... In conclusion to the meeting i found out that only a small element of GIS will be needed therefore it won't be classed as a GIS project anymore. Also that i need to look in to the technologies i wish to use for this project to succeed. It will be more web based than anything else and i will need to review my web developing skills/techniques, that is if i have any. lol. 2nd year was a long time ago. :( Also to review JSP and ASP and the rest....

Anyway I came out of the meeting with a much clearer view of what i should do and how the user will interact with the whole system. I need to start on my introduction and figure out what I want the overall system to do. As well as this, i need to start researching GIS, web technologies and RSS feeds. Oh and got first assignment, Distributed System, an online auction simulator that only uses Java Sockets and we are getting another assignment in Advanced Internet Development. This should be fun!!!

Oh and Happy Halloween........

Project Supervisor

I have been assigned my project supervisor for my project. Damien Bourke. Have a meeting with him tomorrow, so fingers crossed this will give me a kick start to doing some productive work on my project! Have created a messy mind map on my overall project, great idea by the way! Going to get prepared for the meeting so I will do a correct mind map on project tile and overall literature mind map. Should be fun... And also to print out my proposal. :P:P

Have to start doing some productive research also.... REVIEW WEEK suppose to be stress free!! Just revising and going over the work we have done in the last month and a half... But thats not whats happening, well fully, still have a few classes and we are getting assignments! should be fun. :(:( This is going to be a great week!!! lol.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Well haven't wrote to this in while, should be doing so everyday but anyway, I am starting a fresh now. Have handed up my draft proposal. Have decided to do a web based local community service. I am going to use my area Inchicore and map it on Google maps or an open source map and use Tomcat and java (javascript) to make it web based.... (Will use a lot of XML)

Need to start reading "Head First Java"book John gave me... Will definitely start doing this week.

Mark has put idea up on his page (see below), therefore this will help me to finish full proposal by today. lol. need finished and signed by lecturer on Friday...

Have emailed mark to see if he would be interested in supervising this project. No reply yet.. Also discussed this project idea with him and he insured me that this was okay... So that was a good start...

As well as this need to get a GPS unit in order to pin point each co-ordinate on the map... Will not e this in technical requirements....

TO DO: -FINISH PROPOSAL- ALL sections filled out.
-Send to Mark and get signed.
-Sort out GIS Server connections

Ref: 200809-12 Title: Community Information System.

Abstract: The aim of this project is to create a system to capture store and present information of interest to residents of a relatively small community or locality. Information to include (a) service location, (b) points of interest (c) statistical information (such as from the CSO), (d) public transport, (e) routing information and much more.

Keywords: Thematic mapping, routing, XML, vector

Level: 8 - BSc Honours.

Technology: GRASS, PostgreSQL, PostGIS, etc.

Might interest ... Someone with reasonably good technical skills with an interest in GIS.

Other information: Contact me.