Thursday, November 27, 2014

SOFT6008 COM2.B Class 43

Students worked on the assignment. I met with each student (that wanted to meet me) and identified some strategies for maximizing marks.

SOFT6007 ITM1 Class 44

Students worked on the assignment. There were only four students in class. I was expecting more.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

SOFT6008 COM2.B Classes 41 & 42

Students worked on the assignment. I thought there would be a bigger turn out.

SOFT6008 Class 44

We used the time for labs. Lots of brave students tackling cookies!

SOFT6008 COM2.A Class 43

We tacked cookies and most students wrote code to write the forename and surname to the cookies. Students will expected to take it form there themselves. But the recording of the 5 Nov class covers all that.

SOFT6008 DWEB2 CLASSES 42 & 43

Students worked on the assignment.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

SOFT6007 ITM1 Classes 42 & 43

Students worked on the assignment

SOFT6007 DWEB1 Classes 43 & 44

Students worked on the assignment

SOFT6007 Class 41

We had an exam.

I have emailed the results.

SOFT6007 DWEB1 Class 42

Some students worked on the assignment, but most prepared for today's exam.

Monday, November 24, 2014

SOFT6008 Lecture -> Lab Wednesday

On Wednesday we will use the time for labs instead of a lecture as we did last week. I expect there will be room in C218 and C134x again.

As with last week, students are welcome to come to any of labs for which I am timetabled. The full list is below.

SOFT6008 DWEB2 Class 41

Students worked on the assignment

SOFT6008 COM2.A Classes 41 & 42

Students worked on the assignment.

Very few students came to class, despite my advice.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

SOFT6008 Luhn Algorithm Original Specification



This is just in case you are interested. You can find the patent for the Luhn algorithm here. http://www.google.com/patents/US2950048


SOFT6008 COM2.B Class 39

Students worked on the assignment.

Only 5 in class today.

SOFT6007 ITM1 Classes 39 & 40

Students worked on the assignment.

Only 4 students came to class.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

SOFT6008 COM2.B Class 38 & 39

Students worked on the assignment.

Attendance was poor, but those that were there got some good work done. Well done.

SOFT6008 Class 40

I answered a few question in class and then we moved to C128 and C134x, to make better use of our time.

There was plenty of room, but not everybody was interested in staying.

SOFT6008 COM2 COM2.A Lab Class 39


Students worked on the assignment.

There were 4 students in class

SOFT6008 DWEB2 Classes 38 & 39

Students worked o the assignments.

Only three students in class today.

SOFT6007 Exam Reminder

We will have an exam on Tuesday 25 November from 1100-1200 in the Melbourn Exam hall.You will be in Rows F&G.

Please enter the hall quietly as there will be students already inside in the middle of an exam.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

SOFT6007 ITM1 Classes 38 & 39

Students worked on the assignment. Some a a good bit behind schedule.

There were 5 students in class

SOFT6007 DWEB1 Classes 39 & 40

Students worked on the assignment.

Attendance was very good.

SOFT6007 Class 37

There is no recording of today's class.

I reminded students of the URL of the PHP server where the form details are to be sent for the assignment.

I discussed fonts and told students about Google Fonts. But that was just for information. There is neither the requirement nor expectation that students will use Google Fonts for the assignment.

We looked at HTML entities for coding special characters such as €, ñ, é

We looked at Unicode and how UTF-8 distributes the code point payload across several bytes. (People looked really bored by this)

I gave students a chance to leave early and I explained how Japanese writing works to those who stayed.

SOFT6007 DWEB Class 38

Students worked on the assignment.

Monday, November 17, 2014

SOFT6008 DWEB2 Class 37

Students worked on the assignment. 

Attendance was good, but some students are behind schedule

SOFT6008 COM2.A Classes 37 & 38

Students worked on the assignment.

Attendance was poor


Friday, November 14, 2014

SOFT6008 Class 36 Extra : Some tips for the Assignment



Attendance at COM2 labs has been very poor over the past few weeks. (DWEB2 attendance has been good). Working from home is perfectly fine and I'm sure many of you have fewer distractions at home than at CIT. 

However I think it would be a good idea if you could make it to at least one lab next week, just so I can make sure that you are on the right track. Also I might be able to outline for you the shortest route from where you are to where you want to get to. Even if you have very little done, I can advise you on the best way to go. 

Here is the full list. There is generally plenty of room. But if the lab fills up I might have to ask you to leave.

Mon 10 C120
Mon 11 C128
Mon 15 IT2.1
Wed 09 IT2.1
Wed 10 IT2.1
Wed 11 C128
Wed 13 C214 (Lecture)
Wed 16 C128
Wed 17 C128
Thu 12 C134x

I am proposing that we use the 1300 class on Wednesday as a Q&A session. I have a few more JavaScript party tricks to show you, but none that will help you get the assignment done better.


Some advice:

If you are still working on things in Photoshop it's time to stop, cut your losses, and go with the pizza. 

Like I said in class during the week, I recommend that you use a single function to change the elements on the page so that it looks like it's suppose to look, and ultimately calculate and display the price. Using individual functions to modify individual elements can make things more difficult when it comes to calculating the price later on. 

Figure out how to use CSS to style required inputs, and for new HTML5 input types both the valid and invalid. It's all done in the CSS. This is a very easy set of marks to get. (see video)

If you are using code that you didn't write yourself, ask yourself if you really need it. (You really DO need credit card validation, for example). If you are using code that you didn't write from scratch all by yourself, then use comments to clearly identify the code that isn't yours. 

Make sure that when the form details are submitted that all of the data is sent to the PHP sever. The sever will send you back everything it has received. A pizza order, for example, must contain all the toppings required to make it. You don't need to send the price. 


I have put a video online that goes over some of the important points about user input validation and the HTML5 CSS validation. [I'm just waiting for it to process. By the time you read this you should be able see it on the blog and Google+.]

Thursday, November 13, 2014

SOFT6008 COM2.B Class 35

Students worked on the assignment.

Only 5 students turned up.

SOFT6007 ITM Class 36

Students worked on the assignment.

Only 5 turned up.

SOFT6007 Simpler Three Column Layout

I put a simpler three column layout example on the blog notes page today. If you already have you already have a three column layout that you are happy with, there is no need to change it. But if you haven't started it yet, this simpler version makes for a better starting point.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

SOFT6008 CLASS 36



I went through a suggested solution for the question posed in the exam and outlined how the marks were allocated.

Afterwards (not on recording) we went through the marking scheme for  Assignment 2 and I identified what I considered to be low hanging fruit. I also explained a bit about the HTML5 invalid psuedoclass

SOFT6008 COM2.A Class 35

Students worked on the assignment

SOFT6008 DWEB2 34 & 35

Students worked on the assignment

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

SOFT6007 Digital Colour

Some more information about digital colour systems, for those who are interested.


Hue Satuuation Brightness (HSB) system



Red Green Blue (RGB) system
Cyan Magenta Yellow Black (CMYK) system

SOFT6007 ITM Classes 33 & 34

I explained the need for DOCTYPE and charset declarations.

I showed students how to do a horizontal navigation bar using a tags and display:inline-block

[If you missed this class. See class 33 for DWEB]

SOFT6007 DWEB Classes 34 & 35

Students worked on the assignment

SOFT6007 Class 33 Digital Colour



At the start of class I gave students grey colour chips to sort. Then I gave them colour chips.

We looked at the Hue Saturation Brightness (HSB), Red Green Blue (RGB) and Cyan Magenta Yellow Black (CMYK) colour systems. I spoke a little bit about Pantone too.

SOFT6007 WEB Class 34



I explained the need for DOCTYPE and charset declarations.

I showed students how to do a horizontal navigation bar using a tags and display:inline-block

Monday, November 10, 2014

SOFT6008 DWEB2 Class 33

Most students seem to be doing fine, but a few are a good bit behind. A few refuse to take my advice. 

I met with everyone once, but there were few questions otherwise. 

SOFT6008 COM2.A Classes 33 & 34

Attendance was poor. Students (who were there) seem to making progress, but for some it is a bit slow. 

I spent the class debugging and explaining

SOFT6008 Deadline Extension

The deadline for Assignment 2 is now
noon on Friday 28 November 2014.


Thursday, November 6, 2014

SOFT6008 Assessment 1 Results



I finished correcting the exam we did last week. I have sent an email with the results anonymised. This histogram of the results looks something like the bar chart above. They are very disappointing.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

SOFT6008 COM2.B Classes 29 & 30

Students worked on the assignment

SOFT6008 Class 32


We looked at cookies

SOFT6008 COM2.A Class 31

Students worked on the assignment

SOFT6008 DWEB2 Classes 30 & 31

Students worked on the assignment

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

SOFT6007 ITM1 Classes 30 & 31

Students worked on the exercises

SOFT6007 DWEB1 Class 31 & 32

Students worked on the exercises. Some, but not many, started work on the assignment.

SOFT6007 Class 29



I gave a (rather shabby) class on CSS and outlined how to do a three column layout.

The example I used in class was a bit complicated. The two on the blog are a bit simpler.

Afterwards we discussed Assignment 2.

SOFT6007 DWEB1 Class 30

Most students just watched the video of the class they missed last week.

Monday, November 3, 2014

SOFT6008 DWEB2 Class 29

Most students used to lab time do work for another module. That's fine, I guess, as long an everyone stays of top of their work.

SOFT6008 COM2.A Class 29

Attendance was poor but there students who were there seem be making progress.