Wednesday, February 12, 2014

COMP6021 Class 11 Unicode Lab

the one with the text files

I asked students to download a English-language book, paste it into Notepad, and save it using each of the four formats available: ANSI, Unicode, Unicode big endian, UTF-8.

I then asked them to do the same with a Japanese book. But some students' machines lost the plot.

I asked students to generate a 1000 character English-language document and save it with the four formats.

I then asked them to replace 200 of the characters with Japanese and do the same. Again some machines freaked out.




The values Colin got are shown in the table below. What conclusions can we draw? In particular, consider what happened in the mixed English & Japanese text.

If you have another text editor on your own machine try the same experiments with different formats.

Document ANSI Unicode Unicode BE UTF-8
Hounds of the Baskervilles 320,692 641,386 641,386 326,691
Rashomon 6,315* 12,632 12,632 18,222
Thousand English 1,080 2,162 2,162 1,083
Thousand Mixed 1,080* 2,124 2,124 1,274



* Japanese text not preserved. Displayed jibberish


Feel free to leave comments below


At the end of class I got each student to download the three images needed for the assignment. More about that another time.

COMP6021 Class 10 Unicode

the one with the Unicode



We looked at standard tables for storing text. We started with ASCII and then saw some of the various extensions, DOS Code Pages, and various ISO formats before arriving at Unicode. We started to look at some of the ways Unicode code points can be represented with bits. UTF-7, UTF-23 were easy. We ignored UTF-16. UFT-8 started easy but got more complicated. We will continue with UTF-8 in the next class.

COMP6021 Characters, Symbols and the Unicode Miracle - Computerphile



COMP6023 DCOM1 B Class 11 & 12 labs

We looked at Save for Web in Photoshop. Each student downloaded the three images needed for Assigment 2 and began work on saving JPEGs with different quality settings.

COMP6023 ITM1 Class 11 & 12 Labs

The lab didn't cooperate. Photoshop wouldn't work. So students worked on their blogs and sme took the NewsU online course.

I asked student to read the blogs of the other students in the group and advise the author of any issues they identified.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

COMP6023 DNET1 Classes 11 & 12

My plan to do an FTP session didnt' work out because the firewalls on the machines wouldn't allow it. Some students found a workaround using FTP browser plugins.

I got students to make a start on Assignment 2. Students downloaded their images and saved them using Photoshop as JPEGs with quality settings from 0 to 100 in steps of 10.

COMP6023 DNET1/COM1c Class 10




I talked about Directories and we began our look at Search Engines.

We stopped at Slide 35
 
(I was a bit rushed because I was in the queue at the blood bank)

COMP6021 Class 09 Representing Text

the one with the sailor




We completed our look at our post zombie apocalypse communication system and looked at some features of students' designs. We discussed some things to consider, and looked at Braille and Flag Semaphore

COMP6023 DWEB1/ITM1 Class 10



I talked about Directories and we began our look at Search Engines

We got as far as slide 46

COMP6023 DWEB1/ITM1 Class 09



We looked at some of the issues surrounding web hosting and domain names.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Apple - iPad Air - TV Ad - Your Verse

COMP6023 DCOM1 Class 09





We looked at some of the issues surrounding web hosting and domain names.

COMP6023 DNET1 Class 09



We looked at some of the issues surrounding web hosting and domain names.

COMP6023 Week 03 Plan

This week I plan to
  • discuss uploading a website to a server 
  • get students to upload using FTP during the lab
  • look at ways to promote a webiste

This week students should
  • read the 10 blogs after theirs on the list and highlight any issues in a comment
  • post a movie review on the blog
  • start the NewsU course Online Media & the Law

Thursday, February 6, 2014

COMP6023 DCOM1 Class 05



I talked about some of the suggested essay topics. For all the available information on the assessments students should check out the COMP6023 Assessment Information page over there ---->

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

COMP6021 Class 08 Representing Text

the one with the zombies




We considered how to represent text using bits. I asked students to devise a text transmission system using traffic lights for use after the zombie apocalypse. I asked students to work in groups and email their solutions to me.

At the end of class I pointed out that someone has already devised a very similar system. But that it doesn't use lights. Quite the contrary in fact.






Outpost 19 Report day 256/Bad week/Surprised us at dawn day 253/ Lost 3/Lost Irish nerd/Told us morse code on stop lights inefficient/Can't decipher notes/know what 23x23=64 means?/OP19 out



COMP6021 Class 07 Lab Intro to Photoshop

the one with the penguins





We had a very brief introduction to Photoshop. But we are mostly interested in its ability to save images with different settings. We won't be doing much else with Photoshop. But it is the industry standard tool for image editing and the secret to celebrities looking good.

COMP6021 Class 06 Represnting Negative Integers

the one with the binary bingo

We played binary bingo. But the person with the winning card didn't figure it out, so we shared the bag of jellies between us.



We looked at representing negative numbers with bits. I mentioned the IEEE format is used for floating point numbers, but we didn't look at it in detail.

Next up we will consider how to represent text using bits.

COMP6023 DCOM1b Class 07 & 08 lab

Students worked on their blogs.

I recommended that they take the NewsU course Online Media & the Law today if they have time.

I showed students where to find quality sources in the CIT Library. The ACM and IEEE databases are the most useful for computing students.

COMP6023 ITM1 CLASS 07 & 08 Lab

Students worked on their blogs.

I recommended that they take the NewsU course Online Media & the Law today if they have time.