Cody Codes Code

Service Project This week, I spent 4 hours at the warehouse working on refurbishing and testing laptops for the first time. The laptops came from several elementary schools in the San Diego Unified School District, and although most were getting somewhat slow and old, they were in much better shape after I and the other weekend volunteers were finished with them. If I remember correctly, the warehouse supervisor said they were going to be donated to an elementary school in a low income part of the city, or sold at a deep discount to some private buyers.  I was in elementary school myself when I felt like I "owned" a computer, since we inherited an old desktop that a family friend gave to my parents that only I used most of the time. Of course I was beyond ecstatic, and I can only imagine how these kids will feel once they get to use their own laptops in school. Helping, Fixing, and Serving This week's discussion was on helping, serving and fixing, or more specific...

Library Training This week, I spent 4 hours attending my first library computer skills class and going over teaching materials used in these classes.  Computers 2 SD Kids has a program where they travel to public libraries across San Diego and hold two hour long sessions teaching attendees on basic computer skills and knowledge, such as word processing, how to use a keyboard properly, searching the web for information, and common Internet safety tips that every computer user should know such as dealing with phishing emails and suspicious ads/pop ups that still appear occasionally. After attending the class, attendees qualify for a free desktop computer from the warehouse, and are eligible for internet service through Cox's subsidized monthly program, Connect2Compete, if they do not already have access at home.  Most of the attendees of the class were recent immigrants to the United States from Africa, and most them had very little experience in using a desktop compu...

Service Project This week, I spent 4.5 hours at Computers 2 SD Kids on a Saturday morning, which puts me at 9 hours in total for my service project.  I'm planning on taking photos and videos of the warehouse where I've spent most of the time refurbishing computers and helping out with general tech assistance. My skills in troubleshooting hardware and software have been quite useful, and I believe everyone I have worked with so far has been pleased with my contributions. I'm looking forward to taking photos of the warehouse and some of the volunteers at work (with their permission, of course), and photos/video of the upcoming library computer skills class that I am attending this coming weekend.  Swim Good  This week's reading about swimming in segregation was quite interesting -- I never knew the depth and seriousness of segregation in swimming in the United States even in the competitive side until reading the excerpt from the novel, even though I was aware from ...

My Service Project As April ended, May began and the vestiges of my Java software design class faded away in the horizon, I began my service project with Computers 2 SD Kids. Computers 2 SD Kids, or C2SDK for short, is a nonprofit organization that refurbishes and tests donated computers (desktops, laptops, and tablets) for kids from low income families to use for education. When I first found out about them, I thought it was a great cause and got in contact with the lead volunteer coordinator right away, and I've completed five hours of work so far helping out. I think it is because of part of me loves building desktop computers, and the other part really empathizes with these kids because I received my very first desktop computer in a similar fashion. Granted, I didn't come from a low income background, but the fact that a generous donor was kind enough to clean and refurbish that desktop computer for me always stuck with me even as I've gotten older and can afford al...

It's the end of 338! What a long, strange, and somewhat difficult journey it has been. Over these past eight weeks, I have learned a lot about software design and good coding practices. Out of all of the things I've learned in this class, I'll definitely be taking designing and interpreting UML diagrams with me throughout the rest of my career, as well as following good coding standards. UML diagrams and software coding standards are two things I see at work everyday, and now I find them much more interesting and useful after this class.  The number one piece of advice I would give to future students in this class is to start assignments early, come up with a good design on paper first before translating it to code (one of my math teachers in 7th grade told me "when it doubt, write it out." It's been one of the best pieces of life advice I've ever gotten), and communicate with your team well. If any student can do all three of those things, then I am con...

This week, we created a simple Android application that displays the names of each course required to graduate from the CS Online program, which also implements basic search functionality by returning course descriptions when a user searches for one by course number.  Prior to this, I had taken a class in Android app development at my community college, and all of the assignments I had to do in that class were similar in specifications and scope. The final project for that class was very challenging, and I don't think many people managed to finish their project or get it up and running properly. My application wasn't the prettiest, but at that point I was glad to get it up and running. Despite my experience in that class, I still consider myself a novice when it comes to Android programming. I find mobile app development fascinating, but it comes with its own challenges, especially involving event based programming, that not everyone likes dealing with in terms of writing cod...

Dueling cards? Who ever knew that would be the assignment for this week's class? I guess the professor and TA did, because that's what our group worked on this week. Our program this week was largely an extension on the card game we did last week, although this time with more rules. In addition, we also did major restructuring of our backend code by following the Model-View-Controller architecture. Model-View-Controller, or MVC for short, describes an architectural pattern where a program is divided into three independent, yet directly related subunits: the model contains data structures, variables, and the fundamental internal logic of the program, the controller takes user input and communicates with the model to manipulate internal data, and finally, the "view" provides a graphical display of the program to the user, and updates this display accordingly.  Our team found the assignment challenging just like last week, and the most difficult part was getting th...