The 3 Contenders

While the windows and mac operating systems continue to battle in the spotlight, another eminent os sits on the sidelines. This contender, which is less renowned than the other two, is often revered by a population of computer nerds for being special in its own right. Linux is its name, and it is the os that the computer my uncle and I built runs on. I've used windows all of my life, mainly since it is probably the cheapest and most practical for everyday life. And so, linux is a big change, although I still use windows just as much as the next guy. The relatively popular, open source version of linux that I use is similar to the other operating systems through its home interface. An included bag of applications allow me to open folders, create documents, click on icons, etc. This stuff is easy. But what I really want to learn is to understand linux in more detail. For example, linux incorporates a unix shell console as an application, in which the user can control many details without the need of a mouse.

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A complicated machine

Over winter break (which happened to be quite a while ago), my uncle and I decided to go out to Fry's and buy parts to build a computer, just a as a project. We bought a computer case, amd processor, motherboard, graphics card, network card, and some other components and hauled back to my house, where we took to the onerous task of actually building it. I can say, after the fact, that this was an extremely tedious experience. Physically hooking up everything was not difficult at all, but it took awhile for us to actually get the computer to start. As it turns out, the bios was not updated to be compatible with the certain amd processor we were trying to use, so we had to put in a different processor in order to update the bios, and then replace it with the new processor. Anyways, the computer, now that it runs linux almost flawlessly, is awesome. I'm still trying to figure out everything that comes with this OS. I'm also trying to learn my way around the unix shell commands, which is a large part of it.

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On a new level

While python has been interesting in the past few weeks, I was wondering if our class could somehow apply to any of the things we did earlier in the year, such as html or Jeroo. It seems totally possible that we could create our own Jeroo program using python, since we know how to use graphics and methods to some extent. I'd imagine this sort of project would be done later in the year, when we have a better handle on the language.

Oh, and to my teacher, lasa cs wasn't working properly the last class period, so I don't think many students were able to work on project 02.

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Snaking my way through python

Now, at the end of the day, I can say the project 01 was a success. So what it didn't turn out to be exactly like angry birds? It works! Given any x and y axis distances, my program can trace a line and draw a circle there. But that's not all! My program also calculates the bird's velocity with an intended trajectory. While it's not particularly practical or fun in any way, whatsoever, it still represents a giant step for me as a novice programmer. I also added something extra in mine: when the user inputs the intended distances, it calculates the ideal angle for such a point. For example, if the user chose coordinates 100 and 100, my program would calculate the ideal angle to be 45 degrees, using a little trigonometry magic. Anyways, I hope to continue working towards making better and more advanced programs in the future.

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