Week Thirteen - Computer Crash Experience..

Week thirteen is insane. I mean computer crash just when you needed it most? Doing your work and just when you are extremely busy debugging never ending errors. Oh God, I sound dramatic don't I? But this isn't a joke at all. My laptop is "terribly sick" this week. It crashes just when I was doing my work. Seriously frustrating..Well, I guess I am at fault too since I have been forcing it to work endlessly and haven't been taking good care of it. Considering the fact that I have been working with a lot of high definition graphics stuff and all, it contribute to the damage in my computer. I should be upgrading my RAM one of these days.

I was sad for the fact that I lost some of the really important stuff in there. It was infected by some virus that actually messed up your files location in your entire system and also corrupted your files. As a result, I have to reformat all my entire hard disk including my back up partition. This also means that I have lost everything in my laptop. Everything! I tried going for data recovery before reformating it as well, but there's no way they can save the data because they were all corrupted. It took me a few days to get over the incidents and start rushing on my project again. Well, guys, I guess everyone is well aware that you should back up your work, the truth is unexpected things happen at times. Anyway, I manage to get it fixed and replace some component from my laptop. Costly I must say, but the good news is my laptop is back to healthy again.

Well, I am entirely aware that alpha test is this Thursday! Thanked God that I started working on it progressively. And I am truly thankful that most of my FYP files are stored in different back-up storage, or else, I can't imagine the stress that I'll be going through. Although I do face some headache re-creating some lost files.

This week I managed to complete all my videos editting and embed it to my application. I have also been editting sounds, cutting and combining the different part of the sound clips to go along with my videos. It was challenging. Apart from that I am also working progressively on my different e-brochures. I've been debugging some really complicated scripts that I encounter too. Well, basically it is a busy and progressive week. That's all for now. Good luck for alpha test on Thursday everyone!

Week 12 - Information Overload

This week is rather tiring for me. One of the major portion I've been working on is getting the information for every section of the E-brochures and the Flash pages organized accordingly. I must say, it is really tiring. Since I don't have any soft copy of the information as they're all paper based or just a rough sketch of what the client expect me to put in there, I have a hard time, typing out and also transfering some of the paper-based information to the screen.

It may seems like the easiest job in the universe "typing and editting" but the truth is, it isn't that simple after all when you need to edit and type out so many information for different sections at a time. No wonder there are people who specialized just doing typing and editing documents. I mean it's like doing endless mini essays. There are points where my eyes were just sore and everything seems to be black and white for that split seconds. Thanked God, I am still progressing.

Unlike the times where I am working on my interface design and action script coding part where I actually get to see the end-result, typing out the information is just really concentration consuming and boring, not to forget very time consuming. However, when I organize it into my electronic brochures and flash pages, I am able to feel somewhat a sense of achievement. That's what keep me motivated throughout the entire FYP development. Nothing comes easy in life. Take a peep at some of the completed pages for the e-brochures. There are many of them in my flash application, but anyway..

Well, my progress this week is that I managed to edit most of my videos, put in the contents to my flash pages, debugging action scripts errors for some part of my project, as well as complete several e-brochures. A pretty progressive week I guess. It's just a week before alpha test, I hope I'll be done with at least 70-80% by then. There are still some feature that I havent't start working on at all, but at least I am progressing, so to me and everyone else, goodluck.

Week Eleven - Plenty of Works to be Completed

Week eleven is coming to an end. I can't seems to be putting my thoughts in words, but I guess most of us will be extremely busy these few weeks. Apart from the major FYP in hand to do, the other subject like SAD and Writing for the web is definitely an extra pain to bear with. I guess main reason is because all these subjects are not exactly interlinked with each other. I've got to crack my brain to adjust to the different subjects I am dealing with. But anyway, I think I got to strive hard to pass every single subject in order to graduate. Just a couple more weeks to go.

This week I managed to consult Ms Jaya for feedback on my current progression. It's relieving to know that she finds it good. I mean if I have to add this or change that, it'll definitely be troublesome. The more I modify and do changes even if it is tiny ones, the more coding complication and errors seems to be haunting. Few of my course mates do find this statement really true. I guess, I am lucky enough to have modify and do necessary changes when I approach STB for feedback sessions long before I start constructing the actual product. Since the feedback were mostly positive, I started working on my videos and contents for all the pages.

Last week, I have finished all my gallery pages. This week, I am working on all my videos, editing, mixing and combining different scenes to be included in every category. It is not so bad after all. However. I do spend a lot of time drawing and do simple illustrations in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop for title slides and designing for e-brochure pages. It seems like I have been whining quite a lot about my e-brochure. That's one of the major challenging part to complete I must say. In addition, the pictures that I used throughout the pages are not simply camera captured images, there are more to it. I dealt a lot with image masking and image manipulation to make it stands out from normal pictures. I guess it is more to graphic works. However, most pictures turn out to be very pretty. Thanks to the tips and inspiration from some graphic design books.

Basically, I've managed to sort out the major part of my project development properly. The only thing I need to do now is to constantly work on it and complete the unfinished portion of my projects. It's a hard work, time consuming and tedious job indeed.

Week Ten Progression

Time flies so quickly. It has been a rather progressive week I must say. I have been working on my gallery pages this week. I have completed all of my gallery pages for different categories. I love it I must say, especially with all the attractive pictures I have taken, editted, not to forget mentioning a huge thank you to STB for some of the pictures too. The action script part for my gallery pages was a challenging part of my project progression this week. Thankfully, after exploring and consulting a friend, he manage to debug the errors and I have my fully functional pages ready.

I guess this week I take a break from my e-brochure construction. I got so tired of working on the e-brochure because it may not look that difficult to develop, but try to come up with it and you will understand how complex it is for me. It is indeed tideous. The fact that I am not an action script expert doesn't help. I guess I need not stress myself up that much because I am progressing after all.

Ms. Megan also gave me the flexibility on developing only one fully functional e-brochure that I have already shown her when she was here. She thinks that the current e-brochure is able to eveluate my technical understanding for the concept of e-brochure. In addition, the fact that I have put in a lot of effort designing evey single pages of a "50-pages e-brochure" make her think that it is complex enough. We'll see how things progress from here. I guess I'll still come up with other e-brochures, perhaps a simpler version of my current master copy.

One good thing is I actually learn a lot from making the tiny bits and pieces for my final year project. I have improved my Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Flash skills. Since my project is not a database or website kind of project, I guess the extra effort for design will contribute a relatively big percentage for my promotional project. I better pray hard that I'll be able to finish my project on time. A strict time management plan is neccessary to prevent any procrastination at this stage I guess. Good luck to everyone then, have another busy week ahead.

Week Nine - No More Panic Attack

Pheeew...I'm so glad that final year project proposal are finally done. Thanked God! Another major assignment is done, at least we can concentarte more on the system. Although there are other assignments to be completed, I guess we are all releived for the fact that at least we can get this one done on time and making sure that it falls on the right track. As a matter of fact, Ms. Megan has really helped the class a lot by going through the guidelines and what is expected. In adition, she had also extended the due date for the submission and decided to increase the percentage for the documentation so that we can focus on developing our final year project. What more can we asked for?

Having a clearer mindset and requirement sorted out will surely decrease chances of panic attack at the later stage. I'm glad Ms. Megan came down. I managed to show her what I have at the moment earlier this week. She responded very positively and gave good feedback on what I have so far. There are still coding complication that I am yet to debug for my flash action script that I used for my electronic brochure. I have never worked on very complicated action script and I guess that's why I am slow when it comes to error debugging for complicated long scripting.

I am still working on my project as there are still other major construction to be completed. With the introduction page and homepage done with the standardized templates designed for every other pages, I hope that there won't be anymore major changes resulting in any panic attact and that everyone elses' project is going fine too. Have another busy week ahead.