University beckons...

Posted at 12:19am on 26th June 2011

Almost seven months with no update... hehe, just like a true blogger.

The past seven months have been very busy while I've been completing my ACCESS course in Computing & ICT and I'm happy to say I've completed my course with full distinctions and level 2 English and Maths (I already had level 2 from GCSE's but thought it would be best to refresh myself since I haven't done any academic English/Maths for about 10 years). The course was great and covered many areas of computing including a large chunk of programming (C++ and Visual Basic), hardware (including network models, hardware configurations, methods of CPU, memory types), systems analysis, report writing, research, office applications (dull, but useful) and of course web design/HTML.

Now that my course is complete, University is beckoning. While at college I'd applied to Brunel, Aberystwyth, Manchester Metropolitan University and The University of Manchester. I was accepted to all of them, however the acceptance for the University of Manchester was odd because of their conditions which included a course specifically run by the University, fortunately I was able to appeal this and it was removed. So my final choice ended up being The University of Manchester and I will be studying Internet Computing BSc (with industrial experience).

While waiting the three months before starting University I'm planning to study a fair few things but mostly Mathematics for Computer Science; this is because without a doubt it will be my weakest subject so an extra three months to study it will be incredibly valuable and well-worth the time and energy. It should also help my programming abilities as I noticed some simple areas of maths such as modulus and advanced algebra have been helping with my programming abilities immensely.

While studying maths I have also been working on two new projects in php/MySQL these have been:

DMG DB

This is a card database based around a card game known as DMG which has been made by a friend of mine. The project I have made involves an import script which imports several dozen files which contains details for almost 6,000 card, these are none-union files so making the script to import these details made the creation of the script challenging but interesting at the same time. After the import script I had to make a search engine; this had to be secure, quick and have a lot of options all of which the script has managed to achieve.

Although the script is for the most-part complete this project has a lot of potential for growth into other areas such as integration with the games forum or the ability to make a game deck through the cards database.

Paradigm Shift

This project is another guild site for World of Warcraft. Although it's features are in someway similar to the guild site I previously made, this site is already more advanced. The sites basic design utilises JavaScript, large amounts of CSS and maintains compliancy with HTML5 standards.

The site also makes use of full integration with phpBB3 which uses the phpBB3 ranking system to maintain several ranks on the website as well as the forum, the integration of phpBB3 is far better and more advanced on the Paradigm Shift site than it was on the older Virtue website.

As well as all of this the site also has custom made shoutboxes, comments, blogs, links section, gallery (with categories), recruiting system and of course a link with the World of Warcraft armory database which allows the site to download XML files regarding the guild/members and display their information.

New Year Update

Posted at 3:59pm on 1st January 2011

So it's finally 2011... I suppose a status update is in order. Over the past two months I've really been enjoying my ACCESS course; I've been learning all about the planning and preparation involved in creating databases and programming in a professional environment. Which I've found incredibly interesting. A lot of people find the planning involved in projects to be quite tedious but I've found it to be enjoyable, and rather fun to plan ahead of time as it does save time in the future, and is a lot easier than just following half-assed comments in coding, especially when it comes to manipulating programs in the future. I've been able to adapt the planning to some php projects I've been working on; this has gone brilliantly and I've been able to work on most projects flawlessly with a solid plan in place for each project.

As well as learning about the planning process we've also been studying Visual Basic, unfortunately this has been VB6, which is quite dated but does still have some relevancy to VB.NET. While learning VB6 I've been able to see the differences between VB and php. The core of both remains the same i.e. conditional statements, loops, functions etc. However since VB works on a local system it's able to process a LOT more so I've had to get used to not avoiding massive multiple loops and instead have been embracing them. Knowing php has heavily benefitted me when studying VB though, as I'm already familiar with the basic concepts, error checking and making coding more efficient. Upon returning to college we're meant to be starting C++ which I'm very excited about since this is pure coding and doesn't utilise a WYSIWYG interface.

During the Christmas holidays I've also been familiarising myself with VB.NET and created a small and very simple game, which is simply named 'Catcher'. It's a simple game similar to the old classic 'snake' but without a trail. The aim is to get as many points as possible and as you gain more points the level increases, as the level increases so does the speed you move at. During the game you're also able to slow down your speed by pressing 'spacebar' and you can use this 'help' a maximum of 3 times during play. If you reach the end of Level 20 you win. It's a very simple game but was fun for me to create and very useful to learn some of the features of VB.NET. I've included a screenshot and download link for anybody that wishes to try the game:

As well as studying VB.NET I've also been studying the basics of C++. While php is based on C there are some very particular differences between php and C++ which I've observed and so I've been compiling a reference manual for myself on the basics of C++, so that I have an easy to flick-through manual of the basic functions. I've done this rather than buying a reference manual because I often find reference manuals to contain none-essential information rather than just doing a quick statement then example. I prefer the statement and example method because that's how the php.net manual works.

While I may sound like a studying 'nut' I should also note that I applied to my choice of Universities about 6 weeks ago, my choices included:

• Manchester University (Computer Science, Internet Computing)
• Aberystwyth University (Internet Engineering)
• Brunel University (Computer Systems Engineering)
• Manchester Metropolitan University - MMU (Internet Computing)

I've been fortunate enough to receive conditional offers from Aberystwyth University and MMU and an invitation to attend an interview at Brunel University which I plan to attend in the middle of January. I'm really excited and hopeful to hear back from Manchester as soon as possible and am really hoping for an acceptance, especially on the Internet Computing course as I've been eagerly looking through all of the course units on the website and am incredibly excited about the units they offer.

Anyway, that's a big enough status update from me for now. I'll hopefully update a bit sooner next time, but I'm afraid I can't promise.

Welcome to pdjkeelan.com

Posted at 1:06pm on 9th October 2010

Welcome to my brand new website (which is still under construction). I've been working on the idea of a personal website for a few years now but have never seen a reason to make one other than for self-indulgence. But recently I started back in the world of 'academia' by attending a college ACCESS to HE course with the aims to go to University next year to study Internet Computing or Computer Sciences. Starting the college course has somehow rebooted my brain and has made me think about lots of different things the major 'things' being programming, and web development.

Over the past few years I've been incredibly passionate about html, css, php and mySQL and have been working on quite a few projects usually for friends or family and sometimes for online groups. As I progress through my college and hopefully University degree I'm hoping to document my progress and hopefully show off some examples of website applications which I make.

As well as making code, templates, designs etc available, I also plan to use this website to document my progress as a type of blog which will discuss prettymuch everything you can image including college/University, gaming (this part is unavoidable), politics (yep, I'm afraid so) etc etc.

I look forward to creating this website and any future projects which will undoubtedly emerge from the construction of this website. I hope you will find the resources I make available useful and for anybody that reads my blog entries I honestly hope you will find them useful.