DCU Computer Applications!! Any1 doing it?

napalm@night

me thinks this thread is growing nicely anywayz just wondering, anyone thinking of using a laptop for the course or ya just gonna use the on campus stuff?..oh and results night, i think was one of the biggest anti-climax events ever... qeued for hours for coyote, 15 euro in and then it just.. well wasn't good.. anywayz that's my rant over with....

Smellyirishman

Ye I was considering it, perhaps with the LC money and a nudge into my sides side I could get one, Ill see how practical it is first then deciede if it is worth it

Any of the Vets have an opinion on this ?

Sarunas

Cult:

Will the offers be online at www.cao.ie? Or will it be released on dcu's website? I don't want to wait till the offers come by post.

Yeah, I'm a bit worried, what if the points go to 400(i got 395)? I doubt that they will, it would be better if they staid the same, cause few of my friends would be fsck otherwise...

Are there any predictions?

BlackWizard

The times said that most computer courses are set to go down in points but i doubt DCU will go down. I got 330 and im not too worried so with 495 you definately should not be worried. Im also considering getting a laptop for DCU. Is anyone else? Does anyone experienced people out there think its worth getting one?

halenger

Draupnir wrote:

Sarunas:
Joe Morris is a really nice guy, if you started on about hacker type topics then Im not surprised you didnt get a good reaction. He does a great module in data structures and algorithms aswell. best notes ive ever gotten from a lecturer. Dont know if he still teaches now that he is head of school though. Plus he is very helpful if you screw up and get into some sort of trouble. He is very willing to help.

Joe? DSA? We had Charlie for DSA (Charlie rocks by the way ). I was never a huge fan of Joe. He tries to be "cool" by cursing a lot and calling people names - it put one of my friends off of asking him questions (regular question asker) when on the first day he calls him a "smart bastard" for the question he asked. May seem silly but on front of a class of ~300 it can be a tad unpleasant.

Sarunas

BlackWizard wrote:

The times said that most computer courses are set to go down in points but i doubt DCU will go down. I got 330 and im not too worried so with 495 you definately should not be worried.

I got 395 not 495. Yeah its best if they keep it the same.

Im also considering getting a laptop for DCU. Is anyone else? Does anyone experienced people out there think its worth getting one?

I was thinking of getting a laptop too, the only problem is I AM BROKE.

Things I was looking for were:

o Portability (small, light, long battery life, etc...)
o Quality, Beuty and perfection
o Good OS, and no crappy windows. And good support for unix-like OSes (specially BSDs, linux would do fine too)
o Not to expensive

Apple ibook 12" (http://www.apple.com/ibook/) was just that, starting at 1200euro (well 1199 to be exact).

I'm not a gamer (didnt really play games during the summer, maybe just 1 or 2 hours over ALL SUMMER!), all the open source apps that I use (mutt as my mailer, slrn as my newsreader, mozilla firefox as my webrowser, xmms and mp3blaster as my mp3 players, vim as my editor, etc...) + there are more with recent gentoo's portage system (http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20040719-newsletter.xml) being ported to mac os x, and there is http://fink.sourceforge.net/ too.

And all development apps, called xcode (gcc + all the libs, etc..) are there. And command line(which i spend most of my time) is just there with easy to use GUI interface . In case I don't like Max OS X, i can run NetBSD (www.netbsd.org) or OpenBSD(www.openbsd.org) on the ibook just fine. In the worst case, i can run linux (it would be either gentoo or debian)

Common guys, this laptop was designed to be (ab)used by careless students . What could be better? Dont think i would like to use one of these Wintel laptops, unless DCU gives it to me , but then i wouldnt use windows on it...

Just my 2 cents

P.S: I don't use windows (99% of my time in front of an LCD screen is spent on DragonFlyBSD (www.dragonflybsd.org) or FreeBSD (www.freebsd.org). I moved away from windows around march or may of last year, and i'm loving it.

Guys, if we meet up in dcu, i will persuave yous to use something like fedora instead windows...

Any of yous already tried linux?

halenger

BlackWizard wrote:

The times said that most computer courses are set to go down in points but i doubt DCU will go down. I got 330 and im not too worried so with 495 you definately should not be worried. Im also considering getting a laptop for DCU. Is anyone else? Does anyone experienced people out there think its worth getting one?

DCU have fixed the points at 300 minimum as far as I'm aware. They cut places specifically to keep the points to at least that level.

Laptop's seem quite popular alright and there's wireless practically all over campus but it's intentionally unsecure in CompApp itself (lecturers tell us how much of a joke wireless security is). You'll wanna use a lab PC for any real work, even for checking mail/logging onto redbrick. It's just more secure etc.

I did buy a laptop and I seldom used it for college, though I've done a lotta project work on it. What I mean is I used it more as an excuse to get a new PC.

halenger

Sarunas wrote:

Cult:

Will the offers be online at www.cao.ie? Or will it be released on dcu's website? I don't want to wait till the offers come by post.

They'll be online and in the post etc on Tuesday. In fact you should recieve your offers in the post on Tuesday.

Simple option. Get next days paper on Monday night (when it's out usually). Check points. You got 395. It says 300. You meet the requirements (maths wise or whatever else). You celebrate.

Sarunas

halenger wrote:

Joe? DSA? We had Charlie for DSA (Charlie rocks by the way ). I was never a huge fan of Joe. He tries to be "cool" by cursing a lot and calling people names - it put one of my friends off of asking him questions (regular question asker) when on the first day he calls him a "smart bastard" for the question he asked. May seem silly but on front of a class of ~300 it can be a tad unpleasant.

Oooppss, i'm a regular question asker... will see what happens.... what about other lecturers? do they like questions which are OT in the specific lecture, but not in the module we are being thought (say i ask a question which is few weeks ahead of what we are being thought)

i found Dr. John McKenna very "cool", after checking out Mr. Charlie Daly's website (http://www.computing.dcu.ie/~cdaly/), i can say he is "cool" too.

Who else is "cool"?

halenger

Lol... If you wanna ask something OT like that then ask them personally at the end. Don't think they'd appreciate you bringing up something that the rest of the class wouldn't know, get me?

Ray Walshe is good, once you don't get on his bad side. He'll throw every failure rate in CA at you too. :P There are others of course but sure you'll make your own opinions in no time.

napalm@night

Yeah Sarunas downloaded the first image of fedora the end of last month, had 600mb or so left on the cap..didnt get round to the other images this month due to cap(ugh) but im sure ill get round to them at some stage and give it a shot...might stick it an old pc or somethin and mess around with it for a while...

Sarunas

Dont try on very old pc, cause it woulndt be able to take in fedora (i once tried installing mandrake 9 on pentium 150, booting took looooong time to boot and that was the end of, now the machine hapilly runs freebsd 4.9.)

You can buy the cd's cheaply, like few euros(depends on how many cds, the ones that i bought costed like say 5 euros + a bit for shiping, i always buy from www.cheapiso.com, ships around in a week). Or you can wait till we meet up in dcu, we could d/l there, or i can burn a copy other distro (the latest one that i got is slackware 9.1 and gentoo 1.4), i have more recent bsds, like openbsd 3.4, netbsd 1.6.2, freebsd 4.8/4.9/5.2, and dragonflybsd 1.0.

Draupnir

Halenger:

The whole thing gets to be a bit of a blur after all these years and modules. Was in Programming 2 Joe taught? His notes were great anyway, I still use them.

I remember Dan asking that question and Joe calling him a smart bastard. Was quite funny really. I didnt like Joe much at that time myself but I had some dealings with him last year and he turned out to be a really sound bloke.

Ray Walshe is sound aswell, I agree. I loved that little D6.

napalm@night

yeah ah sure im willing to give it a shot anywayz just to see what its like...do a dual boot with it or somethin..(sure its only 11days till i have another 16gig to waste..) anybody know much about the rebdrick irc channel? is it just for idle chat or do they file serve and the like on it?

Smellyirishman

Ye 300 is the min, it will NOT go lower.Saying that im sure it wont fill up this year again so *I* think it will hold at 300

If im getting a laptop im going all out http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/Area-51m/area-51m_features.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-AREA51-M&SubCode=SKU-PERFORMANCE

Ye First thing im doing when I get to college is getting you to give me fedora

StickyMcGinty

ebay for laptops... dirt cheap!

Sarunas

Smellyirishman, your kidding, right?

What would you want such a beast for a laptop?

Like IF i get a laptop, it will be used for a bit of coding/reading/playing around while on train, and then in dcu,

Ths beasts batterys life shouldn't be great, common how much p4 extreme 3.2 eats? Even if you put down cpu clock, its still not a mobile cpu chip, but a desktop. so its just a power hungry.
What about portability, how much doesnt it weight? <sarcasm> couple of stone?</sarcasm>

And lol, look at the battery life (from tech specs):

Power
Primary Battery: 12 Cells, 8800 mAH
Long Battery Life: 12 Cells for ~2.2hrs

They call two hours of battery life "long"? Apple ibook g4 is able to take upto 6 hours of use! centrino chips are around the same.

If you have the money, and if you would be able to reach to 3K, go and get your self Apple Powerbook 17" Superdrive. Or top spec ibook g4 12".

I was like that, like a year and something back. I was fscking wasting my money and getting "PC ZONE" every month(the last issue that i got is feb 03) looking at the fancy games, thinking of upgrating my hardware (my main machine is uhm, still pretty the same, few major things changed). Man, i nearly *wasted* 400 euro (or was it pounds) on 03 christmas, when i had the money and was going to get radeon 9700 in peats, man i was lucky, good enough my parents saw few lcd screens, and they persuaded me to get an lcd screen, what a good purchase (i still have this 15" lcd, and im typing this on it).Man what will the fancy graphics card will do me, nothing. Just few fancy games.

Like the gaming machine, down in the kitchen is a lame duran 1300, 384mb ram (pc 133), gefore 3 ti 200, and old 20gb hdd. My little brother (9) plays games just fine on it, maybe not the highest ftp and resulutions but he still plays games.

Back to the alienware laptop, you gonna have to recharge the battery every day! like, average battery can take 300-500(IIRC) full charges, so you gonna have to get a new battery real soon.

What is this top-spec laptop will gonna do, <sarcasm> make your code better? will pass you the exams? .................... </sarcasm>

Like whats the point getting this laptop? so you would be able to play doom 3?

Just my 2 minimalistic (yeah i became that, like why would you get something top spec if you only need a minimalistic machine, and that is enough for your needs?)

I might not be able to see the point of getting this "doom 3 - playin notebook", but you might, so its just my two cents.

Smellyirishman

Eh :rolleyes:

It was a joke :rolleyes:

Sarunas

Smellyirishman wrote:

Eh :rolleyes:

It was a joke :rolleyes:

lol

CuLT

hack teh planet.

Sarunas, what's the point in getting a laptop JUST for college when you don't even need one? May as well go all the way and get a replacement for your desktop if you've got the money to spend on one.

You might be surprised to find that there are quite a few people who like to play games with better graphics than Minesweeper .

damnyanks

Usually getting a laptop for college is pointless especially for first year. The machines in whatever college you are will suffice for whatever needs you have in college. Its highly unlikely that you are going to get any difficult projects that take up a lot of times and need a decent setup in first year. Save your cash for 2nd or 3rd year laptops.

There is also the added hassle of having to carry a piece of hardware worth over 1k around with you all day. What if you end up going out for a few drinks unannounced (Happens quite often in college )

Sarunas

That reminds of Netbuzz(some 2 day introduction course to computers in NCI) after we did a leaving cert. Most of the people were early, so at one moment I became aware of all those mouse clicks, looked around, most people were playing solitare and minesweeper. OMG.

Thats a good point, but i want portability (like having it in my bag all weekdays), offcialy, IIRC, desktop replacements are laptops with 17"> screens. I don't want to have a seprate bag for a laptop + there will be plenty of stuff in my bag.

Patrick

I'll also be doing this course and looking forward to it too!

Smellyirishman

Moving to campus?

Patrick

Smellyirishman wrote:

Moving to campus?

no, i wanna get digs with meals for first year ..just to get settled .. get to know people etc

damnyanks

Sarunas wrote:

That reminds of Netbuzz(some 2 day introduction course to computers in NCI) after we did a leaving cert. Most of the people were early, so at one moment I became aware of all those mouse clicks, looked around, most people were playing solitare and minesweeper. OMG.

Thats where I've been for hte last 2 years (Terrible terrible place) you were probably on the labs upstairs that have OS installed on the actual computer. Everything else there worked off citrix. You could do little or nothing

Be glad you didn't go there.

Sarunas

damnyanks wrote:

Thats where I've been for hte last 2 years (Terrible terrible place) you were probably on the labs upstairs that have OS installed on the actual computer. Everything else there worked off citrix. You could do little or nothing

Be glad you didn't go there.

Well in the end of it, they gave a little survey, and i complained where is their "state-of- the-art" computers as they advertise in their prospectus. I cant find it right now, but they had something like this "our campus is equipted with the state-of-the-art computer systems". Man, they didnt have any unix-like os to be accessed by students, i was told they were tought how to install linux, makes me roll on the floor. i wouldnt call pentium 3 500 (i think, something that low end), 4 gb hdd, and 128 mb ram. Compared to dcu, where they have a brand new lab with dell desktops (p4 2.6, 512mb ram), and i heard from a lecturer they will be upgrating other boxes in the labs too.

Yeah, we were on the third floor, when you go up just turn left, go over the door and left again.

Like NCI, really need people, did you see all the commercials they have? like common, in the toilets, they had a poster of an ipod, saying if you tell your friend about NCI, you could win an ipod, lol.

And nci is my third choice on the degree list, and first in diploma....

damnyanks

Well the computers in the normal labs aren’t too bad. Not sure of the exact spec never checked, but they are Pentium 4. From what we were told they have no hard drives and about 16mb of ram, everything else is run off the citrix servers which they had 10 of with crazy high spec.

You do linux in second year, you install it, learn to script on it and just the general running of the OS. Its red hat linux that they use. There is a multimedia lab downstairs that doesn’t run off citrix, 2.6ghz and 256 ram. Nothing amazing... doesn’t really matter because the place is a scam I used to work the open days and made sure to point it out to anyone. They want you in there for the cash and thats it no such things as extra curricular activities in that place and they treat you like your a school student (Checking up on you with your parents etc. for not attending your "How to use excel" classes)

Going to study computers in the hopes of being taught anything other then windows mainstream probably won’t happen. Colleges, IT’s and universities are training students who would be employable. Other operating systems aren’t main stream enough yet for them to get serious time on most courses

NotMe

damnyanks wrote:

Going to study computers in the hopes of being taught anything other then windows mainstream probably won?t happen. Colleges, IT?s and universities are training students who would be employable. Other operating systems aren?t main stream enough yet for them to get serious time on most courses

Well in DCU we are encouraged to use Linux. You have to use it for the Prolog course and the Operating Systems course is based on Linux.

Sarunas: I hope you don't hate Windows that much because you WILL have to use it..

Renegade_Archer

Doing Computer Systems in UL at the moment, started in 2001, brought a 486 with me that I bought out of the buy and sell for £50(Irish), had Win95 on it. Up until then all I had ever done was qbasic. Joined the computer society and someone gave me a slackware 7.1 install disk, worked perfectly on the 486(no x server or anything),but was *perfect* for my first year - the only language we did in 1st year was C/C++ - ctrl+alt+F1 was emacs(with syntax colour highlighting, I thought I was the dogs), and ctrl+alt+F2 was the gcc output. Got me all the way through first year, no problems at all. That said I did work placement in 2nd year and now have a slighty more substantial system

So moral of the story - you can pick up any old POS P400 that will gladly run something like Debian, that will give you a shiny X server and all the devel tools you will ever need. Try and avoid Visual Studio if all you're doing is compiling a 20-line C program


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Oh, and the CS labs in UL are all dual boot RH9 (think its going to be FC2 in Sept) / Win2k PIII450s. Not the best boxen in the world, but its handy having linux in the labs to work with. Most course assignments give you the option of using Linux or Windows - for instance in 2nd year you have to do a database driven website - you can either do it with ASP&Access or MySQL&PHP.. the ASP server used to fall over once a day on average due to the sheer amount of crappy resource hungry code running on it. The PHP code was equally crap, but the server stayed up
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