492 News (Information)


See the Mailing List Archive for my answers to students' questions.

 Final Grades
Posted on Wednesday May 09, 05:08PM
are now posted, on the left.

 Links to Projects Available
Posted on Wednesday May 09, 02:47PM
I have finally set up the links to the website for all the projects. Just click on Group Projects. The grades will be comming soon.

 Evaluation Forms
Posted on Friday May 04, 10:57AM
I have just received the course evaluation forms for 492 (yes, a bit too late). You must fill one of these out and return it to the Student Services office. I have placed them outside my office. You should use: 
Instructor ID# 5022
Course# 492
Section# 001
and return to Student Services in Swearingen.

 Final Presentation: New Date/Time
Posted on Friday March 30, 10:23AM
I will be out of town on May 1-2, so I have changed the final project presentations to May 3, from 1-5pm. Email me your time requests ASAP. The schedule will be posted on my calendar.

 Using CVS is part of your grade!
Posted on Friday March 30, 07:10AM
Remember, the use of CVS is part of your grade. By this I mean that your whole team has to use it on a daily basis. Just having one person put the files up on the CVS server is not enough. Source control is an integral part of the software development process. It will also save a lot of time an headaches, if you just took the time to learn how to use it! Start by reading the User's guide, if you get into it, you can also read the CVS Book (free online version).

It is trivial to use. Repeating what I said in class, the steps to set up are:

  • The first time CVS is used, you must import your project.
  • When someone wants to use an imported project (including the person who imported it), he must checkout the project.
On a daily basis, the steps are:
  • If you make a change to a checkedout file, you must then commit this change back up to the server. When you do so, write a comment describing the changes you made. (Never commit a file that does not compile).
  • If someone else has commited a change to the server, you must update your copy of that file. You will then re-compile the progam.


 On Using WinCVS and SSH
Posted on Thursday March 29, 02:06PM
SSH does work on the Win 2K machine, as is. That is, the instructions in the FAQ are all OK.

However, if you are having trouble with SHH, follow the instructions below.

  1. Forget all about SSH. (If you already got it working on your home machine, great!, it will continue to work. You can skip all this).
  2. Make sure you have created an account on the source.cse.sc.edu website.
  3. Follow the Wincvs instructions on the FAQ, except that on the "CVSROOT" you will input yourusername@source.cse.sc.edu:/usr/local/cvsroot, and on the "Authentification" method you will set "passwd file on the CVS server".
  4. Every time you lauch wincvs, the first thing you will need to do is "Admin->Login". Your password is the same as the one you set on the website.


 Dates for Final Presentations Set
Posted on Monday March 26, 06:19PM
I have reserved 1D11, as well as the computer projector, for May 1, 1-4pm, and May 2, 10am-1pm. Everyone must give their half-hour presentation within these times. Please emailme which day you prefer, and which times you cannot make it on that day, so I can start to schedule the presentations. The schedule will be posted in my calendar.

Everyone should attend! (except if you have another class).

 Chmod Command not Found
Posted on Wednesday February 28, 12:36PM
If your ftp client is complaining when you try to chmod 700 authorizded_keys then its probably because you are using a crippled ftp client. Some versions of Windows come with such a beast. Your choices are:
  1. Use a better ftp client. I believe there are many freely downlodable ones out there.
  2. Ask somone who can already ssh to do it for you by logging into source and then su yourusername then doing the chmod.
  3. Ask me to do the above. I would be happy to. Remeber to give me your username if you are sending email from another account.
BTW, the instructions are here.

 Last Class
Posted on Wednesday February 28, 11:44AM
Im sorry I was late for class today. For some reason I thought it was at 11:30, so I was 15 minutes late. (I was in my office all that time. Next time maybe one of you can think to come up and get me :-)

Anyway, next week's class will be the last formal class for the semester (aside from the final project presentations).

Also, I want to encourage you to come see me early and often about your code. I will be ruthless on the code review, and you will be happy because the only thing on the line is a grade and not your job. The earlier you can get a problem fixed, the less time you will waste. So, now is the time to see me, by April it will be too late.

 Final Project Grading Template
Posted on Thursday February 08, 10:09AM
The grading form I will use for your final project is:
  • Complexity of Project [low,med,high]:
  • Design Quality:
  • Code Quality:
  • Final Product Quality:
  • Labor Distribution:
  • Documentation (Code & Writeup):
  • Presentation:


 Teams and Proposal Update
Posted on Wednesday January 24, 12:52PM

I have updated the PS1 handout (I specified that you need to turn in your set of use cases).

The team names are:

  • venom
  • final1
  • alpha
  • sctek
  • opaque
  • outsiders
  • poseidon

If you do not belong to one of these teams, please contact me ASAP.


 Classroom Change
Posted on Wednesday January 17, 12:37PM
It looks like we will be meeting in 2A19 from now on. Also, remember that you can see last semester's project writeups from the Fall 2000 link on the left.

Jose M. Vidal
Last modified: Wed May 9 17:08:55 -0400 2001