Project Overview:

            My partner Igho and I chose to work on a project that required creating 3D pool game using VPython. VPython is an easy to use open source software that includes python programming language and 3D module.

Project requirements:

• Create a pool table with at least 2 balls
• Manage collisions between balls and walls
• Apply some rules
• Handle controls
• Create user friendly interface

Project's future:

            Creating a cue stick in this game would help users to aim better and make the game look more sophisticated. Moreover, we could make a path line between cue ball and target ball to make aiming easier. This game also needs more rules, tables and levels in order to meet users' needs.

            Another big feature that we would add to this game in future is for a computer player to play against humans. Though it might take time and a lot of effort to accomplish this part of the game, it is very important and a generally required feature for games like 3D Pool.

Game Guide:

How to play the game:

            To launch the game you will need VIDLE installed on your computer. From VIDLE, browse to the game file, open and then run the file. A window with text 'PLAY' launches for the player to click and start the game. The player places the cursor behind the cue ball to obtain a direction which is normal to were the ball is intended to move to. With a right mouse click the ball moves. A left mouse click and movement helps to rotate the board.  Use keys 1 to 9 to control the power of shots.

Some of the rules:

• Whenever the cue ball drops in the holes, the ball resets and the other players gets the turn to play.
• The game ends when a player successfully pots 3balls.

Game Features:

• “Play” button – we included this button to start the game. It opens a window with a pool table with balls at their start position.
•  Hit Power – Using keyboard's number keys users can change the power of the hit. If this function is not used power takes default value, which is constant number given in the program.
• Hitting the ball – hitting the ball is possible by clicking mouse's left button, while cursor is behind the cue ball.
• Player change – if cue ball falls in hole players exchange turns.
• 3 balls rule – any player gets 3 or more balls in holes that player wins.
• “Winner is...” text – game announces a winner by showing a text message projected on x,y surface.

Social Technology

Nowadays term socializing does not have any geographical boundaries. One can easily join any community in the world via Internet. Such social websites like Facebook, MySpace, Youtube and others make it possible to communicate from everywhere with everyone. Majority of businesses have their own websites with forums, chat-rooms and blogs to communicate with their customers. All these factors make it important to learn variety of social technologies that are available to us. That is where IS 346 course becomes helpful.

IS 346 class is all about social technology and mass collaboration. Throughout the course we've learned using different social software for different purposes. Web blogs, forums, wikis and different mash-ups along with some of the technologies that we use on a daily basis were discussed during this course. Here are some main technologies we used in class:

• WordPress - a great blogging software with lots of useful gadgets. The best part of using WordPress in my opinion is the fact that along with Google blogs it is one of fewer blogging technologies that allows to blog entries from different websites (like we did using KeepSLS website).

• MediaWiki – widely used wiki that I found very interesting and relatively easy to use. It is a great tool to create tutorials, share information and collaborate in real time.

• PhpBB – great technology to create forums. This technology has variety of add-ons that can help users to experience its full power. The only disadvantage is that some of these gadgets are hard to install and time consuming for users without experience.

• Google Wave – as a new technology Google Wave has its own bugs but still got attention from many users. In my opinion Wave has a great future and will gain more fans as it gets better.

For my final project I used wiki type software called PmWiki. I wasn't really satisfied with this technology for many different reasons. Administrative tools were poor comparing to other wikis, there are not many plug-ins available, too many available plug-ins have bugs. Though I also noticed some advantages as well. PmWiki has great themes what makes it look like ordinary website, navigation is very easy and its basic editing tools work fine. I do not regret choosing this technology for my final project because I had an opportunity to compare it with other technologies, see differences between them and learned to understand and analyze features of similar technologies.

Due to its nature the course was intensive but not overwhelming. It was a great experience for me to be in this class. I learned a lot from this class.

Information Technology is very important part of our society nowadays. And I am not referring only our casual life, though it affects it in any aspects. I am also referring to use, need and importance of information technology in industries, business and markets. It is not just a luxury anymore which gives significant competitive advantage, but much more.  It is a necessity and without proper IT infrastructure companies probably will not be able to survive.  It does not matter whether it is small, medium or large company; all of them have to deal with IT.

            Everything is automated nowadays. If look at different industries we can see that technology plays a big role. For instance, in car manufacturing from the beginning till the end of the process of building a car everything is automated. Moreover, most their business operations are run on computers. Decision Support Systems, Product Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Resource Planning and many other systems that are used in order to keep up with their competitors.

            Returning to our everyday life experience we have to admit that IT is all around us.  We socialize and communicate through online social networks, telephones and emails. It is hard to imagine living without internet connection for long time. We use e-commerce every day to pay our bills and purchase different products.  E-health concept is wide spread around the world. Using telemedicine helps doctors to treat people living in long distances, such systems as Personal Health Records and Electronic Health Records help people to keep truck of their health and medications. We use e-government to communicate with authorities. And this list of different applications and technologies can last long. The point is that most of our actions requires IT involvement.

            It is also fascinating how technology improves and changes very fast. Just few years ago we had to deal with huge and expensive, for person with average income, machines. But today probably every second person, at least in this country, can afford to buy a compact notebook.  Chips are getting smaller, automated systems like decision support system become smarter and all of these innovations makes life much easier.

            Regarding to this course I wanted to say that I had a great experience in analyzing different cases.  Using analytical tools like SWOT and Porter’s five was useful to understand how to make proper analysis on market and industry.  Through finding problems and making recommendations I found out more about origins and nature of IT projects’ failure. Discussions we had during the course allowed us to share our opinions with classmates and learn a lot from each other’s experience in IT.  

Before concluding importance of IT I wanted to go through some of the common problems and IT aspects. During this course we had a chance to review and analyze different situations and problems.  The most interesting part of this was that most of discussed case studies involved poor management.  In most cases there was a little attention on managing projects and more on technology itself. That is the common mistake that most companies do. I see CIO as a person with proper background, good experience, understanding of environment and company culture and clear vision. You don’t put former accountant in charge of IT department. You want your CIO to be able to create responsible and committed team that can solve company’s IT problems.

            There is always dilemma between homegrown services and outsourcing. Of course it is difficult for non-IT company to run complex systems that are crucial for overall performance. We’ve seen several cases where IT projects fail because of incompetency of people running them.  Even IT related companies sometimes rely on professionals form outside in specific areas. And that’s all about understanding complexity of IT architecture.

            There are also a lot of problems that companies face with organization and architecture of IT, people management and running IT projects. And we’ve seen a lot of success stories where these problems were solved one way or another.

            It is hard to exaggerate importance of IT in current society. It helps us in every aspect of our lives, even in taking this course and submitting this paper.  

This page holds work for the Fall 2008 IS 306 course with Dr. Quinonez. You can view other people's portfolios by clicking on the IS306 tag on the bottom of this page, or by editing this page and looking in the sidebar.

Every student is required to post at least one entry to her/his Claremont Conversation Online portfolio for each class they take. The post is to reflect something that the student learned in the class. A grade of “Incomplete” or “Unsatisfactory” will be issued to any student who has not posted a suitable entry to her/his portfolio by the end of the term. For this class, you will write a one-thousand word essay reflecting on the significance/importance of information technology in today’s society.

Learning different methodologies and theories on building systems and software made me understand that as an end user you just see only very top of what system is.  Even though there is much more to learn in depth I could at least understand basics of software and system development.  By now I’m able to understand high level UML, such methods as ETHICS, STT, and ICONIX.  I’ve also learned agile software development and extreme programming, fan of which I become.

Second part of a course was interesting too because I like learning more about GIS.  If in introduction I learned basics of GIS, working with geo data and used some desktop GIS application, in this class I broadened my knowledge by using GIS differently.  Using Google stuff was really interesting and I’d like to continue learning GIS future.  Actually thank to this class I’ve become a user of different applications such as Personal Brain and Second Life.

Being involved in project helped me to practice my knowledge obtained during semester.  Actually I’ve learned even more; I’ve never used Java Script and HTML before. 

It was really helpful and interesting course and I enjoyed it very much.

Management of IT is really important for companies which even slightly deal with IT.  It was mentioned in one of our books: “If you can’t manage IT, you can’t manage IT”. And it is true; ability of managing of IT comes through learning and understanding not only IT as itself, but also enterprise architecture, leadership, business needs and more. It can take several consecutive courses to understand it deeply.  I’ve learned a lot from this class.  Probably I should start from telling that I do not have any business background and experience.  Most of information in this class was new for me and it took time to adapt. 

            In general class was more focused on in class discussions, based on readings, which took most of our time. These discussions really helped to understand different topics in depth.  I liked using case studies for different examples through the course and sharing ideas with my classmates.

            I liked both books we were reading for this class.  EA book explained structure of enterprise architecture, importance of its management and governance on a high level, whereas CIO book is full of detailed guidelines for future CIOs, supported by very good case studies.  Also there were articles that we’ve read in order to enhance our understanding of specific problems and different case studies presented by students.  Moreover, we had an assignment to present a book in groups, what made us to read an extra book that we liked.  It was a little bit intensive class for me in terms of reading, but very helpful though.  

This page holds work for the Fall 2008 IS 328 course with Dr. Gudea. You can view other people's portfolios by clicking on the IS328 tag on the bottom of this page, or by editing this page and looking in the sidebar.

This page holds work for the Fall 2008 IS 305 courses with Dr. Ryan & Dr. MacLean. You can view other people's portfolios by clicking on the IS305 tag on the bottom of this page, or by editing this page and looking in the sidebar.