About

Me

I’m currently studying for an MSc in Intelligent Systems Engineering at the School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham. Previously I worked for oncampus where I focused on website development for a network of partner sites.

Before that I graduated from the University of Leicester, I hold a BEng degree in Electronics & Software Engineering, was the student unions’ webmaster (2004 - 2006) and implemented the student unions’ 3rd website design which was done in css with the then advisory services manager and graphics artist.

Stating my current interests broadly they are:

Website design, having worked on various bits of a few websites (including this very one, several times!) I’m interested at how webpages are put together. Websites have many metrics in which they have to perform towards, monetization (optional), user requirements, legal requirements… and so putting things together for this medium isn’t easy. These metrics usually affect how we stick all the current standard web technologies together, i.e. html, javascript and css.

My ideal approach to including javascript, css and html in webpages is to follow a layered design. Html forming the basic data layer, css styling the data layer, javascript providing interactivity/document manipulation and if need be in very limited cases java to provide very specific functions.

To meet legal requirements and basic usability as best as possible it’s important that these layers are seperated so that screen readers can read the bare html document and ignore the rest.

I’m interested in how far a well formed webpage (as defined by the W3C standards) can be manipulated by a web 2.0 design (i.e. javascript) before it’s no longer the same html page. I’ve probably got a load of reading to do around this but I think it’s something I’d like to see answered quite soon.

The applicaiton of AI, this article posted on slashdot is a very interesting example of what can be achieved. I’m learning a lot of this stuff on my current course, now I’m in the process of revising everything (well ec and ann’s), hope to have something exciting to show at the end of the year.

Embedded Systems and hardware, these are everywhere, from digital watches to your household car and beyond. At the heart of these systems usually lie microcontrollers. They’re cheap, have limited resources and a wide scope for application.

The affordability and the limted resource requirements (i.e. power) means that these devices are ideal for the hobbyist.

I’ve worked with the Atmel Mega 16 microcontrollers in my undergraduate final year project, copying data from a memory stick to a hard drive. An Atmel Mega 128 in the Intelligent Robotics Module which was programmed in Java using the roboJde environment. I also have other AVR based microcontrollers in a PLCC format which I’m planning on using in future prototype designs - of which I have no idea yet!

Other

I also enjoy reading, I’m currently reading The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford. After reading Derren Brown’s Tricks of the Mind I became very interested in improving my mind, I try to use his mind techniques where possible. As much as facebook is a communication tool it’s a fabulous time sink of which it hasn’t sunk much of my time - only a couple of minutes each day.

Blog content

My aim is to use this as a resource of ideas, documentation of current interests and activities. I could do the same on say a wiki or a set of webpages however I’m really liking the user interface, simplicity and organisation provided by a wordpress blog.