Blog 19: Independent Component 2

Literal

1. I, Carlos Cerrillos, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents more than 30 hours of work, currently 35.5 hours, which is still rising.
2. The articles I felt best helped with this independent component were:
1. Price, Seth. "How to Build a Better Real Estate Website." Web log post. Inman News. N.p., 13 June 2013. Web. 6 Feb. 2014.
2. Yank, Kevin. "Build Your Own Database Driven Web Site Using PHP & MySQL, Part 1: Installation." Web log post. Site Point. Site Point, 2 July 2009. Web.
3. Look to the right for the log of hours. or click here
4. Through my research and work at my mentorship, I've been toying with the idea that a proper website can really help a company grow. Unfortunately my mentorship was not in any current need of a website, so I went to where there was a demand for a website, and that was iPoly High School. I decided on this independent component so I could experience what it is like to lead a team to create a final product, a website, and to also take part in the creation of it as well. To be concise, I've spent time researching different ideas of what things are important to have on a website, and how to actually go about doing that. I then went from researching this, to actually creating a site which is currently being hosted at http://ipolyhs.org/

Interpretive

An important part of actually achieving success in the component, creating the website, was the research that went into how to go about creating a website, making sure that every aspect is planned out and prepared for. After that was an approximate three hours of work that went into establishing the expectations of what the site would have, along with preparing content to be put on the site. A majority of the rest of the thirty hours was spent actually programming the framework for the site, designing and changing layouts, and filling the site with content and formatting it properly. This all showed an example of what it'd be like creating a site for Real Estate, except it lacks some functionality that a Real Estate site would have, such as an IDX search & real estate. However other features that work well on Real Estate websites to draw in clients would also work well for a school website when trying to improve their admissions and outreach, such as a school blog that gives insight into the student life at the school, and as with a real estate blog, it is important for it to be updated and maintained.

Thanks to the wonders of technology, there are three places where evidence of 30 hours of work can be seen, the first is simply the site, as it is for the most part the final product of this component. The second and third are logs of work that have been kept throughout the development of the site. One of the logs is the history of GitHub commits, which can be interpreted as "checkpoints" through out the development of the framework/design of the site where features were completed. The third log is the logging part of the framework of the website that logs changes to content that I had created to give the site the functionality to undo changes made to content, and who made those changes. The reason I am adding links two logs that provide evidence is because once major parts of the framework were completed, little in the actual code was change, and the changes and updates that occurred after that were done on the site, as each page is generated from information stored in a database, no page is hard coded into its own file, making the site very flexible when it comes to adding/changing/removing content.

iPoly Website | The GitHub Commit Log | iPoly Page Log

The above screenshot is a graphic that I find very interesting that summarizes contributions to the site (can be seen on GitHub), the reason I find it interesting is because it gives you an idea of when I was most productive with this project and what time throughout the day I spent working on it. This is not a summary of one week, but of every single commit from the beginning aggregated into a summary view.

Applied

I felt that this component helped me answer my EQ by helping support my answer 2 and all the work that goes into actually creating a site. A specific example would have to be when I had meetings with the administration to discuss their expectations and requirements for the site, which must be done when creating a site for Real Estate, along with the creation of layout that attempts to be intuitive. Many pieces of research stated that it is very important for a site's design not be overly complicated and to make sure that the site is intuitive. Along with the work that's going into creating a blog built into the site that can be used to promote the school and bring in more students, just as a Real Estate website should, showing that they will get a great experience working with the company.

Blog 15: Independent Component 2 Approval

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

• A major part of what my mentor does is management of projects in IT. It is important for a project to be managed properly and for all steps taken to be documented clearly. I feel that I should take on a technical project to manage such as the creation of iPoly's new website to try to plan and manage the daunting project.

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

• A final product, the school website.
• Meeting logs
• GitHub Logs (GitHub allows a user to keep track of changes in code)
• Documentation of the framework of the website so future iPoly students can make changes.

3.  And explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

• Every project in IT must be handled in a professional way, and it is important that the school's website is taken on as a serious project as it will need to survive for many years. IT in real estate can help a company by creating a website and that can either be done from a template, a blog, or from scratch, like in this case.

4.  Post a log on the right hand side of your blog near your other logs and call it the independent component 2 log.

Blog 14: Independent Component 1

• Literal
• I, Carlos Cerrillos affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 32.5 hours of work.
• My main source of information regarding company needs for computer requirements was my mentor Maria, I worked with her to plan how we would go about replacing everyone's computers. The article "The Nuts and Bolts of Making BYOD Work." by Brent Gatewood was helpful due to the laptops-as-desktops scenario being similar to a BYOD infrastructure.
• Independent Component 1 Log
• Interpretive
• The work I did was essential to my senior project as an important part of IT deals with setting up new technologies, making sure that they work & that the employees have the knowledge to use them, which applied to my earlier EQ.

 The only new desktop we purchased as the employee doesn't need to work on the go.

 A picture I took of the office printer's model number so I could find the drivers online.

 Optimizing settings for the printer & creating presents for Color/BW/Double-sided.

 Installing those necessary programs.

 A little Gandalf reference while I was waiting for loading bars >_>

 A shot of the HP laptops we chose.

 Working on two computers at once, the other laptop is connected to the monitor in the background and can be seen on the left.

 Another computer.

 Yay! The 2TB WD drives arrived!!

 Fitting two of the hard drives at the bottom of the server case.

 A shot of one of the WD hard drives.

 Two more of the 5 hard drives at the top& the arrow points to the CD drive that I had to remove.

 Wiring up the power for drives.

 Enabling the drives in the server's BIOS.

 Checking in the operating system to see if all the drives are being properly detected.

 Stickers that come with the drives.

 My hands would have been dirtier if the server hadn't been cleaned a few months back.

Semi unrelated, but while I was at the Jeved office I noticed that Ale had put up the flyers I had made for AgaveGirls (a part of Jeved) over the last year. If you look closely you can see the reflection of my Tardis slippers, it was Sunday, and I wanted to go to mentorship in comfort x]. I felt proud of my work being displayed :]


• Applied
• This component help me understand the foundation of my topic by working on the back bone of IT which is the actual hardware, and learning what it takes to set it all up. Along with teaching the employees how to make the most of their technologies.