1st chapter slides

As I mentioned today in the lecture, here you have the slides from Chapter 1. I have created a Google Docs spreadsheet that will contain all the relevant information about your performance (i.e. class attendance, assignments, etc).

Unfortunately today the service is not working nicely and at the moment I cannot even access that page. As soon as they are back on-line I'll post here the URL for that page.

It is advisable that you check your attendance record from time to time. Please report any error you may find as soon as possible.

Update: Attendance spreadsheet is back on-line.

Update2: Lab calendar is here.

Here we go again

A new course starts on Monday. Amazingly over 25 students are already enrolled on the group, this has to be an all times record for our subject. I want to welcome you all and I hope you'll enjoy the subject.

For the moment I'm only making the course syllabus available. All the slides and interesting materials will be added to this blog little by little. Feel free to go back in time too, but please be warned that links from years ago may no longer be working.

Applied knowledge to physical layer

Most of you are young enough not to have ever used a cassette tape as a digital storage system. But still you may feel curious about how it sounded and, even more important how it worked. This entry links to an article about using software to decode an old BASIC interpreter for Apple I computer.

Different techniques were used long time ago to create audio signals representing digital files that could be stored and recovered from a cassette using an inexpensive cassette player.

And we are back online!!

After one year of using the PoliformaT platform I've got enough. It might well be ok for some people but I'm not among them. I refuse to be a good well-trained monkey.

In what I think is the best interest of my students (and my own sanity) I'm recovering this blog as the vehicle to distribute the class material.

There are a number of reasons for this move:

1. Students will no longer need to log-in to read any class related news.
2. Visitors will now be able to see what's going on in the subject.
3. Prospective students will learn what the subject is all about.
4. I will be able to avoid to do a dance to upload a single comment or document. However I will have to add a comment with any document I add, which I find appropriated.
   
5. Anyone could comment on the topics of the blog, whether they are enrolled in the subject or not.
6. Availability will improve upon university's.
7. I will be able to keep the English group of the subject apart from the noise of other languages' groups.
   
8. Blogger's usability is miles away from the ugly and clunky interface of PoliformaT.
9. We will be free to enjoy videos of any size (PoliformaT limits to 20 MB max which is a joke).
10. Maybe the site will open up collaboration links with other universities.
11. Site appearance could easily be changed (if I were not so lazy).
    

As an starter I'm posting here the solved exams of last June 9th, 2008.

solved exam 1st term - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: solved exam 1st term

And the second semester's ...

Solved exam 2nd term - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Solved exam 2nd term

Please note that older material that is linked from previous entries may not work as it was lost after a hard disk crash. If you absolutely need to get any of them send me an email and I'll recover it for you.

Local storage is gone!

After the last storm the computer that used to act as this blog storage server gave up the ghost.
That means that the copies of laboratory exercises and course slides are gone too. Together with many of the documents referenced in this blog. I am not planning on restoring either the contents or the server anytime soon.

However, I will be posting each new document on the "private" PoliformaT site.

I have to let this blog go

I want to welcome all the new students. This blog has been the home for the English language class of the subject RED (code 5662). The format was simple (and sometimes even Internet Explorer rendered it properly) and you needed no silly authorization to download anything. However, the UPV in its infinite wisdom has decided to curtail the use of external tools, like this blog, in favor of their locally cooked version of Sakai they have named PoliformaT.

It seems that faculty not using this tool will be considered as doing no work on cyberspace. There is some money involved, don't get me wrong, we have a job to do and some money to make. By putting the carrot on the use of PoliformaT they are insuring all of us will end up using that platform whether it fits our (or your) needs or not.

For our English group it has been a constant cause of trouble the fact that students join us a bit later than the beginning of the term. Because of the involved paperwork, they use to come to the class sooner than they have got a username and password. Under the university instituted systems (so called microwebs and now PoliformaT) they have no access to course syllabus or slides. To address this problem I have been using for two years this blog (the fact blogger interface was cooler and simpler than the local alternatives did help too).

So from here I want to apology in advance for the possible trouble you are facing with this new move at the UPV. While technically I cannot claim this is censorship I would say they are giving as the same choice that Ford Motor Company gave to T-model customers: "You can choose any color you like as long as it is black".

September marks

!!! I am glad to inform you that after marking the exams all of you have passed the subject. Details can be found on the usual place.

Next September 11th

Those of you who haven't pass the subject yet do not forget exam will be held September 11th, at 4:00pm.

Course Marks available

On our usual place in the "exams" tab.

Results are quite disappointing as several people did not show up for the exam. Others did but failed the subject by not scoring good enough. Most of you did pass, for those of you, congratulations.

Those who did not pass the subject, please think whether you could have done better by turning in any of the assignments, showing up for the lectures more often, doing the lab exam and, perhaps, studying a bit more.

Anyway, you are welcome to review your exam so you see for yourself what was wrong. Drop me an email for a reviewing appointment.

Solved exam is now available.

Graded assignments

All the assignments turned in have been graded. Please go to the attendance/marks page to check yours.

So you want a video as reading is too hard ...

Here you have an interesting presentation:

Weekend reading

I mentioned today in the class I will post this article on one of the many network security battles. I guess the printer friendly version will remove most of the annoying advertising from the web page (but I was not sure the server would be happy about my referencing of a printer friendly page).

It seems that another one bites the dust in terms of getting their encryption system hacked (not that I am interested or worried as I do not have either content or player for that format).

Fourth assignment

It's only one month left so here is the last assignment for you. Please note its due date is May 28th.

Some people's comments about IPv6

Slashdot was publishing a note about the use of IPv6 in space. Some people found this an opportunity to voice their opinion about IPv6.

All you wanted to know about bit error rate but were afraid to ask

One important detail about BER (bit error ratio) is that it is an average value. If you use it as such there is no problem. But for if you have link whose BER=10^-4 and you transmit 10000 bits over that channel it is likely you won't get any error at all. The reason is that BER is an statistic but not a RULE.

If you want to learn more abot what this means, read on this interesting but yet accessible document.

Computer Networks by Andrew S. Tanembaum

It seems the book is also available for campus-wide access in electronic format (part of the O'Reilly Safari Books on-line package) so as far as you are part of the campus network either connected locally or by a VPN from your home you should be able to read the recomended chapter 4.

CRC java applet

This one will show you both the calculation and the associated circuit.

Green third assignment

It seems the current trend is all for recycling and reducing the waste we create. I am joining this effort now by presenting you a fully recycled third assignment about IP fragmentation.

Please note that the due date is wrong (recycling sometimes has some problems). The correct due date is April 6th.

Solved 1st term exam

Already available, just follow this link.

Marks will be available in a few days in this same site as an update of this post.

Update: Exam marks are available in the same link as the attendance pages. Please note that solved exam contained a couple of errors that have been now fixed, just download a fresh version.

Second Update: It seems that some of you have trouble doing the math to know your current score, so now you have that numbers on the mark's page. I repeat what I explained the first day of class and it is detailed in Chapter0 slides.

mark(%) = attendance*10/classes + (9-assignments)*exam/10  +  assignments*10  + lab

The underlying logic is that exam only accounts for 70% of the final mark if you pass two assignments, 80% if you pass one assignment or 90% if you did not pass (or did not turn in) any assignment. Also note that failing on an assignment has not any negative effect on your score.

The same logic will be applied to the second term marking and then, both marks will be averaged to obtain your final grade.

Please remember the pass mark is 50%, so if you score less than this you will have to work harder on the second term to pass the subject.

Lab exam is still being marked so it has not yet been accounted for.

Third Update: Now the lab mark has been included. Go and check yours!

1st term exam

To be held January 30th, classroom B-5 at 10:00am laboratory exam.

For those of you who missed one or more laboratory sessions the exam will start at 10:30am. Duration two and a half hours.