ICS%20465%20Midterm%20Project

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ICS 465 Midterm Project

• By David Neely and Brandon Lee

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After you graduate

• You may not have all of the answers.
• What should you expect in the real world after
  you graduate?
• How do you find a job?
• How do you search for internships?

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Who should you rely on for this kind of help?

• Your classmates and the Alumni of the ICS
  department at UH.

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Your fellow Alumni are your Network.

• How do you keep this network alive with the least
  amount of pressure?

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Keep in touch.

• Constantly.

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Keeping in touch is hard.

• In a field like ours, it is essential.

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Change is inevitable

• Its a fact of life that as times change,
  information changes.
• It evolves.

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Change is inevitable

• Email addresses change without warning.
• People move from place to place now more than
  ever.
• Even peoples names change.
• As you get older, networking becomes even more
  important.

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Constant change is hard for one person to track.

• Many copies of the same piece of data lead to
  data inconsistencies
• The Solution must be centralized.
• The Solution must be dynamic.
• The Solution must be scalable.
• The Solution must be easy-to-use.

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There has to be a simple and centralized way to
keep in touch with your classmates
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We propose

• A dynamic flash-based ICS Alumni map

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Benefits of a dynamic flash-based ICS Alumni map

• Centralized data source.
• Not only can you access this information from any
  internet-enabled computer in the world, you can
  also update it.
• Up to the Minute Information
• Display up-to-the-minute information
• 90 percent browser saturation
• Flash is the most downloaded plug-in on the
  internet. It is on almost 90 percent of all
  computers connected to the internet.

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Use a combination of tools

• Microsoft Access Database
• Macromedia Flash MX 2004
• Active Server Pages

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One table contains

• First name
• Last name
• Email address
• Graduation Year
• Type of Major (BA/BS)
• Photograph (url)

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How do you get the database to talk to flash?
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Use Active Server Pages

• Add a new user
• Update a user
• Delete a user
• Display all graduates
• Display only BS graduates
• Display only BA graduates

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Using ASP, Flash can now communicate with the
database
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The prototype
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Potential Obstacles

• We need to decide the scale of the project. Could
  this be extended to a world map later?
• Zip codes. This makes the precision of the map
  much more accurate. However the implementation
  still needs to be worked out.
• Flag collisions. How do we represent multiple
  flags at the same x and y coordinate.
• Obtaining test data.

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In Conclusion

• A centralized source, accessible from any
  internet enabled device.
• No duplicated information
• Data consistency
• Infinitely expandable
• Graphical representation of data

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Dynamic Alumni Map