Science Tony

By McDonald. T | Date: 12th November 2017 As the web continues to grow more and more people begin to depend on it. Everyone is using the net for all sorts of things including using it as the new high street. We can shop online, socialise online, book holidays online, study for our degree online; in fact, you name it and there is more than likely a website for it. For this reason, it is good to know if a website is reaching the maximum target audience. This blog is in two parts. In this blog, part one, I will cover usability and in part two I will cover accessibility . Make a site user friendly to maximise the audience and audience retention. Have you ever been to a site and left it quickly or stayed for hours at a site? Why did you do that? People go to a site for many reasons including: looking for information; to purchase something; or to use a service. With this in mind if any of us went to a shop and it did not have what we wanted we would leave, correct

By McDonald, T. | Last updated: 7/9/2017 We face problems every day; subsequently, we spend a lot of time attempting to find a reasonable solution even if we do not realise it.  Solving problems is a big part of computer science.  In fact, problems are so important that computer science separates them into different classes including P, NP, NP-complete and NP-hard, but what does it all mean and can NP =P? Computer scientists have developed a way of measuring how long it takes to compute a problem. This is not as easy as it sounds since we cannot just time how long it takes.  Think about it for a minute, if timing an algorithm by looking at the clock, the timing run on different computers would be different each time because different computers could have different hardware such as processors and memory.  Even if running the same algorithm several times on the same computer, the time spent running the algorithm would depend on the other operations the computer was running

By McDonald, T. | Last updated 30th of November   Do you think your computer is amazing? It can do so much and reasonably quick most of the time, yes?  Perhaps you are beginning to think it will not be long before a computer can accomplish any task especially with knowledge of Moore’s law whereby the number of transistors per square inch on an integrated circuit doubles every eighteen months.  Nevertheless, some problems are not just difficult they are impossible to solve. For some problem to be computable, it would need to be possible to solve it in a finite number of steps for every instance of that problem; we call this effective procedure.  Alan Turing came up with the idea of a machine that could solve a problem if given a set of precise instructions called a program, which he called a Turing machine.  In addition, he theorised of a universal Turing machine that could take the state of any other Turing machine.  It is important to remember that at the time, modern day co

By McDonald, T | Last updated 30th of November 2017 What a computer scientist actually does remains a source of mystery for most people. Computing is a general term for many fields involving a computer. However, computer science is more specific. In the past, computers were people who made calculations using a set procedure known as a program. Nowadays, the word computer conjures up the image of an electronic device. Subsequently, I feel it important to say what computer science is not before I say what it does involve. What is not computer science? Although a computer scientist will have an understanding of how a computer works, they are not a computer repair person. If you think a computer scientist deals with networking you would be wrong again, that is a network engineer: who keeps the Internet working. Even so, a computer scientist will have some knowledge of networking. Network engineers are more about solving different problems such as connection on diffe

By McDonald, T. | Last updated 30th of November 2017 What do you want to do with your life must be the most famous open-ended question ever asked.   It usually strikes fear into the hearts of people while they desperately try to think of something cool to say.   Sadly, some people never find an answer.   Deciding on a future is perhaps one of the most important decisions a person will ever make.   Before deciding on a great future, be honest about what you want out of life, realise the value of education and decide on a suitable educational root while making sure you have the right grounding.     In order to decide successfully on a great future, you will need to be honest about what you want out of life first.   This is a more straightforward task than you might think.   Look at it this way, do you want to do something exciting like volcanology where people collect lava samples among other things or spend your time watching soaps?   In other words, why settle for a job in

By McDonald, T | Last updated 02/12/17 In this world of technology something is needed to make it all run.  This something is programming languages such as Java, C# and Python just to name a few.  Subsequently, the programming industry is a great place to be a part of with new opportunities opening up all the time.  If you are new to programming, Python is a great place to get started since it is relatively easy to learn and has extensive libraries. Getting started  The following will be required in order to get started. Python 3 (Free) Software to right the code (Free) Python 3 is different to Python 2.  The difference is in the syntax, so for now i will just keep to Python 3 since it is the newest.  Installing Python 3 is easy just follow the instructions in the video and then install Pycharm.  Pycharm is software for writing code.  You will need to install the latest version of Python for your operating system and the Community Edition of Pycharm. Altern