14th
#jake has Moved
I hope that you are aware of the fantastic community that has developed in #jake over the last 4 years. If you aren’t, then you should come along and join our all new channel at #jake irc.infinityirc.com.
The channel started out as the ‘chat’ to go with the live stream and so was initially on Ustream’s IRC network. It didn’t take us too long to move to a more full featured network, though. We spent a while on WyldRyde until the service split into two separate networks. We followed the majority of the servers and staff and moved to GeekShed. WyldRyde essentially became a new network at this point. GeekShed, I think, is where we’ve spent the most amount of time but the quality of the service provided by the staff has decreased, over the years. They’re still a functioning network with plenty of active users, however the #jake community felt more welcome at Infinity IRC.
Members of the channel have been suggesting that the channel be moved from GeekShed for a long while now, and, I’ll admit, I’ve been reluctant to move. So far, it seems to have been the right choice though. Hopefully the channel will continue to improve and become more active with the move to the new network only supporting its improvement.
May I also take this opportunity to announce that the Alfie IRC Bot service will no longer be running. To cut a long story short, I took a look through the channels to which Alife has been assigned, and pretty much all of them were dead. It wasn’t uncommon to find Alife as the only user in a channel. Alfie will still be found in #jake but apart from that, it’s not worth keeping the bot in so many inactive channels. I both thank and apologise to those people who made good use of the service and who still use Alfie in their channels. I do plan to roll out a more reliable bot service one day (development has started), but for the foreseeable future, Alife will not join your channel.
Thank you for being a part of the #jake community; if you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to update your auto-join to the new server irc.infinityirc.com.
9th
OCR A2 Computing F453 – Advanced Computing Theory Revision Guide
I sat the exam for the OCR F453 Module in January this year, scoring 113 out of 120 (UMS). My revision for such exams often takes the form of writing revision notes for myself. But, as I was researching the topics for the Computing module, I found that good resources were scarce and I realised that anybody preparing for the exam may end up lacking a fundamental understanding of the unit. The way I see it, since the module is “Advanced Computing Theory”, candidates should have an advanced understanding of the areas in which they are examined. For this reason, I quickly let my revision notes turn into a revision guide. I put a lot of work into the document, ensuring that everything in the specification was covered in sufficient detail to aid candidates’ revision.
The guide, as a PDF, has been available to download for a few months now. So why am I blogging about it now? I recently tweaked the document to make it more professional; I even added an index. More importantly, I plan to make it available as a physical textbook. Yes, it only covers one of the three modules in the course that involve an exam, but I believe that good understanding of this module is vital and the only way to achieve exam success.
Take a look at the PDF now, further details regarding the textbook will follow soon.
OCR A2 Computing F453 – Advanced Computing Theory Revision Guide
Please remember that these started out as personal notes so don’t hold me responsible if you don’t succeed.
You may also be interested in further revision material that includes key definitions and example answers. Perfect for last minute revision.
OCR A2 Computing F453 – Definitions and Example Answers
I plan to perfect and publish more academic work in the near future.
16th
University Updates
It has been a while since I updated my blog with anything at all so this post is long overdue. You may wonder what the significance of today is. Well, for you, nothing, I’m afraid, but I finally replied to my university offers this very afternoon. Having received conditional offers from all five universities to which I applied (Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, Nottingham and York), I had to choose one to be my “firm” choice and another to be my “insurance” while declining the remaining offers. Naturally, I chose Queens’ College, Cambridge to be my first choice and decided on Durham as my second. Now it’s just a case of achieving A*AA, in any order, in Further Maths, Physics and Computing. So, back to work I guess…
