after exam

yay yay yay...
i've finished all of my exam..
i feels like i did well..
luvin it...

hints are all true..
no traps or tricks..
u just need to show what u've got..
and that's it..
and u'll be fine..
hopfeully... ~~~~~~

thx to POD and Steve for the unit.. =)
eventhough am still waiting for the assignments mark to be up and i know Steve is not around to do any of them.. haha

Let's sum it up - Final Blog

Hey hey..
Time flies..

Today im going to have my last lecture of the year..
Yea, im having dayoff on thursday n friday, which means, time to do the exam preparation just now..

Submitted the assignment already.. Im starting to answer the past exam papers, and focusing my brain more to the last year paper (aha.. I think i got ur indirect message POD)..
I dont know if I am going to email POD for the answers that I've prepared, but yea..
that is a really nice idea.. Very nice of you POD

Now, what have I got in this subject for the last 13weeks?
I learned what BI is..
...I have no background before and suddenly I feel like I know quite a bit of it

I learned Visual Studio, including the Business Analysis Services
...I've always hated Visual Studio before, anything that I did on it is fully for assignment purposes only that I dont really care if I really understand the steps im doing or not, but this is not the case for this subject

I get to know MDX a bit
...Somehow I know that it will be an important thing you need to know

I love Excel a lil bit more
...Maybe this is not what this subject suppose to be, in fact I suppose to not like it so much in a way, but the knowledge i gain in Excel is just awesome

I got another option for my career preference
...This subject has definitely be a very interesting one, that I might consider this to be my career preference, but I definitely think that my assignment work is not enough to be my portfolio in this subject

~luv luv luv this subject so much
I should mention the forum has been a big help, again..
And also twitter, screenr and other things that POD and the others has contributed for the sake of this subject haha

I hope I can do well in the exam, and boost up my mark.. Somehow i got a feeling that Steve will mark me a bit harder than the others.. Two or three people told me how high his expectation is.. hhhhhhh *fingercrossed*

Week12

Argh.. its 6:18am monash time, caulfield campus, building b, level3..
but its fun!!
i just finished my assignment..
and you know what i want to do now?
no , i have not submit it yet..
just does not feels good submitting assginment very early in the morning like this.. just like sending emails at 2oclock in the morning and your lecturer will be "what? 2am?" hahaha..

So so so...
assignment has been so exciting..
the more i dot it, the more i get so into it..
i've been slacking around a lot before..
deep down inside my heart i know that i will spend a lot of time on this assignment.. but instead of starting early, i decided to just do my other assignment until i only got this one left..
then i really start getting panic, since i still has not finalized my hierarchy design up till Thursday..

So many things happening.. one thing i learned, the .mdb and the server version really makes a difference.. the server version is a lot lot more better and nice to see..
another thing i learned, you can not change your data source and data source view and hoping that your dimension will still work.. especially if you use the mdb file and then switching to the server version.. something about the name and the dimension tables just not identical..
more.. you do need to spend some time deciding your hierarchy and other design..
even more.. good interface really give a nice final touching to your application if you ever going to show it to real people in the industry :)

i think i did quite good on my assignment.. even though i should say that definitely is not my very best.. i should have set my mind and settle a lil bit so that a better and well developed design is produced..

ops.. forget to say..
screenr, assignment forum and twitter has been a very very helpful..
thx to technology
and to POD who i think has been online and reply to questions ASAP really..

:)

My Week 5 - Google Gadgets

I know, it might be really late..
Just have a look at it again.. looks really pretty, neat, and elegant..
haha

~lalalala

Week11

ew... this week is so bad..!!
i dont want to put all of my complaints here though..

points to note:
assignment progress -- not too good
consultation with Steve -- giving me panick attack
consultation with POD -- seems not having any reply from him

lecture:
i did it online right on the next morning
think i have to come on week12 definitely.. exam help!!

thats it.. time to work harder

lecture week10

hahaha.. i did not attend the lecture last weds and feeling guilty after all..
but i manage my mood not to be so guilty so that i can keep postponing doing lecture online until just today.. lol

there are some points i really like in the lecture..
VARK is definitely a good point to make in this subject! and the last story that POD shares is my second favorite..

Im a bit sad knowing that i am not included as the VK person, despite i am an RK person.. but anyway, i dont really love pivot table, so what?
i start asking my friends the same question about buying DVD player and found out... *surprise surprise* only 1 out of 8 is a VK person.. lol.. let just say, they are a trully BI person..

The story about bar code things really interesting to me.. how could that happen? it must be not enough training provided to the users.. haha
but what, again, make me sad is that POD should have shared that story long time ago in one of my bachelor's subj (either IE or SDI), but it's just me not attending it..
sorry sorry..

anyway, got to go back to my asgm again.. feeling much better after the lecture online thing..
PS: i think POD always say 10 or 15mins break but end up having 5minutes extra.. no matter how long he says it suppose to be..

week10

woo-hoo it's week10 and i got a lot to write about here..
i think one of the reason why POD urge people to blog is that it can reflect whether or not you are trully committed to the subject.. when u really "in to it" you will definitely have a lot to write about, even though you don't feel like writing anything.. means that: i have not been committed enough these last few weeks that i don't really blog properly..

ok enough bubbling.. lets start!

i start this week by posting a tweet saying that i hate pivot tables.. regardless the assignment, i just feels like saying it.. (what a weak statement!)
all of a sudden i got a direct message from @infoholic asking if i need any help..
of course as a good student i should not say no.. and i did not say no either.. besides, i have done some major progress in my assignment and was stuck as the cube i develop can not be deployed.. so we decided to meet for some consultation at 4pm, 2hours before my tute..

coming with confidence, i told him my problem regarding my cubes, of course equipped with my file ready to be shown whenever he's ready.. But instead, @infoholic start asking me regarding my design and documentation progress (which what am i supposed to be doing for 1st assignment).. he asked me about ADAPT or Thomsen diagram which i should included in the assignment and a user manual and more and more and more, causing me major panic attack...

i quickly go and read the article regarding ADAPT diagram (i decided to use it since i can use the template available for Visio) and start sketching out my design.. Btw, the link for the visio template in moodle is not working, i have to go to google it first to get it.. I went to the tute feeling much better and shows him the dimensions and draft of the hierarchies that i might have..
fiuh.. that was a lot to think about.. again im feeling left out.. (esp with the bombastic amount of questions happening all the time in the moodle forum)

ew yeah, and the error that i got regarding the deployment of my cube.. i finally get over it.. it's just that i have to choose to use inherit instead of authentication so i dont need to put password again and again..

now, the more i talk with my classmates.. the more i feel unsecured regarding my design.. i talk to Steve a lil bit regarding this, but has not feel satisfied yet.. so... it is about the number of dimensions that we can make, and major differences between dimensions and hierarchies.. and then what hierarchies should i have in there..

i decided to finish up my design first, and thinking to email POD asking if he is available for consultation later on.. *i hope he can make it.. *

ok ok, enough for now.. let's put some thought for the design..

Week9

i skipped again, yea.. i am a bad student.. but considering how many students have Steve claimed as his stalker and how many questions might arise in these time where all of a sudden students become really active and lastly considering how many and how long can Steve handles all of those in one hour tute, so i think i am not that bad.. i am helping Steve in fact.. i should say i am a good student then..

up to this time (which supposed to be week 9, YES i am doing a week 9 blog where it suppose to be week10) i have not having any further progress regarding the assignment besides that I have read the assignment case study..
I promised myself to be a better and student, especially in time management from the following week..

what make this week different from previous one is that I did the tute exercise at uni the next day after the tute.. which makes me feels a bit better..
i got a rough, i should say really rough, idea about what the assignment is going to be..
so, once again, finger cross everything is going to be all right and done on-time..

Week8

To be honest,
i skipped the whole lecture and tutorial this week..
Has not feeling so well half of this week up till yesterday..
Really is a good timing to get sick..

Will put nothing here..! eerrrr...

I will try to catch up with the tute start of this week and also lecture..
I had a scheme through it and seems like "statistical" :)

week7

i am such a lazy ass.. been so lazy almost on every single things that i suppose to do this week..
or let me say last week, since my desktop time says 1.07 am Monday 7September'09 already..
haven't done much with the assignment.. will really start to continue doing it from tomorrow.. will quickly recap all of the other bits of information needed.. and geez, my other subj assignments as well..

now, week7 has been all about multi-dimension database.. it obviously looks big to me now.. i've start with just database basic knowledge at first.. being over confidence with taking this subject.. start feeling nervous now.. but one thing i know, POD is a real-natural-talented person in explaining stuff.. you can see from the way he put the step by step tutorial.. it is a real detail one..
i know some expert might see it as a waste of time, or too boring, or just simply too long.. (i used to think so for the studio in previous undergrad subject i took 2years ago) but i found it really helpful here...

the tutorial will be a continuing tutorial starting from this week, so we need to take care of our folder properly... and i decided to do it on desktop on the computer lab.. (trying to ignore the trouble that might arise last week when i try to save it on my personal U drive).. and save the whole folder later... so next time i will just copy the whole folder to the desktop again.. *fingercross i would never forget to copy the folder after i finish the tute for the following weeks.. cause files and folders on the comp lab desktop will automatically be swipped off once u log-out.. hahahaha

wish me luck.. for assignments as well.. =)
cheeerssss

Week 6

Intro to MDX..
Never heard bout it before but soon after i have a quick glance of this weeks tutorial I know that its going to be anything like SQL queries and stuff..
Still having the same "hot" class even though I've tried to swap around different tutorial time with Steve.. Or maybe the problem is Steve? LOL

Decided to finish my tute ASAP but stuck with the not so friendly Monash security allowance..
I did all of the steps closely, wanting not to have any error at the end.. I saved my "pivot" file on the U drive (which is suppose to be my personal drive).. Everything is good up till the end.. And when I process it, it says some weird error like "OLE DB ERROR, can not find the path" or "misspelled path" which make the whole process failed..

Decided to play around and found out lastly, something wrong with the U drive..
You can not do it through U drive.. When I change the data source and put the file in the desktop, it works PERFECTLY...

Argh.. Monash!!

Week 5 - lecture

This week coverage:
.Technology environment in developing BI apps.
.Role of data warehouse.
.Evolution of OLAP technology.

Quick summary of what I got in this week lecture:
.Technology needed by BI apps:

• intuitive access

• speed

• data from many sources

• flexible, attractive reports

.Simple BI architecture does not work

• revised with new architecture that got DATA WAREHOUSE on it

.BI and data warehouse

• BI may say "I don't need data warehouse" and vice versa

• BUT, main goal of BI: provide an easy, powerful, fast system

.Data warehouse

• may have redundancy

• well integrated

• time variant

• non-noisy data

• subject oriented

.Differences between OLAP and DW(data warehouse)

• DW is better at: Handling sparse data (?), Data volatility, Large numbers of dimensions, Large volumes of data, Development time(application evolution), Learning curve, Standards, interoperability, Data loading time (?)
  

• OLAP is better at: Calculation intensity, complexity, Handling complex drill hierarchies , Query response time, Consistency, reliability, Network impact, General ease of use for end-users, Development time (function evolution), Cost of simple deployment?
  

.DW vs OLAP

• OLAP is FAST!!

• DW deals with gathering data from multiple sources

• The rest is OLAP

.12 Codd's rules

• **Refer to lecture note**

Week5 - tute

I officially start my day in uni today @7pm for tute with Steve..
Today's tute is really really FUN!!! (letting him notice even more that I haven't come to tute last week, that i just start being so excited to play around and get the feel of pivot table)..
I did my tute up to task4 and decided to follow it up tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or the next day of the day after tomorrow.. Got enough stuff to do atm..
I was so excited that I decided to take a snapshot of it..

There was error messages comes up to me several times..

First one was my mistake in choosing the type of database that I want to make a connection to.. I just quickly choose the .mdb extension without realizing that i choose the one called "driver do Microsoft database".. I should actually choose "Microsoft access driver" that have the same extension, .mdb
One problem was solved!

Second error message was on my way doing task3 where we were asked to specify the connection to the database server.. I am sure that I have put the right server name and username + password.. So I decided to just re-do and trata... magic!! It works..
I come to Steve and he said it may be because around 30students trying to access the server at the same time that it starts to deny some access.. It does make sense!!

All problems solved!! Go to lecture..

let's hope i can catch up

i know that we are in week5 now.. but what else can i do?
i've been wondering inside my head asking should i do this blog or not?

since what POD always said, as i've been having him as my lecturer for the third time now, that "you can do it or not, but blogging is good", so i decided to do it anyway..

it's not that i disagree about blogging.. but the thing is i've been stuck with my honours preparation that i haven't put many of my spare time to do other things than for the research itself..

sounds selfish uh? nope.. now that i feel like settling down a lil bit, i'll start blogging and allocating enough time for all.. haha

i don't think i can do the week by week posts, it's going to be 5weeks back, so, i'll start with whatever i got in my mind..
as POD always do, he has succesfully impress and stimulate me right from the very first lecture..
the demo showing a business inteligince apps has keep me awake too..

i don't do much on tutorial yet, but i remember steve asking each of us about what will u buy with $5000 given to u? i said dell laptop, but i forgot the name at the time, it is adamo.. which is i wont buy if the money is not given to me for free haha..

hm.. i'll stop here and try to post regularly afterwards..