|
|
ENC3246 Communication for Engineers
-
Technology has pushed us to provide information quickly.
- Today you have emails that replace memos. Instead of receiving a memo through “snail mail” you get an email in memo format.
- People are able to communicate immediately with instant messaging. Unfortunately, with these forums you have a tendency to not be concerned with spelling and grammar leading to bad habits that spill over when you try to write documents for other venues.
- Software tools exist to replace writing status reports. However, you still need to write the status information inside the tool.
- Information is easily shared for communication and collaboration by sites such as the wikis and sharepoints.
Sometimes you don’t even realize how much writing you’re actually doing, because of all the new ways we are communicating. You’re probably writing much more than you did before and don’t realize it, because the writing does not appear to be readily apparent.
The writing process is getting easier because of technology, instead of writing on paper and having to start over when you want to make a change you’re able to quickly revise your work by using tools. The process of being able to instantly spell-check your work or revise your documents get easier and easier with the advances of technology. In the future, people will probably talk into a computer and software will automatically check your document for grammar and spelling. Possibly, another software process will automatically take your document through an activity to verify that the content is in a logical state. But ultimately the author will always need to have good writing skills, because the author has the responsibility for the finished document not the computer.
|
-
My writing discipline has changed as a result of this class. My research process is one, before I did not do much validation on sources that I found on the internet. Now, after finding information on the internet I also perform research on the author. I find many times that articles are written by authors who may not have the credibility as an expert on the subject they are writing about. If the web information does not appear to be from a reliable source or the author is not an expert in the field they are discussing then I do not use that information as reference material. So I have found that my research process takes much longer, but at least I know I am using information from viable sources.
I have also found that I tend to procrastinate on writing because I am over thinking what I should write about. So now, I try to put down a written rough draft of my thoughts and later attempt to clean it up. Usually, I need to have time away from the document I’m writing. This process allows me to read the document with “fresh eyes”, and I’m able to catch some of my writing mistakes.
The concept of being able to use video and audio in my writing is thrilling. This is great because you’re able to make your document more alive and exciting to the reader. Although I have only used illustrations within my documents I will keep in mind the possibility of introducing video and audio to grab my readers’ attention.
Through it all I believe I have improved my writing skills and will continue to improve, for I am a work in progress.
|
-
At creativecommons.org they illustrate the usability guidelines with pictures and text. They supply a small familiar icon with text to guide you through the web page; for example a camera icon will represent the images category. When you click on either the icon or text that web page appears. It is very intuitive, and easy to use, because each web page has a similar layout. If you are looking for images, you simply click on the images text link or the camera and the images web page is displayed. This same process works for the all the other categories including audio, video, text and education.
It’s easy to search for an image, or any other creative piece of work. Just type in a description of what you’re looking for and click on “Search”; a page with all the available images will be displayed to you at a new web page.
I thought this site was great, very useful and easy to use and recommend it to anyone needing material for projects. Thanks for the tip!
|
-
I frequently visit http://www.russtoolshed.net/ and check out the blogs he has listed to see the new and upcoming events. It’s a great blog site to visit when you’re in the Information Technology field and your main development environment is the Microsoft platform. At this site you will get the updates on meeting events and new releases of software. The meeting events are really a great way to do some networking. You meet other professionals at these events and sometimes there are new faces and sometimes there people you had worked with in the past. The meetings are a good way to get some hands on tips on how to make something work with the new code release or new technology.
Recently, I attended one of the tech ed seminars that they had at the Tampa Microsoft Office. It turned out to be a big success for myself and my co-workers. We were able to get some information from the meeting to help us solve a problem we encountered at work. The tip saved us a lot of time and helped us to release and implement our system on-time. Our bosses were happy and our users were happy and we were happy. When we attended the seminar, we really were not expecting much, we expected to see new technology on something we probably wouldn’t get to use very soon. So we were ecstatic when we were instructed on something that would help us when we went back to the office.
|
-
Have you ever heard of working styles? It’s a process were people are categorized into 4 types of groups: amiable, analyst, driver, expressionist. The study tells you that if you’re:
- an amiable type of person you like to be spoken to before you’re given a task;
- a driver type of person likes to start working and does not appreciate any of the social formalities, like saying “hello” or “how are you”;
- an expressionist is a mixture of the amiable and the driver and likes to get people excited about what they are trying to accomplish;
- an analyst tends to procrastinate with their task, they over-think what they need to do, they must be given a deadline of when a task is expected to be completed.
It’s an interesting process to find out what type of working style you have, and it’s possible that your working style differ completely than your personal style.
The study to determine what kind of working style you have will also let you know which styles do not work together well. An example is that an amiable type working style does not like to work with a driver, because drivers do not like the social formalities and they like to get directly to work. Actually, drivers are considered the hardest style to work with. People also have a tendency to appreciate working with expressionist, because not only do they have the social formalities in place but they have a way with making the work more exciting. An analyst and a driver can have a hard time working together, because the driver just wants to get the work completed and the analyst want to make certain that the work is perfect. If you have more interest in finding out about working styles there’s a tone of information available, you can also find more information at this link: http://www.oaklandcc.edu/careerfocus/Spring2003/S03_3.htm.
|
-
The following is additional information I have discovered during my research on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). I decided to do another blog on the topic, because this is part of what I do on a day-to-day basis. I have limited this discussion to Web Services Description Language. The following has been stated in Understanding SOA with Web Services by Eric Newcomer and Greg Lomow.
“The most common (but not only) form of SOA is that of Web services, in which (1) service interfaces are described using Web Services Description Language (WSDL), (2) payload is transmitted using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) over Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and optionally (3) Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) is used as the directory service [4].
XML (eXtended Markup Language) is currently the most common format for message payload within SOAs.
As communications protocols and message formats are standardized in the web community, it becomes increasingly possible and important to be able to describe the communications in some structured way. WSDL addresses this need by defining an XML grammar for describing network services as collections of communication endpoints capable of exchanging messages. WSDL service definitions provide documentation for distributed systems and serve as a recipe for automating the details involved in applications communication.
A WSDL document defines services as collections of network endpoints, or ports. In WSDL, the abstract definition of endpoints and messages is separated from their concrete network deployment or data format bindings. This allows the reuse of abstract definitions: messages, which are abstract descriptions of the data being exchanged, and port types which are abstract collections of operations. The concrete protocol and data format specifications for a particular port type constitute a reusable binding. A port is defined by associating a network address with a reusable binding, and a collection of ports define a service. Hence, a WSDL document uses the following elements in the definition of network services:
- Types– a container for data type definitions using some type system (such as XSD).
- Message– an abstract, typed definition of the data being communicated.
- Operation– an abstract description of an action supported by the service.
- Port Type–an abstract set of operations supported by one or more endpoints.
- Binding– a concrete protocol and data format specification for a particular port type.
- Port– a single endpoint defined as a combination of a binding and a network address.
- Service– a collection of related endpoints.
WSDL does not introduce a new type definition language. WSDL recognizes the need for rich type systems for describing message formats, and supports the XML Schemas specification (XSD) and WSDL allows using other type definition languages via extensibility.”
This book is an excellent source of information about SOA.
“Eric Newcomer is IONA’s CTO, www.iona.com/newcomer, and he also authored Understanding Web Services which was the winner of Software Development Magazine’e Jolt Productivity Award and the receipient of the 2003 Web Services Journal/XML Journal Readers’ Choice Award for Best Web Services Book.” [Understanding SOA with Web Services]
“Greg Lomow, Ph.D., senior manager and consultant at Bearing Point, and has many years of experience as an enterprise architect solving complex business problems using SOA and object technologies.” [Understanding SOA with Web Services]
|
-
The annotation written by Brandy Reinert on Industrial Engineering Simulation Annotation (http://writingwiki.org/default.aspx/CommunicationforEngineers/A.html) provides enough information for understanding what DES, Discrete Event Simulation implies.
Brandy supplies the purpose of the DES process: “to allow the Industrial Engineer to be brought into the design process as a true systems integrator”. Engineers are part of a design and not only there to find a solution to a problem.
Brandy covers the downfalls of using this process one of them being more time spent on the gathering phase. Also she identifies the great rewards an engineer’s project receives by using this procedure and how important the process is to Industrial Engineering. One of the rewards is being able to complete a project with less expense than the past methodology permitted. She explores how this methodology is changing the way engineers must approach their projects. Engineers are required to keep up with the ever changing computer technologies. Computer technologies have become an integral tool of an Engineer. She provides information on the authors’ background and why you should read this article. The authors’ have experience with companies including DaimlerChrysler Corporation to The Boeing Company. The knowledge provided from knowing the authors’ background provides more credibility to the article.
I found Brandy’s annotation to be concise and by reading it you want to learn more about the “Simulation Process”.
|
-
I found exploring the rhetoric artwork of Dan Mccarthy very interesting, I believe his theme is representing the cycle of life. To me he is trying to represent a harmony between the present and the past.
“3 of hearts”
The harmony of life, represented with the hearts.
“Photosynthesis”
Plants are nourished from the soil, sun, and water. The dinosaurs and us are the soil that nourishes the plants.
“Second Chance”
Dinosaurs rule the world in the future?
“Untitled”
We are ghost of our existence.
“Taking”
We are the soil that nourishes the plants and animals.
“Sowing”
We die alone.
“Memories”
We blew up the plant and now no one is left living?
I was still not certain about the messages he is trying to convey. Did man kill the dinosaurs? In the future, will dinosaurs exist without us? I think I need more time to study this artwork. http://writingwiki.org/default.aspx/WritingWiki/Dan%20Mccarthy%20Artwork.html
|
-
The chapter on Collaborative Writing in the MIT Guide to Science & Engineering
Communication – Second Edition discusses strategies on how to create a
document as a team effort. It elaborates on the pitfalls of working on a document
as a group when there is a lack of communication. “Collaborative writing fails
most often when there are misunderstandings over problem definition, research
procedure, writing responsibilities, scheduling, and manuscript reviews.” [1] It
provides strategies and guidelines to follow to avoid the pitfalls when working on
a document as a group.
The chapter on Reports in the MIT Guide to Science & Engineering
Communication – Second Edition discusses in detail the various sections your
document should contain. It concentrates on creating reports for the field of
science and engineering. “In science and engineering literature, the term report
describes a document that presents results.”[1] “The formal, final report contains
some of the familiar elements of proposals and progress reports, but the
emphasis is always different.”[1] It goes into detail on the different reports that
are created and how reports remain a writing continuum. The chapter on
“Reports” illustrates a standard report format, “Technical Report Format” Figure
13.1, and takes you step-by-step through each section of the report format:
including Front Matter, Body of Report, and Appendixes. Also, the chapter
provides examples for the “Recommendation Report Format” Figure 13.7 and the
“Environmental Impact Report Format” Figure 13.8. The chapter provides you
recommendations and examples on how to create a well written report.
References
[1] James G. Paradis and Muriel L. Zimmerman, the MIT Guide to Science &
Engineering Communication – Second Edition. ,Second ed.Cambridge,
Massachusetts, London England: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002.
|
-
Using the USF Research Database I was able to find more information on SOA using the IEEE Xplore Database. I chose this database as instructed by the professor; however it was not easily apparent to me that this was the database I needed to research SOA. Once I knew the database to use, I found many articles related to SOA. To find information on SOA I had to enter the full name into the search field in order to retrieve the information on Service-Oriented Architecture. Overall, I found the USF Research Database easy to use and a good tool to research information.
SOA, Service-Oriented Architecture, is being pushed by many corporations and businesses today. SOA is a "software development based on well abstracted services".[1] SOA allows the reuse of existing components and provides a flexible implementation enabling a good rate on investment and making it a cost effective solutions for businesses to implement.
References
[1] N. N. Kulkarni, K. M. S. Kumar, S. Padmanabhuni and Software Engineering and Technology Labs, Infosys Technologies Ltd., Bangalore, India., "Reckoning Legislative Compliances with Service Oriented Architecture A Proposed Approach," This paper appears in: Services Computing, 2005 IEEE International Conference on
Publication Date: 11-15 July 2005
Volume: 1, On page(s): 16- 23
ISBN: 0-7695-2408-7
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/SCC.2005.77
Posted online: 2005-11-14 10:13:05.0
|
-
Blogs have become a new way of communication for professionals to keep in contact with their peers. Computer professionals involved with software development have used blogs as vehicle to informally provide information about their personal and professional life, marking achievements they have made in their field. Blogs have also become another means to: advertise events, promoting seminars, promoting classes and products that are directly related to the owner of the blog’s site. Blogs have also become a new way of sharing information on how to solve a “coding” problem or discuss a known or unknown “bug” issue found in software package. Blogs often provide examples on how to accomplish a task or provide new “code” examples that can solve a routine task. Some blog sites I frequent that are related to software development are: http://www.russtoolshed.net, and http://www.devfish.net/DFBlog.aspx.
|
-
|
|
|