Jan 27, 2008
Abandon ID Idea
Recently, Mike and I agreed on giving up in student ID idea on Friday after our class. We considered that focusing in the fingerprint idea would be better. There are several statements as to why we decided this. First of all, it seems that we are not progressing. We have to wait to get permission, knock on doors, get shut down, and open new doors. It seems like a never ending cycle. We all want to get hands on design and actually start building something or at least get the basic principles of our project. We still are not able to do this because we didn’t know if we were going to be able to use the student IDs or not. Hopefully, as we change route to the fingerprint idea, everything is going to fall in its right place, and we will be able to start the actual design and implementation of the software and hardware we are going to use such as: the fingerprint scanner, database, which Eric is in the process of giving it to us, and the actual requirements of our project.
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2nd journal
Throughout this week, we finally agreed in finally giving up the project and concentrate in the fingerprint idea. The bad things about the fingerprint are: can be easily manipulated, recognition, and price of a good scanner. Most scanner we saw online were in the range of 60 to 150 dollars, but when we met with Matt, he stated that they way more than that. Matt also said that he might meet with a higher up guy in the IUIE, who might gives permission to use the student ID in our project. At this moment we are tired of waiting for people to let us use us the student’s information. We have to wait to see if Matt can convince the guy, but now we should just switch roads and concentrate in the interface of our project. The plan for this week is to have a functional website with access to CAS.
We decided to go back to the ID swipe while still being caught in the fingerprint idea. Matt suggested that he was going to convince some people, so that they could give us access to using student’s ID number. Since our last meeting, Matt didn’t have any news about the subject.
Michael decided to go ahead and order a card reader, so we can know what information holds the magnetic stripe. This hardware will probably take a week or so to arrive. For the time being, we decided to make a survey to see what people think of the fingerprint and the student ID. We are also working into an interface using C#, so that we can have it up and running the whole time without having to install python and all the modules it might need. We also find it more useful since we can connect to the database through the same interface.
At this point, we feel that we should of just bought a magnetic stripe reader and cut through all the stuff that we went through like meeting with people to get permission to use the student ID information. I just hope that we don’t back up again for some simple reason.
Thoughout this week, we have concentrating in asking people about what they would like to see when they used the automated printing schedule at the bookstore. We formulated a questioner using a website named I believe “monkey” or something like that. A good number of people answered to our questions. We also worked in the development of a user interface, sort of a high fidelity prototype, using .net. Still, we are undecided about using .net to do our project or python. To me, it doesn’t really matter which way we go. My other two team mates are kind of familiar with python, and I sort of understand C#. Everything comes down to what it is easier to use. I haven’t developed high programs with C#, but I know that they do have done a project involving databases using python. By this week, I am sure we will able to figure out what to use, and actually use the ID swipe hardware that we got, which we found out what information contains the student ID in the magnetic stripe. Now it just about what language to use, and get the project done, so we can move to the next face or our project.
All this week we have been concentrating in researching ways to implement python to do our project. First, we want python to recognize the USB of the hardware. Then, we have to make sure that the same information we get with the card reader software also works with python. We have to also be able to retrieve the university ID number and linking the number to the tables. Oh, we cannot forget that we need to make it print with the right course and books required. This week, we were able to get the CAS working. Hopefully, we will also have the table that links both of the tables also done. If we do by the beginning of this week, we will be on the way to finishing the project faster. I don’t believe that python will be hard to implement what we want to do with it. It will be a matter of doing some in depth research, but we will get it done. At least that is what we wish for.
Through this week, we managed to create a CAS login and have a query that returns back the information that we need from the two actual tables that are at the database. The only problem now is to install python, so that it will recognize the HID of the card reader. So we can get the university ID number, but apparently, this will not work. We tried over Thursday and Friday, but it does not seem to recognize python. I guess we will have to switch to visual studio as soon as possible, so we can finish the project successfully on time. The problem is that none of us have done .net before, but it shouldn’t be a problem. I guess we will just have to figure it somehow. The good thing about that is that we already have a simple prototype that we can work off from.
We tried to install python to recognize the magnetic stripe reader but we didn't have any look. Apparently, python doesn't want to give us a break. We have been working in a standard, low tech page that could be used as the main page in the kios, but still not sure of using it. This page source can be find in the books folder in spock.
After spring break, we have taken a drastic turn to C# and developing a program to recognize the stripe reader, but still we don't have any luck. I tried working over spring break in having C# recognize the reader, but I didn't have any luck. I found a couple of programs on the net that would allow us to at least recognize the hardware, but we still needed the product ID and company ID, which I tried to find in the company's webpage, but it didn't work. I didn't have the paper for when we bought the product, so that made even harder to find such information. Hopefully, we will be able to recognize the product since the dead line is approaching.
Well, finally we were able to get C# to recognize the card reader. All this is thanks to the help of Dr. Groth for taking time in trying to help us. Since C# recognized the card reader we have been able to have the program read the student ID string and linking it to a page to a php webpage. PHP is used to run a query which will return the books required for that specific ID number. We got to print through javascript, but we can't get it to go back to the original interface. Apparently, there are functions that allow us to print through C# and I have extensively researched them this couple of days, but I can't find the door. I did find something useful to get it to the original page, but we still have to tweak with it
After a few days of researching and trying different things so that everytime the user swipes the card works, appears to work. At least that is what I think. I tried in my computer, but I don't have the magnetic stripe reader. I just modified the text file and the program did detected that there was a change in the file, so I made it take the third line since it contains the student ID number and insert it in URL that will direct that particular user and print its document. I tried several times, modifying the data and allowing it to print. Now, we just have to test it to make sure it works with the magnetic stripe reader. Also, we have been trying to figure out how to automatically print without the approval box that shows. Hopefully, this will not take too long. Finally, we are thinking about printing the other classes that do not show an order for books required. We have also been working in the poster and minor requirements.
we managed to have visual studio recognize the card reader.......the only problem at this time is that it prints one time the first time you swipe ID and then two times the next time you swipe again. If we continue swiping the program will keep on printing adding a page every time you swipe ID. Hopefully, we will have this issue resolved as soon as possible. The best way, which I had proposed was to open a new web browser every time the ID is swiped, we are stilling working in trying to do this. It sounds easier said than done. Also, we would like to thank Professor Groth for helping us several times debug the Visual Studio program.
Aside from figuring out why the program keeps on printing one then two...etc, we have been working with php to show the classes that didn't place an order. We thought that students would like to know what sections or what classes didn't place an order, so they would not have to ask the workers at the bookstore why they can't find the books for a given class. At this point, php shows the classes that placed an order for the class in a table, so another table underneath that one, it will show the ones that didn't placed an order. Also, we still have to open a new browser every time someone would like to use the login button instead of swiping ID because the browser stays open, so we have to make sure that the main screen appears again after they had login.
Finally, we got Visual Studio to print only once when they swipe ID instead of more times. Also, we conducted a User Testing, so that we can gather more information as to what they think about our project and what they would like to see print out. Since we were only printing out the required courses for the user, we decided to also show their section numbers that they are registered for. This way they would know that the other courses didn't place an order for books.
Basically we are done with all the coding and our main project is done. Any student can now go and swipe their ID to get a print of the books required for that semester. We still have to work in the other parts of the project such as the paper, doing the video that explains how our project works, and presenting our poster at the Capstone Career Fair. Hopefully, everything will go well and the our program will not crash or give us any type of errors.
The Capstone Fair went as planned. We didn't have any type of errors or confusion when we were setting up our kiosk prototype. A lot of people liked the project as well as the implementation of it at the bookstore. The only problem we had was that we didn't put too much attention when we were printing out the students information. We were showing the url. Since we are using a simple php encoding, they can easily go in the url and type some random student ID number and they will get the books required for that specific person. Of course, this is nothing to worry about since we are only printing out the person's first name and the books required for him/her.
I know this is just a simple application to the bookstore, but I don't think that it is right for them to just take us out of the system without any notification since we were going to change the php file, so it didn't print the url. This just creates more confusion because we have to email Eric to take it down for us. A simple notification that we are not going to have access to the server would be just enough. The good thing is that we finished the project successfully.
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