For this course it is best to be able to take notes in some sort of graphic utility in order to draw all the pictures he puts up on the board. Of course, if you’re not used to such a program, then obviously a good ol piece of pen and paper will do just fine too. However, I take all my notes in Microsoft’s OneNote™. If you want a copy of these notes, you can get them here. Otherwise I’ll make several posts of these notes as I upload them.

The topics however will be as follows:
- Basic Concepts of Database Systems
- Databases
- Design of a Simple Database
- Identifying Identities and Relationships
- The Entity-Relationship Database Model
- Integrity Constraints
- Quantifiers in Predicate Calculus
- Views in Relational Systems
- Deductive Databases
- Deductive View
- Relational Database Design
- File Structures

One of the curses of the CSA department is the infamous Database Systems course- CSA 385. Taught by, and only taught by, Dr. Yuksel Uckan, this class is the absolute definition of hell. As of taking this class this semester, I am proud to say that my extensive knowledge and experience of utilizing databases in a web and business environment was absolutely useless. (more…)

CSA 385 Notes. More basic database concepts and definitions. (more…)

We were given sample exams to study from which differed quite a bit from our actual midterm and final. The midterm exam is included but the final is not. (more…)

Handouts and solutions… (more…)

Here are the exercises and their solutions. Be mindful that this is for educational purposes only. I am not including these that, if for some reason they should be reused in future courses, that they may be freely copied and distributed. (more…)

Along with the rest of the course documents for CSA 278, here are the powerpoint lectures. (more…)

I’ve uploaded all the assignments we had for Computer Architecture (CSA 278). They are available on my public server as well: Assignments. Continue reading this article for brief descriptions of each assignment. (more…)

This semester I also took Computer Architecture (CSA 278) with Dr. Dhananjai M. Rao. Attending classes regularly can be rough if you’re not fascinated by the material, but he does make entertaining jokes and goes off on a lot of tangents. Plus almost completely goes over handouts before you turn them in for easy points. Definitely do all the handouts and assignments as they will really help your grade.

Anyway, I’ve copied the “tentative schedule” from blackboard. The schedule was pretty well kept throughout the semester and it’s not real important, but I’ve included it more to follow along with uploaded assignments and handouts than anything else. (more…)

Over break I’ll be uploading assignments and writing posts about my courses this semester. A minor effort to start cataloging my work and putting some of my time to good use. There’ll be notes, past assignments, programs and whatever else I’ve written and created. It’ll be fun, and maybe I’ll learn some of the things I was supposed to learn in class.