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This section contains very important information on many different topics in no particular order.

Use of the Blackboard online system
The online program named Blackboard will not be used for communication with students except in those cases where confidentiality is required, (such as the reporting of grades to students) or the broadcasting of email messages to all students enrolled in the course.

Orientation:
All students are required to complete the online orientation.  To participate in online orientation, click on the orientation link below.

Broken Links:
Occasionally one or more of the links, which tie these online, documents together, may become broken.  If you discover a broken link, or any other problem with the online documents, please notify me as soon as possible so that I can repair the problem.

Communications via Email
If you send email to me, it is imperative that you include your name and the identification of the class in which you are enrolled (GAME2342) on the Subject line. I normally have a very large number of students in any given semester. If I have to search the rolls to identify you, I may not answer your Email.

Spam blocking software
I receive several hundred email messages every day.  Many of the messages that I receive contain viruses or worms.  Most of the rest are SPAM.

As a result, I have been forced to become very selective regarding the messages that I am willing to open and read. I can't trust that simply because a message is received from someone that I know, it is safe to open and read.  Unless something in the Subject line of the message causes me to believe that I can trust the message, I will simply delete the message without reading it.

Therefore, if you send email messages to me, your Subject line MUST be formatted as follows:

Last name, First name, GAME2342, Brief topic of message

When I see that format, I will trust that the message is safe to open and read.  Otherwise, I will assume that your message contains a virus or constitutes SPAM, and I will simply delete your message without reading it.

Therefore, if you want me to read your message, you MUST format your Subject line as shown above.

Telephone number

It is also important that you provide a telephone number where I can contact you. I receive many email messages from students with invalid return email addresses.

Questions via Email:
From time to time you may need to ask questions via email. (I prefer that you ask your questions during class so that everyone can hear the question and the answer.) If you do ask a question via email, please make the question as specific as possible.  For example, "What is OOP?" is not a question that I can easily answer via email.

If you, like many others, procrastinate and save your questions until the weekend before an exam deadline, don't be surprised if you don't get a response from me until after the exam deadline has passed. 

When appropriate, please illustrate your question with a short sample program.  When you send a sample program, please observe several important rules:

• Don't send isolated code fragments.  Send a complete program that is ready for me to paste into a file and attempt to compile.
• Make the program as simple as possible while still illustrating your question.  Eliminate all superfluous code that isn't necessary to illustrate the question.

I normally respond to student email messages within 24 hours except on the weekends.  If you send a message to me and you don't receive a response within 24 hours (allow 72 hours on weekends), make certain that your Subject line is correctly formatted and send the message again.

Help me debug my program
Please don't waste our time by asking me to help you debug your programs.  The best way to debug is to avoid errors in the first place.  Then there won't be any bugs that require attention.

If you understand the requisite programming concepts, the only bugs that you will incur will be the result of careless errors on your part.  I won't waste my time showing you how to correct for your own carelessness.

Failure to Meet Prerequisites:
Please don't ask me to teach the COSC1320 material to you.  If you don't already understand that material, it will be your responsibility to learn it, on your own, without assistance from me.

Carelessness is costly
A few semesters back, on the last Friday of the month, which was anticipated to be one of the most active trading days of the month, programmers working on a network made a careless error and shut the NASDAQ stock exchange down for several hours.  There is no way of estimating how much this cost various people around the world.

A few months later, programmers working for a telephone company made a careless programming error and swamped the 911 emergency call center in Austin with wrong numbers for several hours.  Hopefully no one died as a result, but we will never know.

Although careless errors on exam programs may not be as costly as the errors described above, they are costly nonetheless.  In fact, the cost for making a careless error on an exam program is just as costly as not knowing how to write the program in the first place.  In either case, you get no credit for the program.  So, don't be careless.

Correct Email address
I was notified on 05/10/04 that ACC will no longer forward my Email messages to my preferred Email address.  Please do not send Email messages to baldwin@austincc.edu.  Send them instead to Baldwin@DickBaldwin.com

I typically receive hundreds (occasionally thousands) of email messages each day, many of them from my students along with many spam messages.

When you send an email message to me, make absolutely certain that the Subject line contains the following information as a minimum:

• The name under which you enrolled in the course.  (For example, if you enrolled as Van Loc Nguyen, don't identify yourself as Bobby Nguyen.)
• Course number, such as  GAME2342
   (the section number isn't needed)
• The purpose of the message.  (Put this after the two items listed above.)

Include your current telephone number somewhere in the body of the message, and make it easy to find.  If my email or your email goes down, I may try to call you on the telephone.

If you don't comply with the above, don't expect me to answer your email messages.

Please Be Patient
Other than questions regarding registration, please do not send email regarding this course prior to the first day of classes.  If you do, I probably won't answer it.  A great deal of preparation is required to teach a course of this nature.  I have many responsibilities to take care of in the final days before the course begins and I do not have the time to work with individual students until after the course actually begins.  If I reach the point that I can accept email regarding this course prior to the first day of classes, I will post that fact on this bulletin board.

Computer Studies Student Information Form
The following is requested by the Computer Studies department, but is not a requirement of the course in which you are enrolled.  Whether or not you provide the following information will not be taken into account when determining your grade in the course.

If you are willing to provide this information, please compose an e-mail message containing the following information and send it to Baldwin@DickBaldwin.com

If you do provide the information, please make the subject line of your e-mail message read as follows:
Last Name, First Name, Course Number, Student Information Form

DO NOT include this information in the message that you send confirming that you have completed online orientation.  Send separate messages for those two purposes.

You should be able to copy and paste the following form into your e-mail client and then fill in the blanks.  Don't be too concerned about neatness when filling in the form.

Last Name:_____________________
First Name:_____________________
Student ID:_____________________
Course Number: IT__ ____

Telephone Numbers

Home:___________
Work:___________
Other:___________
E-mail address:_________

_________________________________________________

Reasons for taking the course:

_____Personal Interest
_____Required by degree program, which is ______________
_____Work related - please explain in comments section below
_____Recommended by ______________________________
_____Other, please explain in comments section below

_____Hours working per week
_____Number of credit hours enrolled in this semester
_____Number of computer courses completed at ACC
_____Highest degree earned

_____________________________________________________

What computer or computer related work experience do you have?

_____________________________________________________

Comments:

_____________________________________________________

Discussion during office hours
Whether you are a regular classroom student or a Distance Learning student, if you don't understand everything that you need to understand about game programming using C++, you need to be in my office talking to me about it.  Often a short explanation will get you past a roadblock.  Visit during office hours, lab periods, or any time that my office door is open.

Do not send executable attachments
If you send an email message to me and expect me to read it, DO NOT attach any executable files, even if they are encapsulated in a zip file.  This includes files with the following extensions, just to name a few:

.exe
.com
.scr
.bat
.pif
.vb

If you do send such files, my virus blocker will simply reject the message and I will never see it.

The following file extensions should be OK:

.java
.class
.htm
.html
.css
.xml
.xsl
.doc
.zip (Provided the zip file doesn't contain any executable files.)

If you find it necessary to send a questionable file for any reason, you should also send another message without an attachment notifying me that you sent the questionable file as an attachment so that I can be on the lookout for it.

Your official Email address
It is my understanding that beginning in the Fall of 2008, all ACC students have been provided an official Email address by ACC, and that address is reflected in all official ACC student records.  I have been told that you can cause messages sent to that address to be forwarded to the Email address of your choice.  You should make it point to either forward those messages, or to check your ACC email address on a daily basis.

Please be aware that when I need to send a broadcast message to all students in the course, I will send that message to your official ACC Email address. If you don't check you mail at that address, you won't get the message.

Problems with Dark GDK
I have discovered that the following functions don't display properly when called in a program running on my Windows Vista Home Premium edition operating system.

• dbCircle
• dbEllipse
• dbDot
• dbPoint

It isn't difficult to devise a workaround for the first three, but I know of no way to devise a workaround for the lack of a working dbPoint function.  Therefore, I will make certain that none of the lab projects require the use of the dbPoint function.

I have also determined that this is not a problem when running Dark GDK on the WinXP machine in my office.  However, because many of you will be using Windows Vista at home, I will still make certain that none of the lab projects require the use of the dbPoint function.

Because I don't have access to a system running Windows 7, I have no information regarding this problem and Windows 7.

• Directory, Office Hours, Syllabus, and Curriculum Vitae
• OnLine Orientation Material
• Instructor Evaluation Criteria
• Getting Started with Dark GDK
• Lab Projects
• Greenfoot

Check this area daily for messages from Professor Baldwin to all students enrolled in the class. Newer messages are posted at the end.

08/04/11 No Bulletin Board entries yet.

-end-

File: GAME2342.htm