Ten Things that you will find on my site

1

Original graphics. Well, I'm not really any good at drawing, but I like to experiment with animation and colour (as, in the past, most of my lecture material has been designed using black and white copy).

2

Mostly consistent WWW pages. I've tried as much as possible to make the WWW page consistent in the use of links, colours, and other important things, but there are still a few pages that are legacy pages. 

3

No Java [Bill: Okay, the grammar of this is a bit wrong, as this list is meant to be things that you will find on my site, and not things that you won't find, but I've no more room of the Things You Won't Find page ]. I spent many months writing a Java book, and I found it a difficult chore. Thus I don't want to spend half my life writing Java code. Using Macromedia is much more fun, and creative!

4

Links to my School and University page. If you haven't noticed yet, you should be able to click on the School of Computing icon (on the left-hand side of this listing), and wherever the Napier triangle appears on its own, you should  be able to click on it and go to the Napier University home page, otherwise click here. I've included these just in case you would like to apply for one of our courses, or would like to find out about our excellent research.

5

Home buttons. You'll find a home page button on the top right-hand side of most of my WWW pages (apart from the Home page, that is).

6

Copyright notices. I don't quite understand the copyright issues relating to the WWW, but I've included them anyway. Taking material from the WWW is really just the same as photocopying from a book, thus if you use any of the material on my WWW site, please refer to it properly (especially if you're a Napier student who's doing a report for one of my modules).

7

Links to Acrobat Reader and Macromedia Flash. PDF and Flash allow for excellent mechanisms for producing content which has a consistent format. If you find that you cannot view the PDF files, then download Acrobat Reader, and if you cannot view my Flash files, then download the Macromedia Player. The WWW is an extremely open place, thus I've protected some of my material using PDF, and you may find that some of the PDF files are protected against printing 

8

My Schedule. It is often difficult for students to know if I'm busy or not, so I've included my schedule. 

9

My connection status. This link here () should tell you if I'm on-line, or not. I'll hopefully be adding a link which should show my physical location (that is, working from home, in my office, in a lab, in the pub, and so on). Perhaps in the future the WWW fill even be able to tell you the current personal status (such as in a state of hangover, stressed, and so on). I should be contactable by ICQ if I'm on-line, otherwise you can send me an email.

10

A hierarchical structure. I've tried not to just dump all the information on the Home page, thus you should find that the Home page leads to several sub-pages which then lead to the final pages with most of the information. This leads to a depth of only three pages to find all the required information. From any page you can normally go back to the Home page and find another route through my WWW site.

11

Links to the Cisco Academy. Like it or not, the Internet will totally transform Higher Education. The Cisco Academy provides an excellent model for the future of Higher Education. Here's just a few advantages over traditional teaching:

On-line study. The material is studied on-line, at the pace that the student requires (you can even follow the material using textbooks).

On-line exams. Multiple choice exams which are taken on-line, and whenever they are required.

Interactive material. Material is interactive, and is enjoyable to study. The best application of this I have seen is the Java emulator of a router, that allows students to configure routers in a software emulator and learn how to set them up. After completing this you feel much more confident when you have to configure a real router.

Hand-on practicals. It includes many 'hands-on', practical sessions with real hardware. This is something that was disappeared in many computing courses (although it is still present on some Engineering courses).

As with all Higher Education, the Academy is not without its faults (some of the multiple-choice questions are a bit vague, and some of the material does not go into much depth), but it works well and is respected in commerce and industry (especially in the USA). Cisco also allow a great deal of flexibility in integrating its material into its Regional and Local Academies.