logweek5

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Learning Log
A Research Project On
Towards An Autonomous Bibliography Building Agent
By Indrashah Isa

Week Five
(3rd August 1998 - 9th August 1998)
(Web-Validator Mini-Project Week)

Daily Task / Assignment

*Day*	*Date*	*Task / Assignment*
Monday	3/8/98	Downloaded new version of Crescent VB Internet Library 4.0 from the Internet. Install it and learn how to use it, compare it with the previous 3.01 version given by Tralvex. Understanding the source codes in the sample application that I previously created for the mini-project and try to add new codes to suit the project guidelines. Maintenance of project webpage, add and try out new page count cum guest book services offered by Pagecount.Com. Add urls (index, enlightenment and project ABBA webpages) to HotBoT, Lycos and Exite. 3rd Meeting with Tralvex regarding the project development.
		3rd Minutes of Meeting	Project Development, discussion on evaluation to the three VB Internet Tool's Library (Distinct, IPWorks and Crescent). Upon evaluation, the conclusion is to ignore the three tools as there are some missing components in each tool. Furthermore the source codes that I suppose to use for the mini-project are complex due to the integration with other sources codes within a single application. Suggest to use the Microsoft VB tools instead, the tools chosen for the mini-project development is the Microsoft VB Internet Transfer Control Tools (for the FTP and HTTP). Additional tools for usage is the QuickPak VB/J++ 1.0. Given two days to practise on using those tools and evaluate them.
Tuesday	4/8/98	Practising on the usage of the two new VB Internet control tools (QuickPak VB/J++ 1.0 and the Microsoft VB Internet Transfer Control Tools. Search/read for additional tips and help on the two tools in the Internet. Read the accompanying manuals for both of the tools and understand their functions. Create two applications using Microsoft Access with additional ActiveX control from VB5 known as Microsoft Internet Transfer Control, version 5.0. The two application created are the 'Open URL Method to retrieve an HTML Page' (successful in creation) and the 'Using FTP to Retrieve a File from an FTP Site' (unsuccessful in creation). Read discussion list in a website known as 'Visual Basic Discussion' pertaining to Microsoft VB Internet Transfer Control Tool. Have a short discussion with colleague, Daniel, pertaining the mini-project and its development.
Wednesday	5/8/98	Reading additional notes on VB Internet Transfer Tool and try to work on the mini-project by using the notes as a reference. Create a main Internet project page and a project introduction page for the web documentation. Have a short discussion with colleague about the project faults and its solutions. Have a short discussion with Tralvex about the mini-project development. Talk about the faults in the mini-project created, and how to overcome those faults.
Thursday	6/8/98	Development of mini-project using Visual Basic 5.0. Constructing the file display and URL fetch function by using the VB Internet Transfer Control Tool. Fetched URL are displayed in HTML format/codes in the text-box in the program itself. Search for tips and help on VB Internet Transfer procedure on the Internet. Read publicly available mailing list on VB Internet programming. Have a short discussion sessions with colleague (Daniel) about the mini-project development and its implementation to Project ABBA.
Friday	7/8/98	Development of mini-project (WebValidator) using Visual Basic 5.0. Create a validating control use to validate the fetched webpage from the selected URL from the URL list-box. Program a control that will select and display the fetched webpage URLs for validation. Search for help in the Internet for tips on string related functions (eg. left$(), right$(), mid$(), instr().) Read notes on string related function from VB texts borrowed from the library.
Saturday	8/8/98	Company off
Sunday	9/8/98	Company off
		SINGAPORE's 1998 33rd NATIONAL DAY

Weekly Summary of Task / Assignment

The fifth week of the attachment week is known as the mini-project development week due to the creation of a small project known as ‘WebValidator’, before the big project known as Project ABBA. This mini-project deals with the creation of a program using VB5, to validate the existence of usable links in a particular fetched website. What the program does is that, it retrieves a particular website by going to the supplied URL provided by us, and upon retrieval, the program will validate those links in that website. As we all know that some links in a website/page are sometimes not usable or has been transferred out somewhere else. This program will do all that, and upon validating all those links, it will give a result regarding how many links are usable and how many are not. The statistical results will also point out which links are the unusable ones. This program is very suitable for webmasters, especially in their work of validating a particular website with many links.

Learning and usage of the Microsoft Visual Basic Internet Transfer Control Tools and the QuickPak VB/J++ 1.0.
In the learning stages of this two new tools, I search and read information on the Internet and the additional notes given by Tralvex on those new tools. I also read the publicly available discussion list on the Internet about the usage of the Microsoft Visual Basic Internet Transfer Control Tool. I also borrowed some VB5 textbooks from the library to learn more about the functions (fundamental as well as advance) of the software. Upon acquiring some information on the usage of those tools, I try them out by creating an application (e.g. fetching a website on the Internet). The QuickPak VB/J++ 1.0 tool cannot be used, as there are some missing components in it, I only use the Microsoft Visual Basic Internet Transfer Control Tool instead to create a workable application.

WebValidator, Mini-project development.
I manage to create an application that can retrieve the HTML codes of an Internet webpage and display it onto the text-box in the application that I created. The next step I’m working on is to select all links in that particular webpage and validate the links. The interface of my application is 90% done and to me I find it is very user-friendly and understandable. There are some problems encountered when doing this application, but I consulted some of the textbooks I borrowed and also from Tralvex’s advice. I also have frequent discussion sessions with Daniel in problem solving, pertaining to the mini-project development. Most of the solutions to our problem are the results of the discussion we had and also the trial and error method we apply to the mini-project.

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