Shell Shocked

Have you ever signed up for something and then realize when it was over that, had you known what you were signing yourself up for in advance, you would have never signed up for it in the first place?

Yeah. That's what Advanced Operating Systems at USC taught by Professor Neuman is like.

Don't get me wrong. I actually *liked* and *enjoyed* the class, even though operating systems is not my strong suit. And Professor Neuman is awesome. The running joke among a few of us is that Professor Neuman can cause a lightbulb to spontaneously light up through sheer enthusiasm and mental brilliance. He's that good.

But had I known in advance that the open book, open note final would involve two 3" binders full of papers we had to read, the actual textbook for the class, my own notes and the slides from class, I think I might have passed. Or questioned my sanity.

For future reference, if you take this course from Professor Neuman, be prepared to learn a lot about distributed operating systems. Neuman is God when it comes to this and computer security. Yes. Try taking a class from God. The brain cannot get any fuller than this, and there is no dial past 11.

If you do take this course from Professor Neuman, here is a list of the readings to pay particular attention to:

Any paper on Kerberos or Prospero.
The Cheriton and Lampson papers are especially "good for you".
Neuman's paper on Scale in Distributed Systems was nicknamed in my class "The Magic Paper". Much knowledge is to be gleaned from this. Read this paper even before you take the midterm.
The Fault Tolerance and Mach papers are "good for you" as well.

When you take the final, for God's sake please print out a copy of your reading reports. They came in handy as I didn't have to re-lookup many of my answers. Also, for the design problem, a lot of people seem to get hung up on details. The specifics of the problem description are only there to provide some context for solving it. You can't completely forsee or solve every problem this system is going to have in the 30 or so minutes you have to solve it. The point is can you get the broad strokes of the solution and convey them in a way to the grader to show that you have an understanding of the course material. Your solution doesn't have to be "right", but you do need to justify your decisions in a way that "makes sense".

Anyway, in a way I'm sad the class is over. I look forward to taking Computer Security with Neuman next Fall.

Grad School - Just What Did I Sign Myself Up For?

I know this was not going to be easy. But I'm up for challenges, and I'm up for completing goals I set for myself.

I knew in advance that I would probably have to rearrange my leisurely summer schedule to accommodate the extra reading and coding (depending on the class) I would need to do in order to complete the course requirements for this degree.

But holy crap. At least 80 pages of technical papers (not including the papers on how to read technical papers and write research papers), plus 4-5 chapters of textbook before Friday afternoon? Just what did I get myself into?

OK, at least the "Implementing Remote Procedure Calls" paper sounds like fun to read. Am I so disturbed?

I'm going to have to learn some mad speed reading skills or something to get this accomplished. Either that or just not sleep for the next 15 weeks.

If anyone out there has any hints or tips, please leave a comment. Even if it's funny. :-P

Note Organization

When I took my algorithms class last semester (Spring 2009) I bought a nice little Moleskine notebook to put my notes in. And then I proceeded to go overboard with my note-taking.
I left a few pages in the front blank, to later serve as a table of contents. As the semester wore on, I would number the pages, and then go to the contents page to put the topic of the lecture (sometimes there were two or three) and the page number you could find it on. I took it a step further when I included homework assignments and pasted in the given solutions.

As the semester progressed, I kept up with this psychotic scheme. It actually did come in handy once or twice when I was studying (cramming?) for the final. It was really nice to just look up a topic by going to the table of contents and then flip to the page where the notes were located. But I slacked on keeping up with the homeworks (they weren't mandatory). Because I have a good half of the notebook to fill, I need to paste in the remaining homework solutions into the book before the first lecture of my next class starts tomorrow night. For completeness.

Don't think I'm so crazy. I earned an A- in the class. If I hadn't been so stressed the week of finals, I definitely believe I would have earned an A.

If only the rest of my life could be so organized.