This is as far as my journey at Imperial College goes. It has ended *sigh*. A huge relief as soon as I submitted the burden of dissertation. And a realization of not being a student any more (almost). Both these feelings were contradictory. I am sure not many will disagree that student life is perhaps one of the best times of life, and being at Imperial just adds to this fun.

Looking back at myself at this time in year 2008, when I came to Imperial, and comparing to what I am now going out of it, I see a world of change. I came in with the basic knowledge of electronics engineering stumbling to get a grasp of it. I am leaving now with an advanced understanding of all the fundamental concepts coupled with the knowledge of recent advances and future trends in the field.

If I am to quantify the amount of knowledge I have gained per year in life, the past year at Imperial will rank much higher than any previously. The level of confidence instilled in me, the authority I have over the moduled I have been taught and the thirst for more are all gifts of Imperial.

In these tough times of recession, I am fortunate enough to have a job offer that closely matches my course contents. I had a long interview at the company’s turf, and the way in which I managed it - answering *most* of what was thrown at me - with confidence, took ME by surprise. This, again, is accredited to Imperial College and my tutors here.

I am indebted to all my tutors, my project supervisor and my family for making this past year of my life special. I must also be thankful to Amy and Pamela for giving me a chance to express myself on this blog. I must also express gratitude to the great friends that I made here who have made my time here most memorable.

A week later, new faces will walk in those rooms where we spent some of the best times. Late nights of study to meet a deadline, preparation for exam and just sitting idly for a chat, all those will be part of the cherished memories. At about the same time, this blog will perhaps go in to archive and form part of the history. I don’t know how long it remains there. Knowing very well that I haven’t done justice to this blog by being erratic and irregular, I still hope that I have entertained at least some of the readers. I also hope that some of my posts have given prospective students a taste of what life at Imperial is like and what it demands from you as a student.

As I sign off this blog, dear reader, if you still need to contact me to get an advise on this MSc course - tips on which modules to take and which instructors to avoid - I will be glad to dispense my words of wisdom. I maintain a personal blog at http://www.anasimtiaz.com and my e-mail address is: anasimtiaz[at]gmail.com

I wish you all good luck!

*After publishing I found that my post title coincided with another fellow blogger’s post, which forced me to do this change*

In one of the interviews that I recently gave for finding a job in the ever-shrinking job market of UK, I was asked what is my greatest weakness. I was not prepared for such a question (nor was I prepared for several others). I thought for a second or two and discarded the overwhelming urge of lying in favour of speaking the truth. A few more seconds and I answered “This is a tough question…but I think my greatest weakness is getting lazy when I have plenty of time to finish some task.” It sounded good and served two purposes. First, and the one which I intended, was honesty. Second was revealed in a follow-up question which goes something like this: “Does this mean you work better under pressure?” Hell yeah, I do…and I whine too!

That was couple of weeks ago. Now, that I finished the practical part of my project and had plenty of time to write a beautiful dissertation I ended up squandering the luxury of excess time. I have my excuses of getting insufficient caffeine due to the month of Fasting, and that is valid to some extent. But just because things weren’t so tight, I decided to take a 10-day break to visit Pakistan, for Eid festival, and return just 2 days before the submission deadline. Now, this is called creating pressure. Was this necessary?

At least, this has prompted me to work 3 times more than I had been doing. I have written about 5k words in my dissertation, but the word count isn’t important and we have no limits. Its the content that matters. Oh, and just to add a cherry on top, I decided to learn LaTeX first, and then use it for the dissertation!

When I think back about that interview, it turns out that the follow-up question from the HR manager quite nicely pinpointed by strength from something that I apparently consider a weakness.

PS. The comments in the earlier posts related to admission criteria should be forwarded to the admission tutor for the subject of interest. I did forward a couple of comments to relevant personnel earlier but I cannot guarantee a reply from them. Its best to contact them directly.

Now that my practical work of project is nearing its end, the time of writing down what I’ve done and found has also come. The joy of finishing the work is killed by the mere thought of writing a dissertation. I just realised how badly I hate writing. I’m not sure what brought me in this world of blogging - perhaps whining? Anyway, I don’t even like blogging and the slow updates are enought to prove that

I will have a month or so to put in words the work of past three months. I have done enough to write a huge report, but I don’t like writing. Writing is not easy either. To present something in a way that can be understood by anyone who reads it is a daunting task indeed. To top that, technical writing is perhaps the most boring form of it. Multiple references, figures, tables, source code, details of failures and success, testing environment, etc. need to be written regularly. While working I don’t usually note down each and every thought that crosses my mind, nor do I jot down every way that I try to solve a certain problem. Similarly, certain results will also be missing because I do recall not bothering to write some findings because I was not having pen or any other means of writing (apart from keyboard) at that time. Speaking of that, I did save certain information in the computer, some on loose sheets, and some not at all. So together with the pain of writing I will also have to deal with other problems resulting from my sloppiness.

With about 37 days left I will need every possible source of support to keep me motivated in order to cross this final hurdle.

Good Luck to me!

Summer’s gone - thankfully. The temperatures have dropped down, and the sun has started shying away. The workload has also stabilised after the initial transients in the project. I know what I’m supposed to do and I am working according to a plan hoping to achieve fruitful results. But its not project that brings me to the university everyday. My social life is closely linked to my friends at Imperial and almost all of us just show up even if we don’t have real work to do. Another reason is Ethos, which I am religiously visiting everyday, fighting the urge to skip sessions.

The past week has been really good. I passed the exams - hell yeah I did! The grades aren’t released yet but it is enough to know that  I have crossed that border line! I also aced the DVLA theory test, which to be honest, would have been an utter shame had I failed it. It is really easy and straightforward. The next step is to take up some driving lessons and appear for the big test, the practical test. Also, our blogs have bagged two awards at the EduStyle Awards, that you can read more about at Maicej’s and David’s blogs.

I’m also glad that a number of prospective students are reading the blogs and askign questions. I have received a number of questions on my e-mail. I feel it would be better if people just drop in their comments here because that would be beneficial for others as well. My post on connecting the Nokia devices to Imperial WLAN has been well received too.

I’m sure you must have sensed the dryness in my life at the moment, but that’s not true exactly. The project that I’m working on is really interesting. I love doing it and I don’t mind giving up my weekends working on that stuff. But something that is really biting right now is my laziness. I just don’t know how to deal with it despite hitting the gym everyday. Any ideas? Anyone?!

I shall not begin with my usual apologies for being absent yet again from the blogosphere. I’m NOT sorry, for a change! I have been kept really busy (and happy) in the last few weeks. For once, breathing felt good! You may start wondering why am I so happy. Even if you don’t I will enlighten the reader with the happenings of the past few weeks.

Right, so after kickstarting my project and then being consumed by the cricket fever, I got back to my desk and started playing around with my toy (the microcontroller). The project work started off smoothly and life assumed a nice routine involving regular visits to gym. Everything was going well until I hit a hair-pulling obstacle in my project. Five days went by without any success. I was forced to leave it at that because my father was in town for four days. A visit to Birmingham, Coventry, Manchester and another place (forgot the name) really helped me forget about the project. I also got hold of a (yet another) new phone - yes the sleek and sexy N97. Actually its not a phone - its a multimedia computer! (I can go on and on praising the phone). Anyway, some shopping, and meeting relatives with dad on the final day before his return back home.

Reluctantly I returned to work knowing how badly I was stuck. Another few days went by without any success and just when left with no choices, suddenly, the brain worked and I realized how small the problem was - or so it looked after locating it.

The project is now on track. I am deliberately not going in to the details of it here - the interested reader may visit a dedicated page at http://project.anasimtiaz.com - If you think that I should be writing the tech stuff here then please do chip in with a comment.

I’m starting the next stage of the project where I will be working with some EEG data on epilepsy. Sounds real fun! Also, I’m scheduled for a theory test for driving license on Monday, which I think should be pretty easy.

Also, there is news that Tuesday will be the R-day —>> Results Day. After being delayed twice, no one really believes that

That ends my lovely story and I shall now return to enjoy the good time that I’m having.

Adios

All of us managed to wrap up the day’s work by 5pm and strolled in to Ethos. A cricket semi-final was not a game to be missed, under no circumstances. I gave no second thought to my plans of skipping the Spanish class despite knowing that the game could well end in my side being eliminated. Obviously, these games are given a higher priority. I watched all other games too thanks to some free online streaming, which on one incident led to the banning of my account for 48 hours. So, Ethos was the place, packed with a group of cricket lovers, mostly from Pakistani origin.

All rose in respect when the national anthem was played on the huge TV screen in the cafe area of the gym. The place was half full, at this time. The game started with a flurry of runs and the noise at Ethos echoed the position of Pakistan in the match. There was excitement, emotion and anger.

As the match progressed to its nailbiting end, the place was packed with people, all eyes glued to the screen and mouths discussing tactics and prospects - some uttering obscenities in disgust which usually resulted in a burst of laughter.

The end was delightful and a surprise winning performance from Pakistan made the day for all.

I was rightly furious when I found that a courier that I was anxiously waiting for was not delivered to me because apparently I wasn’t home when a man rang my doorbell to deliver the package. I was furious because I was in fact at home and it was impossible to miss the doorbell. The courier company should have left a note in my mailbox, which was not to be found anywhere. I called them up asking for the delivery which they promised to deliver ‘again’ on the next working day. Since I made this call on Friday, I was not in a mood to wait for two days and asked for self-collection option. Thankfully, I was able to get my package early Saturday morning. The package is shown in the picture below.

Slowly, I unpacked the box removing most of rubbish filled in to the stuff the box and finally took out the box I was looking for.

This is, as you can see, something to do with some Microcontrollers. This in fact is the development kit on which I will be working during the course of my project. It contains the debugger/programmer for the 100-pin MSP430F5xx series microcontroller which are ultra-low power, very small, and highly efficient microcontrollers from Texas Instruments.

The package came with two microcontrollers and the two pictures below can give you a good idea of the size.

Now, I kept on admiring the little chip for few minutes, but the fun part is to start playing with it. Programming is fun, and getting a desired output from a program gives a very satisfying feeling. I remember writing my Hello World program. Almost all software programming tutorials begin with a Hello World program. In the world of hardware flashing a LED is similar to Hello World in software. I also remember flashing the LED when I used a microcontroller for the first time. The remarkable thing here is that the feeling and excitement never dies down. I felt almost the same thing when I wrote Symbian Hello World few months ago, compared to what I felt when I wrote my first ever Hello World in C.

So, the first task here in this MSP430 MCU was to flash an LED. I felt excited having been able to do that successfully, after a number of failed attempts (they never work the first time!!). Out of excitement, I recorded this moment of excitement. Here is the video of the inaugration of my MSP430 MCU, and my project as well.

My last post about connecting Nokia devices to the Imperial College wireless network received some postive feedback. This post is a continuation of the HOWTO series where I will guide you through a series of steps for setting up your Imperial College (exchange mail) to be directly pushed on your Nokia devices. Ofcourse, it is better if you have unlimited data package otherwise you may be required to pay for data when not connected to a wireless hotspot. Needless to say, I’m not responsible for the costs that may be incurred

Anyway, after the pseudo-legal statements, lets begin with the game. If you have an N-series, E-series or 5800 (and many others) device, then you can easily get your Imperial College mails directly pushed on to your handset. The first step is to ensure if your device is capable or not.

• Go to Nokia Mail for Exchange website (link) and download and install the application on your phone.
• Once this is installed a folder called MfE appears in your main menu. This is shown in the snapshot below.
  
• Inside the MfE folder, there are two icons. Go to Mail for Exch…
  
• The next screen should show something similar to what is shown below.
  
• Go to Options and the select Edit Profile to show the next page of settings.
  
• Now go to Connection and enter the required settings, as shown below.
  
• Next, go to Credentials and enter the username, password and domain (IC).
  
• This completes the settings on your phone, now go to the ICT website and register your account to use ActiveSync. Click here to go to the required page.

Once registration is complete, you should begin receiving your e-mails. As usual, drop in with a comment if you run in to any problem, or if you feel like appreciating the stuff.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: APPARENTLY THE SECURITY CERTIFICATE HAS BEEN CHANGED TO Verisign G2 Class 3, SO YOU NEED TO SELECT THIS INSTEAD OF THE ONE ADVISED IN THE TUTORIAL. SEE COMMENTS FOR MORE INFO.

HOPE THAT HELPS, ADMIN.

Something that has always troubled me since my arrival at Imperial is the my inability to get my WLAN loaded Nokia device to connect to the wireless network at the college. The authentication always failed and the search on the ICT website produced no fruitful results. The ICT does provide very detailed instructions for setting it up on the likes of iPhone but nothing for a Symbian device. The thought continued to bother me, more so while studying in the library for the exams and that was perhaps the best possible time to do everything else than study.

One fine day, after getting my new Nokia 5800 XM I spent about 2 hours and finally succeeded in connecting to the network. Here I’m giving all the detailed instructions of doing so, which saves a lot of time and gives more to do sitting in a boring class

Note that this is a lengthy process, so follow the steps carefully. This works equally well on other WLAN featuring devices such as N95. Obviously, you need to be in the range of the network to get this to wrok

1. In the main menu of the Nokia device, go to Settings >> Connectivity >> Destinations.
   
2. Select Access Point (add new acc. pt.)
   
3. Select Wireless LAN
   
4. From the list of networks, select Imperial-WPA
   
5. Go back, and select Internet from the Destinations menu (the one you get after Step 1). A list of your access points is shown.
   
   
6. Select Imperial-WPA, click Options and select Edit.
   
7. The next page contains a range of settings most of which will stay as they appear. Check that it has the following options selected.
   
   
8. Double tap on WLAN security settings and check that the page shows the following.
   
9. Now again double tap EAP plug-in settings, and enable EAP-PEAP while disabling all other EAP options. It should appear like this:
   
10. Select Options for EAP-PEAP, and then Edit.
11. The next screen is where you enter your college username (enter your OWN username), and also ensure the settings are the same as shown below. The two screenshots here show the complete settings. Make sure you select the right Authority Certificate (VeriSign Class 3 Public).
    
    
12. If you just look at the top right corner of your screen, there is a small arrow pointing to the tab of next settings page. Click or tap that arrow (right button on non-touch devices). The next page shows another set of EAPs as shown below. Select (and enable) only EAP-MSCHAPv2 and disable others.
    
13. Go to Options for EAP-MSCHAPv2 and click Edit (or simply double click on EAP-MSCHAPv2). The new page shows the option to enter username (again!) and the password.
    
14. That’s it. All done! Select back as many times to get to the main connectivity screen. Go to Wireless LAN (on Settings >> Connectivity), select Imperial-WPA and hit connect.
    

Doesn’t take very long really once you know what to do. If you run into any trouble, drop in a comment and I’ll try to help out. I think the ICT guys may like this so I will try to ask them to put it up too.

The next HOWTO in this series of staying well connected will about getting your @imperial.ac.uk mails pushed on the Nokia devices. Obviously, if you’re connected you need to have the e-mails too!

Have fu, and enjoy the mobility!

P.S. I don’t know how to get this through to ICT so if anyone has a direct address of ICT guys, just forward ‘em the link.

It’s Sunday night and as I bid farewell to this interesting week of ups and downs (in a sinusoidal fashion) I thought I’d just summarize it here on the blog as well. I mentioned in the last post about the start of Spanish classes, which I was looking forward to, perhaps to inject some discipline in my erratic post-exam life. The classes have begun, and I must say, apart from being hard, learning a language is really fun. The improvisations to churn out a legible sentence, juggling up words and verbs and pronouncing the “rolled-R” (errrrrrrr) is quite fascinating.

Also, I managed to start working on my project, which is mostly reading about stuff. The pace has been slow, but nonetheless, progress is what counts. A commenter asked for the project details which I shall post up soon. In fact, I worked last for three days to make a simple web space to keep track of my project. I will post the link as soon as I finalize it, and that will contain everything about the project, from details to daily progress.

Web development remained one of my top priorities throughout the week as I continued to work on my personal web (and blog), tweaking the designs, and implementing everything that I dreamt about during the exam preparation. Honestly, most creative ideas spring out at such times (when they are NOT required :D).

I’m still undecided on my vacation and home trip plans and this is something that’s bothering me. I really feel the need to take a break, but travelling for eight hours and then a return trip within few days doesn’t sound like a relaxing break to me. Its more like torture in the sky. So unless I have enough days to spare, I don’t think I will be able to go back home and it is pretty sad

Oh, and by the way, I’ve been neglecting the blog quite a lot lately (although this particular is getting most of my attention so you can imagine how others are being treated), but due to a comment by Zafer, I won the blogging incentive of this month So a big hand for Zafer *claps*

The weather is strange - it’s hot! There’s plenty of sunshine, but for some reason I feel that the burning sensation of sun is much stronger here than that at home. It may be the result of experiencing this high temperature after a break, but really temps above 20C doesn’t attract me - I’m not liking it!!! I spent the Saturday at Hyde Park where most of the people were enjoying the sun, and poor me trying to sit under the shade of a huge tree. I had KFC for the first time here on Saturday, since they have put some branches on halal trial. I never liked KFC back home, nor did I enjoy it here. Those guys really need to improve:D

Finally, I applied for a provisional driving license and as soon as I am getting it, I’m gonna take the real test and hit the road (ofcourse I will pass in the first attempt!!).

Looking back, the week was quite good, but I’m anticipating the next one to be even better. Will keep you guys posted.

Adios!