Computer Science
University of Idaho

Last Updated April 28, 2006

Fall 2005 Projects

Project Title: Black List / White List E-mail System

Team 36 Developers:  Ben Casbon,  Shahzada Hashmi,  Matt Hibler,  Neil Nguyen

Weekly Team Meeting:   Thursday 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM Pacific in JEB 324

Description: This project is to develop a combination white list / black list e-mail system to help eliminate spam.  Although this idea is far from original, there are very few systems out there that carry out this paradigm.  The ultimate idea is to only receive email from people on the white list but at the same time not miss any important email from someone who currently is not on the white list. Development will be for the Linux platform and will likely use MySQL, Apache, and Sendmail with implementation in C++, Python, and PHP.

Project Title: Center Pivot Irrigation System

Team 37 Developers: John Brunsfeld, Jeff Holbrook, Laura Marshall, Brian Rucks, Jason Stevens

Weekly Team Meeting:   Project review Tuesday 10:45 AM to 11:30 PM Pacific in JEB 324
                                        Sponsor meetings Tuesday 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM Pacific in JEB 324 as required

Description: This project will build a system that provides a well-designed interface for a farmer tomonitor and control a center pivot irrigation system.  Existing variable-rate irrigation control technology will be enhanced by improving accessibility and ease of use.  This enhancement will be achieved by developing (1) a web-based interface that is accessible from anywhere in the world, (2) a data collection and reporting functionality that will provide information relevant to the field that will allow the user to make better decisions regarding the control of the variable-rate irrigation system, and (3)  incorporating video surveillance that allows the user to remotely monitor the field.  This collection of enhancements will be incorporated into a single integrated solution, called CPIS.

Project Title: IDL-OSD Visualization Tool

Team 38 Developers: James Elgee, Dan Feldhusen, Karen Marshall, Ranjay Shrestha, Mark Stacey

Weekly Team Meeting:  Thursday 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM Pacific in JEB 324

Description:  Areas of the HP LaserJet firmware operate using a client / server model.  The server publishes a series of interfaces (“lollipops”) that a client is free to use.  These interfaces are described by the set of interface methods and data the methods operate on.  Interface methods are described in a series of IDL files.  These files look very much like C / C++ code.  They adhere to most (all?) industry standards for IDL syntax.  Data is defined in a series of OSD files.  These files contain XML.  The XML schema carries with it names for the data attributes, data types, valid ranges, etc.

The issue we face is many people tasked with testing the server do not have the experience reading IDL or deciphering XML.  These people are frustrated putting together a human-oriented picture of the interface, knowing what is available, and most importantly, knowing how to use the interface.  The goal of this project is to develop a tool that can interpret and transform the code into a human readable document – HTML and/or Microsoft Word – with or without comments.  As one example, perhaps a list of interface methods is provided to the reader.  Each argument to an interface method is clickable by the user, upon which a more detailed description of the argument is provided, complete with data type, ranges, etc.  In this manner the user “navigates” the interface in order to understand what’s available and how to use it.  It’s not textual comments that help with comprehension but the ability to see a high-level, simple, view of an interface combined with the ability to dive deep on a particular aspect of the interface being viewed.

Fall 2005 Project Effort Data