Week 29

This week was spent with, what else, EDSmart. Kimber needed to have the data entered into the database retrieved back out for reports. As Ross is out to attend his son's wedding (congratulations to him), so I did the best I could to figure out the data she needed. Considering the lack of organization with the old tables, and the fact that data for the same thing seems to be stored in multiple places, it was a difficult endeavor, suffice it to say. Mostly it was data for specific terms formative evaluation for MAT and Teaching Ed programs. There also were numerous students that should never have been in the database, so I also attempted to remove all the data associated with them.

One problem that we ran into with the Teaching Ed data was the score values listed in the database. There was a range from -1 to 5, but the paper forms only list an available range from -1 to 4. I, unfortunately, cannot assume where the extra option came from, or where it should be mapped to. Considering Ross has dealt with this data before, hopefully he can shed some light on the discrepancy when he returns.

I'm sure this is just a scratch on the surface of the problems we will face when we attempt to convert the old data to the new database system Ross and I are trying to build.

I also watch a webinar on Nmap Thursday evening. It went fast, so I'll be re-watching it later to understand everything in more detail. I'm also scheduled for the Cross-Site Request Forgery webinar on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 at 11:00 AM PDT. That should be very interesting. It's put on by WhiteHat Security who provide a comprehensive solution to the growing problem of website security.

I received a new top priority project today dealing with policy change, specifically dealing with the Acceptable Use Policy. Now, rather than requiring the users to agree to the policy once, they will be required to agree every year. This will require not only policy change, but mods to LDAP, possibly the oracle database, and also AD accounts. I've been thinking about at least the LDAP and oracle changes that can be made, and hopefully this project will go smoothly (and fast), as the deadline for completion is August 15.