Projects · 2006-06-27
I have a long list of projects, some of which are now two or three years old, that I never had enough time to finish (or in some cases start). If you are interested on working on or using any of these, send an e-mail to umdhub at gmail dot com.
There’s no profit motive here, but if you want give something to the UMD community and screw with the university a bit, some of these could be fun.
One thing I do not need is someone to run a hub, we have plans taking care of that already.
Forums
We originally conceived having forums as a way for the people on the hub to flame each other out of real-time, but now that the hub is gone, we see forums as a key way of disseminating information.
Requires: UNIX, installing and maintaining forum software and associated databases.
Pick-a-prof Replacement
Pick-a-prof is a service that allows students to see the sorts of grades professors give before registering for courses (e.g. the number of A’s, B’s, C’s,...). The service used to be free for UMD students, but now requires a small fee. I obtained all of the same information directly from the university, but I haven’t had the time to put the spreadsheets into a database and make the information accessible from the web. I want an easy to use website that allows students to search by course or professor and see graphs, much like Pick-a-prof.
Requires: SQL, PHP/Perl/Python, HTML, CSS.
Griping about the University
Don’t get me wrong, I really like the University of Maryland, but I think there a lot of things that could improve about it that don’t get publicized. Housing, food, police, students fees, parking – all things that get griped about every SGA campaign, but that always disappear soon afterwards. I happen to own the domain umdsucks.com that could be used for exactly this purpose.
Requires: HTML, CSS, sardonic wit, solid command of the English language.
Decentralized p2p
One of the many flaws behind Direct Connect was its reliance on a central hub. Removing the hub effectively shuts down the entire network.
Even IRC is only a stop-gap measure. While we can move all of the hub’s functionality to a server out of the university’s control, traffic shaping would quickly eliminate it.
One of the nice things about using Direct Connect over other decentralized networks like Gnutella was the speed and security brought by having a restricted community. I am working on a p2p system that would provide grouping for its users without a single point of failure using JXTA , a library developed by Sun. The program would provide at least the functionality that a Direct Connect hub would have, adding security and decentralization features.
Even if I don’t get any help, I’ll post updates on my progress with the program.
Requires: Java.
