Raji Kannah

Week 2:

This week my mentor gave me a couple of hours lecture (crash course) about networking. She explained nicely about the functions of layers. It was really interesting and very useful for me. Wednesday, I started GUI program by using Net Beans.NetBeans is an excellent Integrated Development System(IDE) for editing , compiling and running Java programs and also works on multi platform.. since I have to try different design; I thought that would be a good choice.

Usually I walk from my place to the University. Biking and skateboarding are the busy activities for students in UCSB. Thursday I got a cycle and started riding to the University. I am enjoying the bicycle ride. Overall, this week is more progressive week for me.

Week 3:

Monday began with our regular meeting schedule. We discussed briefly about my work. Tuesday, my mentor saw my initial work and told me that I did a good job! I am enjoying my work as well as learning how to implement each event handler code in Java. Wednesday I visited the pier in Santa Barbara downtown. It was more fun with Independence Day activities such as concert, fireworks, crowd cheerings, local outdoor mall etc. It was one of the memorable days in Santa Barbara.Also this weekend,Dhivya and I went to Santa Barbara Zoo which is located near the east side beach. It was small zoo though, but the location and animals were great there. Look at the Gorilla picture on your leftside. I came to know from Elizabeth, that generally animals sleep 16 hours a day. No wonder, I got this picture in the Zoo!!

Week 4:

Still I am working with my GUI, where to place sniffer, AP etc. End of this week, I figured it out how to read, redirect the data from the file and display it on the screen. Tuesday I attended one of the summer intern Seminar. This was informative speech for undergraduate students.
**Dr.Paresh Ray is an Assistant professor in Chemistry depart from Jackson State University. The Topic was "A Nanomaterial-Based sensor for effect on water, food (especially seafood) and also how Scientists are using Nanomaterial sensor to detect and rectify the problem as much as possible.
Thursday I went to the other Seminar which was given by,
**Dr.Ram Seshadri is an Associate Professor, Materials Department from UCSB. He gave speech about "Ethics in Science". He has good sense of humor and told lots of stories about plagiarizing and how we should avoid it especially writing or citing other works in Science. This seminar was fun and useful.
Friday, as usual I had meeting with my mentor and updated my previous work.

Week 5:

So far I used fake files to display access point details for each sniffer. This week I created dynamic array for sniffers, APs and customized panel. When user click anywhere on that panel, the sniffer location has to appear. Well it took me some time to get it. I expanded my GUI with more buttons, Labels and swing Text Area.
My mentor invited us to participate CS events in UCSB itself. The Computer Science department was co-hosting the EPSEM summer program. Those activities were for undergraduate students to get know about different career paths in CS, students can choose to go on different areas of graduate school. It was an excellent opportunity to learn more about the field of CS.
**Wednesday: Explorations of Computer Science, Part I: Wireless Networks, Data Mining, and Scalable Systems. Speakers: Prof. Elizabeth Belding, Prof. Amr ElAbbadi, and Adjunct Prof. Klaus Schauser (founder of Citrix) Prof.Belding started CS events by explaining what a computer science course is and also she explained about the choices of courses, USCB offering for undergraduate students. It was very helpful to undergraduate students who wish to have Biology, Business courses as a minor and major in CS. She explained more about how mesh networks works and introduced us about the new networks companies and some of the popular companies. For example research on,
> Developing new communication protocols
> Mesh Networks
> Cellular Networks
> Developing new peer to peer protocols
And we had a speech about “Data Mining” and a story about the founder of Citrix company.
**Thursday: Industry Dinner
We met local industry representatives to learn about local job opportunities in Computer Science and Computer Engineering.
**Friday: Seminar: Explorations of Computer Science, Part II: Wireless Embedded Systems, The Grid and Architecture. Speakers: Prof. Chandra Krintz, Prof. Rich Wolski and Prof. Tim Sherwood.
After this event, I like to learn more knowledge on the “Grid and Computer Architecture and Wireless Embedded Systems. Friday I had a regular meeting with my mentor and we discussed about my further work in the GUI. So many interesting events happened this week.

Week 6:

This week was more challenging for me, because I had to draw rectangle for randomly generated access points. When I run the code, the rectangle was created, but overlapped each other at some points. So I recalculated the size of the width and height of the rectangle and placed them apart. Then I got the perfect draw!! The relationship between sniffer and Access point were shown in different color lines. Saturday I saw Harry Pottor 5 movie. The graphics work was excellent.

Week 7:

This week, on my project work the most interesting things happened. I was able to place the APs without overlapping each other. Also if a AP was accessed by multiple sniffers I was able to connect them with different color lines by drawline method. I didn't see it in the live capture ,the same AP was accessed by multiple sniffers and its details were different according to each sniffer's location. But I used fake files to check and display them in the separate Text area. Friday, my mentor saw my demo and suggested me to keep AP according to its signal strength. We discussed more about the project work.Friday, we had lunch at Zaytoons resturant. This was the first time I tried falafel, chicken shawarma. I like it !!. It turned out be a nice day for all of us.
Saturday, I went SB downtown to see the old spanish day "Fiesta" festival. Aug 1 to Aug 5 was a big celebration herei and people gathered as a big community. They entertained the entire crowd by their traditional songs, dances and modern songs, dances by different modern dance schools. It was another entertaining event in SB for me.

Week 8:

I supposed to show my work to my mentor on Monday. But updating the code in my lab machine was more challenging part to me. I borrowed some time from her and finished my work later that evening. Tuesday I made little change in the GUI look and it was ready to show to my mentor. Wednesday, my mentor saw my work on the GUI, she wanted me to add the list of sniffers with some details, when the user wanted to have more details of each sniffer's access points, he/she can click on the BSSID and it will show the rest of the details of that particular AP. Friday again, she wanted me to make more changes on AP's position according to its access for the multiple sniffers. Amit suggested me to work on the method called “Triangulation or Trilateration” to adjust AP's position. I'm not sure how to do that. I told my mentor that I will try and show my result on next Wednesday.
Saturday, I was excited to see my friend who planned to visit me from Bay area. It's been more than 5 years we haven't seen each other. Finally she came here . we spent some time around the campus, IV market etc, etc. It was really fun being with my friend after long time. Sunday, as usual I did laundry, cleaned my place and got some book from library to read.

Week 9:

Monday, I was really glad to attend the defence was given by UCSB PhD student,
*Khaled Harras - ParaNets
"The main goal behind our evaluation in this project is to study the impact of the availability of parallel networks on the services and basic functionalists that can be provided to challenged networks.".
This was the first time I could attend the defence. It amazed me how he went through 5 years of his research details within 1 1/2 hours. It really motivated me to develop my presentation skills and somebody asked any questions related his research, he had to explain them by his previous analyzing of his work. Great Job Khaled!!
Well, I supposed to meet my mentor on Monday, this week was quite different. We met on Tuesday and followed up on Thursday. Tuesday, my mentor saw my GUI and told me to give thinner line to thicker color line between sniffer and access point. when the user look in the live capture, the stronger signal strength would be seen easily before even looking the AP's signal strength. This was nice work!. We went out for lunch that day. Rest of the week went by updating my work on the GUI. Then I attended the last event in the summer seminar at UCSB about the NanoMaterial.
* Aug 14 - Prof. Patrick McCray, Co-Director, Center for Nanotechnology in Society.
He gave the speech about why and when Nanotechnology got lots of attraction in the society. How the government administration or science adviser of the administration's speech about the new technology made a great impact on the Industry and research.It was really interesting to know about the historic information of the Nanomaterial and also future developments.
Saturday I was told by my sub-leaser that we had to shift the apart in to top floor. Because my sub-leaser got the new lease in the new apart and I helped her move out. Sunday, as usual I did my regular work and got ready myself to shift there. Mmm!, She hasn't finished her moving and settling her things in the new apart till Sunday night. I thought I will move on Monday.

Week 10:

Monday, my mentor discussed with me how to organize my technical paper for this summer project and mentioned to give complete citation for the references . It was really helpful for me to start preparing on my project report. Monday evening I shifted to the new apartment and settled down. Tuesday I updated my website and started preparing my project report. There are two more works I have to finish on my project work. I decided to finish writing the initial paper work and planned to continue on rest of my other work. Wednesday I submitted my paper work to my mentor and got the feedback about the project report. She suggested me to make some modification in the final report. I worked on the final paper further to make it perfect. Thursday I finished the pending part of my project work and ready to update my website. Friday, we are having cool party at Elephant Bar in the Santa Barbara. I couldn't believe this 10 week period is just gone so fast!. I learned a lot about research in general and more on research project which I involved on. Research is learning and enjoying work. I really enjoyed here and it will be remembered forever. I would share these happy moments to anyone thinking about graduate school.