Online Learning for Free - a Comparison

In previous years, after school, all you had available for additional, continuing learning was either to go to evening school, university or sometimes learn all on your own in the library or via TV. I'm sure I missed a few other possibilities.

Now, with broadband internet and easy access over personal computers, laptops and mobile phones
learning has stepped up a notch for older learners (like me).

I have tried a few different websites by now. My courses were ranging from social sciences over some theoretical design to computer and website coding (aka programming).

The experience was very good a few years back; now it's more and more just a way to pass the time.
Why? Because when I did my first course on computer coding I really had to code myself to pass the course. Or in the social science one I had to write up some small essays that got peer reviewed and I had to do the same for my fellow students.
Now, all I had to do was answer some quizzes correctly in between the videos or just sit through them to get the certificate for completion / achievement of the course.
I have not tried the paid courses yet, as I don't want to "waste" money only to find out that you get a certificate too just for watching and clicking.

Anyway, the courses I did, in detail:

Udacity: Computer Science 101

This was my first online curse in 2012 to which I have made some blog entries here as well (links to those at bottom of the page):
I had to answer short quizzes during the video lectures, as well as right after them, to check how much attention I have paid to the presented material and do some external exercises.
After the lectures (spaced over some weeks) there was a final test. You had to pass 80% to get your certificate of accomplishment,
It was really learning and hard work to get there, not all of the students passed.
Here my certificate, of which I am a bit proud (but lots of what I have learned there I have not used later and thus basically forgotten how to use it).

Coursera: Social Psychology
Toward the end of 2013 I was getting bored at the computer so I signed up for some more online courses, this time with Coursera. Someone on G+ advertised a course in Irrational Behavior. Although the topic seemed interesting the presentation was more a sales show for the instructor's books, so I dropped out without even finishing the course. It is still available in my course portfolio though. So if I feel inclined I can still take that course.
A week later I signed up for Social Psychology. In this course we again had some small quizzes
during the videos and afterwards, but we also had to write some short essays, resumes or something similar, implementing what we had learned in that week. This then got peer reviewed and we had to do at least 5 reviews of our fellow students. The results of that was our % to move on.
While the course ran for the first time slight changes got made during the duration of it; the last essay was put into a contest as well. This way you could get 110%; but it was not compulsory to enter the contest.
Overall you had to reach 75%; which I think was quite fair to reach if you really learned and did your "homework" of writing and reviewing.
So this too is a certificate I can say I truly feel I have achieved.

Udacity: Tales of the Genome

Just as the Coursera course was done I signed up for this course with Udacity again. I got about half way through when life got it the way and I had to take a break. I still got my certificate though, as I had reached the required 50% of the course.
her we had very short video lectures with a advancing line on top that showed which parts you had seen and which were still not done - including where there were quizzes and test. I have reached the first exam part (of three and that was done half way - enough to pass it seems.
But maybe it was this way too as Udacity shortly after i had started the course changed from free to to free trail versions for most of their course.
To proof to myself that I do have earned his certificate i will finish this course as long as it is still available to me when I'm ready for that.

Cousera: Clinical Psychology
This Autumn I signed up for this course to continue from the social psychology. Mainly theory, this course had different lecturers in the videos that also were responsible for the quizzes at the end of the unit. Thus the difficulty of the quizzes were quite a wide range; from easy (with 3 attempts for solving it) over medium (with 20 attempts) to standard difficulty with a laughingly 99 attempts for 10 questions in 4 answers multiple choice questions. Anyone who failed that last one doesn't know about how to solve quizzes.
Nonetheless, if you paid attention and read the questions carefully 2 attempts would be enough to pass this course with 100% (only 70% were needed). The way the theories were presented was ok, sometimes filming outside did give sound problems and the transcript was not included but an extra download.
Overall, an easily achieved certificate.

Just as this course was done (and I had not yet received the certificate) I was asked to try out a similar course by a different provider for free online courses:

Open2Study: Early Childhood Education

My time for having little children up to school age is over, unless I get grandchildren. Still, this course interested me as it covered part of the previous course I had taken.
Here, the videos were short, with interactive transcription of what was being said. The given examples made it very easy to then answer the 10 questions following each weeks lessons. Lasting 4 weeks, I managed to do each week in a few hours including the quiz, which I always passed 100% on the first attempt.
Overall this was too easy for me; but I recommend this course to all parents-to-be. It does clearly show what it take to truly help a child to grow up.

Since learning seems easy for me, I wanted to learn more about web design and/or programming to maybe make a better website for myself with what I have learned.
So, I searched for free courses that teach that (and my first computer programming course showed me I can learn stuff like that too).

Udacity does not offer those for free anymore, only for a 14-day free trial (about half way through the course), so I did not choose any courses there.

Coursera does have free courses, but they are all already half way though the course. Maybe next time around, when they start again.

Open2Study offers only one starting on 20th October ("Writing for the Web"). I will see then how that one is like.

So I searched for other sites with free courses.

Found one on Alison. The videos though are embedded (if you want them for free) in lots of advertising. I found it hard to follow; and thus it only presented the rudimentary basics I already know in a very dry way. I did not finish this course so far; might look into it at some alter point as there is no time limit on when you finish. ;)

And then there is Udemy:
Some free courses for programming and related to website writing .
I took one for Introduction for Graphic Design, hoping it would tell me something about how to organize images on websites. It did, but only in theory. And, worst of all, to pass you only had to sit through the 45 minutes of videos to get the certificate:

I feel disappointed that there was no way to check if I had learned anything at all. 

I tried another course; this time about web development.

Again, only videos, no quizzes. But it had a "lab exercise" at the end of each unit to implement what you have learned. Solutions are given in the download section to each lecture (which I didn't find at first. That sure could use a little make-over.)

The last lab exercise is to write your own form through which you can get your certificate.  

Here it is; with the form to make it, for which we had to copy-paste the html into our editor adding a few missing things like CSS styles and JavaScript to make the output as it is. 

When I first tried it, it was missing was the signature image. I found it in the downloads to the lecture under solutions. So actually, all you had to do was copy-paste this whole thing to get your certificate. Well, as this course is online for already over a year, I guess that's the only way to help students that don't manage to fill in the few missing things by themselves. 

Additionally (and that's a minus point  for this course), they give you a certificate anyway after sitting through the videos:

This course has helped me understand some of the things, I had been doing, in a different way. New to me was the CSS and JavaScript inside the html code. Not a thing for having many similar pages, or? There must be a better way to style your pages (and I am using a external style sheet on my website).

Might look into some more of the more specific courses there about CSS, Javascript and PHP.

And finally the links to my earlier blog posts about the very first online course I took:

http://michafire.blogspot.com/2012/03/learning-computer-coding.html

http://michafire.blogspot.com/2012/03/learning-computer-coding-update.html

http://michafire.blogspot.com/2012/04/learning-computer-coding-final.html

http://michafire.blogspot.com/2012/04/learning-computer-coding-result.html

I bet there a lot other places for free online learning, but I'm not going through all of them. 

And then there are those sites were you can learn other languages online for free too................. got to go on with those that I started some time back. :P

I guess, I have enough places now to keep me occupied and learning (and not just playing silly online flash games to pass the time). 

=)) Have a great time learning...................

Operating System (OS) Crash - Undone, Part 2

I was happy with new new set-up "clean" and nearly empty system on my fast computer.

Bookmarks were all saved by Chrome/Google browser. No need to hunt them down again (although I did in the first few days just to see how many of them I could find and /or recall). Attaching and booting the slow and small HDD to copy the needed files to a USB stick was easy too; just unplug and re-plug and back to the old "new" HDD.

Then I remembered that I had some unpublished photos on that other computer that I have not yet backuped (neither on USB stick nor the cloud). So, back to the old computer and switch it on. 

Too bad that I had forgotten to plug the monitor in after I had moved it back to it's resting place. Quickly, I made a shutdown, and turned all electricity off. You never know with Win XP what happens if you just plug the monitor in as it is running.

Only that this time the OS wasn't running yet, being an old slow system and me being used to that fast booting one. So, instead of a normal shut down, it was shut down half loaded. Which is not a good thing.

After I had the monitor attached I re-started the computer - only to end up in a black screen of options.

And no matter what option I chose I ended up in that same screen:

Windows can't boot correctly.

From my last experience with a non-booting computer, and not being able to describe in words to my helpful friends what actually went wrong, I took a video of that "loop" booting:

And then the batteries of the camera were empty.  Luckily I had a spare set, so I could just continue with the next boot "loop":

What to do now? I had this boot CD. So, after checking the CMOS/BIOS settings were correct for booting from CD: 

But nothing happened. 0.0 

I did have a floppy disk that said "boot" on it. I inserted that, only to find out that it had drivers for CD drives on it, but no other programs like chkdsk etc. And those drivers didn't work for my CD drive. 

Not because of the age difference or different system the boot floppy was made for. It also said windows 95/98 on the cover.

No, it was loose cables that stopped the CD drive from being read . headdesk

IT had taken me a week and a few talks with online friends to find that out. Now, with the cables reattached, I had no problem running that boot CD with all the checking programs. It had a min win XP on it - a nice visual for file checking. Albeit, very slow as it was using the Ram drive to run. 

This is what I found: 

Nothing on C:

Using a different program for file checking I saw this:

Something on C:

So, something was still on C: ; but it could not be read. I assumed it, as it kept wanting to boot with Win XP, thus it must have some files of that left on the HDD and in the "boot" sector. 

I was about to give up when I recalled my old computer times using DOS to run a computer. And I knew there was a DOS program on the boot CD. 

I found it and - wow- it had a nice mouse steered colored screen to navigate. No need to remember all those codes and orders to execute the programs. I chose the surface test.

Taken after the test just to show what I used as it stared too fast to take a before shot.

And it came up with 18 errors.

Those numbers don't tell me anything, but those are the errors. 

And when it found them, correct them automatically. More than deleting what was already "gone" could not happen anyway.

The repair in action. 

Doing one more test before "finished" - successfully. 

When it was finished I was surprised the file manager loaded so fast. It took me a while to realize that the old Win XP was all back, all files unharmed., nothing lost. I couldn't believe it, took the boot CD out and re-booted the system.

And yes, =))

It booted totally normal. I could get my few photos and now had a second system fixed and (after I delete some never used programs) will even have a rather fast computer again for backup should my "beloved" fast computer go crazy on me again. Or, I might even install a small LINUX system on that old computer. 

And if that all is not enough to feel happy about - I actually found the WLAN stick for that old computer again. and re-installed it too. Now, I do not have to go to that cold place with this computer just to get online with it over the router. 

Am I now a computer geek? Well, not an expert but also no beginner or "just user" too. 

For those interested in what boot CD I used:

Hiren Boot CD

A big THANK YOU to all the wonderful people on the internet out there that advised me and encouraged me over and over again this last month so I could "repair" this old computer without spending one cent; just a little time and patience.

Operating System (OS) Crash - Undone, Part 1

I haven't posted much in here for some time. I just didn't have anything to write about. It can happen; the world still keeps on turning.

Then last month I had two computers crashes. The operating systems (OS) just wouldn't load anymore.

One was the "new" (just three years old) Win 7 system (and will be described here in part 1):

On booting it again, it wouldn't even get to the "enter password" image.
The "winlogon.exe" is damaged was all the system could tell.

I asked my partner what he did last on this computer (we both use them): "It had been idle for some time and then I simply shut it down regularly."

There was no way for me to check what else was wrong, but let the Win 7 in-built checking programs run on boot. Like "chkdsk" (an old DOS program). That ran well - deleting files from bad sectors after copying them into some other places. Or so the screen kept telling. And then, more or less finally, the system told me:

System volume on data device is damaged. Error code 0x0 test successful, repair successful.

0.0

But I still could not boot the system.

I guessed all that equaled to this is nothing that the system can repair of it's own. But, we still have files on the computer (the HDD) that we had not backuped and that are important. A complete fresh install of any OS (or the WIN 7 again; if I had the original CD, which I don't as it came pre-installed) was out of question.

If I had made a recovery CD for that system I would have used that. But, alas, being me, I thought this would never happen and that the backup system files on the computer would be enough to restore it, should we accidentally delete an important file. In theory this would have worked.

At that time I was also enrolled in an online course that was time limited. So, I had no time to play around with this computer. I recalled a school friend that was into computers and he was still fixing them - now as a small business. With a big sigh I brought ours to him. He would look into it - and fix it, if possible.

I could use my older computer for the online lectures: over 10 years old, Win XP, and LAN connection to the router. It even still has a floppy drive. It worked fine, but it sure was cold where I had the router connection for this one. So, for email checking and surfing the basic pages in the internet I was allowed to use the laptop we own. But not install any new browser (that laptop was still using IE6 0.0 ) that would let me watch my online lectures. Sigh.

I did mange however to ask my friends online about what could have been wrong with my other computer. And thus was given the hint to use a Boot CD (or Live CD) to check and eventually repair the system; especially if the damage was only in the software.

Long talk short. After two weeks I had my fast computer back, but with new HDD and fresh installed OS (Win 7, but the 64bit version). The files though were on another HDD (slow and half the size) just copied over; it would boot but not connect to the internet wireless. That part was lost totally. (Still don't know exactly what is wrong with that system - but I might find out when I have enough time and then have a spare HDD).

Anyway, I could finish my online course in the set time and even pass the exam (different blog post maybe for that later on).

The only thing that still did not work as it should was the web camera. The new 64bit system kept telling me that it the camera needs a driver to run. I couldn't find the installation CD that came with it. So, again, I asked my friends online what to do and they found me a driver for the web camera type I had shown them in a link - searched for the image of the camera as I couldn't find a name imprinted onto it. (Was in the base that had ripped off ages ago.) All that didn't help though at all. Not even Google+ Hangouts would recognized the attached camera (it had the green "on" light running all the time). 

A week later I did find the original installation CD, and, after installing everything, the camera still had the same error. Incidentally I also noticed that my files and the ones from the friends were the same. 

Eventually, I had to realize that I would have to get a new camera. At the hardware store the sales persons went big eyed by all those questions I asked. One said that I seem to know more about computer hardware than he does - I should just go and search and find the one I think suits my system. Which I did:

a driver-less web camera. It even has additional LED lights to lighten up the spots it's aimed at (well, at web camera distance).

Went home, plugged it in and it worked fine. With no installation at all - only the short message that the newly attached device is now ready to use. =)

So far, I only used it once - the hangouts i had wanted it for were already over. There'll be new ones coming up. Or I might use it for web camera Wednesday - a photo theme on G+. Who knows, I'm prepared. 

During all this time I also downloaded and burnt a boot CD, so, should this computer fail again, I would have some other checking devices ready and not have to pay lots of money just for checking. Who know that I would need them so soon. 

to be continued in Part 2.......................

Older photo from my computer workplace.
Hasn't changed much, I guess, just the contents of the screen. 

Learning computer coding - an "update"

So, another week has gone by.

Another week of watching videos, 

answering quizzes to the videos, 

puzzling at why my codes don't work the way I thought they would, 

seeing the answer (possibility - I think that to some of the questions more than one solution is possible but only one best fitting to the lesson taught at that point is shown) after the quiz, 

going back to the quiz to correct my answer and finally 

getting a "You got it right!" button shown.

Only to go to the next video lesson and repeating it all over again. 

(For unit/week 2 it was "only"  about half of the amount of the first unit/week - but about as much information to digest)

And then, finally, daring to answer the homework questions.

And during the week also going over to the forum to the course 

to see how my fellow students are doing, 

what kind of difficulties they encounter or 

if it is only me that seems to have problems with the online python interpreter or the loading of the videos and such things. 

And being "oh so relieved" to see that I'm not alone with these kind of difficulties.

Yes, this kind of teaching and online course has it's problems. Not the method as such - visual (videos) teaching is well done with good examples. And a plus is the interactive quiz for most of the contents with additional "lesson" right after it.

But the amount of traffic, the amount of "students" being there at the same time is giving the server this course is on some BIG "hiccups". These make many of "us" having to spend more time waiting to see if our code, that we just wrote, is working or not.

So once again the deadline of the homework was pushed back for one more day - the teacher adding some hints to the most discussed questions of the homework. This shows that they too do read the forum to see what's going on, a plus! 

I went through my homework answers again - re-writing some of my code. Finally, this homework has been graded. The result? :( <-- not disappointed, but not expected THAT much "incorrect" this time as my codes worked for my testings.

I did not repeat the mistakes of the first unit - to rush through and not even listen to / read the questions properly. I worked harder and my codes worked. Just not for ALL cases that are possible. And that made the answer "wrong" right away.

So, I went through the video answers to see what was not correct - and, sure, now I understand. The hints did help a bit - but not enough. The main "problem" was that there is NO feedback on MY homework; no feedback on where I was wrong in coding. Only how it should have been done.

Now, I do understand that there are "thousands" of students at this course the same time. A personal feedback is sheer impossible. Also the server and/or online interpreter is having issues due to "overflow" of input it has to work through. reading through the forum to get some other feedback on why my answer was "incorrect" I had to notice to my digress that most of the problems my fellow students have is not the lessons as such but the work with the interpreter like me.

Now, unit/week 3 has started. This time it's many videos again - as much as in the first unit. Again tiny steps. But, with me wanting to understand what I did "wrong" in the first two units I go through them even slower. About half way through I have come to a "conclusion":

As much "fun" all this is and truly helps me to understand computers and their programs better I will have to downgrade (that is seen as good - a positive) myself from "student status" to just wacthing the videos and doing the quizzes and do some of the homework but fail at most of them due to my "normal" offline life getting into the way of my "online" life ;).
I found myself spending more and more time leafing through the forum trying to make sense of all the posts that either ask for help or give help than in actually watching the videos and learning and working with the Python interpreter.
I'm not saying goodbye or farewell at all. I'm only stating that I now know that this type of course is not made for me at the phase of life I'm in. Not that I feel too old or stupid to learn this. I just can't spend as much time on it as I would want and need to.
Three hours a week is not enough to watch the videos, understand what is being explained and answer the quizzes and do the homework (correct of course). I'm not stupid or slow in grasping new concepts. With enough time I can do this. And with a well working system for answering/writing and testing the codes - the biggest handicap for most of the students.

But, most of all, I just don't have the time anymore now from what I had planned for this when I had started.
Many in my work got sick and I have to work overtime now to help out there. To me that has more priority than finishing this course. And there are some other projects too that are waiting to be finished; projects that overall give me more personal satisfaction and pleasure than doing well (or be one of the best - my competitive side coming through again) in this course.
And, this time is "missing" for participating fully in this course now. As this course progresses it gets harder and harder (<--of course :P) and I would actually have to spend more time on each unit than less.

My "luck" is that this is hobby and not related to work. I do not have to excel at it at all. I can drop it any time without consequences. I have already learned so much from taking this course up to this point. 
No regrets at all. And repetition of the course is not rejected.

I feel like a winner after all. :D

Learning computer coding

A report not about the actual computer code,

but on how I experience the learning process.

Multitasking on leap day 2012

Just one week ago, on Sunday, 26th February,  I enrolled to a free online course at www.udacity.com. 

It's about "Building a search engine". 

Well, not one like "Google"!! They are not going to teach us that. The main goal is to understand how coding works. The search engine part is only to get people interested in this course and is a basis for the exercises.

Now, I've been out of school for some years and thought it challenging to see if I still could learn something new this way. And if I would manage as well as in school or do much, much worse since I'm "out of practise".

"Class" already started a week earlier (on the 20th), but it was still open for enrolling and the first set of "homework" was not yet closed. So, anyone interested could still catch up and be "graded" as any other that had started "on time".

The first unit went in very small steps, with quizzes to test how well you understood the lesson. All in all there were 40 lessons for the first unit and week. 

When I saw that, my first reaction was "ooff" that's a lot to catch up with. But actually it wasn't. Each lesson has a short video between 30 seconds to maximum 8 minutes; most range on 3 minutes. It doesn't take much time to watch them. To understand what is being shown, well, that depends on how well you grasp the contents.

And on how well you concentrate and not distract yourself (or get distracted) if you forgot to "shut out" any outside influence i.e. phone, doorbell, demanding children and pets or even other websites you follow, like G+, at the same time.

I was lucky to have some time to myself in the next few days after I had enrolled. And the homework deadline had been pushed one day behind too. Thinking that it was all so easy, I hurried through the lessons, quizzes and the homework. I was finished fast. Too fast, I know now, as I didn't take the time to read the questions for the homework properly and got many of them "incorrect" because of that.

No, I'm not disappointed about that at all!!! It taught me something too!! :D

It's part of a learning process to realize that you need to read carefully and do exactly what is asked of you. And not creatively make a new question out of the one asked. Sure, the answer to the question as I had interpreted it was correct, but it was not the correct answer to the one asked.

That is a little problem with this online course. Different with school classes in the traditional way, here a computer examines the answers. For the computer program there is only a "true" or a "false" to the question. There is no "you did it the right way, but it is not what had been asked of you to do".

So, besides the actual understanding of how the coding works, I also learned that:

a) I need to take my time and not hurry, assuming I already know the answer

b) I need to concentrate on what I'm doing fully

c) I have to exactly follow the rules that are given

d) I have to think like a computer

And the last two points are the ones that feel not so good to me. I have my own mind, want to be "free". But for this course they are necessary. As to the first two points listed: yes, that is something good to learn. Not only for this course, but for every day. To be able to concentrate on what you are doing fully and do it with care.

Unit 2 started before the homework of Unit 1 was returned. And like most of the students (They have been commenting in the additional forum about it. I joined the forum a few days after I had enrolled when I noticed a question asking about how old the "students" were and the poster stating he was "old", over 40, which I think is not old at all to learn something new like this.) I, too, started with Unit 2 before I had the results of my homework. Eager to go on, confident that I had passed the first unit well, and as I wanted to do things with more care and not in a hurry, start early enough to be able to do that.

When the homework to Unit 1 was returned I was well into Unit 2 - and had to laugh out loud to some of the answers I had given. By now I understood what I had done wrong - even without having seen the answer video. Yes, I had finally understood the lessons in Unit 1! But too late for "good" homework grades. *lol* (Thinking of learning as a competition here.)

Still, although I gave myself more time for each lesson, I was "through" with them fast again. Time to start on the homework. This time we had to do some coding that advanced the one we had in the lessons. The question was similar, but added a "creative" note to it. It made it challenging to write it all yourself. Not just repeat what had been taught in the lesson.

I was so "into it" that even on my way to work or back home, or right before going to sleep and right after waking my mind jumped to the still unsolved homework question trying to figure it out. It was obsessed to get an answer. 

I do not like this "obsession" (you could call it even addiction) and it made me think on why and what for I do this course. Work, rest, fun and other daily activities have a priority (not necessarily in this order ;) ) to solving these homework problems. I do not have to solve them! Nothing will happen if I don't; except my own "ego" might feel "cracked" or disappointed. So, I took a "time out" to do other things: painting, being on my favorite websites, spending time away from the computer again and again.

Sure, when returning to the coding my mind had to think hard and "change the way of thinking" again to get into the coding. But oddly enough, with giving myself more breaks between working on the homework, there were moments when "suddenly" the code I wrote finally worked (that is: gave a correct answer and not a red text telling me there is a mistake in the coding or produced an answer that was not the one I had wanted to achieve).

Whenever that happened I felt "free"! My mind was "done" with the problem and I felt no more "urge" to go on. 

Now, there is only one more homework to do. It's marked with two gold stars. This means that it's not expected that everyone will solve them already and will require much thinking. 

Well, even "normal" questions took me more time than I felt comfortable with. I still have some time until the deadline for this one. Maybe I will spend some more time on solving it. Maybe I have sudden insight at how to do it - and when testing it, it actually does give the "correct" answer. But is not "necessary" for me to solve this last question. I will get the answer (or at least a useful hint at how it can be coded) when the homework gets graded. I can learn then how to solve similar problems and not "waste" so much time on trying to solve it all by myself NOW.

I feel, I already learned a lot. Enough that I could stop with this course now. 

Not enough about the code and how to use it, not for building a search engine easily. For this I will (have to) continue with the course. It does interest me, or I wouldn't have started with it in the first place. 

But I learned enough to know that code writing is not my interest as such. Nor is the way a computer thinks my way. Nothing against structure, clear structure too. But not as rigid. Not so "close-minded". There is no way for me to express what I think, feel and want to share this way.

You just need to look at how I composed this text. There is structure; but I also break free from it when I feel it is necessary. Necessary for further explanation or additional thoughts that do not actually fit into the stream of the happenings described.

As a conclusion (after a week - this is not a "final" conclusion - such will never happen as my whole life consists of continuous learning, even about myself) I can say:

I do not regret having taken this opportunity. 

Even if it took (and might still take) a lot of my "free" time that I could spend on other things I love to do. And even if I won't succeed in this course and be able to actually code a "program" all on my own. I do understand it a lot more than before. 

And I understand ("get") other things much better and easier than before too. Things that seemed strange to me suddenly make sense. In a way that I can not yet put into words. Seeing i.e. movies, I had liked a lot, again and now seeing even more "contents" and messages (hidden behind the actual scenes and action) in them. What a wonderful expansion. :D

And I "re-found" what is more my "inborn" ability (or abilities :P). And that I prefer the non-usual way of doing things over the strictly regulated. 

Once the course is over in about another five weeks I might give an update on this - if there is anything that needs to be added.

PS: Writing this took about as much as solving one of the last homework questions. But it was more fun to do, gave me less "headache" and can be shared so much better than that little code I wrote.