Thursday, May 14, 2015

Blog #12: Information is so beautiful :")

Infographics (information graphics) are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly. (Source: Wikipedia)

Studies show that people retain information more if presented visually because our brain processes it 60,000 times faster compared to reading long texts! Imagine how easy it would be to retain our lessons if our handouts are infographics! Not only would it save time, it would also save space. Look at this:

source: http://technopalooza.tylerisd.org/modules/locker/files/get_group_file.phtml?gid=3117176&fid=25914811

It is advantageous for a teacher to use an infographic as a teaching material. Personally, as a student, I easily get bored with discussions that are so plain and just too wordy. It's just tiring for my brain to process all the words, and I can't even remember more than 50% after the lecture. But if I see something creative and unique, I stay awake and get amazed (yes I get amazed easily, and I actually have my mouth open in amazement haha).

source: http://www.sproutgeek.com/piktochart-make-successful-infographic-ai-ching/

As a student, I live in a world full of different kinds of presentations. Most of the lectures in our university are PowerPoint presentations. Students, during reportings in some subjects, also use PowerPoint presentations. Some wanted theirs to be unique and so they use Prezi and others, also Powtoon, like what I said in my previous blog entry. These things are more visually appealing than PowerPoint that we are so used to seeing, and so it kind of makes even the most boring topic into an interesting one. These presentations are turned into handouts, which we then photocopy. Photocopying handouts from all my subjects really cuts down my allowance. But infographics can cut down these long pages and make it more appealing!

source: http://evscicats.com/blog/tools-unleash-creativity-piktochart/

There are useful websites in making infographics. In our laboratory this week, we were introduced to piktochart.com. Check it out! There you can make infographics easily and wonderfully, something nice that exceeds your expectations of what you can actually do! You can also check this out:
http://technopalooza.tylerisd.org/modules/locker/files/get_group_file.phtml?gid=3117176&fid=25914811


source: http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/news/graphic-design/piktochart-offers-online-interactive-infographic-creation/

Infographics are useful in many ways. We just need to have a creative mind and a topic to use, and stuff like Piktochart as a canvass and voila! :)

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Blog #11: The Apples of Our Eyes


     There are many presentation software existing today. Different computers have their own default software. For those who use Windows, they have Microsoft PowerPoint. Those who use Mac, they have Keynote.

source: http://blog.nasolab.com/?p=12

source: http://www.guidesandtutorials.com/powerpoint-tutorial.html


     Internet has been very useful to us ever since it became available. I remember those days when we used dial-up just to connect. I remember that whenever we connect with dial-up, we cannot use the telephone. It was a problem for us because we have a water refilling station and people would call us for orders, and we have the same telephone line for our house and our store. So we were only allowed to use the Internet for evenings and for Sunday afternoons when our store is only on half-day. Anyway, going back to the topic at hand ;)) Internet has been so useful, and it offers many sites of presentation software. As technology progresses and people become more picky and more artistic and stylish, the designs of the presentation tools must cater to their demand.

     Have you heard about Prezi? I think it is the most popular presentation software over the Internet. It was the most used aside from MS PowerPoint when I was in high school. I was amazed when I saw how it works. It is like you have a big poster where the details need not be arranged as long as they are interconnected in any way, and every slide you zoom in to a specific part. Sometimes they can be just connected to each other literally, and sometimes the next slide is inside the letter O found in previous slides. The possibilities are endless! You only need an Internet connection and a very colorful imagination :) Haven't heard about it yet? Go to prezi.com.

source: http://historysandoval.blogspot.com/


     This week in our laboratory class, we were introduced to PowToon. You know those animated presentations in some commercials in NatGeo and Discovery Channel? Yeah I know I'm too vague. Just go take a look at some tutorials in PowToon, just visit it at www.powtoon.com. There you can create animated videos and presentations for free! It really is awesome to use it and I'm not even kidding! Give it a try :) This would be great in office presentations too, and probably your bosses won't be able to take their eyes off of it ;)

source: http://globalrichmedia.com/diy-animation-platform-powtoon-grabs-600k-for-its-video-creation-software/

     "A good presentation makes ALL the difference."

source: http://bestprezi.com/


Saturday, April 25, 2015

Blog #10: Tag, you're it!

Source: http://www.htmlandcssbook.com/press/

     I believe that a student's experience would not be complete if he/she never tried creating something using HTML and CSS. These are the basic structures and foundations of the simplest webpages out there. We now live in a world full of out-of-this-world inventions and high caliber technologies, and we would be left out if we won't understand even the roots on how these things emerge and were made. Also, it would be a work advantage if you understand and know how to use Hyper Text Markup Language and Cascading Style Sheets.


To know more about HTML and CSS, read the articles below. Otherwise, you may skip.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: These are not from me, since I believe if I explain, I won't be able to do justice :P



source:
http://www.border7.com
/blog/07/27/
5-basic-html-codes-every
-ecommerce-merchants-should-know/
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML

"Hyper Text Markup Language, commonly referred to as HTML, is the standard markup language used to create web pages. It is written in the form of HTML elements consisting of tags enclosed in angle brackets (like <html>). HTML tags most commonly come in pairs like <h1> and </h1>, although some represent empty elements and so are unpaired, for example <img>. The first tag in such a pair is the start tag, and the second is the end tag (they are also called opening tags and closing tags).

Web browsers can read HTML files and render them into visible or audible web pages. Browsers do not display the HTML tags and scripts, but use them to interpret the content of the page. HTML describes the structure of a website semantically along with cues for presentation, making it a markup language, rather than a programming language.

HTML elements form the building blocks of all websites. HTML allows images and objects to be embedded and can be used to create interactive forms. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists, links, quotes and other items. It can embed scripts written in languages such as JavaScript which affect the behavior of HTML web pages."


source:
https://bligusti.wordpress.com
/2012/06/07/panduan-membuat-css/

From:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the look and formatting of a document written in a markup language. Along with HTML and JavaScript, CSS is a cornerstone technology used by most websites to create visually engaging webpages, user interfaces for web applications, and user interfaces for many mobile applications.

CSS is designed primarily to enable the separation of document content from document presentation, including elements such as the layout, colors, and fonts. This separation can improve content accessibility, provide more flexibility and control in the specification of presentation characteristics, enable multiple HTML pages to share formatting by specifying the relevant CSS in a separate .css file, and reduce complexity and repetition in the structural content, such as semantically insignificant tables that were widely used to format pages before consistent CSS rendering was available in all major browsers."




-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Basically, HTML is the framework, and CSS is the design.

Source: http://www.westciv.com/style_master/academy
/css_tutorial/introduction/how_they_work.html

source: http://blog.formstack.com/2010/customize-form-buttons-with-css/

     How many web pages do you come across with in a day, or every after you type something in a search engine of your web browser? Have you ever encountered a search where there are less than a hundred web pages as results? There is no such thing! (unless there really is no such thing of what you are searching for haha) There are thousands and millions of results. Look:



     Most of these webpages are products of html! The fact that there are millions in existence proves how accessible HTML and CSS can be.

Webpages
Source: https://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/extensions/proposed-changes/apis-under-development/offscreen-tabs

    I've mentioned before that I've learned HTML, CSS, and JavaScript when I was in high school. My favorite lesson of the three was HTML. It was the easiest to understand. I liked CSS next, but not as much as HTML. I'm not much of a designer, and I'm just overwhelmed by the codes used in CSS because they're just so many, while HTML is just so simple. But it always amazes me how those simple codes bring life to HTML. How a boring code renders to a beautifully designed webpage.

     Which reminds me, I never told you how :P All you need to have is a text editor (notepad works for me, but I like Ubuntu's text editor because it highlights the tags, and it looks more encouraging than notepad's boring normal text lol), and save the file as .html or .htm and run it using a web browser, aaaaand you're good to go :)

     Our 10th exercise is creating a website with 3 pages, consisting of our personal info, our dreams, and our class schedule (not a picture, we must make it using codes). I'm afraid my CSS skills are no match to my imagination. I just hope I can make something appealing to the eyes hahaha.

     If you want to learn the basics of HTML and CSS, you can go visit http://www.w3schools.com/



Saturday, April 18, 2015

Blog #9: C is for Computer Programming

Basic Programming Using the C Programming Language


     This was not my first time to encounter computer programming. But I was not an expert, actually the opposite. When I was in my 2nd year of high school, we had a programming subject where we learned HTML, CSS and Java. I passed the subject, but to be frank, I had little to none info retained in my brain -_- I survived merely by asking my classmates for some help, and probably our teacher curved our grades. Heehee. I do remember a few things from html though, the "marquee" and the "blink" :P

     The second time I encountered programming was here in college. I mentioned last time that I had a subject named AMAT 150 (Computer Programming), where we used Plato IDE and the Fortran Programming Language (that's probably jurassic programming), where I learned a lot and enjoyed so much though it was as tedious as any other subject. The semester after that, we had MATH 174 (Numerical Analysis 1) where we used Scilab. Scilab is an open source software and is widely used in secondary and higher education institutions for teaching mathematics, engineering sciences and automatic control engineering (from http://www.scilab.org/). We also made codes that help in solving various mathematical problems (trust me, you wouldn't want to know), which is why AMAT 150 is its prerequisite. Though I have enjoyed AMAT 150 so much, what I felt with MATH 174 was actually the opposite, that I almost failed the subject, thank God I did not! The codes were too hard for my brain to comprehend, and probably because 15 units out of my 18 units were majors and electives that my brain chose not to work anymore. LOL. It was too mathematical and theoretical, and yet we fuse programming with it, so how on earth o.o

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3rf9j4

     C programming was fun and easy to understand, also because I had a little background on programming, and already encountered if-else, etc.

     Okay so here are some screen captures of the exercises we did in our laboratory class. The text editor (white) is where we input our commands using the c language, and the terminal (black) is where the commands are executed.

Program that prints "Hello World!"

Program that gets the sum of 2 and 5

Program that gets the sum of two numbers (integer and decimal)


Program that gets the sum of two numbers, and the difference of the two numbers if the sum is less than 200 (otherwise, "Gravity ang laki ng sum!" will be printed)

Program that computes for the GWA from the given subjects, and prints PASS if GWA is less than 3.0, otherwise prints FAIL

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Blog #8: ○ ▱ ▭ ◇ ⇆

     Finally, something with less math and more programming! :P

     Our lesson this week was about Introduction to Computer Problem Solving. The goal of the lesson was to teach us to solve problems - but not always math problems, including the beginning of the problem, every step that leads to the desired solution, up to the solution or the end - and illustrate the problems using flowchartswhich explains these: ○ ▱ ▭ ◇ ⇆

     As an Applied Mathematics student, I have programming courses in my curriculum. The lesson we had this week reminded me of my programming subject last year, AMAT 150: Computer Programming. I was happy with the lesson we had because it was something that reminded me of one of my favorite subjects of all time. 



     What the hell are these symbols for? That was my reaction when I saw these symbols being written by our instructor on the board. At first glance we may be confused on what these are for.
     Given these labels, we now understand that the symbols given earlier are commands or steps in coloring cells. Consider a 5x5 table:

     The symbols were steps in coloring a 3x3 square with a hollow center within the 5x5 square. These steps, or sequences, are called algorithms. The two common representations of algorithms are pseudo-codes and flowcharts. Flowcharts are graphical representation of algorithms. Pseudo codes are the set of steps like in flowcharts, but written in phrases or sentences, including if-then statements found in flowchart diamonds.


from http://teachwithict.weebly.com/computing-blog/category/algorithms#sthash.FPdgHz7L.dpbs

Some pseudo code and flowchart examples:
from httpswww.youtube.comwatchv=vOEN65nm4YU

from http://www.csgcse.co.uk/programming/flowcharts-pseudocode/

     We had a fun activity which is called the "HOUR OF CODE" from http://code.org/ (please do visit this site!) and they have this advocacy: Every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science. It was fun solving the problems! It brings out your inner child, while still being challenging. Try it out! 


Saturday, March 28, 2015

Blog #7: The Shapes of Logic

     Logic is the study of valid reasoning. What we discussed today is about Digital Logic and Boolean Algebra.

     Since I am an Applied Mathematics student, studying logic is our foundation. We studied and proved statements, arguments, and truth tables. So this topic is not that new to me. But still, I got excited because this was something familiar. Unlike those previous very mathematical meetings where some of my classmates dread, I was happy to see something familiar in a world unfamiliar to me. Chos.

     In digital logic, we study about computers of course, and how they process information and perform arithmetic. That's where logic gates enter. Logic gates are building blocks of a circuit. They usually have two inputs (see truth tables below, with inputs A and B) and one output, depending on the gate they pass through. Logic 1 means on, high, true, yes, or closed switch. Logic 0 means off, low, false, no, or open switch.

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1274508


http://www.schoolphysics.co.uk/age16-19/Electronics/Logic%20gates/text/Logic_gates/index.html

  • The NOT gate is just an inverter. The output is just a negation of the input.
  • In the AND gate, the output is 1 if both of the inputs are 1. Otherwise, the output is 0. The NAND gate is just its negation.
  • In the OR gate, the output is 1 if at least one of the inputs is 1. Otherwise, the output is 0. The NOR gate is just its negation.
  • In the XOR gate, the output is 1 if one of the inputs is 1. If the inputs are the same (both 0 or both 1), then the output is 0.


http://gcat.davidson.edu/GcatWiki/index.php/Logic_Gates:_Symbols_and_Truth_Tables


     What I liked about this is that it has shapes, and I know and understand how it is used digitally. Before, in my math subjects, we prove truth tables and the operators (in Boolean Algebra), we memorize identities and theorems. We use them in real life sentences and phrases, or arguments. It is amazing how early people made these statements into logic gates that were made into transistors and used in circuits, and still easy to understand. Before, I do not know why we do all these proving. Now I understand that manufacturers of transistors (composed of logic gates) wanted to cut down the costs of making these gates so they simplified the most complex logic gates.

     Connecting logic gates and analyzing more of its complex forms, and simplifying them is really challenging but it actually is fun! To see what I mean, I recommend you to try experimenting here: http://logic.ly/demo/.

http://heythrop.su/logic-society/

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Blog #6: Drive Attack! (Google Drive & Shingeki no Kyojin)

Document Collaboration using Google Drive


     Before Google Drive, I remembered using Dropbox in Yahoo!Mail. Yes, I have my own personal laptop as my storage, plus a few memory cards and flash drives, but no external hard drive.
     Why do I need an external hard drive when I have my own personal laptop with 640 gb storage? Well, I have my needs. :P  I am the type of person who doesn’t easily let go of memories, or in this case, files. Good memories, bad memories, insignificant memories, I don’t care, I still keep them. I am a junior student, and all my files since my freshman year, generated or not generated from my laptop, are stored in it. I have folders of my freshman, sophomore, and junior year, and subfolders for the first and second semesters for every year, and of course, another set of subfolders for every subject. Also, all videos, movies, songs, etc. that I have obtained ever since I got my laptop are stored here. I only probably delete when the file is corrupted, or when I already transferred the movies that my daddy asked me to download to his PC. Even when I don’t have any slight interest in a very old movie, or even the slightest want to listen to a song, I still do not delete those. I don’t really know. I always have a feeling that I may make use of them someday. Baka manghinayang ako eh. And that, my friends, is why I think I need an external hard drive. (I am currently accepting donations, please just comment below. Haha!)
     It really is a good thing to have an online storage (if you forget your password, then that’s a different story :P). Not only does it save space on my PC, it also makes it easier to share my files to other people! (Of course only with an active internet connection :P)
     Google Drive not only offers a default of 15 gb storage. Files in your drive can also be shared to others, by sending the files to their email, or sending a link of your drive to their email. We can also create files an share it to others, real time!

     In our IT 1 meeting last Wednesday, we were asked to make a presentation about the anime “Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin)” using the Google Drive. We were grouped into 5, others with 5 members each, while we only have 4. Each group representative was asked to create a presentation file, shared with the other members of the group. Poof! It became Koko Krunch! lol. We have a shared document. It really amazed me because we can work on a single document all at once, and I can also see where my groupmates are currently working on. We can also conduct a group chat where we can converse while making our presentation. This is a very nice advancement in technology because it saved time and effort. Under normal circumstances, group meetings are held where the members of the group agreed to be at their agreed common time. After that first meeting, they still had to make a second meeting wherein they compile all their works. This tool makes everybody be flexible. Aside from having less problems in deciding when and where to meet, the group members can actually see the progress of their presentation. GOOD GOING, GOOGLE! *2 thumbs up*

Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan)


     Before all that Google Drive, Ma’am Marya introduced us to an anime that I later learned is new and of course was still ongoing, with only 25 episodes finished. She showed us only the first four episodes. I really didn't see the connection of IT 1 with the anime no matter how I tried, so I eventually decided to just sit there and watched. As minutes go by, I get more and more hooked. When we neared episode 4, I was silently wishing for a time extension, because I really got hooked and every episode really keeps me hanging! After the 4th episode ended, my classmates protested and asked for more, but since we only have an hour left for our actual lesson, sad for us :( Pero feeling ko binitin lang talaga kami ni Ma'am. Asan ang hustisya?! Lol. The look on my classmates' faces were so epic. Haha.

     My seatmates, Alec and Ryan, knew about the anime beforehand. I got so curious that I bombarded them with so many questions while we were watching. Many of those questions were left unanswered, because it’s still ongoing. I only knew about the real identities (Are they purely persons or are they titans?) of some of the soldiers alongside Eren, because they are spoilers T.T Before the day ended, I secured myself with a COPY (Oh yeah! :P) of the anime’s Season 1 (Thank you Alec!). I cannot wait for the next season! Good thing there’s manga hehehe. Later, I also learned that a live action movie of Shingeki no Kyojin will be released probably this summer! Another thing to watch out for ;)

     If you’re not into weird and gory stuff, don’t watch this! But you’ll miss the awesomeness of the soldiers, the military, and the survey corps, etc. For someone like me who only watched cute anime stuff with love stories and a few adventures and a few magic stuff and eventually stopped, this made me reconsider watching anime again. I am so hooked! (This is all your fault Ma’am Marya! Now I’m so bitin huhuhu. By the way, thank you for introducing the anime! I will be so disappointed if Eren and Mikasa did not end up together lol)

Friday, March 13, 2015

Blog #5: 1+1=10? Are you kidding me?

Last time, I talked about decimal, binary, octal, and hexadecimal number systems and each of their conversions. Today, the topic is about...

BINARY ARITHMETIC

Remember the binary numbers? Binary numbers are numbers composed of 0's and 1's. For example, 100 is equal to 4, 010 is equal to 2, 111 is equal to 7, etc. (For other conversions, please refer to my previous blog entry.)

In binary arithmetic, we perform addition, subtraction, and other mathematical operations, just like a normal number. But because we are in binary, the end results must also be in binary. Is that even possible? Of course. Normally, 1+1 is equal to 2. How do we express 2 in binary?
Q = quotient; R = remainder
But we can add binary digits simpler, without converting its decimal equivalent to binary every single time. Here are the rules:
We're not done yet! In binary arithmetic, of course like in normal decimal numbers, we consider positives and negatives. We cannot simply prefix a minus sign on the binary number if it is a negative. Look at the figure below:

Positive binary numbers

In binary arithmetic, it is wrong to represent 7 as 111. Since 7 is a positive number, we affix a 0 in front. So in binary arithmetic, 7 is 0111.

Negative binary numbers

If we negate a number, for example -7, we simply do not add a 1 to make it 1111. In converting a negative number to a negative binary number, we have what we call a 1's complement and a 2's complement. We first get the 1's complement, then the 2's complement, before we say that the binary number we get is really the negative of the number.

  • 1's complement
              In 1's complement, we simply take the complement or the reverse of the digits of the binary number. For example, 7, which is 0111, will become 1000 after 1's complement.

  • 2's complement
              In 2's complement, we simply add 1 to the leftmost digit of the binary number we got from 1's complement. For example, the 2's complement of 7 is 1001, which resulted from 1000+1. 1001 now is -7.

Now how do we check if our conversion is correct? 

Remember how we convert binary to decimal?
The conversion of 7 after the 2's complement is 1001 = -7

Now that we are all set, we can perform addition and subtraction.



My personal reactions to this lesson

After the rules have been given to us, and I saw 1 + 1 is equal to 10, and 1 + 1 + 1 is 11, I was like
 















But then eventually I understood, and as the lesson goes I become more interested on how to apply other mathematical operations in binary numbers, like multiplication and division. I think this lesson is fun though challenging if we increase n, but it's nice to know that we are closer to understanding the basics of the computer's brain. :)


Saturday, March 7, 2015

Blog #4: "Can I have your digits?"


Numeral / Number Systems

(all images are from Google Images, unless stated otherwise.)



     Well, numbers are part of our lives. Before coming up with 1, 2, 3, to infinity, our ancestors, the Romans, Egyptians, and other ancient mathematicians developed number systems that I'm sure we are familiar with, or we have encountered in school.


Roman Numerals
Egyptian Numerals
Unary Number System















     Numeral systems are notations of expressing numbers. Do you remember the methods of counting you used to do?



     I often use the unary numerals, or simply tallying. When counting in small digits, I use my fingers. When I count large digits, I group them. For example, when I count my coins from my piggybank, I group them in tens so I could easily count.

Our lesson for the week's meeting - Decimal, Binary, Octal, Hexadecimal


Decimal Number System (base 10)

     The counting we do in everyday life, though not all of us may know it, or put attention to it, or even give a thought about what it is, is called the DECIMAL NUMBER SYSTEM. The decimal number system makes use of base 10. Now what am I talking about? Base 10 means 10 digits in a place value of a position. In the first position, or in the ones place, the 10 digits are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. When you reach 9, you go back to 0 in the ones place, and then add 1 in the tens place. When you reach 9 again in the ones place, you go back to 0, then add another 1 in the tens place, making your count 20.

from http://drstienecker.com/tech-332/1-numbering-systems-and-conversions/

     Binary, octal, and hexadecimal are the number systems used by our computer. Simply put, those are the "languages" of the computer. Since we "talk" in decimal, we must know how to convert it to binary, octal, and hexadecimal so the computer will understand our command.

Binary Number System (base 2)




     We all know the famous binary digits. It is the smallest unit of data in a computer. Binary is composed of 2 digits (base 2): 0 and 1, or "on" and "off", etc.

from http://code.tutsplus.com/articles/number-systems-an-introduction-to-binary-hexadecimal-and-more--active-10848

     In converting binary to base 10 or decimal, you just need to follow the table above. You simply multiply the binary digit to its corresponding power of two value, depending on the position.

from http://drstienecker.com/tech-332/1-numbering-systems-and-conversions/
     The binary number 1101 (from the image above) yields a decimal equivalent of 13 (base 10).


Octal Number System

     Octal, or base 8, is composed of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. It is like counting like the decimal way, but instead of 9, we end at 7.

from http://drstienecker.com/tech-332/1-numbering-systems-and-conversions/
     If in binary, we follow the power of two value, in octal we follow the power of eight in converting. The number 437 base 8 is equal to 287 base 10. How did we get that? Let's start with the ones place. 7 multiplied to 8 raised to 0 = 7x1 = 7. Tens place: 3 multiplied to 8 raised to 1 = 3x8 = 24. Hundreds place: 4 multiplied to 8 raised to 2 = 4x64 = 256. Adding them all up, we get 287. Simple, right?


Hexadecimal Number System (Base 16)

     Remember the colors when viewed in html? Those have digits composed of numbers 0-9 and letters A-F.

from Wikipedia (Web Colors)
     These digits are in hexadecimal. Hexadecimal, or base 16, is composed of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F. A represents 10 in decimal, B is 11, C is 12, D is 13, E is 14, and F is 15.

from http://drstienecker.com/tech-332/1-numbering-systems-and-conversions/
     In converting hexadecimal to decimal, we follow the same pattern we use in binary and octal. The only difference is we use the power of 16 values as multiplier to the digits given.



     There are different converter apps out there in the internet, but it is still useful and liberating if we know these ourselves.

For more information, and conversion techniques (those that I did not explain further, like converting octal to binary, etc.), visit
1. http://code.tutsplus.com/articles/number-systems-an-introduction-to-binary-hexadecimal-and-more--active-10848 ; and
2. http://drstienecker.com/tech-332/1-numbering-systems-and-conversions/ .