Reviewed the first draft of thesis proposal

I have just reviewed the first draft of the thesis proposal. In general it was very good. I have also added my comments. It seems the students should be careful about their English.

Proposal submitted on: 16-8-2007

Milestone 2

I am proposing a break down of Milestone 2.

Task 1: Collect at least five proceedings of ICCITs

Task 2: List the Title and Author of the papers related to OCR

Task 3: Do a comprehensive Internet search to find out the available OCR/Bangla OCR algorithm

Task 4: Compile a list of papers on OCR/Bangla OCR technology

Task 5: Compile a list of industrial solution of Bangla OCR technology

Task 6: Identify the scopes of applying the OCR/pattern matching technique in the project

Milestone timelines

I am proposing following milestone timelines. Anybody can propose a modification if there is any issue. It will be finalized as soon as Milestone 2 starts.

July '07 - 1 Week - Milestone 1
August '07 - 4 Weeks - Milestone 1,2
September '07 - 4 Weeks - Milestone 2,3
October '07 - 4 Weeks - Milestone 4
November '07 - 4 Weeks - Milestone 4,5
Decmeber '07 - 4 Weeks - Milestone 5
January '08 - 4 Weeks - Milestone 6
February '08 - 4 Weeks - Milestone 7

Please send your comment to the project mailing list.

Milestone 1

I have proposed the following breakdown for Milestone 1.

Task 1: Technical briefing by the MD of ASD (already completed)

Task 2: Individual feedback from the four team members following the standard communication protocol

Task 3: Prepare a thesis proposal and submit it to the academic supervisor (Sajib bhai) - it's a team assignment

Task 4: Propose a task plan for Milestone 2 - individual assignment to be submitted following the standard communication protocol

First technical meeting @ ASD

Today we met for the first time at the DOHS office. The meeting was very successful. It started with the introduction of Jamil bhai, MD of ASD. He talked about the history, business issues and technical issues of the project. He also shed some light on the technical and business constraints. The session was very comprehensive and rich. He also shared his experience regarding the project. He pointed out his concrete requirements.

Then I took over. I explained the project breakdown (seven milestones), grading policy and communication protocol (weekly reports).

With much interest and intelligent feedbacks, all the four interns participated greatly and individually. They asked about the current prospect of the project, its technical issues and also about the management and coordination of the program. Their feedbacks are of great help while we design or run different program issues.

In general it was a very feedback rich succesful program. It took 1.25 hours to complete.

All the interns are requested to send individual reports to intern-asd-2007@yahoogroups.com with a Cc to Shajib sir's official address after arriving at Sylhet. This report should contain the points we have told in the meeting and the way they have realized the points.

I am expecting to recieve the email by next Friday. Thanks to all for today's successful session.

Received the resumes of four interns

I have received the resume of four interns yesterday. Thanks to them for sending me their details. I handed them all to Jamil bhai last night. Although there were scopes for improvement, in general these four are very good resumes. Infact, they still have one year before improve them and start job hunting.

I am looking forward to see them in the first technical meeting this evening.

Weekly reporting

I am proposing a communication protocol which is expected to be followed throughout the program. Every Thursday, each team member will send two emails to intern-asd-2007@yahoogroups.com with a CC to the official email address of Sajib bhai/sir. The first one is the report of what he has done during the last seven days and the following will be what he is going to do during the next seven days.

So, the first email should contain the text, "Weekly Status: , ", in the subject line. For example, "Weekly Status: Jul 12, 2007". Similarly, the weekly plan email should have something like "Weekly Plan: Jul 12, 2007" in the subject line. Again, it should be sent to intern-asd-2007@yahoogroups.com with a CC to the official email address of Sajib bhai/sir.

Please let me know if anyone have a better idea. We are always happy to improve our processes.

Project grade breakdown

The whole program has been broken down into several milestones to make grading easy. In general major milestones are:

Milestone 1: Project introduction and appreciation

Milestone 2: Finding out the scope of applying and optimizing the standard OCR and pattern matching algorithms in the context of the project

Milestone 3: Test the best fit algorithm for the project

Milestone 4: Finalize the business requirements of the project

Milestone 5: Work on the architectural design of the system

Milestone 6: Work on the implementation outline of the project

Milestone 7: Start working on the implementation

All these seven milestones should be reached to ensure a good grade in the project. I will break down each milestone further. Please let me know if there is any issue.

** All these seven milestones have same weight and will contain 100 points at most. So, the total program has a grand total of 700 points to be maximum. While reporting to Sajib bhai/sir I would always send the number converting it into percentage.

Faisal came to my office

Faisal came to my office on Thursday. One of his team mates had an encounter with a dog and was injured. So, they are yet to finalize a date to sit in Dhaka. I have asked them to submit their resume before coming to Dhaka. I have sent the link of sample resumes today. Now I am looking forward to see how they present themselves. So far, everything is going fine. I am yet to break down the grading policy. Hope to complete it this week.

Welcome Jamil Bhai

Let me introduce Jamil bhai to all. He is the Managing Director of ASD and the main stakeholder of the project. With his long experience in the industry, he will be guiding us throughout the program. Welcome Jamil bhai!

I talked to Faisal. They are expected to be back to Sylhet within the last week of this month after the summer vacation. We will start afterwards.

Got details of the internees

I have just got an email from Faisal. It includes the details of the internees. The details of the fourth student will be posted soon.

Md. Faisal Hasan Khan
Email: faisalcssust@yahoo.com
Reg: 2002331115
Mobile: 01716415401
Mymensingh

Rajib Bonik
Email: rajibcssust@yahoo.com
Reg: 2002331013
Mobile: 01818822686, 01918285474
Feni

Sazibur Rahman
Email: sajibcssust@yahoo.com
Reg: 2002331085
Mobile: 01816324453
Barisal

Gulam Hafiz Khan
Email: ringkucsesust@gmail.com, ringku_csesust@yahoo.com
Reg: 2002331041
Mobile: 01816261385, 01717491352
Bagura


Thank you very much Faisal. Guys! Welcome aboard!

I have also invited my colleague to contribute here

Sajib, software engineer at Nilavo Technologies and ex-CSE-SUST, has been invited here.

Jamil bhai and Sajib bhai invited

I have just invited Sajib bhai and Jamil bhai to the mailing list and the blog.

New Mailing Lists

I have just created a new mailing list for the program. Here is the detail:

Group name:		intern-asd-2007
Group home page:		http://groups.yahoo.com/group/intern-asd-2007
Group email:		intern-asd-2007@yahoogroups.com

First post

I have just drafted a brief project description and send it to ASD for review. Here is the draft:

Advanced Software Development has its strong presence in the market of media archiving solutions since 2003. Since its inception, ASD is trying to improve its processes to meet clients' need more efficiently and effectively. In this continuation, ASD has undertaken a project to re-engineer its processes so that it will use its resources more effectively.

The media archiving solution has different automatic and manual processes. A daily schedule starts while 10/12 operators enter the office at 7 am. They take the newspapers and search the news items they are interested about. Then the news locations are marked. Then they get the pages scanned and start working on the electronic copies of the newspapers. They cut the news in rectangular blocks from the files and save them as separate images. Then, they tag them with the news title and customer info and upload them on the database.

The whole process takes almost 10/12 operators working for 8 hours a day. ASD likes to convert it into a software handled process which will reduce the number of operators. It requires OCR and pattern recognition modules along with standard software engineering solutions. The whole project will be done in two steps. Firstly, in Phase I, the algorithmic and software engineering issues should be solved. This phase will be mostly done on pen and paper. The second phase will contain most of the coding and testing part.