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| (L-R )Michael Cisarik, William McCluskey, Michael Voss, Tyler Pinta, and Edward Adkisson |
Senior project students developed a complete system for
St John the Baptist Food Pantry (SJFP) that will enable the volunteers to more
easily track the clients they serve and generate the reports necessary for
other agencies. The Senior Project team
was: Edward Adkisson, Michael Cisarik,
William McCluskey, Tyler Pinta, and Michael Voss.
We were pleased to welcome representatives of St. John
the Baptist Food Pantry to our presentation, Marianne Manley, Janet Lombardi,
and Maisie Buss.
The
students were given the task of taking the information
currently kept on index cards, one for each of the 650 families in their
system. Updating of the information on a per visit basis, adding new families
to their system, searching on a variety of conditions and generating different
reports are some the tasks that SJFP needed to be able to perform
The studentsl not only developed and
implemented a database system, but created a user friendly interface to
accomplish the tasks since SJFP are not IT professionals. PHP was used so that a browser interface was
feasible. Apache and MySQL were
installed on the system donated by USF’s IT department.
Our Senior Project students also
considered maintenance and security building in signon features and scripts to
handle backups and common system tasks. The students provided training and
documentation.
They began the project with requirements gathering and
identifying what exactly would be needed.
Along the way they provided information about suggested hardware
requirements so that SJFP could apply for a technology grant. They assisted SJFP with a survey of the
potential for Internet access and an internal network. The system was planned and developed so
that it could be further enhanced as more equipment became available.
In the last month of the semester a user acceptance test
was completed with members of SJFP. User
training on the system took place a week before the presentation and seven
members participated. They were very
pleased with the system that addressed their needs. The system was then delivered to the home of
one of the members so she could begin entering their client information. A technical training session was given to
Prof Ruth Weldon, Prof Tony Zordan, and three students to help them provide
support over the summer and into the Fall semester.
At the Senior Project presentation bound copies of the
user documentation and a back up CD were given to St. John the Baptist Food
Pantry as well as a box of food collected from attendees at the event.
Thanks to Prof Tony Zordan and USF’s IT department.
Congratulations to Edward, Mike C., Bill, Tyler, and Mike V on a job well done.
October 2013 we began a series of Tech Talks, for students and led by
students. Bryona Johnson, Information Technology, gave us an
excellent start for our inaugural event with a talk on gaming. She covered new releases and led the talk
into opinions on types of games, hardware issues, and what students want to see
in games.
On September 19, 2013, Nick Morris, USF Information Technology (2010)
Alumnus, and currently a Discovery Consultant with Deloitte Financial Advisory
Services spoke to us about the fascinating field of Computer Forensics. He offered insight into how a forensic
investigation is conducted, what type of information can be discovered, and what
types of tools are used. He described
the types of circumstances under which a forensic investigation is conducted
and how varied they can be. Some of his
experience was from a computer forensic investigation into the BP oil spill in
the Gulf of Mexico. Deloitte LLP is a world-wide corporation specializing in
auditing, consulting, and financial advising
We give the Joan Nahas Ramuta Award annually
to honor the memory of Joan and this year we are honoring the memory of Jarrod
Cupps, Web Application Development, who has been designated this year’s recipient. We lost Jarrod too soon, but we want to
acknowledge the joy and the meaning he added to our lives. 
Also honored as this year’s recipient of the Meritorious
Service was Andrew Johnson, Information Technology, who helped make our virtual server environment a
working reality, building an Active Directory environment for sign-on security
for the Computer Science lab machines.
Drew is always willing to answer questions and help resolve
problems. 
A great time was had by the USF alumni and USF students who
were able to attend the Sixth Annual Alumni/Student Event. A certificate commemorating the Meritorious
Service award was given to Andrew Johnson for all his work on the USF CompSci
lab and server configurations. 
With flooded streets, viaducts, basements and all sorts of weather related challenges we've decided to postpone our CompSci Student/Alumni event until next week. We're sorry for the last minute change. 
