Meaningful Contribution
The way in which I made a meaningful contribution was by creating the guide for one of the check scanners. Many people have had problems with it, including me, when installing the device. There are several variables in the installation that prove to be confusing or problematic under certain conditions. The first one I worked on to make the guide proved even more challenging since there was something broken inside the machine itself; However, I was able to figure out the exact problem with it even when the others couldn't figure out what it was by using a combination of thinking differently and testing everything, even when I thought something wasn't the cause.
Project Process
Creating my project proved easier and easier going on because of the new skills I was learning in order to deal with problems. In developing the guide, I referenced other guides for the device to help me in my own testing. Improving upon those guides included clarifying much of the language since they could be rather confusing to read through, simplifying steps to make it easier for the user to understand, and providing new information that the other ones didn't cover, as most of my own research came through creating the troubleshooting section. I had to learn things by testing them instead of just reading about them, and come up with (Bluepoint) solutions that aren't covered anywhere. One of the big problems I wanted to solve was how to figure out the ip address of the device if you didn't know it. This one stumped me for awhile as I ran through many tests and Google searches on how to do just that. I finally figured it out after using software that could intercept data packets coming from the device and resolve the address. It was a huge relief but I wasn't done yet. The last step was to create a foolproof method of resetting the address to work on your system. Using this new knowledge, and that of testing earlier, I found the new ip, set my ip to match the device's, allowing me to access its options page, then set the device's ip to mine to work correctly on my system. I was very happy to have finally figured it out, especially since it was all my own work.
The way in which I made a meaningful contribution was by creating the guide for one of the check scanners. Many people have had problems with it, including me, when installing the device. There are several variables in the installation that prove to be confusing or problematic under certain conditions. The first one I worked on to make the guide proved even more challenging since there was something broken inside the machine itself; However, I was able to figure out the exact problem with it even when the others couldn't figure out what it was by using a combination of thinking differently and testing everything, even when I thought something wasn't the cause.
Project Process
Creating my project proved easier and easier going on because of the new skills I was learning in order to deal with problems. In developing the guide, I referenced other guides for the device to help me in my own testing. Improving upon those guides included clarifying much of the language since they could be rather confusing to read through, simplifying steps to make it easier for the user to understand, and providing new information that the other ones didn't cover, as most of my own research came through creating the troubleshooting section. I had to learn things by testing them instead of just reading about them, and come up with (Bluepoint) solutions that aren't covered anywhere. One of the big problems I wanted to solve was how to figure out the ip address of the device if you didn't know it. This one stumped me for awhile as I ran through many tests and Google searches on how to do just that. I finally figured it out after using software that could intercept data packets coming from the device and resolve the address. It was a huge relief but I wasn't done yet. The last step was to create a foolproof method of resetting the address to work on your system. Using this new knowledge, and that of testing earlier, I found the new ip, set my ip to match the device's, allowing me to access its options page, then set the device's ip to mine to work correctly on my system. I was very happy to have finally figured it out, especially since it was all my own work.