Learn to better

Amazon or Google

Ad — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 01:31:50 +0000

Edubuntu

Ad — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 16:34:21 +0000

If someone were to ask me which linux or ubuntu variant to take or start, I would probably say Ubuntu. Having tested with quite a number of linux for years, I do have certain expectations and preferences. Despite the years, I still prefer ease, simplicity, clarity and less technical burden on the user.

There are a number of reasons why I prefer Edubuntu.

First, let’s start with the philosophical view. Born of Linux, being free and only wishing to give others, then gradually maturing into debian and Ubuntu – ‘Humanity’, and blossoming into Edubuntu – The ubuntu variant that offers free linux and educational games to kids, teenaagers and adults alike.

Secondly, in terms of technicality, not only can it give new life to old and lower-specs laptops and PCs, it is relatively problem-free upon installation and new software addition, at least in my case.

Thirdly, the eye candy and ease factor. This has one of my highest vote. The Unity-2D allows a large search and results box to display upon the top left-hand corner click. The auto-hide left-hand side large icons for shortcuts and running programs is pleasant.

A few recommendations to install via Ubuntu Software Center

Docky – The floating icons below
Uget – Downloads resume
Chromium Web Browser – A pleasant browser
Calibre – Ebooks Library Manager

Some shortcut keys :-

To copy highlighted text : Ctrl + C

To paste after copying : Ctrl + V

To switch between programs : Alt + Tab

To search or show available programs: Press Windows key and start typing to search

To switch between the four available work-spaces : Press Ctrl + Alt + the arrow key

Other website/s to note or bookmark:

Sky.fm – Free, stable internet radio of acceptable quality and various genres.

If Edubuntu does not work out for any reason, the Dream Studio may be a good option for the better PCs and Notebooks that can support it or the Peppermint OS, light weight and Cloud/Web Centric.

Good Luck and have fun!

Simplifying with Linux

Ad — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:26:59 +0000

If you have read Install, Learn or Use Linux or Applications before written couple of years back, it is probably time for an update of more on using or better, albeit probably a shorter write-up, with updates as and when.

In this post, we’ll look a different ways Linux can help simplify our life and ease on daily usage..

Education

What about using Linux as an educational tool for kids and teenagers? Well, there is the Sugar Labs and Edubuntu. This helps to make learning fun and easier.

Apple Inc. Mac OSX Machines

Just a little side-track on The “brother” of Linux? Wait, what if you want a customized Unix-based system running on dedicated, proprietary hardware? That will be the very popular Mac systems running on Mac OSX. Well, why would we want that, one may wonder. For a few reasons at least. For one, stability as a result of a more complete compatibility of of both software and hardware. And two, the beauty of a total concept and outlook; a white, clean and simple image in the case of Mac products. Third, probably ease of use. If one has own a Mac product before, chances is he will agree that it is quality built to last. There is quite a bit more about Mac products to just a conventional system, for example :- ipod, ipad, iphone etc.

Android

Now, let’s say we want a small, free or open source operating system that anyone can use or have fun & develop? Here comes Google’s Android – based on Linux kernel. Like the iphone or ipad, it is like having a mini operating system in your pocket or jacket on the road or travelling e.g. Samsung Nexus S and Galaxy Tab.

Business

Is there a more serious side to Linux? Definitely! There is the Ubuntu Advantage and Ubuntu Home Support for those who needs it. There is also the more graphical Linux small business server, ubuntu-based Zentyal offering different subscription packages, and even the ClearBox Hardware with clearOS server, network and gateway capabilities.

Hello World Fun

Ad — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 18:01:47 +0000

Why this Hello World writing?

Well, for at least a few reasons.

One, to help others understand the diversity of different

programming languages in one of it’s simplest terms to humans.

Two, at a glance to compare the languages.

Three, just to see what is available and for the curious and fun.

Oh, and a gentle reminder on how to start the first step, and which.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Ruby:

p ‘Hello World’

In Smalltalk

Transcript show: 'Hello, world!'.

In python3:

print(‘Hello World’)

In Perl

print "Hello World\n";

In PHP

Hello World

’; ?>

In Go Programming

package main

import “fmt”

func main() {

fmt.Println(“Hello, 世界”)

}

In Javascript

1:   
In ActionScript

package {
 import flash.display.*;
 import flash.text.*;

 public class HelloWorld extends Sprite {
   private var greeting:TextField = new TextField();

   public function HelloWorld() {
     greeting.text = "Hello World!";
     greeting.x = 100;
     greeting.y = 100;
     addChild(greeting);
   }
 }
}

In ASP.NET

<%@ Page Language="VB" %>



<a href="http://asp.net/">ASP.NET</a> Hello World



<%= "Hello World!" %>

In VB.NET

Public Class Form1
    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        MessageBox.Show("Hello, World")
    End Sub
End Class

In QBASIC

PRINT "Hello, World!"

In C++

#include 

int main()
{
  std::cout << "Hello World!" << std::endl;
  return 0;
}
In C Programming

 main( ) {
        printf("hello, world");
 }
In Java
class myfirstjavaprog {
public static void main(String args[])         {
System.out.println("Hello World!");
}
}

In Pascal

program HelloWorld;

begin
  writeln('Hello World');
end.

In Lisp

(print "Hello World")
In COBOL

000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000200 PROGRAM-ID.     HELLOWORLD.
000300
000400*
000500 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
000600 CONFIGURATION SECTION.
000700 SOURCE-COMPUTER. RM-COBOL.
000800 OBJECT-COMPUTER. RM-COBOL.
000900
001000 DATA DIVISION.
001100 FILE SECTION.
001200
100000 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
100100
100200 MAIN-LOGIC SECTION.
100300 BEGIN.
100400     DISPLAY " " LINE 1 POSITION 1 ERASE EOS.
100500     DISPLAY "Hello world!" LINE 15 POSITION 10.
100600     STOP RUN.
100700 MAIN-LOGIC-EXIT.
100800     EXIT.

In Assembly Language

title   Hello World Program                             (hello.asm)
; This program displays "Hello, World!"

dosseg
.model small
.stack 100h

.data
hello_message db 'Hello, World!',0dh,0ah,'$'

.code
main  proc
      mov    ax,@data
      mov    ds,ax

      mov    ah,9
      mov    dx,offset hello_message
      int    21h

      mov    ax,4C00h
      int    21h
main  endp
end   main

In Bash Scripting

#!/bin/bash
echo Hello world

In Windows PowerShell

PS> 'hello, world!'.ToUpper()

Above may be some of the more popular ones, but there are

easily more than a hundred Programming Languages around the world,

and mor comparisons here. Wait, there’s more, how about Hello World in Markup Languages?

In HTML


  
    Tutorial: HelloWorld
  
  
    HelloWorld Tutorial

In XML



  hello world

Hello World in Web Application Frameworks?

In Rails 3

```
$ rails hello
```
```
$ cd hello
```
```
$ rails generate controller hello
```
Open the file config/routes.rb. Almost at the bottom (line #57) is this line:
```
# match ':controller(/:action(/:id(.:format)))'
```
Remove the # in front so the line looks like:
```
match ':controller(/:action(/:id(.:format)))'
```
Create a file named index.html.erb in app/views/hello containing the text ‘Hello world’.
```
$ rails server
```

What about Hello World in a Web Visual Rapid Application Development platform?

In Wavemaker

Just click and drag, change the caption to Hello World! 15 secs screenshot below.

Thank you and credit to all codes authors with links.

Home Learning

Ad — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:14:17 +0000

Love Home Learning!

With internet, tons of educational materials can be found.

However, a good learning relies on the individual to know what he needs and should study, puts in the effort to source them, and importantly puts in the discipline and time to have satisfactory results.

Before jumping into these courses, perhaps it’s crucial to know why and what is the purpose of life ; To know the truth of the universe. Rather than wasting immeasurable time and efforts before realizing what one’s wishes and efforts are a total waste of time and even completely against your good intentions and altruistic philosophical beliefs; read widely if you must, but more importantly, be very objective (non-biased) and differentiate truths, half-truths, mediocrity , wishful and unrealistic thinking and complete utter nonsense and lies.

I believe if one is completely altruistic in his intentions, totally open-minded, objective and unbiased, flawless in reasoning, he or she may have the opportunity to know what is the ultimate attainment, where and which is the best path to undertake. This is the start, but the most important one. Because a journey of a thousand miles may begin with a single step, but what’s the point of taking even half a step that reaps retribution.

Bearing in mind people have different capacities and dispositions, please consider if below recommendations are in accordance with your own.

In line with the altruistic belief , i like to look with resources which are free (if available), open source and beneficial in the long run, hopefully wholesome in aspects. They are selected and chosen for their own merits and quality of excellence.

Take a look and have fun learning.

========================================================

Quality, excellent or good learning

Learn from Google (the popular free search engine company) free - Google Code or Google Code University, Google Labs, Google Sketchup, HTML5Rocks. Google reasonably-priced certification exams based on free online courses:- Google Apps, Adwords and Analytics. Google also offers developer certification in these areas :- JavaScript Maps API
KML
Geo 3D
App Engine
Chrome Extensions
Gadgets
AJAX Search API
Blender is a free open source content creation suite. e.g make animation movies.
Gimp GNU Image Manipulation Program. e.g photo-retouching.
Ubuntu is a free, open source and popular operating system for desktops, servers, netbooks and laptops.
Freeonlinecomputerbooks, including Diveintopython which offers good, free python (a free and powerful programming language) learning. May find both python and Ruby fun; Free or GPL, concise and productive.
Heard of Ruby Language? “A dynamic, open source programming language with a focus on simplicity and productivity. It has an elegant syntax that is natural to read and easy to write”. Have fun at shoesrb.

Certification

Homeandlearn.co.uk - Free Tutorials, exams and certification.

Others ; Art, Language, etc…

Fivepencilmethod.com is a high quality pencil drawing course. The free online course is taught by a professional and sincere artist. Amazing beauty!
Smart.fm – Learn the Japanese language easily and effectively free! Different levels available. May even beat paid resources. Abundant materials and learning based on research!
Wikipedia – the free, web-based encyclopedia comprising millions of articles.

========================================================

Good IT books easy on readers

Still publishing new books of an older but of simplified, tutorial style is the Sams Teach Yourself series.

On learning from modern books, esp. IT, there are some interesting trends of new writing ways for learning. For example, there are the Head First Series sold at Amazon.com that are filled with pictures and materials presented in casual style, the friendly-looking getstartED with friendsofED series, the Cookbooks (O’Reilly) series that lists questions or problems and the and the solutions, rather like the FAQ style. Then, there are the LiveLessons that teaches from videos in DVDs, accompanied with thin booklets (IMHO, learning from these DVDs can be a fast help for beginners or as refreshers).

Perhaps a good idea to make learning more fun and educational is to incorporate the elements of good educational materials, videos animation stories, in FAQ style.

=========================================

Notes

Of course, if you just wish to blog or publish some stuffs online with good visual themes & some basic widgets yet without the hassle of the concerns of hosting and costs, WordPress may indeed be the answer. And a site that may prove useful, osalt, which helps to find open source software alternatives to well-known commercial software.

May all be happy!

And thanks to all those involved for the good intention and deed to benefit others.

Last Update: 10/01/2011

Install, Learn or Use Linux or Applications

Ad — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:22:27 +0000

Note: Read below slanted or oblique text only for shortcuts.

First off, can’t say this is fun for everyone. Linux may not be easy. This posting has been updated from time to time.

Why free OS (Operating System) ?

Based on an altruistic philosophy. Free sharing of knowledge to all as a way of humanity.

Why Linux?

The native and core principle of Linux is based on a free GPL Operating System, and many derivatives and distros of the original linux adopted the same free philosophy. Operating System or OS in short and layman’s term is the main program that tells a computer how to work and run, before all other skills or applications are added above.

Another great advantage of Linux is that its free philosophy has literally span into its applications, meaning more than 10,000+ applications are all free for usage! Moreover, because of its excellent concepts and design, it is relatively secure and virus-free!

Tested

Some of the Linux OS that was downloaded, installed, tested or configured included Ubuntu 6&7 &8, Gentoo, Zenwalk, Sidux, Arch, Puppy & Muppy & Teenpup2008 & Lighthouse, DSL, Feather, gOS, PCLinuxOS, OpenSUSE, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS & PCFluxOS & Tinyme, Foresight, LinuxMint, Fedora, Dreamlinux. More…

Distrowatch is one site that keeps an overview of latest releases and ratings ranking.

Based on personal experience, these are the recommendations, which may shave days or weeks or even months off your Linux installation time.

What to look for?

To evaluate Linux, there are 7 simple, basic considerations for a newbie

Easy Graphical Installation
Working Drivers
Fast Boot time and/or uses little or moderate memory
Stable enough & reboot back to before shutdown
Common Apps, Firefox, utube and Synaptic ready
Attractive or even intuitive desktop
LiveCD for demo and installation if wish so.
Even better, can be installed and use from a USB device

Sounds simple? Not at all! Many Hours can be spent just getting drivers to work, indefinitely. Which is also the reason the many Linux OSes are tested.

How to just install and use a Linux OS Application?

To shortcut your installation and Linux applications experience and save your time: If you are running windows and wish to run Linux & application and saves data in it as well. I consider this one of, if not the easiest way, to test or use Linux applications. You may skip below sections if that’s all you need. Now, you can choose to download and run the application (many to choose from) that come pre-configured and installed on the Linux. If you are new to the applications, well, there are many to choose from, just visit below links.

Download one or more of the stacks or appliances that you like to explore from TurnKeyLinux or Bitnami.
Double click to install and run, configure if necessary.

That’s it!

But if you wish to do the old fashion way, and play with Linux commands, read on…

The old usual way: Download an image of the Linux in a .iso format. Then burn the image on a CD-R(W) with a free software such as InfraRecord. This is know as a LiveCD. You may wish to partition your hardisks e.g free, grahical and easy Easus Personal edition, so you can have different OS in different partitions. Make the system boot from the CD in your system Bios settings, usually with pressing a DEL or some key/s after power on. Modern distros usually install a boot manager to help you boot into different OS. If you like the feel of the LiveCD, you may choose to install into your Hardisk then. Be sure to backup your data elsewhere before doing this.

Here’s the recommendations that works easily for me out of the many:-

PCLinuxOS – Also meets most or all of above requirements! Professional outlook. Good and Simple.
Fedora - Meets most or all the cuts. One of the Simplest that works.

If you have a fast and new computer that may boot from USB disk, and have a USB drive of about or more that 1 GB , Fedora live-usb creator is a breeze. For PCLinuxOS – head on to UNetbootin, a small windows program that helps to create a Live USB of your distro choice, more than 10 different ones! This is a fast and quick easy way to test if you like an OS without having to buy and burn CDs.

How to install and use a popular Linux from Windows?

If you just wish to install only Ubuntu (a popular Linux OS) from and as a Windows application, without CD burning or USB, Wubi, safe & simple & free, is the way to go!

If your computer is slow or old, and you are looking for just basic features to get your work done quick and easy without high expectations, you might want to burn these CDs:

Midiflux of PCFluxboxOS – Small, fast, <350MB based on PCLinuxOS.
Muppy Linux, a pupplet with extensive applications installer based on the small and fast Puppy Linux. But again, hardware drivers issues beware and no synaptic.

The Wubi method requires either to run Windows or Ubuntu upon bootup. What if the user wishes to run Mac/Windows and Linux together, visible from the Mac/Windows desktop?

How to run Linux inside or with Windows/Mac concurrently?

Remember the ISO files that represent the Linux distribution? Never mind if you don’t, ISOs can be easily downloaded from any of the Linux OS sites you prefer. Then download vmware or Virtualbox, and open the ISO file, configure or take default settings. And Lanuch the Linux OS!

Some and More

PCLinuxOS, who even has its own magazine site pclosmag, is also recommended here with other Linux articles here at desktoplinux.wordpress.com.

Ubuntu, a very popular distro but drivers or applications for sound or adsl may disappoint, but definitely worth a consider even solely based on its strong support and large community forum, has an increasing number new derivatives, including :

Linux Mint – ‘light-green’ and one of the more popular
gOS - Attractive Mac-look

Fsum Frontend is an open source, free, GUI software to verify integrity of files, support with 96 algorithms including MD5 and sha1.

Learn Linux Commands Free

Linux nowadays are graphical but chances are you may need to customize, tweak to better suit your needs.

Learn Linux course here or an entertaining version (Gd)

Hope this helps.

Last Update: 21/12/2010

Those links marked with (Gd) means that they are found to be really good for learning in terms of being fun, easy, attractive, interactive intuitive or well-prepared!

Note: This page is meant to just document some of the experiences with the downloads and does not represent others’ experience nor serve to disparage in any way. Please go ahead and test any above if you like. Some downloads are verified with MD5SUM before testing.

And thanks to all Linux developers for all your generous efforts!

Mental Arithmetic Competition Time! – HappyCare Daycare Centre’s Snaps! (Malaysia)

Ad — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 23:11:10 +0000

Attention to teachers and parents please visit Mental Arithmetics at Flikr here for the original album pictures. Or ninebeads.notlong.com for ease.

Event: 9 Beads Mental Arithmetics – Nine Beads Regional Competition and Grading Test.

Venue: A Primary school in Pandan Indah, Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia
Date and Time : Morning of a sunny Sunday 26 August 2007 9:30am -12:30am
Participation : 6 kids from Happy Care Daycare Centre participated in this event involving about 85 kids from various spots of KL.

Our ‘little’ smiling champions from HappyCare, all our participants received an award each!

Last but not least, Have Fun!

Some Information

If you are new to the abacus and mental arithmetics, you may be surprised to watch some kids actually doing large numbers mentally as you speak, and have answers at their fingertips once you stop. Now that is what happens when smart or average young kids learn mental arithmetics for couple of years. Most people refer to the Japanese Abacus when they are talking about abacus, which require the memorization of 34 formula to master it. Methods of learning have evolved, kids are taught to use both hands for writing and calculating the abacus, thus help develop both the left and right brain and enhance concentration and focus.

The 9 bead Mental Arithmetic – Another Breakthrough

Did i mention couple of years? Now with the 9 bead mental arithmetic the learning curve’s been slashed dramatically, kids may attain the same level of competency in just half a year! How is that possible? I call this Accelerated Mental Arithmetics Learning(AMAL). Well firstly, the abacus has been simplified to suit our modern understanding of number calculation and easily complements the school’s way of number teaching. It makes sense to adults and kids! Secondly, the relatively reduced or complete lack of formula memorization (compared to the previous 34 formulas) means that kids DO NOT need to memorize with lengthy painstaking effort. Well, learning should be fun!

Really faster? Yes, imagine younger kids with less learning duration testing for the same grading level as those studied for years.

And noticeable improvements in the kids’ general school studies too!

What is the ideal age to engage in mental arithmetics? 4-6 years old. A child’s brain development is very active between 0-6 years old according to research.

How many years does it take to attain proficiency? The 9 beads Mental Arithmetics course has a layout plan of about 2 years. Though it may be possible to continue upgrading thereafter.

It takes about 6 months for a kid to do mental arithmetics sums.

Grading generally comes after about 3 or 4 months of studying.

Kids may attend the competition shown in the pictures as soon as within 1-2 months of studying.

However, this course is one which relies on the teaching methodologies which the training teacher will learn on an on-going basis. Therefore, it may not be suitable for the buy-a-book-and-Learn readers.

May all have boundless intelligence!