Learn how to program
So you want to be a programmer ? Which programming languages should you learn ?
- Python (wikipedia article)
- Perl (wikipedia article)
- Lisp (wikipedia article)
- C/C++ (wikipedia article C)/(wikipedia article C++)
- Java (wikipedia article)
Next I would recommend to learn Ruby (wikipedia article), and Javascript (wikipedia article). And although not really programming languages, I think it’s necessary to learn PHP (wikipedia article) and MySQL (wikipedia article) (after spending several years learning to master the 5 initial languages…).
And of course spend also some time working with a Linux distribution (wikipedia article) (go for Ubuntu or Debian).
One final word: reading books on the subject is good, practice is better.
Do you agree with this choice ?
Posterous
Posterous is the dead simple way to put anything online using email ! I will try this out one of these days. Having a blackberry, this looks like a very good tool to keep blogging while I’m travelling. Are you using Posterous ?
Wolfram Alpha
Wolfram Alpha (launching this month) is an answer-engine developed by the international company Wolfram Research. The service is an online computational data engine based on intuitive query parsing, a large library of algorithms, and A New Kind of Science approach to answering queries.
Update: The Quest for Computable Knowledge — A Short Timeline (interesting overview – pdf)
pdate:
Synchronizing mail on two computers
I use Thunderbird on several computers and need some way to synchronize messages on different computers. Luckily there are several different ways . Written for Thunderbird but also applies to Mozilla Suite / SeaMonkey.
Other suggestions are welcome:
Open source
Setting up a laptop with open source software. Or actually I’m deciding what software I will use. Just not sure if I’m going to use Linux (Debian or Ubuntu) or if I’ll just leave the pre-installed windows OS on it.
Sage
Sage is a free open-source software application which covers many aspects of mathematics, including algebra, combinatorics, numerical mathematics and calculus. It combines dozens of software packages.
Note: compare Sage with other free computer algebra software!
Top 10 Free Video Editors for Ubuntu Linux
Top 10 Free Video Editors for Ubuntu Linux on TechCityInc
Processing 1.0
Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is an alternative to proprietary software tools in the same domain.
Processing is free to download and available for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.
Ben Fry writes about it and Casey Reas as well.
Openbravo
Openbravo is a web-based, open source ERP business solution for small and medium sized companies that is released under the Openbravo Public License, based on the Mozilla Public License.
I need to have a closer look at this ! Would be nice to hear from people who use this.
Update: compare also with PostBooks !
Flickr Hive Mind
Flickr Hive Mind is a search engine as well as an experiment in the power of Folksonomies. This is the result when I search for ‘moleskine‘, a collection of beautifully illustrated moleskine notebooks.
Keyboard and Mouse shortcuts Firefox 3
A list of keyboard shortcuts and mouse shortcuts in Mozilla Firefox
The differences between GNU/Linux distributions
A lot of people have heard of GNU/Linux (more commonly referred to as just “Linux”) and are having trouble finding out what the differences are between different versions — or distributions — that are available. This article outlines the differences between several popular GNU/Linux distributions and similar operating systems. Dates from 2006, but still interesting for newbies.
Similar articles: Linux distributions at wikipedia – linux distribution selector – another linux distribution selector
Another reason not to buy Windows Vista
It seems Windows 7 is going to be available end 2009, or perhaps in 2010. So why should a Windows XP user buy Vista ? In another year or so, we’ll have a new system again. I can’t keep on buying this stuff. Linux users must be laughing now…
Quote
Question: I’m having problems with my Windows software. Will you help me?
Answer: Yes. Go to a DOS prompt and type “format c:”. Any problems you are experiencing will cease within a few minutes.
(source)
Firefox add-ons
Like so many others I installed Firefox 3 on Download Day. Next I customized it by installing several add-ons:
- The Delicious Bookmarks extension “integrates your browser with del.icio.us by augmenting the bookmarking functionality in Firefox”.
- Firebug integrates with Firefox “to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page”.
- FireShot is “a Firefox extension that creates screenshots of web pages.Unlike other extensions, this plugin provides a set of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify captures and insert text and graphical annotations. Such functionality will be especially useful for web designers, testers and content reviewers.It’s possible to choose whether entire web page or only visible part of this page should be captured.Screenshots can be uploaded to server, saved to disk (PNG, GIF, JPEG, BMP), copied to clipboard, e-mailed and sent to external editor for further processing”.
- Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer. Keeps your bookmarks synchronized across your computers and provides online access to them as well.
- Sage-Too (NOT sage !) “a lightweight RSS and Atom feed aggregator extension. It’s got more of what you need and not much of what you don’t”. Feeddemon is my default aggregator, but I use this extension as well.
- ScribeFire is “a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog”. It doesn’t beat blogjet or live writer, but still.
- The Web Developer extension “adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools”.
If you do not like the default theme of Firefox, than you might like the NASA Night Launch theme which gives you a nice dark look.
Update: I’ll write a post about how I keep my bookmarks and RSS feeds organized across different computers I use. Later. Later.
Firefox 3 download time
Announcement: download Firefox 3 on 17 June !
RK translates: start downloading at 17:00 GMT….(yes, not exactly good communication from the Mozilla guys, but download anyway 
)
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