Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Eloquent JavaScript


Howdy Ya'll,

Hot of the press from Bradford...

Picture of Michael Bradford
Eloquent JavaScript
by Michael Bradford - Wednesday, 26 October 2011, 01:00 PM
 Hi Everybody,
Please see http://eloquentjavascript.net/. There is a freely available book online at this site that allows readers to manipulate and run code examples as they progress through the material. The book also covers programming concepts in general (such as Object Oriented Programming). The book is called

Eloquent JavaScript

A Modern Introduction to Programming

by Marijn Haverbeke
 
Regards,
Michael.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Getting Heroku Working

This comes strait from my inbox from Desmond Harrold


Heroku Does work !!



"You need explicitly to generate a Public/Private key pair and add them to Heroku and then the git push command works. The keys are not automatically uploaded the first time you use Heroku.


The key generation is in a document on the Heroku site."


If anyone has questions... dont ask me... ask Desmond Harrold

Table of Contents

If you don’t already use SSH, you’ll need to create a public/private key pair to deploy code to Heroku. This keypair is used for the strong cryptography and that uniquely identifies you as a developer when pushing code changes.
You can use DSA keys if you prefer, using the -t dsa option. Heroku can use either type of key.
To generate a public key:
$ ssh-keygen -t rsa
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/Users/adam/.ssh/id_rsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): 
Enter same passphrase again: 
Your identification has been saved in /Users/adam/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /Users/adam/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
a6:88:0a:0b:74:90:c6:e9:d5:49:d6:e3:04:d5:6c:3e adam@workstation.local
Press enter at the first prompt to use the default file location. You may wish to provide a password for the key, although this is not necessary - if your workstation is physically secure and is not used by anyone other than you, pressing enter at both prompts to make a passwordless key is secure. As long as you keep the contents of ~/.ssh/id_rsa secret, your key will be secure even without a password.

Further Reading

http://sial.org/howto/openssh/publickey-auth/

Adding Keys to Heroku

The first time you run the heroku command, you’ll be prompted for your credentials. Your public key will then be automatically uploaded to Heroku. This will allow you to deploy code to all of your apps.
If you wish to add other keys, use this command:
$ heroku keys:add
Uploading ssh public key /Users/adam/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
Without an argument, it will look for the key in the default place (~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub or ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub). If you wish to use an alternate key file, specify it as an argument. Be certain you specify the public part of the key (the file ending in .pub). The private part of the key should never be transmitted to any third party, ever.
Revoke old keys you’re no longer using or that you think might be compromised (for example, if your workstation is lost or stolen):
$ heroku keys:remove adam@workstation.local
Key adam@workstation.local removed.
The ASCII-armored key data is shortened for readability. If you wish to see the full public key, use the --long argument. You will probably want to redirect this to a file (heroku keys --long > keys.txt), since it will be easier to look at in a text editor.
The key name the user@workstation bit that appears at the end of the key line in your public key file. You can see a list of all keys, including the key’s name, like this:
$ heroku keys
=== 1 key for joe@example.com 
ssh-dss AAAAB8NzaC...DVj3R4Ww== joe@workstation.local
"

Ruby on Rails Projects

From the other night, there were people talking about the fact they had problems coming up with suitable project Ideas

bellow is a link that might help


some ideas could be as simple as , parsing data from a website into another format? such as from an accessibly Idea... take an news based website, remove all the images and display the text in another format...

Accessibly is Key... in this modern internet age... just take a look at any of the WCAG (Web accessibly guidlines) as set out by the W3C and it will show you...

I have a few other ideas... that I would like to do...so If any one wants me to help them put an idea together then... I'm more then willing to help.

Laters
N

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Class Rep Survey Monkey

Morning All,

Ken Poland, has kindly created this Survey to help us choose a class rep...

At the moment there are 2 contenders... Myself and Barron O'Rouke

Class Rep Survey

N.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

LinkedIn

Hi All,

Mark Donnelly has Set up a LinkedIn group for us to use

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Hi-Welcome-Just-thought-I-4115259.S.73790271?goback=%2Egmp_4115259

N.

Stuff

Don't know really what to say here,

We are starting our third week

What have we learnt so far ...

  1. Heroku  JUST DOESN'T WORK... no matter what people tell you...
  2. We need to download and install a C# Compiler... Dream-spark was recommended...I have copys of Visual Studio Pro 2010 if people want it of me...
  3. Timetabling in NCI is a Joke.
  4. Java-scripting is not going to die any time soon...
  5. We have a lab on Saturday
See you all on Wedensday

N.

Class Rep

I would like to through my hat into the ring... although little has been done about it from NCI's point of view.

All in favour say Aye..

N.

Grinds

Wow,

One simple post in the beginning of this blog has sparked so much interest, it shows that there is a clear knowledgeable gap, that NCI are as yet unwilling to cater for.

The plans for the grinds are as follows:

After Saturdays lab, for as long as people need, it will be a drop in service of sorts.
It will start this week on the 8th. The room is unconfirmed, but if possible we could stay in the same lab 3.03.

The grinds will be run by myself and Michal Korybski - (He is a student in our class in case you were wondering). This week Michal will be flying solo as, I have to be some where, I will be there at the beginning just to get things started.


The plan will be for the grinds to last about 1hour (after that my head melts)


Slán
N

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Friday Grinds

This Friday I'm holding grinds again ... The plan is to meet at 230 in the foyer of nci, and take it from there

Like before email me and let me know whos coming.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Beginner programming grinds starting

After to talking to some of you, I will be starting some beginners programming grinds this week.

The plan is to meet in the foyer of NCI at 330 on Wednesday and find a room from there. (if I can book a room I will)

This week I plan to cover the very basics of computer programming so I will be starting with HTML with CSS with the hope to move on to javascripting in time. These should form a nice foundation to start programming with.

Email me to let me know if you will be joining us.

N.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Posts to the Blog

Evening All,

If you wish to post something to this blog, I need to give you access via your Gmail account. so email me with your Gmail if you want to post up here also...

N.

Citrix V's Google Chrome

For the Google Chrome users out there...

I have a work around to allow you use Citrix on Chrome

1) Install and Run this XenApp Receiver for Windows 3.0
Note : Download the "For Web Access" edition
2) Log into NCI's Citrix server as normal
3) Work away happily

If all else fails use IE for this.

The reason why IE works and chrome doesn't, is simple, NCI have a Microsoft backbone and as such everything is tested for IE compatibility anything else doesn't count. The downloader on the Citrix application is for IE and not chrome.

Happy Citrix-ing
N.

Eduroam V's Gmail

I can Imagine many of you have forwarded your NCI mail to your respective mail clients for pure convenience, so here my surprise when I log on to eduroam and then onto Gmail... I get a lovely DNS error. so I thinks to myself... how locked down is this place...

www.facebook.com.... whamo... I'm in... Strange Methinks

I have logged a ticket with IT services, I was told that Yes there is a problem with it at the moment, but they will update me when it is resolved

N.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Programming Help Offered

This is a post for any of you who are week or uncertain about certain programming principals.

  • If you are coming from a Procedural programming background
  • If you have never programmed before
  • If Object Oriented Programming, is just an abstract Idea

I'm willing to help anyone in the class with getting to grasp the important programming concepts,

I can program in

  • C
  • C++ 
  • Java 
  • JavaScript
  • HTML
  • CSS


Feel free to contact me on my NCI email, its redirected to my personal email.

N.

Deployment

This is worth repeating from the lecture

Assignment Weighting

  1. 10% Multiple Choice
  2. 10% Deployment (Cloud Foundry or Heroku)
  3. 30% Project (Azure)
This means that if you get 100% in each assignment it will be worth 50% of your overall final mark for deployment. From NCIs standing you need to get a minimum of 20% in each element ie (exam and overall assessment mark) to pass... 

A rule that is used in DIT and, one that I think is very good... is to aim to pass all elements, and forget about what percentage is needed to scrape the bare pass mark.

I'm not sure but I think the pass mark is 35-40% but I will update this.

For those of you who didn't pick this up in the lecture
  • "Security" is a very important topic it is in every aspect of deployment
  • C# will be our language of choice or if you brave Visual-basic (Don't expect any help in VB)
  • Knowing the difference between "Data Recovery" and  "High Availability"
  • Knowledge of Databases is very important

V.Sahni's Contact Details
Gmail   -> Sahni1@gmail.com  
Twitter -> @sahnivi

Setting up Ubuntu (Easy Mode)


  1. )  Install Virtual Box
  2. )  Download the Ubuntu Image 
  3. )  Open Virtual Box 
  4. )  Create a new machine 
  5. )  Type a name for the Virtual Box & select Ubuntu from the drop-down box
  6. )  The Virtual Machine defualt is 512mb if your machine is 2gb or more select 1gb memory
  7. )  Select "Use existing hard disk" - and navigate to the location of the downloaded ubuntu image
  8. )  Start the Virtual Machine 
Login Details
User: lvl9
Password: password9

                    Wednesday, September 21, 2011

                    EduRoam

                    For those of you who are on WiFi...

                    1) Select EduRoam from your Network Connections.

                    2) When prompted for a user name and password as follows

                    U: ncir-campus\x123456789
                    P: <Your moodle Password>

                    For more information take a look at the NCI- Eduroam Page here

                    Heads in the Clouds

                    Welcome all 75 of you...

                    I created this with the intention of being able to post information that's Just relevant to us... I know there are 3 class groups taking these Level 9 Modules...

                    Since our time table is less then Legible I'm going to attempt to rectify that here

                    Monday :
                    18:30 - 20:30 (Advanced Client Side Scripting - Theater 2 )
                    20:30 - 21:30 (Deployment - HLab 3.03 )
                    21:30 - 22:30 (Advanced Client Side Scripting - HLab 3.03)

                    Wednesday :

                    18:30 - 20:30 (Web Application Frameworks - Theater 2 )
                    20:30 - 22:30 (Deployment - Theater 3 )

                    Saturday: (Every Second one from the 24th of September)
                    09:00 - 13:00 (Web Application Frameworks - HLab 3.03 )

                    I will update this as time continues
                    A link to the original timetable is here (Note you will need to login to view)

                    Slán
                    N