Loshin.com

Still cleaning up my tabs; here are some that have to do with things I’m interested in related to computing right now. Things like learning to program, teaching kids to program, and specific links that I’m interested in that cover topics in Python, PHP and/or MySQL:

• Things I see in student code is pretty interesting, full of good advice about typical newbie errors.
• Not really programming, but about productivity, which I can use all the help I can get: Life Hack – The 30/30 Minute Work Cycle Feels Like Magic: instead of working straight through the whole day, work intensely for 30 minutes, then take a complete break for 30 minutes and do something fun. Not sure I agree with it wholeheartedly, but it does make sense to focus completely for a shorter time rather than allowing yourself to get distracted for hours on end.
• I find I need a lot of the information in 5. Built-in Types in the Python documentation when I’m fiddling around with Python.
• The random module documents some of the stuff you can do with (pseudo-)randomness in Python.
• Teaching My Daughter to Code looks pretty interesting–but I haven’t yet had the chance to sit down and read it all. The expectations are high, though, as the author is Michael Kölling, a computer scientist behind the Greenfoot project, which aims to help users learn to do object oriented programming in Java. It’s open source, too, which is a big plus.
• Get a Random Row with MySQL is a handy little page (with pointer to an even handier, better solution) about doing random stuff with MySQL data.
• An interesting topic on Slashdot about Using the Web To Turn Kids Into Autodidacts. I’ve scanned it a bit, but I bet the comments will be the real gold, in addition to the interesting original link.
• 12 programming mistakes to avoid by Peter Wayner is a nice collection of good advice for programmers.

Cleaning up my browser windows, and trying to group and give content to the links:

• Best text editor conversation at LifeHacker.com. Relevant since I’m looking for something better than gedit on the Mac, but not sure I want to try to go all the way with Emacs again.
• How to Break into a Mac (And Prevent It from Happening to You), also from LifeHacker. Not really programming, but related to system management.
• 1.0 Is the Loneliest Number; best quote: “if you’re not embarrassed when you ship your first version you waited too long.” Good essay about shipping product.

That’s about it for the moment; as always, if you have a comment let me know!

Going through my browser and trying to close down the tabs I haven’t yet had time to study, or just want to remember with more context (and visibility) than simply bookmarking them. Here are some about WordPress:

• 6 Critical WordPress Plugins You Should Have Installed
• Top 10 Best Free WordPress Themes Of November 2010 (I’m looking for something better than the default, but not too complicated).
• ProBlogger, for seeing what is up in the “industry”. Also, Blog Tyrant, for good measure.

That’s about it for now; I’m sure I’ll have more to add as I keep learning.

My sister bought me a Kindle for my birthday this year, and I was pretty excited about it. Until I discovered that it doesn’t have a backlight, it doesn’t do colors, and books with illustrations (or even any kind of non-”standard” content elements like sidebars) tend to be pretty awful.

But, I stumbled across some links that offered some pretty cool stuff to do with e-content via readers on the Kindle as well as the iPod Touch. I’ve yet to get them all to work, but I’ve been keeping the tabs open in my browser forever, and just want to note them here and go back to them (and close them, as my browser works so much better with fewer than 200 tabs open at a time).

Here they are:

• Cool Tools article about Calibre+Instapaper
• Ephemera, “Two-way Instapaper.com sync for your ebook reader.”
• Calibre e-book management
• Instapaper “A simple tool to save web pages for reading later.”

Any and all suggestions are welcomed; I just haven’t yet had to the time to sit down and figure out why they aren’t working for me right off the bat/out of the “box”.

I often find it very useful to summarize the content I find at a place like Reddit, particularly when people are looking for advice about learning something new–particularly about programming or other networking/computing technologies. That especially includes today’s source: Spreadsheets using Python – Have you seen this? (sourceforge.net)

A bit of history: back around 1979, I recall going into a personal computing store and being blown away by a demo of Visicalc on an Apple II. If I’d had the money back then, I would have undoubtedly gone home with a new computer and a copy of Visicalc back then.
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Sometimes you need to read up on a problem; other times you need to find some problems to work on–as well as the possibility of finding the answers (or at least some help finding those answers). Unlike the resources I’ve been listing in the past week or so here, these websites give you more active help in learning to program.

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