linuxNUS and NUS Entrepreneurship Society bring to you the “Hack Workshop Series”.

Here’s the thing: we’re most interested in hackers and entrepreneurs. If you want to be an entrepreneur but you don’t have sufficient technical skills, come to us and we’ll give you a good boost in the right direction. And if you’re a hacker, no problem: come to us anyway and we’ll share with you cool new tools that you might want to play around with. (Plus: you’ll meet plenty of code ninjas and startup people – always a good thing, in our opinion!)

The Hack Workshop Series will cover both technical and non-technical aspects of development. We’ve gotten some of the best people to teach it: developers from local open-source developer groups, web entrepreneurs and various members of the local startup community.

Here are a couple of things we’re going to focus on: - simplicity in design - teamwork in technical teams - scalable models / adaptability to change - power of open-source - collaboration - proper development practices - the importance of self-learning

We will be collaborating with local open source developer groups, entrepreneurs and startups for the workshops. Currently the following organisations are helping us with the workshops

• HackerSpaceSG
• Garag3/e27
• NOC Alumni

The Best Time of The Week

We know you’re likely to have busy lives, so we’ve scheduled all our workshops for Friday evenings. That way there won’t be any time clashes with most of your lectures. Expect 8-10 workshops this semester; ranging from technical to non-technical levels of difficulty. (And, yes, by technical we mean basic programming knowledge.)

If that isn’t good enough, we will also be holding Hackfests throughout the semester. Hackfests are gatherings where you get to work on your own ideas and projects, just for the heck of it. Why hack? Well we do it for fun, but the pizza sharing helps. And if you come up with something cool, we’ll showcase and discuss your ideas throughout the rest of the workshops!

Here is a tentative list of the workshops - (Stay tuned for the schedule!)

(T – Technical, N – Non-technical)

• Installfest – Setting up a development Environment (T)
• The UNIX Philosophy (N)
• Version Control (T)
• HTML5 CSS3 (T)
• PHP CodeIgniter Framework (T)
• Agile Development (T)
• Team Development Practices (N)
• Presentation/Pitching Skills (N)
• Start-up Talks (N)
• User Interface Design (N)

Forming teams with fellow attendees is encouraged, but that’s really up to you. We also encourage you to come up with your own entrepreneurial ideas and develop them along with the workshops.

Here’s the catch, though: attendance to each workshop is capped to a limit. Its on a first-come first-serve basis.

You can pre-register for the workshop series and the launch event here - http://bit.ly/baD3dP

The launch event is scheduled for 20th August, Friday evening, 6.30pm in SoC. The venue will be confirmed to the registrants soon.

You can also follow the latest news at the Facebook page http://bit.ly/bM7bvC or follow us on twitter @linuxNUS

linuxNUS is an organisation to promote the use of Free and Open Source Software in NUS and Singapore. We have been organising Hackfests which promote working in teams with an intense focus on the execution of an idea. These Hackfests are aimed at encouraging the JFDI – Just F**kin’ Do It attitude, while collaborating with the community.

So now, we’ve come up with the idea of a Hack Workshop series for NUS students. These workshops will be aimed at promoting “learning how to learn”. They will talk about hacking as an important part of entrepreneurship and boundless creative exploration. As we say, a great idea is nothing without excellent execution, so we’d really like help make excellent execution a reality.

Essentially the workshops will feature the following concepts -

• simplicity in design
• team synergy
• scalable models / adaptability to change
• power of opensource
• collaboration
• proper developmental practices
• the importance of self-learning

The workshops are for those interested in learning to how develop a project while working in teams. We will be collaborating with local open source developer groups, entrepreneurs and startups for the workshops.

The workshops will come in two flavours, technical and non-technical -

The technical workshops will primarily cover topics such as web development and software development best practices, while the non-technical topics will cover the business viability aspects, presentation skills and will include talks by successful start-ups.

The workshops will be held either on a Saturday or Sunday morning – 10am till 1pm. All the workshops will be followed by a Hackfest (yeah the same old one where you can sit around, talk to people and develop anything!).

Here is a list of Workshop topics (stay tuned for updates on the Workshop schedule!) -

• Linux/Unix basics,

• NUS Linux setup – configuring printers, network.
• Basic system administration – package management, etc.

• Revision control – GIT/SVN
• Beginning Web development – HTML/CSS/Javascript.
• PHP/MySQL – Making a simple Blog CMS (with CodeIgniter).
• Software development best practices – Agile Development, TDD, Pair Programming
• Presentation Skills
• Start-up talks
• Designing with GIMP/Photoshop

You can preregister with us for the workshops here and more news - http://bit.ly/baD3dP

If you think you can contribute to the initiative you can contact us at coreteam(at)linuxNUS(dot)org with suggestions for topics or speakers.

Developing a portable application has never been an easy task, be it a browser-based service or a fanciful desktop application. With emergence of many frameworks for developing cross-platform applications, choosing the right one has become a challenge. One can name a bunch of frameworks for desktop development, such as GTK+, Gtkmm, FLTK, VCF C++, etc. Adobe fans would pronounce Adobe Air as the best choice. Well, so what do I have in my hat? Voilà! I’d like to present Nokia Qt C++ framework – one of the leading frameworks for desktop & mobile development.

GUI in a while

There are many reasons why I love Qt Designer and would like to share some with you:

• If you love Delphi & M$.NET GUI designers, you will find a new romance with Qt Designer.
• Dozens of widgets are available to serve you and what you need to do is just to drag & drop.
• Adding menu, submenus, toolboxes & docked widgets can be done with a few clicks.
• Qt Designer loves diversity and accepts your custom widgets.
• Feel free to load and change GUI dynamically with UiLoader.

You may want read more on Qt Designer.

Write once & run everywhere

You can target different architectures such as x86, x86-64, ARM, … and run on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, S60, Maemo, etc with no or little modification to your code. The broader audience you reach, the more popularity you gain.

Network boldly

Qt has a wealth of network libraries. The clients to the standard services such as HTTP(S) & FTP are already there for you. XML parsing, XQuery & XPath libraries will enable you to interface with web services. Writing own TCP/UDP-based protocols with Qt is easy. Feel free to read more on Qt Network.

Browser & scripting integration

Along with high quality modules for GUI, networking and XML, Nokia Qt C++ framework has other 2 killer modules: QtWebkit & QtScript. QtWebkit provides browser integration based on the Webkit engine used by Apple Safari & Google Chrome. Adding a browser to your application to render web pages or custom help/manual files in HTML has never been easier. QtScript exposes Qt objects to scripting with JS-like language. With QtScript you are empowered to do cross-platform scripting on your applications to increase productivity and encourage users to write their own extensions. Please refer to the official Qt Script and Qt Webkit documents and examples to explore more.

Installation

1. Please find suitable installation package for your OS & architecture from http://qt.nokia.com/downloads/. Please pay close attention to whether your OS is 32-bit or 64-bit and make sure you download the version of Qt SDK that suits your OS.

2. Proceed to the installation with the default settings. It is recommended that you stick with the default installation settings. There are very few things to tweak.

3. Set up paths and links for the Qt library. If you are using Mac, you may skip this step. This step is only advisable for Windows and Linux developers.

   • Windows: You need to add paths to the Qt bin & MinGW bin folders. If you installed Qt 4.6.3 then the path of Qt is C:\Qt\2010.3. You need to add the following paths: C:\Qt\2010.3\qt\bin and C:\Qt\2010.3\mingw\bin.

   • Linux/Unix: You have 2 options: Either to create soft links or add to the environment variables PATH & LD_LIBRARY_PATH. To add soft links, you need to run the following commands:

     sudo ln -s /opt/qtsdk-2010.3/qt/bin/* /usr/bin/

     sudo ln -s /opt/qtsdk-2010.3/qt/lib/lib* /usr/lib/

     To manipulate environment variables, edit the file ~/.bash_profile and add these 2 lines:

     export PATH=$PATH:/opt/qtsdk-2010.3/qt/bin

     export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/opt/qtsdk-2010.3/qt/lib

   For the changes to the environment variables to take effect, you need to log out and log in again. Soft links don’t need that extra step.

Now you are ready to run Qt demos & examples. Enjoy!

Conclusion

Nokia might not suit all your needs but it’s one of the best options to keep an eye on. Among large users of Nokia Qt C++ framework, there are companies such as Google, Adobe and Skype. Qt has found its application in a breadth of industries. Your next killer application may be written in Nokia C++ too! Stay tuned with our series of Qt tutorials!

* The screenshots are provided at the official Nokia Qt C++ documentation website.

Pictures!!

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

It was anticipated that 12hrs is not enough time to develop anything from scratch to end. But yeah, it was enough time to thrash down the ideas, think over it fully and come up with a basic structure. It was also enough time to meet the people around. That was the main beauty of the event. I was teamed up with 2 other NUS students and it was great to see some bonding and idea development. We are surely following up on the stuff that we developed in those 12 hrs.

The people who attended the event -

Ruiwen and Luther – HackerSpace Membership management system in Django.

Angad, Bryan and Shanmugam – A picture with a descriptive related story CMS. [PHP and AJAX]

We also came up with another idea – A Past year papers questions/answers database for Primary, A Levels and University students. We will surely follow up on this one and if anybody is interested in helping out, please contact at coreteam[at]linuxnus[dot]org.

Shanmugam was highly interested in Rooting his HTC Magic and upgrading to 2.1. He received great guidance from the android geeks at the place and we wish him luck with his ventures with Android. He is also a newly recruited member of linuxNUS.

Martin – OpenMoko Bootloader. He was totally immersed into his two Green geeky OLPC XOs and was developing a bootloader on the Open Hardware phone - OpenMoko.

We had a guest who dropped in around 3pm – Nelson,  from Dominican Republic. He is a passionate Ruby Developer and did a great show of some cool stuff such as http://www.hashapass.com/ and some Ruby process on his Mac. His blog can be found here – CopyPastel

Tomithy – a peer from the module CS3216 also dropped by and took part in the discussions around. He is a Social Entrepreneur, embarking on NOC next semester to UPenn. Good Luck to him!

The event was ended by a show and tell from everybody present and an enlightening discussion about typed and un-typed languages.

And finally it was great to eat the specially cooked food – low temperature and longer time cooking (sous vide) from Meng Weng. The eggs were really nice with pepper. Moreover, the location of HackerSpaceSG is a great one for good food outside.

Looking forward to organising more such events. We really needs such places and such groups to come up with loads of ideas and execute them with a high spirit. This would surely induce better understanding of – how an idea can be converted effectively to a final product, team work spirit and the start-up environment. Its ultimately all about hard-work and working smart

This time great ideas come together at a single place. You have 12hrs to develop anything, either with a team or individually. Share your ideas with others, form great teams and meet different people. You are free to develop anything, any idea that you have in mind – Android, iPhone, Web2.0, linux etc.

Have a blast with coding, designing and developing a business idea, straight from idea >> execution. Start your idea with awesome people around and <geek> out.

The last 2 hrs will be devoted to a short discussion of ideas that everybody is working on.

So Come over, grab a corner and JFDI!

The event starts at 9am and ends at 9pm.

9am – 11am Form team, discuss idea.

11am – 8pm – JFDI!

8pm – 9pm – Show-and-Tell & Makan

Please register here. Please note that places are limited for the first 30 registrants. You will be informed by email

http://bit.ly/9FNeyq

Please feel free to drop by the IRC Channel or email us at contact@linuxnus.org

My favorite sections in the NUS Central Library is the TK5I05.885 and QA76.76 – all catering to the latest and old books on various Computer technologies. Last semester, I had to write an essay for the USP application on a topic that talks about my interest. And guess what, I wrote about  Open Source. I had to keep it non-technical as mainly Arts Professors would evaluate that. (Disclaimer : I did not get through USP ).

So I looked up some books regarding the topics, and for that I had to look up in the above shelves of QA76.76. And there, sitting on the old shelves were the immense bundles of knowledge talking about the various aspects of Free and Open Source Software. I will be providing a list of books and locations at the end of this post so that any geek, passing the library can have a look at the areas.

Though, almost all these books are available freely over the Internet under the GNU license, getting some to read in the comfort of your bed is a boon in itself. And why not use the vast library that is full of smelly books, untouched for years, waiting for geeks?

I try to make it up to a habit that I have always craved for and sometimes achieved – “a book a week”. But a busy semester and less sleeping time pulls the habit down.

The most important aspect of FOSS that has inspired me is the point that reeks out from all the books that talk about history of Open Source – The way the eminent personalities coded day and night with huge motivations. I mainly refer to the “Rebel Code” by Glyn Moody. He gives a comprehensive insight into how the Hacker movement transformed into a highly organised rebellion – giving birth to GNU and Linux, as we know them today.

I think its better to read the books altogether, rather me giving brief reviews about each (I am still reading some of them, if you cant find them on the Book shelves, ping me, I will return those books back to the library).

You can get a simple list of all the books with the Keyword – “Open Source” at LincNUS -

http://linc.nus.edu.sg/search/Y?SEARCH=open+source&searchscope=16&SORT=D&submit=Submit

Other Books, pertaining to FOSS, I will list :  There are even more in the above link, and more that I am looking out for. Will update the list soon.

P.S. There are perhaps thousands of books that cater to the technical aspect of Open Source technologies such as PHP, Apache, Ruby etc. I talk only about the non-technical ones here.

Crisis Camp!

We are 1 month old, and we’re celebrating it by throwing ourselves a Christmas Party! This event is similar to our open house party! We’ll be catering some halal food from around the area. If you can bring more food, that will be great! Just make sure it is halal, or if not, indicate it isn’t. Drinks will be available, including Wine, and some alcohol. As usual, contributions to our pot of donations will be appreciated. We’re also going to have a gift exchange in the form of a game. So bring some physical gift which cost no more than $15, wrap it up, hide it, and come up with clues! The smaller the gift, the easier to hide. *evil laughter* Oh and you don’t have to bring a gift to attend the party, but you won’t be able to play the game (I think??). Join us for our party now!!!

A few of us will gather there for the party. If you want to join us, detail of the time and venue is as follow:

Date: Friday, 18 Decemer 2009

Time: 19:00 – 23:55

Location: HackerspaceSG , 70A Bussorah Street, Singapore

And please remember to RSVP on Facebook

See you there

We are back with our Hackfest and this time our venue is Redhat Office!

All the hacker/geeks/enthusiasts are invited to attend the linuxNUS Hackfest!

At linuxNUS Hackfests, youre free to work on whichever development project you want to, be it anything ranging from Linux to Android to Facebook. Or you can just collaborate with others on their projects. Look out for the one that interests you.

Importantly, you get to meet and interact with other hackers, and hopefully everyone gets to pass a little knowledge around. The more knowledge is shared, the more everyone benefits! Isnt that great!

Date: 14th November, Saturday Venue: RedHat Office 8 Shenton Way #10-00, Singapore 068811 Timing: 1pm to 6pm Please fill out the form below http://tr.im/linuxnushackfest09 or https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dFlrY09IYnRCRHlNcTkxalRNeC1YQ3c6MA

For any queries contact : contact@linuxnus.org

Hope to see you there!