ZenFu - Slashdot User

Comment Re:last useful ed tech was... (Score 1) 290

by ZenFu on Thursday January 07, 2010 @02:14PM (#30685346) Attached to: Is Early Childhood Education Technology Moving Backwards?

Thank you for finally explaining why Powerpoint might have a place in schools. I worked with Powerpoint while working as a management consultant and was originally thinking that teaching kids to think with powerpoint would be like teachings to write by looking by using IM.

Comment C# Books (Score 1) 116

by ZenFu on Saturday March 17, 2007 @11:09PM (#18391627) Attached to: C# Book Recommendations?

I hope you weren't thinking you'd only have to read one book...

Learning the .NET API is key. For that, I would recommend:
* read CLR via C#, Second Edition, by Richter

I taught myself C# and my first year of code was rather hideous until I started spending time on Design Patterns. The following books are good:
* Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture (Hardcover) by Martin Fowler
* Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design A Brain Friendly Guide to OOA&D By Brett McLaughlin, Gary Pollice, David West
* Design Patterns C# (Hardcover) by Steven John Metsker (Author)

For web, I would recommend the following ASP.NET books:
* Programming Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Applications: Advanced Topics by Dino Esposito (Paperback - Mar 15, 2006)
* Programming Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Core Reference by Dino Esposito (Paperback - Nov 30, 2005)

You definitely need to do code so I would start some sort of project for someone, like a non-profit, in .NET. Unless you have a preference I would start with web as there are more jobs there. I think.

.NET 3.0 is here and there are new ways you can structure your programs, particularly for a winform application. I would really learn that as well and try to do something interesting there.

Also, C# isn't the only language thats hiring. You might want to consider Java or other alternatives to the windows world. Windows keeps me employed, but if I was to start my own company, the startup costs are too high for a windows environment.

Peer to Peer Networking for Road Traffic 125

Posted by Zonk on Saturday March 17, 2007 @09:14PM from the look-for-gridguide-coming-soon-from-saeder-krupp dept.

alecclews writes "The BBC is reporting on some German research to allow the exchange of information between road vehicles about travel conditions using peer to peer networking (I assume some sort of mesh). Cars or bikes experiencing problems would pass data that would ripple down the chain of vehicles behind them. 'For example, cars could spot oil on the road by combining temperature readings with wheel traction information. A wheel slipping on the road even though the temperature was not low enough for frost or ice would suggest oil or another slippery substance was present. Once a car detected this sort of danger, information about it would be generated and passed down the line of vehicles approaching the patch of oil.'"

Feed Toys That Protect Kids From Pervs (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Thursday February 15, 2007 @07:12AM

Children want to get on the internet, but what shields them from predators? Alexander Gelfand reports on new approaches from the American International Toy Fair in New York.

Feed Leave It to the Imagination (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Thursday February 15, 2007 @07:12AM

Johnny can't read yet, but it's never too early to stick some high-end technology in his tiny hand. Commentary by Tony Long.

Feed The Quantum Computing Conundrum (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @07:12PM

Scientists know what quantum computing is supposed to do. They just don't know whether or not it really works. By the Associated Press.

Database Bigwigs Lead Stealthy Open Source Startup 187

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @05:17PM from the hope-it-isn't-vaporcorp dept.

BobB writes "Michael Stonebraker, who cooked up the Ingres and Postgres database management systems, is back with a stealthy startup called Vertica. And not just him, he has recruited former Oracle bigwigs Ray Lane and Jerry Held to give the company a boost before its software leaves beta testing. The promise — a Linux-based system that handles queries 100 times faster than traditional relational database management systems."

Windows Vista: the Missing Manual

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @04:21PM from the here-it-comes dept.

John Suda writes " It's been over five years in the making and its nearly perfect. No, Im not referring to Microsofts vast new operating system named Windows Vista, but to the reference book Windows Vista: the Missing Manual, by author David Pogue. The book is the latest, and perhaps best, in the Missing Manual series published by Pogue Press/ OReilly Media, Inc. The Missing Manual series is the benchmark of quality for computer manuals. Unless youre a system administrator, programmer, or uber-geek, this is probably the only reference source you'll need to learn Microsofts Vista." Read below for the rest of John's review.

Windows Vista: the Missing Manual 220

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @03:51PM from the here-it-comes dept.

John Suda writes "It's been over five years in the making and its nearly perfect. No, Im not referring to Microsoft's vast new operating system named Windows Vista, but to the reference book Windows Vista: the Missing Manual, by author David Pogue. The book is the latest, and perhaps best, in the Missing Manual series published by Pogue Press / O'Reilly Media, Inc. The Missing Manual series is the benchmark of quality for computer manuals. Unless youre a system administrator, programmer, or uber-geek, this is probably the only reference source you'll need to learn Microsofts Vista." Read below for the rest of John's review.

Supercruncher Applications 58

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @01:44PM from the many-processors-make-light-work dept.

starheight writes "Bill McColl has written an article contrasting traditional massively parallel supercomputing with a whole new generation of compute-intensive apps that require massively scalable architectures and can deliver both incredible throughput and real-time responsivenes when processing millions or billions of tasks."

Could Open Source Lead to a Meritocratic Search Engine? 148

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @01:00PM from the sure-if-you-donate-a-thousand-data-centers dept.

Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes "When Jimmy Wales recently announced the Search Wikia project, an attempt to build an open-source search engine around the user-driven model that gave birth to Wikipedia, he said his goal was to create "the search engine that changes everything", as he underscored in a February 5 talk at New York University. I think it could, although not for the same main reasons that Wales has put forth -- I think that for a search engine to be truly meritocratic would be more of a revolution than for a search engine to be open-source, although both would be large steps forward. Indeed, if a search engine could be built that really returned results in order of average desirability to users, and resisted efforts by companies to "game" the system (even if everyone knew precisely how the ranking algorithm worked), it's hard to overstate how much that would change things both for businesses and consumers. The key question is whether such an algorithm could be created that wouldn't be vulnerable to non-merit-based manipulation. Regardless of what algorithms may be currently under consideration by thinkers within the Wikia company, I want to argue logically for some necessary properties that such an algorithm should have in order to be effective. Because if their search engine becomes popular, they will face such huge efforts from companies trying to manipulate the search results, that it will make Wikipedia vandalism look like a cakewalk." The rest of his essay follows.

Slashdot Top Deals