Archive for category For the Tech Savvy
BAD Camp
Posted by Yashodha Chaku in For the Tech Savvy on October 21st, 2008
CiviCRM team members had the opportunity to attend the BADCamp Oct. (11/12) held in University of California, Berkley. We decided to sit through the lectures of our respective interests.
- Day 1
We had a pretty basic yet impressive session on jquery by Dmitri Gaskin. jQuery makes it significantly easier for developers to extend the functionality and usability of their applications. Amit Asaravala gave some useful examples of how to use jquery with the Nice Menu module, and gave tips for creating Smarter Interfaces using jQuery. Also discussed how to make use of the jQuery library to make sites more responsive, intuitive, and fun. We had another session for Ajax with Tao Starbow which covered the basic concepts behind Ajax, practical use of jQuery’s Ajax functions, and the jQuery Forms plugin (which is now part of Drupal’s core).
After lunch, we had a yet another interesting session on Database Synchronization by Shaun Haber on an issue nearly every developer faces, which is merging content between a dev site and a production site. We were walked through watered-down live demo, showing how to programmatically apply all development changes to an existing site. Another session was about showcasing the Panels 2 module and talk about how it works for the content layout on drupal site. Matt discussed a few tricks to provide WYSIWYG support for content created in panel panes and versioning of panel pages to move them between staging and production.
View2 session was nuts and bolts presentation of how the Views 2 UI is constructed conducted by Earl Miles and Panels session by Matt Cheney explained how you can change look and feel of a website using Panels.
- Day 2
Day started with Introductory CiviCRM session by Kurund Jalmi. It was good to hear from community/implementers regarding their experiences and suggestion that can be incorporated to improve CiviCRM. After this session we decided to attend session on Patterns by Chris Bryant. Concept of patterns is really good and it helps / fasten the process to create drupal websites. Post lunch session on Introduction to CCK by Dmitri Gaskin was also good.
At the end of Day 2, we decided to treat ourselves to waterfronts of Jack London Square and took a ferry ride back to SF.
These two days were very eventful. Learned a lot about Drupal and other nice/cool stuff. Overall this was a great experience for me.
DNA COMPUTING
Posted by neha.saraph in For the Tech Savvy on October 16th, 2008
Imagine a device no bigger than a credit card that could extract your DNA from a drop of blood and map your entire genetic code while you wait. Within a short period of time the proneness to any illness or disease could be mapped and studied. Biologists and engineers will have ONE working in just a few years, because the tool that makes it possible, a genetic microarray known as the “DNA computer “, already exists. Able to scrutinize tens of thousands of genes at once, the DNA computer’s astonishing abilities are astounding biologists. Using these chips, people can in one afternoon confirm work that takes several years using conventional gene-sequencing processes. The chips aren’t just about increased speed. Using them, researchers can do things that were previously almost impossible, such as, uncovering the genetic machinations behind the complex biochemistry of organisms.
The scientists have devised a computer that can perform 330 trillion operations per second, more than 100,000 times the speed of the fastest PC. The secret: It runs on DNA.
ABSTRACTION
Posted by prathamesh.kelaskar in For the Tech Savvy on October 3rd, 2008
Do we really understand the world ?
Oh too big question.
Start counting objects or entities which we understand.
Wait wait !!. One more thing. Decide extent to which you understand those entities.
Well, the concept of understanding any entity at different level of detail is called ABSTRACTION. There is no exact definition of Abstraction.