Latest News
Ruby on Rails Course 2009 results
Here I wanted to share some of my thoughts and results about the Ruby on Rails course that HHLinuxClub delivered.
The teachers were Matias Korhonen (Vice-President of HHLinuxClub) and Joao Cardoso (System Administrator of HHLinuxCLub) under observation of Jukka Juslin (HAAGA-HELIA Lecturer) and authorization of Jarmo Peltoniemi (Business IT Director of HAAGA-HELIA).
It was a three day course with an optional fourth day (6 hours per day). On the optional day we were free to choose what we wanted to do.
When we announced the course, the first two days there were 35 applications for 17 free seats, despite the fact that students would not be awarded any credit for the course. As a result of two days of high interest, we had to take down the advertisements.
The course was beyond of my expectations and desires. The teaching was very professional and sincere. We have held a survey to understand how the students responded to the course and out of 17 students 12 answered the questions we have asked 4 questions and all of the answers were very positive. All of the students wanted the course to be an official and regular course. We have asked to the students that if they would use Ruby on Rails for development in future and the answers are 10 for Yes, 1 for I can’t say and 0 for No. Of course as always there were some criticism, which I find it very important for developing the teaching style and to develop our way of approaching to the students. There were only two complaints:
- The speed of the course was a bit slow for some of the students and thats understandable since not everyone have the same level, so the teachers had to deal with other students who had problem with developing or understanding, while some of them had to wait. We are going to find other things to do for those who want to do more instead of waiting next time.
- The other criticism was that there were some typos or missing parts on the materials, but thats a bit harsh criticism since this was the first time we have delivered a course and the teachers were voluntarily giving this course and they are not professional teachers but they are students. Under those circumstances thats normal to have some missing parts, but of course we are going to be more careful not to repeat the same mistakes.
I want to thank Matt and Joao for their incredible effort and their will to deliver the course in the best way it can be delivered. I am very proud for having Joao and Matias as my team mates in HHLinuxClub as a president.
Thanks for all who have showed interest for this course and we are sorry that we did not have enough places for all whom applied for the course. We hope that HAAGA-HELIA will deliver Ruby on Rails course but in case they do not we hope that we can deliver it our selves again.
If you have interest on Ruby on Rails course documents, I would recommend to check this page.
If you have interest in learning Ruby and Ruby on Rails please see this article.
For Ever Linux Now with More Benefits
Long time Linux defender and supporter the Linux Foundation has decided to reorganize their income model. There used to be an annual membership fee that members had to pay every year of about 150 dollars and get an @linux.com e-mail address. Now you can pay the membership fee once and you can have lifetime membership.
Additional membership benefits comes with an Individual membership which is for 99 dollars and get a lot of discounts and different benefits. There is one particular benefit that I am really interested in. If you become an individual member, you can get an employee discount or up to 40 percent discount when you make a purchase from Dell, HP and Lenovo.
There is also one nice offer that is very exiting for the students. You have an option to become a student member for 25 dollars and get all the benefits that an individual member would have. To get a student membership you have to be enrolled for your studies and also The Linux Foundation have to accept your school.
Before applying for a student membership have to check if your school whether accepted by the Linux Foundation or not, by filling a form. You will get an answer whitin 48 hours (I have applied for a student membership couple of hours ago and waiting for the result. I will be updating when I get an answer). You have to gerister as a user at linuxfoundation.org to fill in the membership application form.
Update: OK It works. It takes time to get an answer though (9 days) but you get the discounts without any problem.
So all together the cost would be one time 150 dollars plus 99 dollars for individual membership annually (or 25 dollars if you are eligible student) and you would get endless offers cool discounts and you will be supporting the operating system that you are in love with for 249 dollars (for students 175 dollars). You can make a huge difference with a very small amount of effort and money.
For more information you can visit the Linux Foundation website.
Intensive Week: Ruby on Rails Course
UPDATE: The course is full! More information is available here.
An intensive week course about Ruby on Rails is being arranged. The course is aimed for whoever wants to get started using the Ruby language and Ruby on Rails.
Not all details are known at the moment, but it will be during the next intensive week (19. – 23.10.2009). I am currently thinking about a two day course.
The prerequisites are basic knowledge of Object Oriented programming and (X)HTML.
If you are interested in participating, send me an email through the contact form. Knowing how many students to expect helps to better organize the course.
More details will be posted when known.
Nokia announces Linux-based N900 phone
Nokia has officially announced the upcoming Linux-based N900 mobile phone. The N900 will run Nokia’s own Maemo platform, which has previously been limited to Nokia’s Internet Tablet devices.
The device itself comes with fairly decent specifications, and looks very attractive.
Specifications:
- 3.5 inch touch-sensitive widescreen display (800×480 pixels)
- 3.5mm AV connector
- Quad-band GSM EDGE 850/900/1800/1900
- WCDMA 900/1700/2100 MHz
- WLAN b/g
- Bluetooth
- Integrated FM transmitter
- Integrated GPS with A-GPS
- TI OMAP 3430: ARM Cortex-A8 600 MHz CPU
- Graphics: PowerVR SGX with OpenGL ES 2.0 support
- Up to 1GB of application memory (256 MB RAM, 768 MB virtual memory)
- 32 GB internal storage
- Up to 16 GB of additional storage with an external microSD card
For more information, go to maemo.nokia.com/n900
New feature: Galleries
Galleries have just been added to the HHLinuxClub website. They are still under some development, but are ready enough for everyone to see.
Photos of the Open Source Seminar have been added.
Also, in case you haven’t noticed, we have redesigned the login functionality. And if all of that is not enough, all pages should now be lighter and load faster.