If you want to have a fun, educational weekend at the Start of Recess Week, in which you get to build something cool and stand to win some prizes, then join us at the hackathon.

Date: 19th (Sun) to 20th (Mon) February 2012 (ie Start of Recess Week)
Time: 1pm (Sun) to 3pm (Mon)
Venue: Tentatively in NUS School of Computing (Soc) Basement 1 (B1)
Registration Period: 25 Jan to 12 Feb 2012 only. Registrations will be closed once we have reached 80 people or on 12 Feb.
Registration Fee: $10 (to contribute for food)
(Note that venue will be confirmed in February. Registrants will be informed of the confirmed venue.)

Registration Link:
http://bit.ly/hacknroll2012
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDRZeUhUQXJybHdsa1oySEpxYVRUdWc6MQ

The 2 top team(s) will get prizes from Blackberry, Microsoft, and others (full list of prizes – tablets, phones and keyboards to be won, will be released in February)

Only a maximum of 80 people can be accommodated for the competition so get in on the action before it’s too late.

Lead-up Talks/Workshops
17 Feb 12 – “HTML5/CSS3 Workshop” (by Blackberry/RIM)

More details coming soon.
Stay tuned to http://nushackers.org/hack-and-roll/ for the latest details!
Rules are found on http://nushackers.org/hack-and-roll/ as well.

PS: This hackathon is only open to NUS students.

A couple weeks ago NUS Hackers released the unofficial NUS CORS API. I decided to leverage on the API to build something, just for the heck of it. Long story short I ended up building nuscors.com. The site is a faster way to search for a module in the NUS CORS database: you could call it an ‘instant search’.

Now I’m gonna say this this a bluntly as possible, the initial design goals of the site were as follows. Cheap Free, Fast Search, Up before the CORS bidding period started. My other more sneaky goal was to have everyone in NUS use it and become a hero. Some of those goals were met and some are “in the pipeline”.

Anyway from this point on I speak some geek.

In the planning phase of the application and after some poking around I realised that the Unnoficial CORS API was written in Flask (Python). I immediately told myself to rewrite the API using some Ruby. Turns out the NUS CORS site was down on that day and life saved me from myself (phew). I ended up downloading the json file from the api site.

I used heroku as the hosting service for the application. This meant that the app was easy and free to deploy. Unfortunately, all free services come their limitations. In this case it was a 5 megabyte shared database. I didn’t want to have any connection with the database (pun intended) for a couple of reasons but most importantly it would add time to the page load.

In a nutshell the site works by downloading a static json file and then running a search on that downloaded file. Once the functionality was completed I designed the look and feel of the site to mimic Google instant search.

That, my friends, is how nuscors.com was born. Hope you enjoyed the read, if you have any questions join the NUS Hackers mailing list and mail me there.

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/](http://qt.nokia.com/downloads/ “Qt Nokia C++ 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](http://qt.nokia.com/qt-in-use/target/desktop/ “[Google, Adobe and Skype"). Qt has found its application in a [breadth of industries](http://qt.nokia.com/qt-in-use/). 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.

[Qt Nokia C++ Downloads]: http://qt.nokia.com/downloads/ “Qt Nokia C++ Downloads”

[Qt Designer]: http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.6/examples-designer.html “Qt Designer Examples”

[Qt Network]: http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.6/examples-network.html “QtNetwork Examples”

[Qt Script]: http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.6/examples-script.html “QtScript Examples”

[Qt Webkit]: http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.6/examples-webkit.html “QtWebkit Examples”

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

And some snippets from Red Hat CEO’s recent address at SIM .

Good to see Open Source in Singapre growing slowly but steadily.

Until the ban is lifted, you may wish to access #linuxnus using the webchat powered by qwebirc

A brilliant song about.. well.. writing in C.

Enjoy!

PS.
Does anyone have the lyrics to this?

Update:

Thanks to tan_ce and Nixxy’s comments below, here are the lyrics!

When I find my code in tons of trouble,
Friends and colleagues come to me,
Speaking words of wisdom:
“Write in C.”

As the deadline fast approaches,
And the bugs are all that I can see,
Somewhere, someone whispers:
“Write in C.”

Write in C, write in C,
Wtite in C, yeah, write in C.
LISP is dead and buried,
Write in C.

I used to write a lot of FORTRAN,
For science it worked flawlessly.
Try using it for graphics!
Write in C.

If you’ve just spent nearly 30 hours
Debugging some assembly,
Soon you will be glad to
Write in C.

Write in C, write in C,
Write in C, yeah, write in C.
BASIC is for wimps.
Write in C.

Write in C, write in C,
Write in C, oh, write in C.
Pascal won’t quite cut it.
Write in C.

Write in C, write in C,
Write in C, yeah, write in C.
Don’t even mention COBOL.
Write in C.

And when the screen is fuzzy,
And the editor is bugging me.
I’m sick of ones and zeroes.
Write in C.

A thousand people people swear that T.P.
Seven is the one for me.
I hate the word PROCEDURE,
Write in C.

Write in C, write in C,
Write in C, yeah, write in C.
PL1 is 80’s,
Write in C.

Write in C, write in C,
Write in C, yeah, write in C.
The government loves ADA,
Write in C.

Write in C, write in C,
Write in C, yeah, write in C.
Java’s not quite there yet.
Write in C.

We had fun putting these posters up, and we’ll hope you’ll find the talk exciting and inspiring!

And here are some photos of us chilling out after putting up the posters at the NUS Arts Canteen.

Sheez I forgot my password to write this post…

The Android Snow Show

I want android too.

jQuery on show

So … I am somewhat relieved that I managed to install OpenSUSE 11.0 on my laptop, in a separate partition, just the way Linux should be run. It wasn’t accepting any sort of Ubuntu CD before, though it did give me some excuse to tangle with Lilo… really long story that doesn’t belong here, hence the title.

But I’d like to remind you guys that even though lots of our events are based around Ubuntu, and more collaboration with Ubuntu-SG is in the works, there *are* plenty of other distros out there, and there has to be one that suits you.

… Yes, I heard you say Windows Vista. Nice try, go back to chroot jail; do not pass go, do not collect $200. If the rest of you are interested in checking out other distros, I’d recommend DistroWatch :) as I’d mentioned before at the recent Install Fest.

There, I’ve made a QuickPress not so quick, and managed to link a non sequitur back to the previous post. If only everything in my life was this successful ;)

P.S. It is purely coincidence that we might be inviting OpenSUSE, well the meetup group anyway, to NUS somewhere down the line. Really.