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Posts tagged as “developer”

Growing Young FOSS Programmers With Help of Scratch and Al Sweigart

By Phil Shapiro on March 17, 2017 |

Software, Tutorial and Video

Growing Young FOSS Programmers With Help of Scratch and Al SweigartScratch Cat

If your young child is showing an interest in learning computers, an introduction to Scratch and these instructional videos by Al Sweigart might be in order.

The Screening Room

Scratch Cat
Scratch Cat, the programming language’s mascot.

Talented book author Al Sweigart is a name familiar to many in the FOSS community. He writes books for kids and for adults — including the recently released Scratch Playground. Scratch is a free visual programming language developed at MIT Media Lab as an introduction to computer programming.

His zeal and talent for explaining is remarkable. I’ve been enjoying the “60 Second Scratch” screencasts (explanatory videos) he has been uploading to YouTube in the past two weeks. For example, check out this little gem:

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Tux Paint Needs Mac Devs, Firefox OS Ends & More…Tux Paint screenshot

Tux Paint Needs Mac Devs, Firefox OS Ends & More…

By Christine Hall on October 2, 2016 |

Community, Distros, News, Obits and Software

Also included: Debian developer Kristoffer H. Rose passes, two new distro releases, Apricity OS adds 32-bit, Canonical gets Kubernetes, Snapcraft gets a new release and getting ready for All Things Open.

FOSS Week in Review

Yikes! Remember last weekend when I was so happy that the dog days of summer had left us behind to be replaced with more comfortable autumnal temps? While that’s true, with nights getting chilly enough that I’m going to have to dig out my comforter, I forgot that this time of year is also the peak of the hurricane season. This means that for much of the next week I’m keeping a wary eye to the south, where Hurricane Matthew may or may not have my part of the Carolinas directly in its sights. It looks as if we’ll know better about what it has in mind by Tuesday afternoon.

Tux Paint screenshotTux Paint needs a Mac maintainer: Everybody’s favorite FOSS paint tool is having a little trouble running on Macs these days — specifically on OS X 10.11 El Capitan. Designed with kids in mind, the app is used extensively at schools, with many school systems now upgrading to El Capitan, which was released a year ago.

Christine HallChristine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingTux Paint Needs Mac Devs, Firefox OS Ends & More…
Contributing to an Open Source ProjectJavaOne logo - open source

Contributing to an Open Source Project

By Phil Shapiro on September 27, 2016 |

Community, Software and Video

There are many ways to contribute to an open source project. There are also many reasons for doing so. But before jumping in, you might want to know how things generally work within these projects.

The Video Screening Room

If you’re interested gaining some tips and insights into how to contribute to open source, this video of a presentation given on September 19 at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco by Gunnar Wagenknecht, a software engineer at Salesforce, and Wayne Beaton, director at the Eclipse Foundation, might be useful to you.

Phil ShapiroPhil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

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Nextcloud’s $79 Box, Vim Gets an Update & More…Nextcloud Box

Nextcloud’s $79 Box, Vim Gets an Update & More…

By Christine Hall on September 18, 2016 |

Business, Community, Distros, Hardware, News, Politics, Software and Web Apps

Also included: Libreboot leaves GNU, municipal broadband law proposed, Linux’s second 25th birthday, a new distro release, Vim and Emacs both get upgrades, Google’s hack challenge and Oracle can’t catch a break.

FOSS Week in Review

Yesterday I got a look at some decidedly old tech: Rope beds, pewter being made by hand, ceramic wood burning stoves, a bit of blacksmithing — all at Bethabara, which is a preserved 18th century village that had been established by German Moravians, who were the first settlers around these parts. Fascinating. The event was the annual Apple Fest, with plenty of local orchards offering every variety of apple imaginable, as well as about any kind of food prepared with apples.

Nextcloud Box
The Nextcloud Box is designed to be an easy way for consumers to use a Raspberry Pi for DIY cloud storage.
The biggest story in FOSS this week was really something of a nonstory about Libreboot suddenly leaving the GNU project. We’ve already covered the initial story, as well as responses by both RMS and the FSF, so no need to flog this horse again.

Christine HallChristine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingNextcloud’s $79 Box, Vim Gets an Update & More…
David Beazley’s Keynote Talk at PyData Chicago 2016David Beazley

David Beazley’s Keynote Talk at PyData Chicago 2016

By Phil Shapiro on September 2, 2016 |

Software and Video

One of the things we’ve noticed over the years is how enthusiastic people are about Python, which shows in this keynote address by David Beazley.

The Video Screening Room

This post-lunch screencast presentation by David Beazley is so entertaining, you can enjoy it without knowing any Python programming whatsoever. The aside comments alone are worth the price of admission. I won’t tell you the topic of the presentation. Suffice it to say — plenty funny.

Phil ShapiroPhil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Continue readingDavid Beazley’s Keynote Talk at PyData Chicago 2016

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