Category Archives: Education

Under the hood of yandoit.net

Posted on by August 1, 2012
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(for the geekishly inclined!)

yandoit.net uses the shared hosting service justhost.com, which is one of a number of large hosting companies owned by Endurance International Group Inc. based in Boston, Massachusetts. Hosting costs only a few dollars a month.

yandoit.net is built on WordPress 3.4.1 using the Weaver ii theme. WordPress and the Weaver ii theme are free software.

yandoit.net also uses ‘plugins’ for extra functionality. Plugins are extra bits of code, mostly written by enthusiasts in the WordPress community, that add extra features to the basic WordPress platform. yandoit.net uses the following plugins:

  • All-in-One Calendar (the calendar page)
  • Authors Widget (lists posts by author)
  • Browser Blocker (detects old versions of IE. I had to hack it a bit to make it work)
  • Cimy User Extra Fields (collects info when you sign up)
  • Configure SMTP (handles email responses)
  • Dashboard: Pending Review (for moderation of posts)
  • Fast Secure Contact Form (to contact me)
  • Peter’s Collaboration E-mails (more email functions)
  • Post From Site (this is the plugin that provides the Add Post link and form – I had to hack this one too).
  • Slimbox2 with Slideshow (the fancy display of posts containing photos)
  • Theme My Login (login and sign-up screen)
  • User Role Editor (what you can and can’t do)
  • Weaver II Theme Extras (save and restore theme settings)
  • WP Approve User
  • WP Image Size Limit

If you want to play around with WordPress yourself, create a free account on wordpress.com. It is an excellent place to host your own personal blog. You won’t be able to add any plugins, however. If you want to learn more about WordPress than is possible at wordpress.com, or about web development in general, there are plenty of options. Many companies offer free web hosting (do a search). Or you can install a web server on your own computer.

  • 000webshost.com: One of many free hosting services. I don’t know anything about them, but they seem to offer all you need.
  • XAMPP: easy-setup free web server for Windows, Mac or Linux.
  • WordPress: free download.

yandoit.net redeveloped on ‘WordPress’

Posted on by October 12, 2013
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yandoit.net has been redeveloped on the ’WordPress’ platform. I have done this because the old platform ’WebsiteBaker’ has proved difficult to maintain and is not well supported. WordPress is the dominant platform used by many bloggers. It is well supported and still being actively developed. A popular local example of a WordPress site is Geoff Park’s excellent Natural Newstead.

Some features, such as home pages and subscriptions, were broken on the old platform. The move to WordPress should solve these issues. The new platform should prove easier for subscribers to contribute material to yandoit.net.

Linux, the other operating system

Posted on by July 26, 2012
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Windows and Mac are familiar to all, but there is another: Linux. It is completely free, open source software. Linux used to be ‘just for geeks’, but today’s Linux looks and feels much like Windows.

Linux is very stable and reliable, which is why it is so popular for web servers. Yandoit.net is hosted on a Linux server, somewhere in the US.

Various companies and communities create and package their own variety of Linux.  These are called ‘distributions’. Most are free to download. The most popular distribution, and the one I use, is Ubuntu. You can download it here and burn it to a CD, which you can then install, or try it out by running it directly from the CD.

Ubuntu includes all the basic software you need, including the OpenOffice suite (word processing, spreadsheet and presentations), Firefox web browser, email/calendar application, graphics, media player, CD/DVD burner and games. There is also a huge online repository of extra software to choose from, all free.

Linux facts…

Linus

Linus Torvalds

There are no Linux viruses so you don’t need anti-virus software.

Depending on which survey you read, around 70% of the world’s web servers run Linux.

Of the world’s top 500 supercomputers, 91% run Linux[1]. The fastest supercomputer in the world, IBM’s Sequoia, runs Linux.

Linux is built and maintained by a community of enthusiasts. Its core was written by Linus Torvalds, commencing in 1991. Since then it has developed from a rather plain and technical system mainly of interest to programmers, to a fully-fledged desktop system: a worthy rival to Windows and Mac OSX.

PC repairers (myself included) often use Linux (installed on a USB stick or CD) to kick-start a borked Windows machine and recover its files.

You can try out Linux (without installing it or making any changes to your computer) by running it from a CD or USB stick.

Screenshot of Ubuntu (click to enlarge)

References

1. TOP500.org. “Operating system Family share for 06/2010 | TOP500 Supercomputing Sites”. Top500.org. http://www.top500.org/stats/list/35/osfam. Retrieved 2010-06-01.

Some famous computer quotes

Posted on by July 29, 2012
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“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” Attributed to Pablo Picasso.

“Home computers are being called upon to perform many new functions, including the consumption of homework formerly eaten by the dog.” Doug Larson.

“Spam will be a thing of the past in two years’ time.” Bill Gates, World Economic Forum, 2004.

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” Popular Mechanics, 1949.

“Almost all of the many predictions now being made about 1996 hinge on the Internet’s continuing exponential growth. But I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, 1995. (3Com was a manufacturer that specialised in network products, recently taken over by Hewlett Packard).

Interviewer: “Is studying computer science the best way to prepare to be a programmer?”
Bill Gates: “No, the best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating system.” from Programmers at Work (Lammers, S, 1986)