idtprof

Publish Or Perish

2020-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

Publish or perish

Perish the thought, that is, of forgetting that I wanted to write something. And publish it. What does that even mean anymore?

I mentioned in a moribund post… time to learn Markdown.

Create a website using chromebook

2020-03-29T00:00:00+00:00

GitHub Pages

GitHub Pages is a static site hosting service that takes HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files straight from a repository on GitHub, optionally runs the files through a build process, and publishes a website.

Semantic Elements

Semantic HTML elements clearly describe it’s meaning in a human and machine readable way. Elements such as <header>, <footer> and <article> are all considered semantic because they accurately describe the purpose of the element and the type of content that is inside them.

HTML Layouts

<header> - Defines a header for a document or a section
<nav> - Defines a container for navigation links
<section> - Defines a section in a document
<article> - Defines an independent self-contained article
<aside> - Defines content aside from the content (like a sidebar)
<footer> - Defines a footer for a document or a section
<details> - Defines additional details
<summary> - Defines a heading for the <details> element

And now for something completely Python

2020-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

There’s been plenty of discussion in one of my classes about Python programming – what it is, where to learn it and what to use to get started. After suggesting several resources to some of my students, I remembered an old post in a previous blog where I listed several links to pertinent sites, and while some are still valuable, many of them are showing their age (this was back in the v2 days).

People to follow:

Paul Vincent Craven

Other stuff:

freeCodeCamp

This is the winter of our discontent

2020-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

I wanted to title this post “Hello World!” but that seemed inappropriate since this space has been sitting here with that message for a while now. Winter? That came and went since.

Would you like to play a game?

2016-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

In this game of high adventure, your objective is to travel 200 miles across the great Gobi Desert while being chased by a tribe of knock-kneed pygmies. High adventure, indeed!

One does not simply learn how to Code

2016-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

Get comfortable with abstraction. If you try to understand how everything works, you'll get nothing done. pic.twitter.com/jfsXtdIySk
— Quincy Larson (@ossia) February 12, 2015

@idtprof

DEMO BRAG — A BASIC program from the past

2016-03-18T00:00:00+00:00

New school year, new password

2016-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

Hello, Monday (Wednesday — actually, Friday)!

As we all get ready for the new year, and then again 90 days from now, and in yet another three months, ad nauseum — the computer system will ask you to pick a new password to access the information you so desperately need right now.

Although this may seem like a burden — and by all means, maybe it is — you should take a couple of minutes to take care of the computer’s request to change your password and pick a secure code that is hard to decipher and easy for you to remember.

There are applications available that will remember passwords for you (like LastPass or KeePass) although some of us (not me) have survived for decades writing down passwords on small pieces of paper and storing them somewhere “safe.”

When considering your new password, be sure to read the system’s requirements for new passwords, choose a strong password based on those specifications, and make sure your new entry key is not one of 2015’s worst passwords. Here’s the top 10:

123456
password
12345678
qwerty
12345
123456789
football
1234
1234567
baseball

Free Resources For Learning Python

2015-10-16T00:00:00+00:00

A short, but hopefully growing list of free online resources that may help you learn Python. The default for these links is Python 3, unless noted.

Tutorials and Books

Videos

Berkeley EE61A - Computer Science
TheNewBoston (Python 2)

@idtprof

The Digital Calculator Blues

2015-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

Last night, as I was tippy-tapping on my iPad and retweeting weather updates and listening to voicemails and reviewing information about the next day I thought about how mundane the whole experience was. I was suddenly reminded of that time in 1973 or 1974 when my father showed me what was then an absurd purchase, a pocket calculator with bright green digital numbers, that could add, subtract, multiply and good grief, divide with the push of a couple of buttons.

From TV and movies I hear that the first heroin high is the best and probably the only one you’ll ever enjoy. Other than the first 10 hours of “Combat” on the 2600 and the joy of BASIC programming, I’m not sure technology will ever again excite me as much as that little box with glowing numbers.