Category: Technology

I work in technology sector. And I do round a clock, not only from 9 to 5. It is my bread and butter, it is my hobby, it is the fascination of my life. And with the current rate of change particular in information technology (IT), there is always something new to learn, to try, to talk about. I often post news, thoughts, and reviews. And when I do, this is the category I use.

Think Like a Git

Being a sysadmin and web developer I read plenty of technical documentation – manuals, tutorials, howtos, and so on and so forth. Most of it is usually very dry and boring. Unless, of course, we are talking about Open Source Software. That area is often very human, with plenty of humor and an excellent examples.

Today I came across a very nice website which explains how Git – the de facto version control system in Open Source community – works. The site is called Think Like a Git. Very well structure, with simple, easy to understand language, and excellent navigation.

I’d also like to mention the design separately. So often do technical people end up using generic templates that aren’t very well suited for longer texts, quotes, and code snippets. So often do designers overdo things making documentation nice looking, but impossible to read. Think Like a Git is not like that. It’s beautiful, yet clean, fresh, and simple. My eyes are actually resting while I flip through the pages. Nothing annoys or disrupts my attention. It’s all about Git. Bravo!

Lessons learned from a social news website

Back in February 2009, Paul Graham shared the lessons he’d learned from a side project of his – social news website Hacker News.  I’ve read it back then, of course, but once again someone pointed out to me the value of that article and I went back.  It is a must read for any web developer or even anyone who  participates in online discussions, social networks, or just maintains a blog.  Here is my favorite section that explains bad comments.

There are two main kinds of badness in comments: meanness and stupidity. There is a lot of overlap between the two—mean comments are disproportionately likely also to be dumb—but the strategies for dealing with them are different. Meanness is easier to control. You can have rules saying one shouldn’t be mean, and if you enforce them it seems possible to keep a lid on meanness.

Keeping a lid on stupidity is harder, perhaps because stupidity is not so easily distinguishable. Mean people are more likely to know they’re being mean than stupid people are to know they’re being stupid.

The most dangerous form of stupid comment is not the long but mistaken argument, but the dumb joke. Long but mistaken arguments are actually quite rare. There is a strong correlation between comment quality and length; if you wanted to compare the quality of comments on community sites, average length would be a good predictor. Probably the cause is human nature rather than anything specific to comment threads. Probably it’s simply that stupidity more often takes the form of having few ideas than wrong ones.

Whatever the cause, stupid comments tend to be short. And since it’s hard to write a short comment that’s distinguished for the amount of information it conveys, people try to distinguish them instead by being funny. The most tempting format for stupid comments is the supposedly witty put-down, probably because put-downs are the easiest form of humor. [5] So one advantage of forbidding meanness is that it also cuts down on these.

Bad comments are like kudzu: they take over rapidly. Comments have much more effect on new comments than submissions have on new submissions. If someone submits a lame article, the other submissions don’t all become lame. But if someone posts a stupid comment on a thread, that sets the tone for the region around it. People reply to dumb jokes with dumb jokes.

Maybe the solution is to add a delay before people can respond to a comment, and make the length of the delay inversely proportional to some prediction of its quality. Then dumb threads would grow slower.

Free Software Workshop 2011

I totally forgot to blog and let you know in advance about this, but they say it’s better late than never, so here it goes. The Ubuntu-Cy guys are organizing yet another event – Free Software Workshop 2011. It’s going to take place tonight, Friday, October 21st, 2011 at KXE1 Computer Lab at Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) in Limassol, Cyprus.

Below is the English version of the announcement, including the program. Visit this forum thread for any updates and for the Greek version.

Workshops of Free and Open Source Software 2011

The Ubuntu Linux Local Community in collaboration with the Information Systems and Technology Service of CUT and the New Technologies Club of CUT, invites you to a showcase event about the features the Free/Open Source Software in medicine, computing, home entertainment and search methods . The event will be held on October 21, 2011 in the KXE1 computer room of CUT, in the Andreas Themistocleous building (Old Land registry) in Limassol:

Click here for the Google Maps location

The agenda of the event is as follows:

18:00 to 18:30: “Free / Open Source in everyday medical practice” (Greek)
Dr. Eugene Metaxas

18:40 – 19:10: “What is version control software and why do you need it?” (English)
Leonid Mamchenkov

19:20 – 19:50: “XBMC as a core of home entertainment” (English)
Michael Stepanov

20:00 – 20:30: “make install: Installation Methods of Free/Open Source Software” (Greek)
Marios Isaakidis

20:30 to 21:00: “Intelligent search techniques” (Greek)
Theodotos Andreou

21:10 – 21:40: “Linux Security Tools” (Greek)
Gregoris Chrysanthou

The event is open to everyone and you can bring your laptop if you need any help. We are also going to give away Linux CDs/DVDs

Try Free and Open Source Software! Information without obstacles!

As you can see, I will be one of the speakers. Also, my very good friend Michael will do a presentation.

Once we are all done with the talks, we’ll probably move to a bar to continue the discussion over a pint. So if you are interested in Free and Open Source software, Linux, or just want to meet with fellow geeks, don’t miss this opportunity. They don’t come that often.

What are possible applications of a barometer in a smartphone?

Google and Samsung recently announced a new smartphone – Galaxy Nexus. Among all the bells and whistles there is something that you don’t see that often on a mobile computing device – a barometer. Pretty much each and every technology website mentioned the new piece of hardware, but nobody really explain why it is included and what it is good for.

I’ve searched a web a little for the ideas and realized something. Not only that most people have no idea good a barometer can do in a mobile phone, but too many of them don’t even know what a barometer is. In general, besides the mobile phone. That’s where I thought I’d help them out a bit.

First things first. Here is how Wikipedia defines barometer:

A barometer is a scientific instrument used in meteorology to measure atmospheric pressure. It can measure the pressure exerted by the atmosphere by using water, air, or mercury. Pressure tendency can forecast short term changes in the weather. Numerous measurements of air pressure are used within surface weather analysis to help find surface troughs, high pressure systems, and frontal boundaries.

With that and some more reading and browsing the Web, I can list the following possible applications of a barometer in a mobile phone:

  • Weather forecasts. While we do have those now even without barometers in our phones, barometers can help the device provide a much more accurate, up to the minute weather forecast. Atmospheric pressure paired with the general forecast for the air can warn of you upcoming rains and such, minutes in advance. Also, what works one way, can work the other way too – hundreds of thousands or even millions of devices with barometers spread across the globe could help distributed data collection on atmospheric pressure and its changes, thus improving weather forecasts for everyone.
  • Atmospheric pressure change warnings. This is somewhat related to the previous point. Many people, especially older ones, and people with a variety of health conditions, are very sensitive to the changes of the atmospheric pressure. Some need to take certain pills, others need to lay down. Now, the mobile phone will be able to warn them slightly in advance.
  • Altitude positioning. Most smartphones these days are equipped with GPS. GPS can tell the altitude as well, but it is not very accurate at it. Barometric sensor can improve that a lot. Practical applications can vary from sports like parachuting and paragliding, through hobbies like remote control airplanes, to navigation and location service inside buildings (which floor am I at?).

What other applications and uses can you think of for a barometer in a mobile device?