Archive for the ‘Programming’ Category
GHOP - An Awesome Opportunity
Ever since the beginning of the Google Highly Open Participation Contest, both Kevin and I have been thinking of it non-stop. You can probably call it a borderline obsession. This contest is very important to us because we both are big fans of Google and what it stands for. Since my main OS is Linux based (I use Ubuntu), I’ve been using open source software for over a year now, and I’ve always wanted to contribute to the community.
This competition is a great opportunity for any teen, and every teen should give it a try. Yes you! You don’t need to know any sort of programming to participate. In fact, most of the challenges aren’t code based. The tasks range from translating stuff into other languages, to making tutorial videos on how to use open source software, to making songs and artwork in the spirit of open source and the companies that represent it. There really is something for everyone in this competition.
I’ve been working on a programming task for Joomla! where I have to upgrade a component written for Joomla! 1.0 to work on the new Joomla! 1.5. A major part of our tasks is integrating with the Joomla! community. We have to introduce ourselves on the Joomla! forums, and interact with the open source community there. Upon doing so, we are given a mentor to help us out with our task. I’m loving the experience of working with the Joomla! community for so far, and I have to say everyone is very nice over there.
If anyone is interested they can take a look at the component I’m working on here.
Kevin and I are really enjoying this competition, and I’m sure everyone else would too!
~Josh B.
All Teens do the GHOP
Google Highly Open Participation Contest. Really awkward name right?
Looks like Google really wants to inspire the next generation to be involved with open-source projects already. Opened exclusively to 13-18 year olds, 10 fantastic open source platforms (Joomla, Apache, GNOME, Moodle, among others) are allowing kids to get involved with various tasks to help the open source community.
Along with that are also prizes including a t-shirt (who doesn’t want a Google t-shirt), a certificate, $100s of dollars, and a special kid from each open course platform gets the chance to go visit the Googleplex to receive their award.
Our readers will know that we are getting excited over this. Although Google can be considered a monolith among the web companies, it is also one of the most friendly and innovative to work for. This is a great opportunity for all kids to consider and I highly recommend it. The tasks range from the program-heavy to some light documentation and video-making tasks.
I am probably going to help out Moodle with some tutorial-making tasks and Josh is taking on a huge task of upgrading a Joomla component. There are time limits and professional developments and the whole shibang so we hope this will be good experience as well as a huge chance for something more.
~Kevin X
Coding Nightmare
Whew, this has been one heck of a week for us. This week has been wrap up week in school, where all of the teachers try and cram in as much work as they can to fit in the end of the first quarter. Thankfully this week is over and done with, and we are heading into the easy transitional week before the second quarter.
While we did our school work during the day, we worked on the new domain during the night. We were tired of the look of our blog because not only was it old, but it was also unoriginal. So many other people use it. If a theme was supposed to represent us, we wanted it to be original and different. However, we wanted to release the new blog to the public within the week, so we didn’t have time to make a whole new theme by ourselves. So instead of creating a whole new theme, we decided to choose one, and modify it to our liking.
I expected this to be rather easy, because the theme was already made I would just have to edit a little bit. However, as the hours spent on editing kept on increasing, I realized that this job was much harder than I anticipated. Many sections of the code required some rewriting, and to make the theme display correctly it took a lot of trial and error. Some parts of the website would seem to completely rebel, and not cooperate. Twice during this week I completely broke the website to the point where it just wouldn’t load. And the day we were about to release the website, I changed something in the code which made the design completely explode, almost literally. In short, it was a nightmare.
Despite all of our troubles, as you can see we finally got the theme up and running perfectly fine. Even though we are very proud of the way the theme turned out, we still feel that we need a completely new theme that isn’t based off of an existing one. During this November and into December, I will be developing a totally new theme from scratch that will make us feel original and different.
I hope you enjoy the new theme. Feel free to send any advice or critiques to our email, or just simply post a comment. We really appreciate them =)
~Josh B
Programming and Its Awesomeness
I’ve been asked many times why I want to go into computer science as my college major, and each time I’ve said the same thing: programming and working with computers are my favorite things in the world, right above living and breathing…well maybe not above that. But still, they’re pretty high up there on my favorites list. Now, however, my view on computer science is shifting. As I’m being more and more introduced into the business world, I’m gaining a broader insight into computer science and its ties to the business world.
Right now we are right smack dab in the middle of the information age. The internet is growing every day. An increasing amount of businesses are now taking their ideas to the web: popular sites such as youtube and digg are popping up all over the place. In order to make popular websites like these, someone needs two major things. First, they need an idea. But second, they need to know how to code the site and/or have someone else code it for them!
As I see it, as the web continues to grow and more people realize the potential of online businesses there will be an increasing demand for programmers. I now feel that the computer science major is a great choice not only because I enjoy computers so much, but also because it puts me into a position of great potential.
I have many other thoughts regarding this subject, but I guess this is enough for one post =).
~Josh B.