yonkeltron

I have not had a great deal of time recently. That being said, I have accrued a list of subjects I desire to learn and technologies I wish to become familiar with. Some of them are neat and others are less captivating. If anyone sees something on this list that they find interesting, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me.

• PyKDE/PyQT - I would really like to get a hang of GUI programming in order to further my programming horizons. Given my love of KDE in general and the immenent release of KDE4, I feel like now is an excellent time to get aquainted with this seemingly excellent development platform. I have already found a few good tutorials to help a Python programmer like myself get a decent start.
• Parallel Python - While my professors tend to be more into the high performance computing stuff like OpenMP and MPI, I find the idea of a 1700 line quicksort algorithm to be a little intimidating. While the whole concept of a lighter weight language (like NESL) is not new, I fancy the idea of using Python to do interesting things.
• OpenLaszlo - I like the web. I wish I had a better understanding of how to make neat things for the web. As such, the OpenLaszlo concept of writing an application once and then being able to have it served up as either Flash or DHTML/AJAX seems very promising and flexible. There are some cool demos where the exact same application can be launched served up in either form.
• Unit Testing - Even after the launch of the Google Testing Blog, there really isn’t enough out there for people to dive into unit testing for software components. I really do wish that the Google folks, who seem to be awful keen on testing, would put out some good introductory material. That being said, I am eyeing the O’Reilly book…
• Jabber - I just like Jabber in general. Ever since I really got into the concepts during last year’s brief project, I’ve been craving a portable Jabber-enabled device so that I can keep in touch from any WiFi hotspot. Really, I just want to do something interesting and fun with it.
• Talmudic Logic - With the recent developments in the Conservative Movement, I have been reminded of just how rich the body of Jewish Law can be. It seems like, with my newfound exposure to discrete mathematics, I might be in a position to explore some of these concepts in a more comprehensive fashion.
• Wavelets - One of my development partners (the delightfully Turkish one) is quite fascinated with wavelets. His enthusiasm has spread to me after I saw how powerful they can be when analyzing data.

I feel like there is more but I just can’t remember at the moment.

So after camp, my friend Matan came home with me to chill at my house for a little bit. We had alot of fun and hung out a great deal. Friday morning we went down to the city with Rona and met Yoni, Yaniv, Ainat, and the Richmans. It was a great deal of fun to run around downtown seeing the historic sites and checking out the cute shops and such.

So as the day went on, Lital and Karinne came back with Matan and I to spend Shabbos at my house. We spent time eating, remembering, and playing games. Such a wonderful first shabbos away from camp really. Being with friends is as good as it gets.

Matan left for Costa Rica motzei Shabbos and Karrine left the next morning. Sunday night, we went out to meet the Richmans for chinese food and water ice in Philly. Lital left this morning along with my parents rendering me home alone. I of course took plenty of photos to act as a chronicle of the whole weekend.

I did go over to Dov’s house this evening where I discovered an interesting site called jtsfuture.org which details the plans for a new chancellor of JTS. Not only does that site deserve some attention, it runs wordpress!

In regards to my previous post regarding the LAAK Stack, the jukebox machine has arrived from Sub300 and I have successfully installed Debian Sarge from the d-i netinst cd. My mother (in her infinite wisdom) suggested I name it Isaiah after the prophet responsible for broadcasting messages to the people. Isaiah is currently running Linux Kernel version 2.6.8.2-686 from the kernel image package available from the Debian repositories.

The entire LAAK stack has been installed and is behaving perfectly. After some initial woes relating to the soundcard, X resolution, amaroK database management and one or two other speedbumps, I have been able to begin loading audio from CD’s and my own private collections onto Isaiah so that upon arrival at Ramah, we may begin hooking up and integrating everything in the proper fashion.

Very soon, I will have the opportunity to do two very unique things. Firstly, I will be teaching and running the radio station (WCRP 640AM in the area directly around Lake Como PA) at Camp Ramah in the Poconos this summer. Secondly, I will be gaining first hand experience using Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) in an educational environment.

After much consultation with Ramah Alumnus (and all around nice guy) Dan Braverman, president of Radio Systems, the camp wisely chose to go with the $333 dollar Linux machine from Sub300.com over the $1000 Windows platform that was previously reccomended. I really feel that this will allow the radio station some very useful functionality while keeping the benefits of F/OSS in addition to the cost factors.

I feel this will happen through what I have begun to term the “LAAK Stack”. A play off of the IT industry buzz-acronym“LAMP Stack”, the LAAK Stack is a combination of the four free (as in both beer and freedom) software programs that I plan to integrate into the radio station. These progams are:

• GNU/Linux: Debian Linux will provide a solid base for building a reliable and cost effective infrastructure. It’s stability and low maintainance requirements assure that downtime will be minimized. More time can be spent on education and content creation as opposed to firefighting system instabilities. If it’s strong enough to run just under 70% of the internet, then it should be strong enough to function as a jukebox.
• Audacity: With a rich featuer set and easy to use interface, the free audio software Audacity will enable campers to bend and create sounds for use in every aspect of the station. Anything is possible when one can mix, cut. splice, edit, remix and otherwise mashup recordings. Additionally, the cross-platform nature of audacity means that anyone can brush up on their skills in between summers.
• amaroK: After recieving rave reviews from all over the world, amaroK has become the king pin of audio players. amarok has the ability to allow campers to create custom playlists for broadcasting shows both live and later on. Integrated CD burning means that every camper will have the ability to create his or her own show and take home a copy on disc. amaroK is also the perfect tool for managing music databases of all types and sizes. The amaroK developers have expressed significant interest as this will be one of two confirmed uses of amaroK in a production environment and it is the only confirmed use of it in the context of education.
• KDE: One of the most innovative graphical desktops for Linux, the K Desktop Environment will tie it all together. Providing, seemless application integration and unparalled usability will be crucial as participants in the radio program learn to use the new tools. KDE will allow anyone to just “pick up and go” with the system because it is so easy to configure for any task or user base.

This is just a preliminary and I have a feeling I’ll be overhauling the concept as the curriculum and plans are created. The system was ordered and should arrive within a week thus ensuring time to get Debian up and running before staff week. This will be my second test using the Debian-Installer and I’m looking forward to trying it from a CD as opposed to booting from floppies.