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Open Talks

LUG Manipal presents Open Talks in the 1st week of November 2011 on interesting topics covering Perl, Hadoop and Lucene (technologies essential to Yahoo, Facebook and Twitter), Version control using GIT and Google Summer of Code (GSoC). The talks are absolutely free. For more details, keep checking your hostel notice board.

LUG Manipal

Mobivision Workshop 2011

Mobivision workshop has always been one of the top workshops by LUG. Unlike every year this year workshop was conducted on Android. Previously the workshop used to be on Symbian (Using Python for S60) .

Day1 – Installation of eclipse and android SDK was done. Everyone installed and started there emulator successful. Hello World program was explained properly. Making UI through XML and through java file was explained. Then App inventor tool of google was shown.

Day2 – Basics of java and then android overview (activities, intents, widget…) was covered first. Then Lab1 was done which was hands-on-session . Everyone used Linear Layout, Button, EditText, Checkbox , etc… through dynamic programming and made a simple app. How to use LogCat to debug code was also taught.

Day3-  Different Example codes were explained and distributed. Lab2 was done which was hand on session. Same layout which was made in day2 was now made through xml. It covered different layout, widget most importantly listview, adapter, layout inflator, etc.

Lastly there was discussion on ideation as well. How to generate ideas for an mobile application. What all thing we should look for when we go for making an mobile application, etc.

All files are attached  (Lab1, Lab2 complete, examples and slides)

http://www.slideshare.net/sritolia/android-workshday1

http://www.slideshare.net/sritolia/android-workshobasic-java

http://www.slideshare.net/sritolia/android-workshop-day3

http://www.lugmanipal.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/lugmanipal.zip

 

Installing the Android SDK

1) System Requirement – Check whether your operating system supports for developing Android applications using the Android SDK.
http://developer.android.com/sdk/requirements.html

2) JDK-  Download and install the Java JDK depending upon the OS and processor (32bit or 64 bit) you have. http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp
JDK 7 is recommended.

3) Eclipse – Download eclipse zip file and extract it. – http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ .The “Eclipse Classic” version is recommended. Otherwise, a Java or RCP version of Eclipse is recommended.

4) Download Android SDK – download and extract the android sdk depending upon the OS you have. http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

5) ADT Plugin – Install the ADT Plugin

  1. Start Eclipse, then select Help > Install New Software….
  2. Click Add, in the top-right corner.
  3. In the Add Repository dialog that appears, enter “ADT Plugin” for the Name and the following URL for the Location:
    https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/
  4. Click OKNote: If you have trouble acquiring the plugin, try using “http” in the Location URL, instead of “https” (https is preferred for security reasons).
  5. In the Available Software dialog, select the checkbox next to Developer Tools and click Next.
  6. In the next window, you’ll see a list of the tools to be downloaded. Click Next.
  7. Read and accept the license agreements, then click Finish.Note: If you get a security warning saying that the authenticity or validity of the software can’t be established, click OK.
  8. When the installation completes, restart Eclipse.

6)  Configuring ADT Plugin – go to Window=>Preferences=>Android and change the build path to
wherever you put the android-sdk folder.(the sdk you downloaded in step 4) .

7) Try the hello world program from here – http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/hello-world.html .

 

(You may follow the detailed instructions from the official web site – http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing.html )

Rendevous with Facebook – Basics Workshop

A Workshop on Basic Web Development was conducted by LUG Manipal. It furnished the attendees with the knowledge of the web technologies required for the upcoming workshop on Facebook Application Development. The primary focus were the concepts behind web development, such as Client Server Architecture, Server Side Languages and Client side Languages.

Day 1:
The XAMP suite was given to the attendees. The focus of the workshop was on PHP, MySQL, HTML. The workshop started with a discussion on the Client Server Architecure. It was followed by an introduction to HTML. Major HTML tags were covered, and the day ended with a simple page, covering most of the important tags.

Day 2:
The second day was devoted to PHP.  The basic concepts of server side scripting were covered. Also, the working of PHP, the syntax of PHP statements were taken up. At the end, the attendees were able to pass information from a form to another page and process the information

Day 3:
The focus of the third day was MySQL, and its connection with PHP. In the beginning, basic database concepts were discussed. MySQL was introduced, and basic queries such as INSERT, UPDATE, CREATE TABLE, DELETE, SELECT were discussed.
The Connection of PHP with MySQL with the particular functions was discussed in detail. Inserting values from a form into the database, and retrieving the data from the database and displaying it on the screen was demonstrated.

Day 4:
The day started with an introduction to Sessions and Cookies. The differences between Sessions and Cookies and their respective uses was highlighted. The creation and usage of sessions and cookies using PHP functions was demonstrated. The day ended with a simple login script demonstration. An insight was also given into Facebook application development using PHP, which will be covered in the next workshop.

References:
To know about the installation procedures -> Link
Slides of the Workshop -> Link
Get the Official PHP Manual from its website.
Get the Official MySQL Manual from its website.

Open Talks II Description

The following topics were discussed during the 2nd open talks session :

  • Cryptographic Hashing :

On the 28th of March, a one-hour talk on “Cryptographic Hashing” was conducted. The talk comprised of the basics of hashing, digests and it’s applications in real world scenarios. It introduced the attendees to the different types of hashing functions and it’s evolution over the course of time, detailing it’s use as an alternative to storing passwords in plain text at the server end and also it’s utility as file checksums. They were also given a brief insight into the different methods used to break hashes which included brute force, cryptanalyzation and rainbow tables.

Link to slides for this session

  • Regular Expressions :

Regular Expressions are commonly used in Compiler Design, and form a basis for theoretical computer science, but their power in programming languages for pattern matching, and searching is under utilized. The focus of the talk was to apply the power of regular expressions in programming.
The highlight of the talk was on constructing regular expressions. The format and various syntaxes were discussed. All the required concepts were covered in a construction of a regular expression for a typical email address. Lastly, an example on Java, showing the practical implementation of regular expressions was shown. Implementation in C++ with the Boost/Regex library was also mentioned.

Click to Download the Reference Document

  • Augmented Intelligence and Machine Learning :

The talk began with the discussion on what learning is and what styles of learning surround us. The classic approach of classroom was picked up and so was the process of distance learning. The distance learning model was picked up and we saw as to what its various advantages and disadvantages are. The talk was focused on Opencourseware, which was an initiative started by MIT, USA which put up their entire course material online including lectures and handouts so that people could learn from them.
The second part of the talk session was on machine learning and augmented intelligence. With the main focus being on Milo, a online entity that was created in association with Microsoft, it could actively learn and could be taught new things to do. It exhibited Augmented intelligence and discussions ensured on the same till the end of the session.

  • Esoteric Programming Languages :

Esoteric languages are languages that are created testing the boundaries of programming languages, they are often written as a joke or humor and exhibit no sense of purposes whatsoever. Still, they are interesting to learn and a lot of fun.
There were several languages that were demonstrated. Brainfuck was the main focus however. The most popular esoteric language has only 8 commands and has the minimalistic designs. Other language include Piet, which takes bitmap images as input. Whirl which has only 0 and 1. and other such languages. The humor aspect of the session was the main focus as computer science jokes and parodies were at the fullest.

  • Allegro – C/C++ Gaming Library :

A talk was held on Allegro a C/C++ game programming library. It was basically an introduction to Allegro and game programming in general.
At first the audience were made familiar with the initial setup procedures as required by Allegro environment for outputting data to the screen. Next they were shown the basic functions provided by the library to output bitmaps and sprites onto the screen along with a brief introduction to masking functions.
How to animate sprites to show movement was shown next. This quickly followed the implementation of Double buffering to facilitate smooth motion of the sprites on screen. Collision detection was explained at this stage with proper demonstrations along with the explanation of Bounding Box Collision concept.
Lastly, the programs were shown highlighting the differences between those using timers and those not using them.

Pre-Requisites for Rendezvous with Facebook workshop.

Following are the methods to install the Apache-PHP-MySQL packages to your systems. People interested in coming for the Web Development Workshop starting from 5th April , should take a look.

For Ubuntu users:

  • If your Ubuntu is the one from the Linux Install Fest, your system already has the required packages.
  • If you dont have the packages , type the following commands in terminal :
    • sudo tasksel install lamp-server
    • sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin

 

For other Linux users :

 

For Windows users:

Web Development Week

LUG Manipal presents a web development week.

Spotlight Features:
1> Learn to make Facebook Applications
2> Learn the use of web-based frameworks to build web-sites in minutes.

Schedule :
Fundamentals of web development : 5th to 8th April
Including Html, PHP, Mysql.

FB App Development and Web-Frameworks : 11th to 13th April
Including FB Application Dev. and Web Frameworks.

Workshop is completely FREE and open to all.
No Registrations Required.

Venue : NLH 403

Open Talks II

The second session of Open Talks is here, this time its a five day talk session featuring the following talks:

Cost: Completely FREE
Day 1 – 28th March – Hashing and Regex
Day 2 – 29th March – Augmented Intelligence and machine learning by Prof. K.P. Rao.
Day 3 – 31st March –  Allegro – C/C++ Gaming Library
Day 4 – 1st April –  GIT and Virtualization
Day 5 – 2nd April –  Esoteric Languages (like brainfcuk).

Qt Workshop

LUG Manipal recently conducted a workshop on Qt, an open source cross platform application development framework. The workshop was conducted on 25th February-1st March. The event was conducted by Saurabh Sood and Nitesh Narayanlal, both second year Computer Science students.

Day 1: The Qt SDK was given to the attendees. they were introduced to the Qt framework, with an insight into the internal working, and the difference with other frameworks was explained. It ended with an introduction to programming with Qt

Day 2: Some basic programs were explained. The Qt Designer was also demonstrated. The concept of Signals and Slots was also discussed. The day ended with the design of a functional Notepad application

Day 3 and 4: The Notepad application was completed. The features added were cut/copy/paste/clear, Save, Open, About. Most of the attendees were able to complete the application.

The overall reaction to the reaction was positive, with a decent turnout even on the last two days.

LUG Open Talks 2011

3 Talks, 3 Interesting Topics
Thursday, Friday and Saturday. (20th, 21st and 22nd of Jan).
1)20th Jan (Thursday) – Wikipedia & Open Information – By Prof K.P Rao
2)21st Jan (Friday) – An approach to algorithms for coding competitions
3)22nd Jan(Saturday) – Design Patterns commonly used

Details:
1)20th of Jan – The first of the talks were by Prof. KP Rao and was on the Wikipedia foundation. The talk was wonderful and Prof KP Rao shared with us his 50 years of teaching experience and also talked on the various aspects of wikipedia and on the concept behind it. He also talked about the ideasOpen Information – By Prof K.P Rao

2)21st of Jan – The second of the talks was on Approach to algorithms in coding competition, by shivhari shankar on the memebers of LUG, Manipal. The talk was on the basics of coding competition and thoughts that go behind solving one of them. Standard problems were also picked and analyzed. It was an open session with anyone allowed to discuss and analysed the problem given. Problems like the n queens problem and permutation and combination were well received by everyone and there was an overall informal session that was fruitful and useful.

3)22nd of Jan -Being civilised humans, we conform to certain behavioural patterns in life to be a part of the social systems. Similarly there are many practices, many problems already solved. Design patterns is about finding a pre made good solution to your problems.

Slides for the talks:

Design patterns

Session 2-Algorithms