Thursday, February 05, 2004
You Can Do It! Competition
Francis Glassborow, the author of A Beginner’s Introduction to Computer Programming, is running a competition to win a £15 (20 Euros or $25) book token. The bad news is that you have to have the book to enter but the good news is that you only have to read the first chapter.
The first chapter of the book introduces the reader to programming in a wonderfully simple way yet achieves quite stunning results immediately. Basically, it teaches you how to program a dot but it is amazing what you can achieve graphically with just a dot. The competition is to write a best picture generating program using the information in Chapter one.
There were only two entries for the first competition which ended January 10th, because the book was only published in December, but both entries were very impressive and the winner was only nine years old. See the entries here.
So now we know the book can teach both children and grannies to program. I said if I can do anyone can and, even if the winner is a very brilliant nine year old I think this helps to prove me right.
The current competition closes on 10th May 2004
I was the test student, or guinea pig as I am unfortunately described on the cover, for the book
The first chapter of the book introduces the reader to programming in a wonderfully simple way yet achieves quite stunning results immediately. Basically, it teaches you how to program a dot but it is amazing what you can achieve graphically with just a dot. The competition is to write a best picture generating program using the information in Chapter one.
There were only two entries for the first competition which ended January 10th, because the book was only published in December, but both entries were very impressive and the winner was only nine years old. See the entries here.
So now we know the book can teach both children and grannies to program. I said if I can do anyone can and, even if the winner is a very brilliant nine year old I think this helps to prove me right.
The current competition closes on 10th May 2004
I was the test student, or guinea pig as I am unfortunately described on the cover, for the book
Monday, February 02, 2004
Angelique Awareness
I’ve been trying to de-clutter my bookshelves – but when I came to my Angelique books I couldn’t bear to throw them away. Angelique is the heroine of a series of 15 plus gripping historical fiction books which were originally published in the 60’s and 70s. Just out of interest I did a search on Angelique to see if anyone else enjoyed them too.
I came across The World of Angelique and was rather disturbed at what I found and realised that many more people would also have loved these books if the French agents and publishers had made them available. The website explains:
Marie-France Bernier has organised a petition appealing for justice for Anne Golon.
I came across The World of Angelique and was rather disturbed at what I found and realised that many more people would also have loved these books if the French agents and publishers had made them available. The website explains:
Readers who have enjoyed reading the Angélique stories over the years will be pleased to know that the author [Anne Golon] is alive, although not in the best of health, and living near Paris - ironically a stone's throw away from the Palace of Versailles, which features in some of the Angélique stories.
The Angélique books proved an international success of gigantic proportions. Estimates of the total number of Angélique books sold worldwide are upwards of 150 million, and they have been published in at least 63 countries, by at least 320 different publishers.
Sadly, in more recent years Anne has fought a battle with French agents and publishers over the rights to the stories, and the fight went to court.
In November 1995 the court duly restored the rights to the author but the ex-agents (mainly Hachette Livres, part of the giant Aerospatial group that dominates French industry and the French media) appealed. They have been using a variety of legal manoeuvres to delay the final appeal for seven years (see the section on the petition to the court).
Marie-France Bernier has organised a petition appealing for justice for Anne Golon.
Sunday, February 01, 2004
Thank You Cre8asite and DMOZ
On my website I have published my book on John’s Gospel and the next task is to let people know it is there. So I submitted the book and theodicy pages to DMOZ, the Open Directory Project, and was pleasantly surprised how quickly they were added. I thought it took months to get pages added to DMOZ.
Perhaps it helped that I had read about DMOZ in the Cre8asite Forums and had followed all the hints and tips about submitting to DMOZ.
From Cre8asite I discovered that DMOZ is probably the most important directory to get listed in because Google uses it too. I’m not sure how I discovered the Cre8asite forums but I’m so glad I did. The forums cover every possible subject relating to creating and running a website and the experts there, of whom there are many, explain things in language that even complete novices like me can understand without being patronising.
But getting listed may have had as much to do with the very dedicated Meta Editor with the unpronounceable name icxcnika who is in charge of Religion and Spirituality,. I discovered this from the Cre8asite DMOZ forum from another dedicated editor and forum moderator Jean Marco.
A big Thank you to the Cre8asite people and DMOZ editors.
Perhaps it helped that I had read about DMOZ in the Cre8asite Forums and had followed all the hints and tips about submitting to DMOZ.
From Cre8asite I discovered that DMOZ is probably the most important directory to get listed in because Google uses it too. I’m not sure how I discovered the Cre8asite forums but I’m so glad I did. The forums cover every possible subject relating to creating and running a website and the experts there, of whom there are many, explain things in language that even complete novices like me can understand without being patronising.
But getting listed may have had as much to do with the very dedicated Meta Editor with the unpronounceable name icxcnika who is in charge of Religion and Spirituality,. I discovered this from the Cre8asite DMOZ forum from another dedicated editor and forum moderator Jean Marco.
A big Thank you to the Cre8asite people and DMOZ editors.
Saturday, January 31, 2004
The Wayback Machine
I'm sure most people already know about this site - but I didn't so I decided to blog it to test my new weblog.
The Wayback Machine is an archive of web pages which contains 30 billion pages going wayback to 1996. You simply type in the URL and the archive lets you select from various dates when the pages were updated. It’s quite amusing to see how your favourite site started out.
I came across this site on the rogueclassicism weblog but I've forgotten how I got there.
The Wayback Machine is an archive of web pages which contains 30 billion pages going wayback to 1996. You simply type in the URL and the archive lets you select from various dates when the pages were updated. It’s quite amusing to see how your favourite site started out.
I came across this site on the rogueclassicism weblog but I've forgotten how I got there.
