CSI NSIT blog

Live blogged by Vrinda.

The session started at around 12 , about Flex – an overview, which is an open source framework for creating applications given by Adobe technologies. The presentation was given by Romil Mittal from Adobe.

A presentation about flex applications was given. It was quite an irony that an Adobe speaker was there for a talk in an OSSCamp. But Flex is an open source framework, and so he found himself in an OSSCamp. Flex framework is used for creating applications quickly and neatly. It generates a flash kind of execution for a application created with flex.

They showed how to build a rich internet application in just under 10 minutes using the power of the Adobe Flex Framework. Flex has its companion application, Adobe AIR, which allows Flash and Flex experiences to run on the desktop as well as in the browser. Flex is open source, and the builder is free for students and teachers.  Read more... (245 words, estimated 59 secs reading time)

Live blogged by Vrinda

At around 11 30 we started off with an interesting session on Build Key based Authentication system using Phing by Tarun Seth.

Phing is a  quick and efficient tool for developing and deploying applications on server side.  PHing Is Not GNU make; it’s a project build system based on Apache Ant. He gave quite a demonstrative presentation which helped understand the basics for newbies also.

He explained the “how -to” and “what” of phing in brief with some demonstrations.

You can do anything with it that you could do with a traditional build system like GNU make, and its use of simple XML build files and extensible PHP “task” classes make it an easy-to-use and highly flexible build framework. Features include file transformations (e.g. token replacement, XSLT transformation, Smarty template transformations), file system operations, interactive build support, SQL execution, CVS operations, tools for creating PEAR packages, and much more.  Read more... (267 words, estimated 1:04 mins reading time)

Live blogged by Vrinda

The session for today started around 10:45 with Lalit giving a talk about various web development languages like php, python, ruby etc. He highlighted the ease of use of ruby as a scripting language and its fast implementation.
He basically compared various available languages with Ruby and its clean CGI scripting. Ruby is fast , clean, rich in libraries, usable, simple and makes a progammer’s life much easier. What you usually do in a 50 line code in Java, you can do it in 7-10 lines in Ruby. It is dynamically typed and is quite close to english language phrases. Also it is also highly portable.
However it has its own set of drawbacks which mainly is related to its garbage collection mechanisms. As compared to java which has a cleaner and efficient garbage collection mechanism, ruby is a little sloppy at it.
It performs a little bad when wrapped by C code as compared to its rivals like python.

Live blogged by Vrinda and Shikhar.

A  video conferencing session with CEO of Aquacia , on Drupal Growth was called off after connectivity issues and poor video and audio quality. It will probably take place tomorrow again.

Instead of this scheduled talk, a introductory session on Game programming and development was given by Yadhav.

He highlighted coding as well as conceptual issues related to game development. The commonly used language is C++, but for easy and fast scripting Python is preferred. Graphics tools like DirectX  3D, OpenGL etc were discussed. Some 3d physics and graphics fundamentals required for game coding were also outlined. Some animation development kits like Maya and simple Flash games were also talked about.  Read more... (218 words, estimated 52 secs reading time)

Live blogged by Shikhar and Vrinda

Introduction to Grails- Himanshu and Aman

Himanshu and Aman giving a Hands on session on using an open source web framework Grails, based on java, to create a simple web application. It is inspired by Ruby on Rails, creating a bytecode which is compatible with the JVM. It uses the HSQL system.  Grails code is quite similar to Java code, however it is expands the code to a proper Java-like implementation.  Read more... (379 words, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

Live Blogged by-Shikhar and Vrinda.

Lalit gave a talk on Employability with OSS and how an open source background helps you with enhancing your skill set, and in turn make you more competitive.

If you want to add OSS background to your resume then there are some points you should take care of.

1. Defining your skill set is the most important primary step. Be sure of what you know and what you are expert at, so that the employer is left with little doubt over your capabilities.

2. Communication skills always help get your point across the other party effectively. They are helpful at every stage of your career. Being able to express your set of ideas effectively and objectively is an integral part of a successful career path.  Read more... (329 words, estimated 1:19 mins reading time)

Live blogged by Shikhar and Vrinda

Hi, and welcome to CSI blog, where we’ll be live blogging OSSCamp 2009.

OSScamp started off nicely today. Banners put up, goodies distributes and all geeks and otherwise ready and set for a ride on the OSS rollercoaster. T-shirts and lanyards courtesy the organizers.

Started off at about 10 in the audi with Lalit Shandiliya asking for “free and open source, GPL licensed” introductions from the participants, starting the day off with a couple of laughs for the audience. Kinshuk gave a rather brief introduction on Open Source for all those who have just started their open source journey. Kinshuk’s presentation was the quick and dirty intro to open source, focussing on the basic understanding of open source. He gave a presentation on the modus operandi adopted by open source. A brief discussion on the concept of an ‘un’conference ensued. They are informal, interactive and much more fun than your average conference or meeting. It follows the law of two feet, that you can simple walk off if you feel that you are feeling that the current talk is, bluntly putting it, a waste of your time.  Read more... (702 words, estimated 2:48 mins reading time)

This post is an extension to the workshop held on 1st September 2009.  Read more... (914 words, estimated 3:39 mins reading time)

Blogged by Shikhar

What is it?

Client side scripts, as the name suggests,  are those which are executed on the client’s terminal. They are not executed by the web server, but are executed by the client’s internet browser. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and JavaScript are examples of client side scripting languages.

Why is it used?

Scripts like JavaScript and CSS are involved with changing the page layout and appearance. As such, these scripts do not need any resources from the web server. They do not need to be involved in the working because these scripts do not need to access resources like databases or extra files on the web server. Therefore, it makes more sense to pass the load of executing these scripts to the client side. This ensures that the web server does not take up undue load.  Due to security restrictions, client-side scripts may not be allowed to access the users computer beyond the browser application. They can access the Document Object Model (DOM) however to change the layout and design of the page.  Read more... (635 words, estimated 2:32 mins reading time)

Blogged by Vrinda

A general outlook of people towards cloud computing is of awe and fascination not realising that this already is existing in a downscaled form today. Various cloud computing service providers like Google, Amazon, Microsoft Azure, Salesforce etc. are already involved in computing which is technically called cloud computing. Lets take a look at the cloud computing definition:

Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the “cloud” that supports them.

The concept generally incorporates combinations of the following:

* infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
* platform as a service (PaaS)
* software as a service (SaaS)
* Other recent (ca. 2007–09)technologies that rely on the Internet to satisfy the computing needs of users. Cloud computing services often provide common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.  Read more... (1278 words, estimated 5:07 mins reading time)