Welcome!

You've reached c64.cc65.org - a trusty old C64 working as a web server.

You don't believe that?
The HTTP server was written by Adam Dunkels as part of his uIP TCP/IP stack. It is written in C (using the cc65 C compiler) with just the IP checksum routines coded in assembly for speed. The web server uses version 0.6 of the uIP TCP/IP stack with a small patch for cgi.c.

Cool! If I had the time/inclination I'd do the same for a Dragon 32 ;-)

CETIS-Best of the blogs

Weblogs - personal web journals - are the hot new thing on the web these days. Some of these sites are even talking about standards in learning technology. We take a look around at some of the best standards-related 'blogs on the web.

Below, in no particular order, are some of the most useful 'blogs for anyone interested in standards in educational technology...

Guess who's first in the list? Clue: it's 'seriously' good ;-)!

Over at SiT Greg Hanek posts some comments on my Extreme Learning thoughttrain which prompted this response of mine.

That exchange of ideas and opinions is an excellent example of collaborative learning in action. I can certainly learn a lot from experts in a particular domain and I'm very grateful to Greg for taking the time to give this feedback.

As I said in a my response I'm not trying to suggest that XL is something entirely new. I am, perhaps, guilty of renaming something that is already well known in the educational domain. And, of course, I have experimented with collaborative/peer-supported learning to augment my teaching.

There may, however, be some aspects of Extreme Programming - XP - that could be applied to collaborative learning and it's this aspect I'd like to explore in XL. It's entirely possible, OTOH, that there are lessons to be learnt by the XP practitoners from the education domain. Not forgetting the role new technology may play in all of this.

David also pitches in with a follow up to Greg's post and it is this phenomenon of mutual help and advice that leaves me to believe that e-mediated learning has a bright and rosy future.

Don Ledingham has also expressed support for this idea.

Thanks guys!

Sun Microsystems sues Microsoft for more than $1 billion

Sun Microsystems said today it is suing rival Microsoft for more than $1 billion because the software giant made the Windows XP operating system incompatible with Sun's Java programming language.

A new meme? - Google Search: Alwin(er)Logger ;-)

Stepwise | Building OpenSSH 3.1 on Mac OS X 10.1.x

A serious security issue has been discovered in OpenSSH 3.0.2 (Apple ships this version with Mac OS X 10.1.3) update to the latest version as soon as possible.

Part 1: Server-Side Development on Mac OS X: Servlets and Tomcat

The Mac is rarely considered as a platform for enterprise Java application development and deployment; but with OS X, you can throw out your preconceived notions and get down to business.

part 2: Server-Side Development on Mac OS X: Launching Tomcat

Last time, we installed Tomcat 4 on Mac OS X. This time, we'll look at how to set it up to launch automatically, and how to run it more securely, as an unprivileged user.

TopCoder College Programming Tournament Commences

Java coding challenge offers $100,000 to best student programmer in the land.

Cool! On Scripting News Dave posts a screen shot showing what Weblogs.Com looked like two years ago on this day. The third entry on that page is Friday - Crusoe's Companion [http://friday.editthispage.com], a website I set up for a student assignment two years ago. How time flies!

Applying for membership of ILT

Yesterday (Wednesday) morning I attended a workshop about preparing an application for membership of the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. There's a fast track entry route that closes at the end of July so if I want to apply now's the time to do it.

The March 13 talk organised by the BCS Edinburgh Branch is:

Extreme Programming, XP, is a way of building software, which turns out to be well-suited to the demands of modern business for fast delivery, ever-changing requirements, and no sacrifice of quality. It affects planning, customer relations, design, coding and testing.

In constrast to the rather dour content of most methods of software development, XP has aspects that are rather fun.

This talk explains what XP is, where it came from, why it emerged, and when it works best. The speaker will present his own experience in applying XP to two substantial developments over three years.

On the train to work this morning my train of thought turned to Extreme Learning (XL)

via hbwt - the excellent Bill Bumgarner comments on Mac OS X installers and how to avoid an identity crisis ;-)

It seems very appropriate that Penguin Books have published Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution by Glyn Moody.

This book has been my constant companion on my train journeys to/from work since Friday. Friday was the day I received a surprise visit from one of my ex-students - Jamie. Jamie was a project student of mine and he graduated last summer and currently has a job in The City. The visit was even more surprising since Jamie bought me 'Rebel Code' as a thank you present. He told me that he thought I'd enjoy it. That proved to be an understatement!

Rebel Code is a riveting read. Author Glyn Moody has written a fascinating account of the rise of the Open Source Software movement in general, and software like GNU/Linux, Apache, perl, Python, SendMail, Mozilla, etc., in particular.

The link above is to the interview with Glyn Moody. There's also a link to the Prologue and first two chapters of the book.

I learned a lot from the book. As someone who has been on the periphery of OSS it was instructive to read the account of the personalities and products. I've been recommending it to my students as a 'must read'.

One little tidbit of information I learned about Linus Torvalds was that he taught himself low-level/assembler programming on a Sinclair QL. That took me back to the days that I taught low-level programming in M68000 assembler on precisely that type of machine more years ago than I care to remember.

Strangely enough, just in the last couple of weeks I've been extolling the virstues of OSS to my students. I believe that it should form a core part of our undergraduate curriculum. Interestingly, one of the concerns of the OSS advocates reported in Rebel Code is that if OSS becomes so successful that it undermines the software development teams of companies like Sun that, to a certain extent, underwrite some of the larger OSS projects, where will the OSS developers of the future come from? Students have (had) a role to play and this should be strongly encouraged IMHO. Of relevance here is the recent Slashdot discussion linked to from a DJ piece last week: Open Source as Programming Exp. for College Students?