Category Archives: mission control

20 May 2015 – Mission Control #1 – Twitter Bootstrap

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Posted on May 18, 2015 by orbital

Credits: Scott Beale @ Flickr

Your senior Cheong Jack Kuan will be giving a short tutorial and hands-on for Twitter Bootstrap — the CSS framework that is useful for giving that ™ed, clean look for most websites. A key part of Bootstrap is in its responsive design, making sites look decent on small resolutions (low res smartphones) as well as big ones (your 30″ Apple Thunderbolt Display).

This is a beginner level session — applicable to any web-based project.

The Mission Control Session will be held at SR3 (COM1 #02-12) on Wednesday 20 May; please check back with us on Slack or on G+ Hangouts for updates. If we have no problems with the recording you can try to join us on G+ Hangouts on Air, look for [NUS Orbital 2015] as the tag.

[A reminder that Mission Control sessions are optional; they are not mandatory events for Orbitees, but highly encouraged to attend if you are local to SG and NUS. The sessions will be roughly one hour long of tutorial and another free-form hour where partners are encourage to pair program on your projects and receive help from any facilitator or advisor who is around.

If you do attend an MC session (virtually or physically), you’re welcome to include your time in the project log. Homework assignments from MCs when completed can also be used as evidence for higher level of achievements (Project Gemini, Apollo 11). ]

See ya there!

ProfilePicTutorial given by:
Cheong Jack Kuan
(jackkuan.cheong@u.nus.edu)

Reminder – The very last Mission Control #11 – Tuesday (29 Jul) at NUS SoC SR2 6-8pm

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Posted on July 23, 2014 by orbital

Introduction to Ruby on Rails

In the last set of Mission Control sessions, we’ll be bringing you up to date with alternative (web and mobile stack) technologies that you can consider for future projects.  

Muneer, one of our famed advisers, is going to be putting on his other cap as tutor and teaching you about the basics of Ruby on Rails (which happens to be Min’s favorite web stack).

Ruby on Rails features yet another language (Ruby) and yet another framework (Rails).  David Heinemeier Hansson of the famed Basecamp productivity software created Rails from code that he worked on.  Rails has been applied in famous projects — such as Twitter and Github — as part of their initial base code.  Learn how the mantra of “convention over configuration” gets a web framework’s initial magic done very very quickly.

While we’ll try to make the session webcasted, do try to come down for the session.  You’ll then be able to say you’re exposed to yet another language (coders should be multilingual ^_^, not just on their resume / CV).  Also, if you think others would be interested in seeing the tutorial, feel free to circulate the announcement.

See you soon!

Post-Session Edit:

– Document: http://goo.gl/FidDXY
– Slides: http://goo.gl/G1dhig
– Video: http://youtu.be/tDJWJ-2BRjg

Reminder and an invitation – Mission Control #10 – Tuesday (22 Jul) at Plug-In @ Blk71 / Friday Feeds (25 Jul)

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Posted on July 18, 2014 by orbital

This coming week there are two optional events happening both at Blk 71, please check them out!

1. Introduction to Node.js
2. Friday Feeds at Blk 71

Hope to see some of you at the events!

Mission Control #10 – Introduction to Node.js

In the last set of Mission Control sessions, we’ll be bringing you up to date with alternative (web and mobile stack) technologies that you can consider for future projects.  

This week your fellow SoCian, Ng Zhi An from NUS Hackers, will be presenting a tutorial on Node.js.  Please come down and give him your support for this penultimate Mission Control session!

Node.js is a software platform for scalable server-side and networking applications. Node.js applications are written in JavaScript.

Node.js applications are designed to maximize throughput and efficiency, using non-blocking I/O and asynchronous events. Node.js is commonly used for real time applications due to its asynchronous nature, allowing applications to display information faster for users without the need for refreshing. One typical real time application of Node.js  is to use it as a chat server.

Node.js combined with a browser, a document DB (such as MongoDB or CouchDB) and JSON offers a unified JavaScript development stack.

This workshop is part of the NUS SoC Orbital Summer Programme.  Presenter: Mr Zhi An Ng, NUS Hackers.

Invitation to Friday Feeds

From Blk71.  They would like to invite all Orbitees down to Blk 71 for a free event.  Laksa is served!  Register here: http://goo.gl/pfmdeG

Reminder – Mission Control #9 – Tuesday (15 Jul) at NUS SoC SR3 6-8pm

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Posted on July 11, 2014 by orbital

Introduction to Swift

In the last set of Mission Control sessions, we’ll be bringing you up to date with alternative (web and mobile stack) technologies that you can consider for future projects.  

Originally we were going to cover some introductory mobile app programming, but Min thought it would be more fun to lecture about something fairly new.  Min will be going over the basics of Swift, the new programming language outed by Apple last month at their WWDC event.

It turns out that while Swift is meant largely for developing mobile apps for the iOS platform, it is a full-fledged modern language, that inherits little bits from many languages including our favorite, Python.

Swift is a new general-purpose compiled programming language developed by Apple introduced last month. Described as “Objective-C without the C”, it aims to do away with some of the legacy drawbacks of using C as a basis for a modern programming language.

We invite Orbitees and the general public to learn about this new programming language’s basic differences through experimenting in the Swift playgrounds.  If time allows, we may cover a basic app that can be developed in iOS using Swift (this assumes some knowledge of iOS development that Min will gloss over).  An introductory level of knowledge of various programming languages will be helpful.  Unfortunately, since the Apple development environment is pretty closed and the language and tools for using it are still in beta, only those with access to Macs will be able to interactively do the exercises along with us.  Watch the Piazza forum’s follow-up to this post to access the Xcode Beta 6 IDE for Mac, needed for running samples in Swift.  The first hour of the workshop will be the tutorial, with free time for hands on in the remaining two.

While we’ll try to make the session webcasted, do try to come down for the session.  You’ll then be able to say you’re a Swift expert (pretty much everyone is not very swifty yet anyways, so you can’t be too wrong yet…)  Also, if you think others would be interested in seeing the tutorial, feel free to circulate the announcement.

See you soon!

Reminder – Mission Control #8 – Tuesday (8 Jul) at Plug In @ Blk 71

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Posted on July 6, 2014 by orbital

Our tutor, Mr Wang Gaoxiang, from our 2013 Orbital cohort will be giving you details about Unit testing in Google App Engine and Python this coming Tuesday.

While we’ll try to make the session webcasted, do try to come down for the session.  Your advisers have all chimed in to say that some prior knowledge of some of Software Engineering topics does help to make your life easier in the upcoming courses that you take in SoC in Year 2 and Year 3.  So we strongly advise that you read up on test driven development (TDD) and associate topics (like unit and integration testing), in addition to attending this optional Mission Control.

See you soon!

Screen Shot 2014-07-06 at 11.45.05 pm

Reminder – Mission Control #7 – Tuesday (1 Jul) at SoC SR3, 6-8pm

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Posted on June 29, 2014 by orbital

One of our trusty advisers will play tutor this coming week to help you get through the basics of Map APIs.  Yos Riady will be giving our Mission Control #7, on Map APIs.  Yos has prepared for this session since even the beginning of summer, so it should be great!

While we’ll try to make the session webcasted, do try to make it down and give our senior students (ahem tutors) some support as they try their hand at teaching.  If you have already implemented these features in your Orbital web project, please still come down to help others with their projects.  On the other hand, if you’re stuck (I see some of you might still be), please come down or watch the webcast.

Remember, if these things are relevant towards your project, you can build them in and count it towards your three basic achievements to extend a Vostok project to Project Gemini level of achievement.

See you soon!

 

Post session update:

 

Leaflet Book (Optional, Recommended): https://leanpub.com/leaflet-tips-and-tricks/read/

Reminder – Mission Control #6 – Tonight (24 Jun) at Plug In @ Blk 71, 6-8pm

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Posted on June 23, 2014 by orbital

Wee Sun will be giving our Mission Control #6, some hands on time with two important web standards for authentication and authorization: OpenID and Facebook Login 2.0.

While we’ll try to make the session webcasted, do try to make it down and get a chance to try these technologies firsthand.  If you have already implemented these features in your Orbital web project, please still come down to help others with their projects if they arestuck on these parts.

Remember, implementing such federated login methods do count towards your three basic achievements to extend a Vostok project to Project Gemini level of achievement.

See you soon!

 

 

Reminder – Mission Control #5 – Tonight at SR2, 6-8pm

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Posted on June 17, 2014 by orbital

Dr Damith will be giving our Mission Control #5, a short lecture and homework for his topic of “Visual Design Basics for Non-Designers” tonight at SR2, at the usual timing of 6-8pm. Hope to see you there!

While we’ll try to make the session webcasted, do try to make it down and get a chance to hear our multiple teaching award winner in action!  Be prepared for a great lecture!

Post-lecture edit:

  • Notes – Contains links to both of these other resources below.
  • Slides (25 MB)
  • Video (250MB; big, you may want to download asynchronously)

17 Jun Mission Control #5 – Visual Design Basics for Non-Designers

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Posted on June 13, 2014 by orbital

CannedTuna
Photo Credits: CannedTuna @ Flickr

Dear all:

This coming Tuesday we’re back to our regular Mission Control Schedule with a talk by multiple teaching award winner Dr Damith who will be giving a much needed talk about “Visual Design Basics for Non-Designers” at our own SR2 (n.b. special room, not SR3).  Most of you are building products to be used by actual people, so you need to pay full attention to this lecture.

17 Jun 2014, 6-8pm @ NUS SR2
Visual Design Basics for Non-Designers
by Damith Rajapakse

We’ll try to record this one down to Hangouts, but please try to come in and get the full 4D experience.   Keep watch on this post to get updates of the materials and (to be archived) webcast.

Post-lecture edit:

  • Notes – Contains links to both of these other resources below.
  • Slides (25 MB)
  • Video (250MB; big, you may want to download asynchronously)

Reminders – Peer Evaluations due today / Mission Control #4 on Security tonight!

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Posted on June 9, 2014 by orbital

Today there are two important events that are happening.  Please take note of the following:

1) Your peer evaluations of your three peer groups are due tonight at 11:59pm SGT.  Consult the Peer Evaluation Group Post @235 to view which teams you need to evaluate.  Then post a private note to your EG’s adviser with your group’s feedback form to your adviser.  Your adviser will collate and post the evaluations by 11 Jun as follow-ups to the original Project README and log for Evaluation 1.

2) Tonight we have the special treat of having an external group, ThinkSecure, give a presentation about web security and social media, as Mission Control #4.  ThinkSecure’s Christopher Low will be giving the presentation and it will not be webcasted and recorded for technical reasons, so be sure to make it down to SR3 from 6-8pm for the session if you’re around.

TS-logo-tm-smallSee you soon!

 

Post edit: The slides for Chris’ presentation are here: http://securitystartshere.org/downloads/pres-Todays-Web-Attacks-How-That-Impacts-Your-Online-Social-Life.zip