Really hoping that Google buys Canonical ...

ruby is a breath of fresh air

Well I couldn't have said it better myself!
https://medium.com/learn-love-code/why-teach-ruby-bac8416c77ba

Cloud based coding

For the last year or so I've been using Cloud9 as my primary development environment.

I cannot recommend this tool highly enough. The combination of Cloud9 with bitbucket for free, private git repository hosting and Heroku, for rock solid affordable application hosting, is unbeatable!

With these tools I now access any and all of my projects from any device, anywhere. On the rare occasion that I do make updates from a different environment, git's distributed model makes accessing these changes through Cloud9 trivial. Deploying changes to Heroku is instant via a simple git push statement.

I've looked at several similar alternatives such as Nitrous, Codio, CodeAnywhere, Koding and Codenvy. I find Cloud9  stands head-and-shoulders above these alternatives - you'll be hard-pressed to find a more productive environment

Phoebe - master coder!

Out of the blue tonight Phoebe tells me I have to teach her to program.

I've got a bit of work to do and I haven't had a chance to think out a well structured approach so I say that we can have a go at the weekend.

However Phoebe wants to learn NOW!

It then strikes me that I have a simple +/- 100 line C program on bitbucket (tictactoe) that I wrote a couple of years ago for Holly to demonstrate the Raspberry Pi in class. I figure we can use this as a starting point and warning Feebs that this will likely be boring as I haven't had a chance to prepare, we get stuck in.

5 minutes late my nine year old daughter is clapping hands with delight as she now has her own bitbucket account :).

Using Phoebe's netbook, running ubuntu 14.04 we do a quick install of git and the gcc compiler from the ubuntu repositories, clone the bitbucket repository, view the code and compile and run the program. Phoebe did all the typing from the command line and is creating directories, changing directories, listing directory contents and viewing files via vim like she's been doing it for months.

A couple of games of tictactoe later and we're off to bed a happy camper.

Introducing your children to something new doesn't always go the way you want; sometimes you lose - however sometimes you win :)

Cloud based productivity suites on Linux

I use Ubuntu as my personal desktop OS. For productivity apps like word processors or spreadsheets I mainly use Google Docs and revert to LibreOffice on the desktop from time to time. For note taking I favour evernote. I also use a livescribe skypen, which syncs my handwritten notes with evernote, which is a great feature too. Occasionally I use Google Keep for simple notes such as shopping lists etc.

Despite my appreciation for evernote, I do also like MS OneNote, which I use on my employers Windows based laptop, fairly regularly. The ability to view the rich note taking ability that OneNote offers, across all my devices is appealing so I thought I'd give Office365 a try to see how their Word, Excel and OneNote cloud based offering stacks up.

Office365 has such huge potential. The ability to share your MS Office docs seamlessly across all devices, especially touch-based devices such as Windows tablets would be an attraction for many.

Sadly, at this stage, Office365 doesn't cut the mustard. It's slow, clumsy (but granted the tool ribbon LOOKS good) and as a Linux user, offers no advantages over Google Docs. Personally, I found the  Google Docs feature set, richer and more user friendly than Office365. For me, it's back to my old favourites and my Office365 30 day trial is on it's way to expiry

Installing MicroOlap for Postgres under WINE on Linux

MicroOlap.com provide a great commercial CASE tool for working with postgres databases. I've been using the software happily since 2006. Since then, I've painstakingly evaluated many different competing opensource and commercial products but have yet to find a product that matches MicroOlap for features, ease of use and robustness.

The software  isn't available in a Linux version, however it does run seamlessly under WINE. As a pre-requisite to installing MicroOlap under WINE you need to install jet40 and mdac28 via winetricks, as documented here: https://www.microolap.com/products/database/mssql-designer/help/Introduction/WineConfiguration.htm

$sh winetricks jet40 mdac28

For a 32 bit OS that is all that is required, however on a 64 bit OS you will get the following error reported:
jet40 install completed, but installed file /home/USER/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files (x86)/Common Files/Microsoft Shared/dao/dao360.dll not found

The "missing" dao360.dll is however available under the /home/USER/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/Common Files/Microsoft Shared/dao/ directory.

The trick is simply to create a shortcut in the Program Files(x86) path to the dll in the  Program Files path, as follows and then to try the winetricks command again (you may also have to create the dao folder under the Program Files(x86) path first):

$sudo ln -sf /home/USER/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program\ Files/Common\ Files/Microsoft\ Shared/dao/dao360.dll /home/USER/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program\ Files\ (x86)/Common\ Files/Microsoft\ Shared/dao/dao360.dll

Lastly, if you are by any chance behind an authenticated proxy, you will need to first set the http_proxy environment variable, before running winetricks, as follows:

$http_proxy=http://user:password@proxy_ip_address:proxy_port

$export http_proxy

http://register.gongride.org.au/2013-Sydney-to-Gong-Bike-Ride/skilly/&utm_source=individual&utm_medium=Widget&utm_campaign=

I'm doing the Gong again next week. The ride is in aid of MS Australia. If anyone wants to part with their hard earned cash, they can donate to the cause via my page below:

http://register.gongride.org.au/2013-Sydney-to-Gong-Bike-Ride/skilly/&utm_source=individual&utm_medium=Widget&utm_campaign=