LinOSX TechnoMash

OSSCamp Delhi Summer Edition kicked off this morning. There was a movie called “Revolution OS” that talked about the beginning of the Free Software Foundation and GNU. It spawned a few discussions about GNU, Linux and the various distributions built around GNU software and the Linux kernel. Interesting movie – NOT an Open Source documentary.

We then had a talk given by Prateek Saxena on Blue Print and Drafter (Code not yet available online). Very cool stuff for quickly doing some design layouts and prototypes.

After Drafter, Manu Goel gave a very interesting talk on the concept of CSS Specificity. The idea being that there are certain elements or attributes in CSS that take precedence over others. We should be able to determine what elements take precedence, hence, being able to attain a finer control over your design.

Tennyson Kaniampady has given a very interesting introduction to Ingres. Ingres is one of the oldest commercially available relational databases. Ingres, unfortunately, doesn’t have a large following in India but Postgres came from Ingres and, thus, it can be relatively easy to move from Postgres to Ingres.

Tennyson is now giving a talk on Appliances.
Update 15:45
I am trying to upload videos of the Blue Print/Drafter and CSS Specificity presentations but there isn’t enough bandwidth to upload two <4min videos.

Tennyson is discussion Ingres’ BI Portfolio. it’s a bit tough to read from the back of the room so I’ll link to the presentation once its up online.

Ingres BI Stack

• Apache/Tomcat
• Java
• Ingres 2006
• Linux
• Ingres Icebreaker

The Jasper reporting engine sits on top of the Ingres Icebreaker stack.

Update 15:52
Tennyson is introducing us to their Alfresco Collaboration Suite also built on top of Ingres Icrbreaker.

Ingres CAFE is an integrated stack of application development.

• Eclipse IDE
• Ingres Database

I just asked why Postgres shouldn’t be used instead of Ingres. Tennyson mentions that Postgres is not multi-threaded and support, plus future roadmap of Postgres isn’t clearly mapped out.

Update 15:58
Tea/Coffee Break to wake up all the food coma victims

Update 16:33
We’re back from our tea/coffee break and Prateek has given a Introduction to Ruby on Rails with a great selection of pictures in his presentation.

Update 16:36
Prateek is giving us an example of an application that he’s developed on his localhost (an Apple MacBook). It’s an online shopping cart that took 2 days (18 to 20 hours).

Update 16:52
Mir Nazim is giving a an Introduction to Artificial Intelligence in Python. Python is a 100% Object Oriented language and not just a scripting language. Python is concise and it looks like English.

We’re having a bit of trouble getting the Python console up and running on Apple OS X Tiger. Making the switch to a LinuxMint machine now but we’re having issues with the projector so time to reboot.

Update 17:01
Ok, we’re up and running and doing a quick demo of “Hello World” and now moved onto demoing an “if” statement. All of the other basic operators and data types are being discussed. Immutable Arrays = Tuples in Python. Tuples are very very fast and great for temporary arrays or an arrays containing values that never change.

Recommended Python Books

• Dive Into Python
• Bite of Python

Update 17:30
Mir is about to start Part II of the Python presentation, though, time might be a problem.

OSSCampDelhiSE01 comes to a close.
Thank you all for attending and contributing.

Update 21:48
A few of the videos I took at OSSCampDelhiSE01 are up on YouTube.

It amazes me how absolutely clueless and slow the Indian Government is at implementing any sort of policies that are for the betterment f the country. Here’s Honda introducing the Civic Hybrid in India and here the Indian Government continues to tax imported hybrids at 104%. In a country which is reeling from high oil prices and the rapidly escalating cost of energy, shouldn’t the Indian government adopt some policies, subsidies, and/or import tax elimination that 1) encourage the use of less gasoline/petrol, 2) be a little better for the environment, and 3) encourage other car makers to introduce their own hybrids?

The Civic Hybrid is almost double the cost of the base Civic model in India. The Honda Civic Hybrid will cost roughly $50,000 in India (in the US, the suggested starting price of the Civic Hybrid is $22,600).

I don’t know about most people, but I can’t imagine paying FIFTY THOUSAND US DOLLARS for a Civic.

Wake up folks! If I can get a Honda Civic Hybrid that uses less petrol and provides better mileage than a Maruti Suzuki SX4 (top end model in India costs roughly $22,000) for the same price, why would I opt for something else?

First the good news for those caring for environment: Japanese auto giant Honda Motors Co. on Wednesday introduced India to the first hybrid vehicle– the Civic Hybrid that runs on a petrol engine assisted by an electric motor.

Honda launches India�??s first hybrid car- Hindustan Times

Tags: hybrid, green, india, tax, import duties, cars, indian government

OSSCamp Delhi is just around the corner. On Saturday, 21st January, 2008 Open Source enthusiasts, users, and businesses will be gathering for a BarCamp-esque information exchange at The Indian Social Institute on Lodi Road in New Delhi.

Details of OSSCamp Delhi Summer Edition are here. Join Us.

Google announced today that they would finally be providing real-time NASDAQ quotes for free on Google Finance.  This is great news, and, hopefully, the opening volley in the battle for democratized market data from exchanges around the world.

Official Google Blog: At long last, real-time stock quotes are here

Tags: google, googlefinance, nasdaq, market-data, investing, securitiespricing, stocks, equities