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I intend for this post to hold all of the presentations and sessions that we’ve hosted for the TermiSoc Hack Weekend 2011. This post will expand in the future as more content is covered.

Introduction

Previously, this was an embedded iWork document, but it’s been lost to history. But it’s very out of date now.

This first session was intended to explain the overall plan, how I intended to approach the prior sessions, but to overall drum up some enthusiasm about what we should build.

Overall, we ended up with a set of ideas ranging from games, to Arduino projects, to more complicated stuff using open data sets, algorithms and natural language processing.

The plan so far is to target mobile devices, add in location services and then add some element of gaming to it. This means that I will likely run some sessions covering things from HTML5/CSS & JavaScript to Python for handling the backend. If I get time, I’ll likely cover some Google App Engine stuff, too.

It really is however based upon the idea itself. Something that will be talked about on the mailing list, over the next week or so.

If you’re reading this and not part of TermiSoc, feel free to give me a shout. I don’t wish to run a closed event, but I also hope that people will show up to each of the prior sessions. Then we can be sure we’ll hit the ground running.

Refresh: HTML5 & The New JavaScript APIs

Previously, this was an embedded iWork document, but it’s been lost to history. But it’s very out of date now.

This second session was to go over some of the new HTML5 technologies which are at our disposal. It worked out as a not too bad ~40 minute talk, although, I think I could have gone into more detail in certain areas, especially where using it now is concerned.

We seem to be on track so far, but the idea is still an issue. Give me a shout if you have any ideas!

Version Control with Git

The idea of this session was to introduce the concept of version control, but also to introduce Git as a tool itself. Instead of relying on a set of slides, the idea of the evening was to explain things at everyones pace.

As this is not something that’s covered on most people’s degree courses, it’s relevant to all.

Here is the Guide to Git which I had written beforehand. It was mostly put together through a series of notes I already had, and then formatted. Some sections could be incorrect, so use with caution, and complain where necessary.

This session went rather well, with people saying nice things about it afterwards. At the Unconference, Ben Masters of Fuel said that it had been useful to him. Because of this, I will likely turn it into it’s own blog post soon.

Getting Started with Python

This session was intended to be a basic introduction to Python. It’s the language I intend to use in projects for TermiSoc from this point onwards. In the session, I talked a little about the language itself (thus the slides), and then moved on to the guide I had prepared.

You will find the slides below and the guide linked here.

Previously, this was an embedded iWork document, but it’s been lost to history. But it’s very out of date now.

The next few sessions intend to expand upon where we started here, going over some of the nice build in data structures, using libraries and moving on to some web application stuff. I also intend to start talking about what we’d like to build.

Note: Please use any of the PDFs or slides linked above and modify them; but please don’t sell them, and make sure that you link back. If you want a more formal license, it’s CC BY-NC-SA. Also; please give me a shout if you’re using them somewhere, I’d love to know how they can be improved.