Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

Web

HTML5 is here

By 2 Comments

HTML5 is here courtesy of our friends from WHATWG. HTML 4.01 will have an officially sanctioned successor after all. For me, this indicates that XHTML 2.0 has no raison d’être now but who knows?

HTML5 has a bright future. And so has CSS and Javascript. I would advise all aspiring Computer Scientists to get familiar with the latter. Javascript is an extremely powerful programming language and will power the client-side portion of many of the applications we will use in the future.

I’ve just discovered Apple Keynote

By 8 Comments

Apple, besides inventing great computing devices and operating systems, also develops a lot of software. I’ve already blogged about iLife and third-party iLife-enabled applications like Comic Book.

Apple also does iWork which contains two applications. The first one is a word-processor / desktop publishing program called Pages and the second one is a presentation software called Keynote. The next version of iWork will (if rumours are true) contain a spreadsheet.

For some profound reason[1], I decided to give Keynote a try today (I’ve installed the 30-day demo version) and I must say things look good.

In a nutshell, Keynote

  • Read and writes Powerpoint files
  • Integrates with iLife (photos, videos and music)
  • Renders presentation beautifully
  • Offers a number of Apple-designed themes
  • Supports 3D transitions using OpenGL
  • Exports presentations in Quicktime, PDF and Flash formats (the Flash export is particularly interesting because I want to have my presentations on the web)

I’ll use Keynote for some of my next presentations to see if it is good enough compared to OpenOffice Impress which I currently use.

One nice rule to follow when doing a presentation is the 10/20/30 rule by Guy Kawasaki. A fantantic website with lots of resources and insights on presentations is Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds. This page is particularly relevant.

I’ll keep you updated.

[1] The profound reason is that I want to become a better teacher. Some of my students might have some difficulty with my style of teaching and I want to explore some new avenues…

The University of Mauritius Search Engine

By 19 Comments

While discussing with some colleagues the other day, I realised that the University of Mauritius website does not have a working search facility. I also realised that it would be nice to be able to search within all UoM websites (like, for example, the CSE website, the Radio Telescope website, etc.) in addition to the main website of the university.

With some Google magic to the rescue, I am proud to announce the official release of

    https://www.noulakaz.net/uomsearch/

which I’ve called the University of Mauritius Search Engine.

Have fun!