Codepad – The ClassHelper.org™ Blog

Written for school I.T. administrators and network professionals looking to test the open source Zimbra groupware system, the ClassHelper.org computer science section has a new tutorial explaining how to install Zimbra on CentOS 5. This comprehensive tutorial allows administrators to go from a “bare metal” machine to a completely functional Zimbra server. Enjoy!

When it comes to something as seemingly simple as editing text (programming, configuration files, etc), there are a surprising number of options available to Linux users. This review focuses on some of the more commonly used tools found in the Ubuntu repositories; most, if not all, of these editors can be easily installed in other Linux distributions. Most of these applications have similar core features, but some integrate more advanced functionality. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a parent or teacher looking for a neat fractions practice application, give KBruch a try. Easily installed from the Ubuntu software repositories, this free software allows students to practice an endless number of fraction problems. With support for just about any type of problem you can imagine, the application features one-click access to basic fraction addition and subtraction, comparison problems (less than, greater than), decimal conversions, and factorization. Read the rest of this entry »

Various tech news outlets are running stories related to Intel’s planned launch of eight-core chips later this year, and there are questions about precisely how much performance will be gained with these CPUs under current operating systems. Some in the industry are expressing the view that today’s consumer-level Windows and Linux-based operating systems simply aren’t designed to really take advantage of anything beyond quad-core chips. Read the rest of this entry »

My first introduction to computers and the world of programming was through languages like GW-BASIC, QuickBASIC, and ANSI C. As a kid, I inherited an 8086-based PC from my father, along with a few operating system manuals and programming references. Later on, I spend endless hours playing with Apple II computers in elementary school. This was probably the single biggest influence on my future professional life, as it taught me that I could easily make a computer do exactly what I wanted. Read the rest of this entry »

Around the globe, millions of people are either working as software developers, or aspire to get paid for development work some day. These folks go by many names: software engineer, coder, and developer. At the end of the day, they’re all still programmers, people who understand how to translate what a computer needs to do into the code that gets the job done. To succeed at programming over the long term, a few simple rules need to be followed. Read the rest of this entry »