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Univerity of California, Berkeley logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It’s worth passing along a message from UC Berkeley. According to its news service, the “fastest-growing course in UC Berkeley’s history — Foundations of Data Science [aka Data 8X] — is being offered free online this spring for the first time through the campus’s online education hub, edX.” More than 1,000 students are now taking the course each semester at the university.
Designed for students who have not previously taken statistics or computer science courses, Foundations of Data Science will teach you in a three-course sequence “how to combine data with Python programming skills to ask questions and explore problems that you encounter in any field of study, in a future job, and even in everyday life.”
It’s an ambitious plan to transform the benefits system – but it looks as though the technology meant to power universal credit is turning into another great government IT disaster.
This morning the work and pensions secretaryIain Duncan Smith told the BBC that the planned 2017 deadline for the programme would probably slip – although the DWP statement still talks optimistically of the continued “safe and secure roll-out” of the scheme.
One civil servant close to the situation has painted a rather different picture. He tells me that DWP staff at the frontline are doing a heroic job using the IT but they are “struggling so much with the number of times they have to re-key, systems are crashing. They’re not joined up, they just can’t cope with the messy reality of people’s lives”.
The IT system that the DWP is using at the moment is the one severely criticised in a National Audit Office report. It has been developed mainly by big outside contractors such as Accenture and IBM at a cost of more than £300m. Some believe much of that money will have to be written off.
If you’re interested in Node.js this is a helpful tutorial in its use from Rising Stack.
This is the first post of an upcoming Node.js tutorial series called Node Hero – in these chapters, you can learn how to get started with Node.js and deliver software products using it.
Update: as a sequel to Node Hero, we have started a new series called Node.js at Scale. Check it out if you are interested in more in-depth articles!
We are going to start with the basics – no prior Node.js knowledge is needed. The goal of this series is to get you started with Node.js and make sure you understand how to write an application using it, so don’t hesitate to ask us if anything is unclear!
Fancy trying to create for a digital assistant? Microsoft have release a new Skills Kit and SDK for Cortana.
We believe that everyone deserves a personal assistant. One to help you cope as you battle to stay on top of everything, from work to your home life. Calendars, communications and commitments. An assistant that is available everywhere you need it, working in concert with the experts you rely on to get things done.
Ever since it’s introduction early 2012, the Raspberry Pi has proven itself to be an extremely capable little machine. For less than $30, you get a credit card-sized computer capable of automating home systems, powering robots, or even serving as a basic desktop computer.
This tutorial however, focuses specifically on getting your Raspberry Pi set up to run as your very own web server. In addition, we’ll cover how to set up Dynamic DNS records, so you can access your sites/files even when you’re away from your home network without having to remember an always-changing IP address.
“That’s cool and all…but what am I going to do with my own web server?”
Great question! The quick answer is: Whatever you want! To be more specific, you can:
Set up your own, private Dropbox-style cloud storage for your personal files/videos/images
Create a site that interfaces with your home security cameras and check them remotely
Host your own low-traffic webpages
Etc.
Beyond the web server-specific functions, a Pi with dynamic DNS set up can be used to:
Disclaimer: The Raspberry Pi is great as a lightweight web server for personal use and experimenting. However, if you are interested in hosting a heavily trafficked site like a blog, I’d highly recommend hosting your content on a third-party web host. In addition, most ISP‘s aren’t particularly interested in letting their customers host their own web servers, and a self-hosted web server with a lot of external requests can raise some flags and even slow down your home network connection.
Deutsch: Logo University of the West of Scotland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
At the request of Microsoft I wrote a small piece for University Business on the future of educational technology. You can read it by following the link.
UK HE is placing a higher priority on attracting international students than ever before. Indeed, my own institution, the University of the West of Scotland, has recently been rated as amongst the top 5% of universities worldwide. While this is an exciting development it also comes with its own challenges including tailoring teaching, research and the university’s procedures to ensure a fulfilling experience. Enabling all of this is the underpinning technical infrastructure.
