No its not KDE its the standard mac os x interface - I do have linux (with KDE,gnome) on my PS2 but thats it.

note to all: after this tutorial things are really going to pick up (pace wise), so its important that you understand what we've covered so far.

That might work, Mathematicians tend to work side by side with programmers/engineers etc creating complex algorithms for example searching (google hires the best of the best) and so on. Sbucareer is right since most disciplines only use a certain section of mathematics, I think engineering degrees teach the most topics in mathematics (since we use just as much of it) like we had to learn transforms (e.g laplace), green/displacement theorems, matrices since we used that alot in power/motor designs and control systems. Pure maths is pretty intense though.

C and PHP are almost alike. PHP was derived from C

Thank you Alexis. Alam, my advice/time normally gets paid alot for and I've created a topic to teach people how to program "using C" the techniques and logic will forever be the same - its my opinion and I refuse to argue/justify it with you.

I stand by learning the hard before learning the easy. If he replied saying I already program (which I doubt, I might be wrong) I would have said oh ok then just google a PHP tutorial (only difference is syntax, logic remains the same). But if hes a newbie then I think its a bad idea for a scripting purpose language to be your first - unless of course you plan to only be an interactive developer (though I have use PHP for executable programs). But once again its just my opinion (I'm not saying its the best way) and you just further justified my point of any programming discussion ending up with a compromise - it always just brews into an uncontrollable mess.

As long as you don't re-invent the wheel - I think we all like Nairaland just fine. Setting up a forum should take you a week (newbie that is) most of the time will involve googling since you have no php or mysql experience.

If you want a professional to set it up for you, it should take an hour at most (minus getting a hosting plan/domain name, since it takes the companies time to send you nameservers/DNS details and so on) they all come with install scripts these days, so really you should try doing it yourself. Google is your friend.

sbu £24k in Nigeria is too high, the salary should relate to cost of living (tax, expenses, transport in Nigeria are a lot lower). Especially when my friend working for Faber Maunsell is on that same salary.

lol haha, I'm flattered, a whole topic just for me. Have you ever heard of control design? Lets look at a real life car scenario , we have ambient temperatures (taken from thermistors, these are resistors that vary with temperature - so with some simple analogue to digital conversion we can convert, using a simple voltage divider circuit, digital readings to celsius/fahrenheit) we also have the current speed (from other sensors) etc all this data feeds into a "black box" your car engine management system. Theres something else in you car called the testline and OBD2 port these things monitor thousands and thousands of data and send binary numbers which correspond to a chart of statuses (fuel low, break fluid low, etc) that is what controls the lights on your dashboard.

Now how do all these relate to programming? The management system has a processor(s) that monitor all this data and trigger subsequent readings. Infact in a really new car other sensors monitor data from the car tyres, when you steer and are able to over ride certain things to avoid skidding (ABS for example)
The list goes on my love, even the fuel/oxygen mix is being digitised.

A show about 11 disabled people travelling africa ON FOOT - http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/programmes/?id=beyond_boundaries

Hi Gamine,

I'm an interactive designer/developer too, infact at work we are all mac'ed out (like most design agencies)
This is what I have (I can't list everything but I'll list design necessities)

- Adobe illustrator, photoshop, acrobat, inDesign (CS)
- Macromedia fireworks, flash, dreamweaver, director (MX) you can download 30 day trials from www.adobe.com (since adobe now owns macromedia)
- Blender

Other bits of software you might want to get your hands on (industry standards, some of our clients include BA, orange, BT, topshop, glaxosmithkline etc and these are packages we use at work -including the ones I listed before)

- Quark
- After effects
- Keynote (for all our pitches and presentations)

Yes if you have Tiger (go to apple icon click about this mac, if it says version 10.4 you do have tiger) you can run bootcamp. The difference is on leopard bootcamp will come as standard (pre-installed) thats all.

Alexis, be very careful with software distribution. you're on a forum that uses dynamic meta tags and is incredibly indexed by google :s
Also never get into the PC/mac argument - macs do a good job at defending themselves (not everyone should own a BMW or mercedes, same way not everyone should own a mac)

p.s. I'm watching this show about 11 disabled people crossing africa - ON FOOT http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/programmes/?id=beyond_boundaries

simplyforus.com - Online magazine for african culture and lifestyle
caramellounge.com - Young, Black & Fabulous - Hottest African Caribbean Social Network

Definitely can be both, because thats exactly what I am. An interactive developer and a software/electronics engineer
I've managed to fuse both skills (especially in the 21st century where everything is web based) because everthing is online so even when writing programs in C/C++ I'm still making calls to a database and can create a website that can access that same database. My current job is as an interactive developer but I am still engineering software things like web-based hotel booking systems, press release systems.

For example a data tracking system I designed: it had a GPRS modem, a GPS receivers, thermistor and humidity sensor on one end receiving NEMA data, temperature readings, and humidity readings. The remote system processes it on a PIC microcontroller and using AT commands to send the data (in XML) to a server. The server ran a C executable that received the packets of data (network programming) processed the XML and dropped the data in a database (using the standard MySQL C library). Then there was the client an (XHTML) website with a PHP backend that pulled the data from the database and displayed graphical representations of the data (depending on the user display format preference) and if the data were long and lat (location) it dropped it on a google map. There was some additional JS on the front end for a richer user experience. So theres a fusion for you.

OMG hahahahaha!!!!

I agree with a good 90% of it!!!!! When I first started using C++ (after so long using C) I was like why It took me a good year to write a program with references only. The most annoying error will continue to be "dangling pointer" its the silliest imo but its also the funniest named lol "dangling". But we all know the trade off for flexibility is speed (its inevitable) - speed of designing, speed of debugging, speed of modifying, debugging everything.

Anyway from his website - http://www.research.att.com/~bs/bs_faq.html#IEEE

Is "bjarne" an impostor?
,  The obvious exception is the infamous IEEE "interview", which I find rather unfunny,

Did you really give an interview to IEEE?
in which you confessed that C++ was deliberately created as an awful language for writing unmaintainable code to increase programmers' salaries?
Of course not. Read the real IEEE interview. http://www.research.att.com/~bs/ieee_interview.html

My God, Levels of incompetence set new heights on a daily basis.

Or do you mean like web developers (HTML etc) and programmers (Java, C etc). I mean I accept english is not our first language but come on.
Whats the difference between a smoker and a non-smoker? One smokes one does not. Same applies to programmers and non-programmers, or a banker and a non-banker (in reality there is no such thing as a non-programmer or non-banker because its a skill, painter/non-painter, plumber/non-plumber wrong wrong wrong)

There is no such thing as non-programmer

Right and far from misleading. PHP and C syntax are exactly the same (arrays, conditional statements, data types, standard IO functions) rules might be different (PHP is weaker and less strict, e.g you don't have to declare variables before using them) but if you know C you can pick up PHP in less than a week (provided you know all the other bits). Infact every line of PHP translates to lines of C its based on C and Perl.

Dude I've covered everything PHP has to offer, really, from sockets and network programming to image manipulation and graphics. I work as an interactive developer. My final BEng project (a GPS tracking system) was programmed in C and PHP. Syntax is exactly the same apart from the dollar signs and other bits and bobs. But if you learn the harder stricter one (C) then PHP is a piss of piss (I don't advise anyone to learn a scripting language first). I was a C fanatic before I picked up PHP it took me less than a week.

But as always no programming discussion/argument ever ends with either party agreeing with the other - ever. So lets not brew anything shall we. I still say if you learn C or any other C like language (preferably procedural) everything else will be down hill.

Its now male models who are getting the stress to stay slim. The feminine pretty boy is in, muscular male models are going out. (Look at lacost, ralph lauren, louis vuitton ads)

Skinny jeans are in this season for men

woman

Tutorial 5 - Loops

5.1 For loops
One of three loops C provides is the for loop. If you have a statement or a group of statements that need to be repeated a for loop is an easy way to implement.

The for loop format is similar in Basic and Pascal. The most common for is:
for ( initialisation ; conditional test ; action)

So the initialisation, that is the first thing you want the for loop to do, the first time it is called.
The conditional test is like an if statement, such that if that test is true the for loop continues to loop.
The action is what you want the for loop to do every time it loops.

Example
Say we wanted to count to 10 and every time we count we print the result to the screen.
First things first, we need a counter, we need to add one to this counter and print the result to screen until we reach 10.
Using a for loop this is how we would get it done


#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
//we declare our counter variable
int i;

for (i = 0; i < 11; i++)
{
printf ("Current count is - %d\n",i);
}

  return 0;
}

Code explained

The only thing new to you here should be the for loop. Like the if statement the block of code falls within the curly brackets { }
The for loop starts by initialising (here we set i = 0, if we wanted to start counting from say 3, we would set i = 3) every time the for loop makes a loop it checks that i < 11 (i is less than 11, since we want to stop counting at 10) we could also use i <= 10 (i is less than or equal to 10)  to produce the same result. Lastly on each loop the action is performed i++ which is the same as i + 1. So each time the for loop runs we print the current value of i.

Try writing a for loop that decrements counting from 20 to 3 (not 3 to 20).

Picture of the result of my counter.

Please in the name of God/Allah do not study computer science like sbucareer said (infact sooner or later all these jobs will be in india and china) so you have to be on your toes.

Get books read on your own. I have a BEng (Hons) in electrical/electronics engineering but out of the 10/11 languages I know only 2 of them I studied at uni. Infact my job at the minute as an interactive developer (PHP, XHTML, CSS, flash, javascript, Ruby that kind of stuff) has absolutely nothing related to my degree per say (I got this job based on my experience - I've been into graphics/web since 11/12). If I had gotten an EEE graduate job I'd be earning over £10,000 less what I earn now (funny isn't it, the job I get with a degree pays less than the job I get from a hobby since 11 = more experience).

So if you really love being a developer (online, operating system, graphics, embedded - whatever) you want to teach yourself - at your own pace. Studying something you love is dangerous because it becomes something you have to do no longer because you want to (I love EEE but sometimes at uni I was close to leaving). So kill two birds with one stone study something else and at the same develop your comp sci skills (between you graduate you would have over 4 years experience in comp sci and lots of mini projects to show off at an interview) it also shows versatility - any employer would love that.

Hey read my thread on C because PHP is exactly a copy of C. You then need to learn web techniques like GET and POSt variables, sessions, forms etc. www.w3schools.com is always a good place to learn webstuff.

Here is the tutorial https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-7535.0.html

No one has mentioned Abuja :s isn't there anything in abuja?

I have to say for all of you "outside" Nigeria that seem to be trying to compare internet speeds - come on. Experience walking before running, a time will come when 5 out 10 households will own online computers - economics will play its role, the same thing that happened to GSM will happen that is SIM cards go from N20,000 to whatever it is now and phone calls from N50 to N30 (or less?).

I pay about £30/month (line rental + BB fee) to BT (so sort of the same thing you pay) but I'm on 8MB, I would almost die on anything less than 1mb (but there was a time when I was satisfied with my 56k). There was an internet situation a week ago or so in London, we actually couldn't do anything at work - we couldn't access any stock photo sites, we couldn't get client feedback which is all online, we couldn't send external e-mails, we were all just staring out our cinema displays - crazy.

Welcome to mactopia! I'm a loyal mac owner/user/lover, I own a mini and at work I use a G5. What do you need to know?!

I'll tell you what you already have and necessities you can download, all your applications are in Finder > Applications (well by default)
1. Safaria to OS X is like IE to windows. So if you go to Finder > Applications > Safari
2. iChat rocks! iChat to mac is like MSN messenger to windows, you can get a .mac account and have your mac and aol buddies on ichat.
3. Download adiumx, go to www.adiumx.com download the .dmg (.dmg stands for disk image and is what most programs will come packages in - so .dmg to mac is like .exe to windows - so to say) Now adiumx is a one stop shop chat client, you can use it for msn, yahoo, gmail, icq etc etc I've used adium x and ichat for years.
4. Download acquisition lol, you might be used to limewire on PCs but acquisition was made for macs and is so much quicker! http://www.acquisitionx.com/ you can get limewire if you want though http://www.limewire.com/english/content/downloadfree.shtml
5. Get VLC player for all your video needs, go to http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html VLC plays almost every video format I can think of - even avi!
6. iTunes is in your apps (applications) folder if you've used iTunes on windows its the same thing so double click it and get started.
7. Sys prefs (system preferences) to mac is control panel to windows, also in your apps folder

Other important things to note, CTRL on PCs is called Command or well apple key on macs, so if say you are used to CTRL + C for copy, on a mac its apple key + C (apple key is the key with the apple sign). Alt on mac is called Option, and Shift is shift. At the top of your mac is the menu bar, on windows I'm sure you are used to seeing File Edit View etc for every window /application; on macs you have just one, as you switch between programs the menu bar changes respectively so say you were in safari the menu bar is for safari if you click on say Preview (preview is the default image viewer program) the menu bar is now for preview.

The apple sign at the top left corner stays the same forever (its the equivalanet of My Computer), it contains things like About my mac, restart, standby, shutdown etc. Click on it and go to MAC OS X Software anything apple is on that site.

The Dock at the bottom is the equivalent of your start menu if you want to add more icons to it simply go to finder > applications and drag the icon to your dock alternatively, you can run the application (it will load in the dock) right click it or control click (as we say for macs i.e. CTRL + click) and select Keep in dock.

Lets see what else, I can't think of anything else but trust me use it for a week or two and you'll never want to see windows in your life again. I have two mac converts (they both now own a 17" powerbook and a 15" macbook pro) and both never want to see windows again.

p.s. anything else give me a shout and do not DARE return that mac! If you have a macbook then that means you have an intel processor and if you do then you need bootcamp to install windows. Read here - http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/ But why would you want to do that! lol nooooo do not stain the mac (joke)

well just keep in mind that your audience might have access to other compilers

At uni, if your code ran on another compiler and you brought it in and did not run on plato, you've failed execution marks. Its always good to have a standard. Once again I'm teaching concepts "using" the C language.

and i just felt they should have some awareness of the ANSI standard.

"Help"/"Advice" is always appreciated, just avoid sounding contradictory. You wouldn't "trust" your lecturer say in a physics class if a colleague of his walked in and went "that circuit will not run in any other country" say it was all designed at 50Hz because he chose. At the end of the day the equation hes trying to teach you will work irregardless of variables and so on. Once again sorry I'm not trying to sound cheeky, but you know what us programmers are like :p - no one ever wins an argument because both cases have a degree of logic (especially with over 9 languages under my belt I'm afraid I can't help but think concept not syntax, for all I care I could write the function myself)

For any inquisitive souls out there ANSI is an institution like IEEE, RF etc see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansi and for ansi C http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_C
I own a copy of Kernigan and I advise you all (eventually) to try to get a copy in future - its like a bible.

when doing web design with html,you save the file as .html.is it thesame in programming for instance,in ASP,BASIC do we save as .asp,.basic,.

Alsimon, in a nutshell you're right (basic can be .sbl or. mod) asp is .asp there are quite a few others like in c, .h is a header file (you "include" this into a .c file) you can include a .c into a .c, but as you would imagine, it varies. For example web files are server dependent so you can configure a module (say like an online compiler) to handle each file type otherwise it'll treat it as text. I'll try not to open another can of worms and confuse you,  but eventually you'll find you can make your extension anything, and setup apache to parse it using the right modules. As you progress as an interactive developer (thats actually what I do for a living) you'll find HTML can be within anything, a php file, an asp file, .html, .htm and some people like me hide extensions and URLs from the client(your computer) altogether. One can then setup apache so the server sees the corresponding file name - for all i care I can make a file extension .qleyo but the server will see .php (the reason for this is orderliness and security by hiding extensions you have no idea what language I'm using). But in regards to your initial question, simply yes (extensions are just a standard).

Though useful, note that "getch()" isn't ANSI standard. Even as a newbie, you should keep this in mind and try to write portable code as often as you can. Consider using "getc()" for reading in characters. But if the "getch()" functionality is what you really want, then it's ok. Read this too --> http://c-faq.com/osdep/cbreak.html

Not to sound cheeky C0dec, but I'm not sure if you've helped anyone there. I'm well aware of the limitations of getch, my using getch is mainly because of issues related to the compiler we are using for this tutorial - people have to figure out somethings themselves. I haven't really mentioned ANSI C throughout this tutorial, I've used the C language for PICs, DSPs, PCs and macs with native libraries (you can't really write portable embedded C code as its architecture dependent, additionally there a little hiccups when going between PCs and unix based machines) I'm trying to abstract what they should use C for so I don't put anyone in a box subconsciously (can be networking, CGI, embedded, windows native, mac native/cocoa (which is based on objective C) etc) I'm teaching concepts not stdio.h functions (eventually when we cover functions everyone will be able to look up a library and figure out what functions they would like to use - thats the idea) please avoid commenting in contradiction with the tutorial so as not to confuse anyone.

I also noticed you declared "char data" after calling the "puts()" function. This means your code will only compile with a C++ compiler and not a C compiler. In C, all function variables are declared first before functions, expressions, conditions etc are evaluated.

I know, but we are using a C/C++ compiler - I'll have you know I no longer have a PC at my disposable (mac only, even at work we are all mac'ed out ) and am writing these bits of code without compiling or running them (and having used OOP for quite a while I might have habits that compiler warnings would have helped avoid if you know what I mean).

Thanks.

Nice work Tony,

If you get stuck in future, with an error or bug try to explain the problem as comprehensively and concise as you can. This is enough motivation to continue now I seem to have a lot of students hehe

I shall post the next one over the weekend. Keep up the good work

Here is a post I made on macusersforum.com, there are some links to notes and exercises (these are the same notes I used when I was uni)

******
C as a first language is a very good choice. I can recommend my almamata's lecture notes it comes with exercises too (as I learnt C before going to university and practiced more than others while at uni I cannot be precise as to how good they are) but university lecturing always encourages self study/development and everyone who graduated with me used these same notes so they must be decent.

Software engineering 1 - http://www.eee.nott.ac.uk/teaching/h61icp/
Sofware engineering 2 - http://www.eee.nott.ac.uk/teaching/h62se2/
Object oriented programming with C++ - http://www.eee.nott.ac.uk/teaching/h6cse3/
java - http://www.eee.nott.ac.uk/teaching/h62jav/
******

[quote="komekn"]Replying to a few concernns, Gleyo-- i drove from Koblenz, Germany to Manchester in 9 hours including 2 hour ferry ride and got stuck in traffic on the M25 and it was not a Ferrari.[/quote]

When I say 2 days its not a straight drive, he stopped in france before continuing to germany. Like wise for my other friends (actually colleagues at work) they actually drove from london to switzerland to italy. I didn't do it because petrol + ferry costs then (as I was in Nottingham) outweighed easy jet flight to france

Meanwhile you haven't answered my GPS questions, it would be nice to see time/speed/distance data using GPS for future explorers.

I'll send you an e-mail or perhaps call you.

sorry this is so late. Yes I am

Sorry can't help you there We used xilinx and VHDL.

@qleyo
I completely disagree with everything you just said.

We would be no where if everyone agreed with everyone

It is completely untrue that you need at least 200,000 pounds

On a student visa its illegal to be self employed
On a resident visa its tricky being self employed
The only visa you can start a company (legally) on is a business visa more info here http://www.workpermit.com/uk/entrepreneur.htm or as a UK citizen.
No ones saying it can't be done. What I'm saying is that his goal should not be to start a business in england, it should be to start a business in Nigeria.

There are so many businesses that started with virtually no capital.

It costs £15 to register a LLC with company house. At least £500 to rent an office. Even online companies need atleast £30 per year to host their website. You need at least internet connection (the worlds on the web) and a phone line which will cost you (with BT) £10 per month. No capital? Really?

The UK is currently suffering from redundancy (Norwich union let go about 2000 employees becomes the work is going to india). There are as many businesses as they are people. Look at sectors in Nigeria that have potential [url=http://www.pwc.com/extweb/pwcpublications.nsf/dfeb71994ed9bd4d802571490030862f/45bd1c8b709ae872802571d900219dfd/$FILE/NMRC%202005%20brochure.pdf]here[/url]

Advise doesn't come free, and I've given you my 2 pennies. Its your decision to take it or leave it. Being positive is good, but expect the worse and you'll never be taken by surprise - being a cynic has its advantages. But in everything have a good balance, I'd hate to see you end up working permanently as a cleaner for TFL. Like the majority have advised you have to be lead to learn to lead, so work for someone for at least 2 years meanwhile read books you don't need qualifications these days, you need a good portfolio and references. I work for a design agency (top 30 in the UK) with lots of project managers trust me I know. I'm currently doing an MSc, its tricky doing an MBA with no experience - I know most univerisities ask for 2 years at least. When you do get your visa (and like most Nigerians I'm sure you'd end up in london) let us know.

p.s. 80% of the people who come on dragons den walk away with not a penny. Is that where you want her to get business ideas from?! Ideas should come from your heart/head not other peoples. So at this point I think what you need is some more learning (not necessarily in a school) read a few books - The world is flat, Thomas Friedman. Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt,Stephen J. Dubner by Steven D. Levitt. Rich dad poor dad Robert T. Kiyosaki and perhaps some fiction/art. You need to stimulate the left side of your brain - the creative/innovative/eclectic side.

I don't understand how people advise others to start learning Java or C++. I think its stupid really.
Its like going to drive automatic before learning manual. You'll be trapped with a certain habit and style for ever.
You'll never appreciate the beauty flaws of suffering with a power steering, no ABS, and manual gear box.

Lastly you'll never want to go back, ever. You'll hate manual cars and because you've seen the light (or what you think is the light)
you'll never pick up manual driving (unless you an extremely strong will power).

Having said that, I'll advice you start with a procedural language like C and then progress to an object oriented language.
Alexis once a person learns one language you automatically learn programming techniques and concurrently learn software engineering from endless practice (then UML, ERDs and other design methods inevitably come in when you have to work in a team and really "plan" your program).
The problem is learning languages like Java or ASP that are more specialised can be very tricky (you might end up stuck in one field forever)
If possible even go as far back as ASM. No university you go to will start by teaching you java as a first language! NONE (if they do you better run)!
They start with C at worst C++.

For a quick start look at my tutorial here - https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-7535.0.html its a work in progress.
Meanwhile like Bossman said for all other questions google or even better wikipedia them.

Some quick links -
C programming language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_programming_language
C++ programming language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B
Java - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_%28programming_language%29
Database - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database
SQL - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL