24th October 2009 - A Milestone in CBEUG - The First ever BootCamp @ Coimbatore 10:19 AM

The day began with Arumugham, two fellow usergroup members (Fazulul & Vivek) and myself receiving the MSPs who came for the BootCamp. The venue of the BootCamp was Zoom Consultancy. My sincere thanks to Mr. Anil Nair for providing us the venue. The MSPs who came for the BootCamp were

Indhuja Pillai - Narasu's Sarathy Institute of Technology , Salem
Saarang - Tamil Nadu College of Engineering , Coimbatore
Jibin Varghese - Tamil Nadu College of Engineering, Coimbatore
Bharath Wajan Prabhu - M. Kumarasamy College of Engineering , Coimbatore
Gopinantham - Nandha College of Engineering, Erode
Gowtham - Sri Shakthi Institute of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore
Venkat - Velalar College of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore
Animesh Jain - Shaasthra University, Thanjavur
Kusumakar Dwivedi - Shaasthra University, Thanjavur
Raja Ram - PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore
Sathyanarayanan - Krishna College of Arts and Science , Coimbatore
Krsna Rajan - Maha College of Engineering,
Siddharth - Bannari Amman College of Technology, Coimbatore

There were a couple of more MSPs who happen to miss the session due to various reasons, but we will make it a point that their role transitions happen to them also.


The Agenda for the day was

Introduction 9 30 AM - 10 00 AM
Ice Breaking Session 10 00 AM - 11 00 PM
MSP Program 11 00 PM - 12 00 PM
Lunch 12 00 PM - 1 30 PM
CBEUG Structure 1 30 PM - 2 30 PM
Exclusive Session for New
MSPs on how to achieve targets 2 30 PM - 3 30 PM
Feedback and Interaction 3 30 PM - 4 00 PM

Arumugham and Myself began the introductory session and we started off explaining our past experiences and how we were recruited into the program and so on. The Ice Breaking session was effective, we made the new recruits make 10 statements about themselves out of which 5 statements should be stated false, and the rest of them should guess which were the false statements made by the speaker. We explained the roles and benefits of an MSP, the Do's and Don'ts etc. Then comes the most interesting part , Lunch!

But.. for us..
Lunch: 4 of us ate Pizza and we had to empty our wallets. 1000 Bucks!!! :'(

So, after a sumptuous lunch the CBEUG structure was explained to them. I would be proud to say that even a heavy meal didn't make the MSPs feel sleepy for any of the session. Then the method of uploading and the opportunities available for the new recruits to gain points very easily was clearly described. I was very glad that the MSPs were already in the process of planning to reach their targets. One of the MSPs (Sathya) already has secured 160 points which was truly amazing!


After the sessions and lots of coffee, we celebrated the launch of Windows 7! It was a small party where we ate some Junk food and used the Windows 7 Tissue Papers :). Overall it was a memorable event, a niche in the history of CBEUG. Hoping to make wonders in the coming days.

The New Recruits were amazing to be with. They truly deserve the role of an MSP. They were highly responsive and interactive.

We are truly glad that we were able to motivate and guide our junior MSPs, personally It really feels good within meeting them :)


@ the New Recs: NOW ITS (Y)OUR TIME TO SHINE ;)


Gee! Im Friggin' excited about the next meeting already. aksj;klsadj;flkadwm;f;jew''wefjsljka <-- Statement of Excitement

Session at Karunya! 1100+ Students! Speaker: Siddharth Prakash! 12:58 PM

Mr. Siddarth Prakash, Program manager, Microsoft along with CBEUG - Coimbatore User Group conducted a seminar on Introduction to .net, Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft Academic Initiatives and a lot of cool demos in the premises of Karunya University on 20th March 2009.


There were more than 1100+ attendees from 1st, 2nd, 3rd years of IT and CSE Department. It was organized by the .net club of Karunya University. The students were really very enthusiastic and interactive.

The session went on for a period of one hour, and the enthusiastic crowd required more time to shoot questions at Siddharth, who also was dynamically answering them. The Director of the Engineering Block, Mr. Blessing was very instrumental in making this event a grand success. The students of the college also spent some quality time with Siddharth and the Microsoft Student Partners to learn more about their ideas and future plans.

Link to Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6kYib3YVBQ

COIMBATORE STUDENT SUMMIT '09 - Developing Interest in Student Community 12:52 PM

Its an technical gyan event conducted by CBEUG - Coimbatore User Group, were all the Microsoft Student Partners, Mozilla Campus Representatives join together and conduct a one day conference in Coimbatore. This time the CSS '09 was hosted by INFOSCIENCE, a campus club of Tamilnadu Engineering College. The college is situated in picturesque surroundings, abutting NH 47 (Salem-Cochin) in Karumathampatti, 30km for the industrial city of Coimbatore, 20km from the textile center of Tirupur and 10km from the temple town of Avinashi.(tats wat they have put in their website :D) INFOSCIENCE is a highly enthusiastic and well organized campus club.Special thanks to Pradeesh, Shiva Shankar, Vipin and INFOSCIENCE members(the people behind the scene) of III yr CSE .Their management skills was truly admirable.


There were more than 1400 attendees from more than 20 different colleges in and around Coimbatore. We started with Microsoft Academic Initiative which included Microsoft Student Partner Program, CBEUG - Coimbatore User Group Channel 8, MSDN AA, Live@Edu, Dreamspark, Ineta, Imagine Cup 09, Faculty Connection and Student2Business.


Immediately after that Windows 7 was taken, students were very keen throughout this session and were amazed by the cool features. Then we explained them how to create a Virtual hard disc in windows 7 which is an inbuilt feature in it with a demo and also on VS 2008 with intro to .net. After 1 hour of lunch we started with a session on Mozilla Firefox add - ons and all about blogging. Then we took few more technical sessions with a lot of demos like creating a silverlight & WPF applications, then Microsoft Surface, Microsoft Photosynth and all about User Experience. We also played a small skit to make the students understand the problems faced by company on the issue "wide gap between developer and designer". That made them understand more easily.


And then we had an amazing Quiz session which prevented from all the attendees to go for a break. Then at last the most awaiting session Microsoft Robotics Studio was taken. All the students were thrilled and excited. They were really amazed when we showed them how easy it is to write a program in Visual Programming Language and also run the Robot in Simulated Environment.


Then once again we did our usual thing of askin the same old question "Which operating system does Rajinikanth use?" because we believe that it makes the crowd happy. :D CSS '09 was a grand and successful event and we are sure that it had Developed Interest in Student Community

Workshop - Mahendra Engineering College on 2nd & 3rd March 2009 12:33 PM

Mahendra College of Engineering is situated on Salem - Tiruchengode main road 27 KMs from Salem and 33 KMs from Erode which are main Railway Junction connecting all important cities of India.
After our successful Developer Conference in their campus last year, they invited us again for conducting a Workshop .
This time we planned for 2 days workshop with 1 day completely dedicated for Hands on Lab.
@1st day:
There were 200 attendees on the 1st day.The attendees for the 1st day were from:
• 2nd & 3rd ECE
• 2nd & 3rd IT
• 2nd & 3rd CSE

We started with Microsoft Academic Initiative which included Microsoft Student Partner Program, CBEUG - Coimbatore User Group Channel 8, MSDN AA, Live@Edu, Dreamspark, Ineta,Imagine Cup 09, Faculty Connection and Student2Business.
Immediately after that the most eagerly awaited session, Windows 7 was taken. Where the students were amazed by the cool features. Then we explained them how to install and run different operating system virtually using Virtual PC 2007.We were provided with Internet facilities which helped us in showing demos.
After a 1 hr break, we started with technical sessions which included VS2008 with demos for explaining collaboration and productivity feature in VS 2008, Live Mesh with a demo synchronizing 2 laps and then popfly with a Demo on Mash Up. At last we ended day one with explaining about Mozilla and Blogging.
@2nd day:
For the 2nd day Hands on Lab, only 90 of the 200 students were selected as we could arrange only two labs with 45 computers each. So in LAB 1 we installed SQL SERVER 2008 (Trial), VS 2008 Express Edition and in LAB 2 we installed Small Basics, Expression Blend & VS 2008 Express Edition.
The attendees for the 2nd day were also from:
• 2nd & 3rd ECE
• 2nd & 3rd IT
• 2nd & 3rd CSE
As it was hands on lab we started of early, 8:30 AM itself. For the 1st 45 students we helped them in having a live working experience on creating a website with zero code using asp.net in VS 2008. They learnt how useful it is to create a master page and develop a website. They also learnt how easy to create a database in SQLSERVER 2008 and connect it to the website.
Simultaneously the other set of 45 students learnt how easy it is to write a program in Small Basics when compared to that of writing program in TURBO C++. They also learnt to design a media player using Silverlight Technology in Expression Blend and then easily code in VS 2008.
After the break in the second half it was vice versa.
The students really had a lot of fun, learning by actually working on them.

Skipping time, Some Bombastic Events! 11:03 AM

I just skipped a lot of events that had happened, I would definitely love to blog about them in my future posts. But as of now I am highly excited to disclose the fact that I have spoken to ATLEAST 4000 people in the past few weeks! I was really a thrilling experience! I had a great time! And it was an amazing Experience

Developer Conference - Vellalar Engineering College, Salem on 28th Feb 09

The visit to this college was memorable. We had an amazing stay and the hospitality offered by the college members were Awesome. Vellalar College of Engineering is Located at 7 km from Erode Railway Junction & Bus Stand, TamilNadu. We had been invited by the students for conducting a Microsoft student Conference on 28th of February 2009. A special thanks to Ganesh and Jemima of III rd year IT department.

As in every function we had a inaugural starting with lighting a lamp (“Kuttu Vilakku").
We were really embarrassed and also a bit nervous when we sat on the Dias with the Principal, Administrative Director, and Head of the Department of IT Dept. We were really proud when the Administrative Director said "It’s really nice to see 4 boys from their 3rd yrs and that too from a new college sitting next to me in the Dias". We had audiences around 500+ which included
• 2nd & 3rd year CSE
• 2nd & 3rd IT
• 1st &2nd MCA
As usual we started with the introductory session about our User Group, Microsoft Student Partner program, Microsoft Academic Initiatives. Meanwhile we were also conducting Group Discussion and selecting Students for AIESEC interview.
Then technical sessions that included Into to .NET, VS2008, Expression Studio, Demo on Expression blend and Linq, Virtual PC 2007.


We also spoke on Microsoft Research which included Microsoft Surface, Photosynth, Boku, Live Mesh and Windows 7.
After that while getting the feedback we put up a question "convince us what operating system Rajinikanth uses".
The following students were the participants
1. Bala Shankar III yr IT
2. Selva Prabhu II yr IT
3. Rajkumar III yr CSE – A
4. Aravindhan II yr CSE
5. Rangaraju II yr CSE
And many more (sorry guyz I forgot all ur names)
We had many funny and interesting answers from the students, Selva Prabhu II yr IT who got the maximum vote, won a GENUINE VISTA BUSINESS.

After the conference everyone appreciated us and from the heart thanked us. The HOD of IT department attended the whole session and was extremely happy about the success of the event. He said he had done a mistake of not calling us long back itself, to his college.
After the conference we took Interview for AIESEC and winded up.

Hate programming? Well, Small Basic is here! 10:17 PM

Small Basic is a project that's aimed at bringing "fun" back to programming. By providing a small and easy to learn programming language in a friendly and inviting development environment, Small Basic makes programming a breeze. Ideal for kids and adults alike, Small Basic helps beginners take the first step into the wonderful world of programming.

• Small Basic derives its inspiration from the original BASIC programming language, and is based on the Microsoft .Net platform. It is really small with just 15 keywords and uses minimal concepts to keep the barrier to entry as low as possible.
  
• The Small Basic development environment is simple, yet provides powerful modern environment features like Intellisense™ and instant context sensitive help.
  
• Small Basic allows third-party libraries to be plugged in with ease, making it possible for the community to extend the experience in fun and interesting ways

Small Basic FAQ 

What is Small Basic?

Small Basic is a project that is focused at making programming accessible and easy for beginners. It consists of three distinct pieces:

• the Language
• the Programming Environment
• Libraries

The Language draws its inspiration from an early variant of BASIC but is based on the modern .Net Framework Platform. The Environment is simple but rich in features, offering beginners several of the benefits that professional programmers have come to expect of a worthy IDE. A rich set of Libraries help beginners learn by writing compelling and interesting programs.

Who is Small Basic for?

Small Basic is intended for beginners that want to learn programming. In the trials, results with kids between the ages of 10 and 16 were successful. However, it's not limited to just kids; even adults that had an inclination to programming have found Small Basic very helpful in taking that first step. 

How do I learn Small Basic?

Download (Here) and install the Small Basic software. You can then use the friendly "Introducing Small Basic" document to help you get started with Small Basic.

How is it different from QBASIC?

• Unlike QBASIC, Small Basic is based on .Net and can consume (not produce) "Objects".
• It supports distinct Operations, Properties and Events.
• It doesn't have GOSUB :)

How is it different from VB.Net?

• Small Basic is small - much smaller than VB and supports just a subset of what VB.Net supports.
• You can actually write a compiler using VB.Net

What are the unique features of the Small Basic language?

• 
  
  Imperative
  
  
  Just like the early variants of BASIC, Small Basic is imperative and doesn't use or expose beginners to concepts like scopes, types, object orientation, etc.
• 
  
  Size
  
  
  The Small Basic language consists of just 14 keywords.
• 
  
  Type System
  
  
  There actually isn't one. You can create string and numeric constants and assign them to variables. Operations performed on these variables will be interpreted according to the content.
• 
  
  Variables
  
  
  All variables are global and are always initialized. They can be used before they're assigned.
• 
  
  Events
  
  
  You can create a sub-routine and assign it to an event. This will wire the it up to an the event.
• 
  
  Libraries
  
  
  The libraries provide static "Objects" that group operations, properties and events. New libraries can be created using other .Net Languages and added to the Small Basic runtime.

What about Scratch, Alice?

Both Scratch and Alice are great tools that help beginners learn the concepts of programming. They are doing so by enabling people to write "codeless" programs. Small Basic is taking a different approach by introducing code as a first class concept.

What about KPL?

KPL (now known as Phrogram) was a great concept that used to focus purely on beginners (and hence the name, Kids Programming Language). In the last couple years, it seems to have now extended its vision to support intermediate and advanced users too. Small Basic focus purely on the beginners; there are tons of other options for the intermediate and advanced users.

What are the limitations of Small Basic?

Small Basic is small and intuitive as possible. It's okay to limit Small Basic from being the language of choice for solving every conceivable problem. For example, while it's theoretically possible to write a Small Basic compiler using Small Basic, it's probably not a good idea.

What is the evolution strategy for the language?

One of the most important visions of this project is to focus on the beginner persona. This is very important, features that doesn't cater to this type of persona was highly avoided. 

Was Busy the Whole time! 9:43 PM

Hey! Sorry for that long gap! I was busy with several stuff. Exams, Sessions, Elections and so many more. Again, I would like to describe the most exciting events since November after the Goa trip.

• Chak De: AIESEC Coimbatore's first event! It was an awesome event. It was an Olympic-Like event for the orphaned children. Events like races, Shot-put, lemon races, "Boat races" (Skolling with Water :P) etc were conducted. Around 500 children turned up for that event and it was very colorful and exciting. 

All the kids and the Organizing Committee. :)

• EXAMS!: Truly the examinations were very exciting and thrilling. It was a unique opportunity for me to express.... Nothing

This is what I did during the examinations! Take Snaps :) Now you know why it was thrilling!

• Holidays: Holidays? Whats that? I had a F*cking Arrear! But still I yenjaayed! I went to Coonoor and had fun with my friends out there.

At some high point. Breath taking views.

• AIESEC LCP Election: Yeah LCP stand for Local Committee President. Shiva was elected the Local Committee President! It was held at Jenny Club. We were in kemplete formals. It was a good ceremony. Nice dinner though :)

Shivakumar Ashokan - The new LCP of AIESEC Coimbatore. (Now called as Obama :P)

• New Years!: Zzzzzzzzzzzzz...... Oh yeah Wish you a Happy New Year! :)