Mac OS X only: A popular alternative to Mac’s iChat is multiclient Adium. Supporting AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo! Messenger, Bonjour, MySpace, Facebook, amongst others Adium is has all the goodies in the bag.

Adium’s Features

First of all Adium is Open Source allowing anyone to contribute. It has a slick UI with tabbed chats that simply look good. Also contains an extensive system notification with the ability to download custom themes as well.

Adium Impressions

If you are looking for a multiclient instant messenger, Adium is something you have to check out. I’ve been using it since I found out about it and haven’t stopped using it ever since. It’s user friendly, intuitive, and stylish. So what are you waiting for if you haven’t tried it out yet?

Adium Screenshots

Impressions of the Sennheiser HD 202 Headphones

I was recently shopping for headphones until I came across the Sennheiser HD 202 Headphones. I was looking for over the ear headphones that were of great quality with a low price tag of under $30 and these didn’t disappoint.

They are comfortable around the ears and do a great job of delivering a superb sound experience. You can feel the music, and especially the bass. According to over the 700 reviews on Amazon, these are extremely great headphones for the price. I was hesitant but the fact that they were amongst the highest rated on Amazon, they had me going…

Technical Specs of Sennheiser HD 202

Below are the technical specs of the Sennheiser HD 202 Headphones.

• Transducer Principle: Dynamic, Closed-Aire
• Frequency Response: 18 18,000 Hz
• Nominal Impedance: 32 Ohms
• Characteristic Spl: 115 dB
• Ear Coupling: Semi-circumaural, leatherette
• Distortion: 0.5
• Connector: 3.5 mm mini-stereo with 14 adapter
• Weight Wo Cable: Approx. 130 g

Overview

I had a bit of trouble looking for the right headphones. I really wanted to purchase some Bose but unfortunately couldn’t afford them! Not until I was recommended to these from a friend I decided to go with them. I don’t think I could’ve made a better choice!

+ Great Chord Length
+ Belt Clip to Wrap Cord
+ Delivers rich music with bass
+ Over the ear
+ Stylish
+ Superb quality for the price

- They feel a bit warm but this isn’t much of an inconvenience
- Didn’t come with a volume control but wasn’t an issue

Getting ready to edit your template to make a website

In this part of our series you will start editing your template to make your website. Don’t worry, I’ll guide you every step of the way so you don’t get lost.

What do you need?

1. The BigSpaceLove template found on Free-CSS-Templates
2. A browser to open your website. (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox…)
3. A text editor to edit your website. Preferably one that supports syntax highlighting. Programmer’s Notepad is free and is what I’ll be using.

Start editing the template

Open up index.html using your text editor. If you remember the basic structure of a website we taught you can notice that it is the same way the html file is structured.

• The header contains “Website Title” and “Subheader, website description H2″ in this case
• The body is separated into a left section containing the content the and a right section containing the menu.
• The footer contains information about the person who created the template.

You will notice these sections are denoted with the following tag in the HTML document:

The <div> </div> tag

You can think of the div tag as a section within your HTML document. They will usually be named after the sections described above.

Making and viewing changes to your website

To make a change, simply save the index.html file at any time. Then open it using any browser. Once the page is open, you can refresh it thereafter whenever you make a change to the html file.

Changing the title of your website

Let’s change the title of our website. Currently it says Big Space. Look for the following code in the html file.

It should be enclosed within the section. This section is used for placing information about the website such as meta tags, links to the css stylesheet, and the title of the site.

Let’s change the title to whatever you want. I’ll name it the following:

Now view the changes you have made using the steps I provided earlier. See what happened? The title of our website changed, this isn’t visible on the page itself but in your browser.

Editing the Header Section

Now let’s go ahead and change the “Website Title”. Look for the following.

I’ll be changing it to the following.

If you noticed, I change “#” to “index.html” above. “Let’s Talk Binary!” is encapsulated with the <a> </a> tag making it a link. Whenever you click on it, it will take you to the index.html page which is the current page your on.
It is also encapsulated with the <h1> </h1> tags, making it a header.

The <a> <h1> tag

The <a> seen is used to create a link to another document with the source being “index.html” in our case.

The <h1> tag defines headings. The values range from 1 to 6. 1 being the largest.

Now save and view changes. Isn’t this easier than you thought?

Go to the next page to learn how to edit the menu

Now, go on to the next page to learn how to edit the menu.

Finding the right template

Finding the correct template for your needs can be quite tricky. For example, I needed something clean and fresh while maintaining a level of professionalism so I decided to go with the layout found on my personal website. If you noticed, you can get a nice looking website once you find the right template.

But how did I find it first of all? I simply dug around the internet. Google for me was a great place to start but for those that need help, I’ll show you a couple of sites that will give you a head start.

Note for tutorial

For purposes of the tutorial I encourage everyone to use BigSpaceLove found on the front page of Free-CSS-Templates so you can follow me step by step. This template is fairly easy to edit.

Where to find free CSS templates

• Smashing Magazine – 100 Free High Quality XHTML/CSS Templates – Great list showing off a large variety of templates
• 1st Web Designer- 101 High Quality CSS and XHTML Free Templates and Layouts – Another great list you shouldn’t miss out on
• Itensivstation – Basic CSS Templates – For those who want to start from scratch check out these templates
• Mitch Bryson – Free CSS Templates – More basic CSS templates
• FreeCSSTemplates.org
• Free-CSS-Templates

So once I have a template what now?

You are almost there. Once you have a template all we have to do is set up our environment, and start editing! (Remember, to use BigSpaceLove found on the front page of Free-CSS-Templates so you can follow my tutorial step by step.)

What is a website made out of anyways?

If you take a good look at a couple of websites, you might notice their structures share a couple of things in common. (If you are wondering why you need to know this, you’ll learn why really soon.) Each website usually contains the following basic elements:

• A header usually contains the logo of a website along with a brief description. Sometimes you may find a menu there as well.
• The main body or content which may take up most of the website which contains the content of the website.
• A sidebar which usually contains the navigation of your website.
• A footer which usually contains copyright and licensing information.

Not all websites follow this traditional structure. It all depends on what type of website you need to suit your needs.

So what is under the hood?

So, what makes a website a website? Under the hood websites are made up of different coding languages that serve different purposes. I’ll only describe the basic ones you need to be aware of and will be working with.

Don’t worry, you don’t need to know anything. I’ll help you every step of the way.

HTML

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. It consists of HTML tags that are used to mark up content and usually have a starting and ending tag. If you have worked with website development in the past, edited a profile on a social site such as MySpace you probably already are familiar with the basics of HTML. An example of HTML is below.

Note: If you really wanted to, you could create an html document say, index.html, copy the above code into that document, save it, run it on firefox, and view your website!

Cascading Style Sheets

CSS are Cascading Style Sheets. They can be embedded withing your website or be found in an external file (.css) that is linked to your website. You can think of them as style sheets. If you want to define or alter an attribute of an element of your website such as a font, image, link color, or any other element, you define it in the CSS document, and it would apply to all such elements on your site. I’ll show you an example later.

XHTML

XHTML stands for Extensible HyperText Markup Language. It is more of a standard for writing in HTML. So if you see a website or layout saying its XHTML Compliant, well now you know why.

Ok, now what?

Scared yet? Don’t worry. It will all make sense later. So what’s next? In the next tutorial I’ll help you find a template to start our website, then we’ll start editing it. Stay tuned for the next tutorial. If you have any comments or suggestions feel free to post them below.

Programming Course taught online by Stanford Professor

Stanford University has an interesting YouTube channel which contains the following Programming Paradigms Course. So what is this about?

Course Description

“Programming Paradigms (CS107) introduces several programming languages, including C, Assembly, C++, Concurrent Programming, Scheme, and Python. The class aims to teach students how to write code for each of these individual languages and to understand the programming paradigms behind these languages.” – Course | Programming Paradigms

Start learning and start programming

If you are interested in learning the above mentioned languages, I encourage you to view the videos. If you do, please share your experience with the videos below in the comments. I plan on taking a good look at these videos as I’m particularly interested in the Concurrent Programming, Scheme, and Python aspect of it.

Programming Paradigms Course

Getting started on your first website

Ever wanted to create a website but had no idea where to get started? No worries, I’ll guide you through the simple process and it will require no prior experience. Is it really that easy? After you complete my series of tutorials, it sure will be. We’ll be using the template BigSpaceLove found on Free-CSS-Templates to create a simple personal website similar to my personal website.

You don’t need to know anything. I’ll even make sure you understand the fundamentals so you can continue learning more on your own afterwards. So no, you don’t need to know how to design a web page, or even how to code one.

This series will teach you how to make a similar website pictured above

Why would I need a website anyways?

First of all, a website might serve a great variety of purposes such as the following:

• You may post your resume, CV, or portfolio online to attract potential employers
• Might want to share a hobby
• Promote a product you are selling or endorsing
• Start a community
• Simply to learn!

In reality, the possibilities are endless. It’s actually quite a good skill to have and it can pay off. While I was in highschool I managed to create websites and get paid pretty darn well for it since people think its more complicated than it looks.

If you are looking to simply learn, this is a great place to start. This will be a great hands on experience as you will be seeing progress rather quickly. It will also enable you to understand the fundamentals of the creation of a website.

Next tutorial shortly coming up

Stay tuned and before you know it, you’ll have your very own personal website. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to post them below. I’ll try to tailor this tutorial for beginners so if there is anything you want me to cover please leave a comment or suggestion.

Overview of Tail Recursion

Tail Recursion is simply a special form of recursion, in which the recursive call is at the end of the function. This allows for improved efficiency as the final value to be computed is returned without any further calculation when the recursion function terminates.

Factorial without Tail Recursion in C++

First a version without tail recursion will be shown in C++. This version requires that the function has to compute a new value to return to it’s caller after the function it called returned a value.

Factorial with Tail Recursion in C++

Below is the factorial function with tail recursion. Can you tell the difference from the one posted above? The function below doesn’t need to do any more computations when the function it called returns (considering its not the last function that was called). It simply returns the value without any further calculation.

Usually, if it can be done using tail recursion, the function can be iteratively solved as well.

Tail Recursion in a functional language

In C++, if you can write a tail recursive function most likely you can right an iterative version. In a functional language where iteration isn’t possible, tail recursion allows for greater efficiency in such functions.

Recursive function in ML without tail recursion

Below is a factorial function in ML. This version does not implement tail recursion.

Implementing Tail Recursion in ML

The function below, does implement tail recursion. If you notice, this function does not require to do any computations after the function has returned as the function in the previous version.

Overview of Tail Recursion

So why is this faster? Well, first of all, it means you are uses the stack less, thus increasing efficiency. If you can implement tail recursion in a programming language such as C++, there must be an iterative version of the function. On the other hand if you are creating functions in a logic or functional programming language, try using tail recursion. On large projects you’ll notice a great improvement in runtime.

For those wanting to know what I’m up to, it’s simple. I’ve had several visitors contact me via e-mail and wanted to provide different resources for those who are interested in keeping communication. I’ll provide you with several options.

Follow Talk Binary on Twitter

You can follow Talk Binary on Twitter. I post my updates every so often so you may know what I’m up to. So if you are interested in knowing what a Computer Science programmer is up to in his college career, find out by following me. I post information about my progress in school, the things I do for fun, and how my quarter and classes are doing! I welcome anyone and everyone’s comments.

Follow me on Facebook

If you want to know more about me and chat with me, feel free to follow me on Facebook. Simply send me an invite with a message mentioning you are coming from Talk Binary. Otherwise, I might not approve you! There you will have the opportunity to meet me at a more personal level.

As always, you can also contact me using the Contact Us form. I tend to reply as fast as possible. I tend to receive numerous questions via e-mail so feel free to send something in if you have any comments or suggestions.

Streamripper

Streamripper allows you to download streams using Winamp. I found this after visiting Shoutcast, a directory of radio stations you can listen using your browser or favorite media player. I started listening to some great hip-hop mixes on .977 Hitz and I wanted to record them to play them later. That is when I found Streamripper.

Streamripper’s description

With the emergence of file sharing protocols such as Napster, Gnutella, and now Mojonation and Freenet, the average Internet user can download nearly any mp3 he wants in a matter of no time, but many times people don’t know what they want. Streamripper allows you to download an entire station of music. Many of these mp3 radio stations only play certain genres, so you can now download an entire collection of goa/trance music, an entire collection of jazz, punk rock, whatever you want.

Found via Streamripper.