Learn Computer Programming
Programming is fun and challenging, a bit like solving puzzles or crosswords, but you can get paid for doing it.
I can help you learn programming over the Internet, or in person if you live in Manila. You can write interesting and useful programs from the very beginning, using graphics, sound and networking in addition to the usual algorithms, text processing and math.
If you are interested, please send me an email sam@nipl.net, or see sam.nipl.net/contact
You can also look at my web page sam.nipl.net and my resume.
I tailor my teaching to your interests and needs. If you are into music we can write an effects processor, or a program to suggest songs you will like. If you like games, we can write Pacman Vs. Lemmings, Attack of the Space Rabbit, or whatever else you can dream up. Demos and screensavers are always fun. If you are studying math, stats or physics, we can do simulations, homework helpers, and data analysis. If you are interested in communication and graphics, we can write an Internet whiteboard program, like a graphical wiki. If you are interested in languages, we can write a program to improve your vocabulary, or a translating chat program. I have lots of ideas, and I'm sure you do too.
The programs we write can include assignments, projects, team work, paid jobs, and open-source / free software. I can help you to find suitable paid work, and I can assist you to do it. I like to use Linux and C, but we can use other languages and systems too. I can also tutor you if you are studying programming, math or physics at college. Programming is a great reason to learn math and physics, because you can use them to do interesting things with graphics, sound, games and simulations. Your non-mathsy friends might be impressed and say "wow!", which is not the response you'll get if you show them some equations.
My fees are reasonable, and you can postpone payment until you have a job. I normally charge $20 / hour for intensive tutoring or programming work, down to $5 / hour to help while you work.
Here is a list of some of the free programming projects I have developed or am working on:
• brace - a programming language based on C, that looks like python and has many nice features including nice libraries with graphics, sound, etc
• tachyon - a very fast webserver than can handle more than 20000 simultaneous connections.
• geon - a fast 3d globe, it can animate flying around the world. I want to add support for free street-level data which is now available from openstreetmap.org.
• a2b - a program that converts any type of file to nearly any other type, e.g. a2b foo.gif foo.jpeg or a2b foo.wav foo.mp3 or a2b foo.html foo.pdf
• rocks - a 2d game like asteroids but with gravity / repulsion, bouncing asteroids and rotational inertia.
• ved - a voice editor designed for blind people or others to record a diary or an audio book
• graph - an editor for drawing nodes-and-arcs graphs, intended to be used for a visual programming language
• synth - a music synthesiser / keyboard that uses true harmonic scales
• study - a program which can find words with similar meanings just by reading a lot of text, e.g. if you input the bible and ask for "gold": "silver, iron, brass"
• eg - lots of brace demos including graphics / animation
• talaga - a dictionary and vocabulary training program to help you learn another language (e.g. chinese, japanese or filipino)
• sound2music - a program to covert digital audio data to sheet music
• robin - a search engine where real people answer your questions - you type in a question, and it is relayed via instant messenger to a few among many volunteers who send it to other volunteers who have knowledge in the right area, and those people reply to you.
• hunkfs - a network filesystem that never downloads something again if the data is already on your disk
• top / fast_get - a proxy that allows you to download movies from torrents and watch them almost immediately, before the download finishes
These programs are source code, and likely won't work on windows without some changes.
You can see all of my code online.
Sam Watkins