https://medium.com/@james_aka_yale/the-4-layer-internet-model-network-engineers-need-to-know-e78432614a4f GCSE students (and A-Level students) will be familiar with the network stack…well…they’ll know it’s something they should know. It is however something which people are often fuzzy on. This article explains it nicely and talks about TCP and UDP and how it fits within the stack. Don’t worry about the OSI model, that’s something …. Read More
https://hackernoon.com/a-hacker-intercepted-your-wifi-traffic-stole-your-contacts-passwords-financial-data-heres-how-4fc0df9ff152 This article goes into some technical details, but it’s a good example of how attacks can be made, in particular pharming attacks. Do not try this at home….actually…that’s the only place you CAN try it, provided you’ve got everyone’s permission. You to a parent> “Can I instruct the link layer to not discard packets …. Read More
Excuse the clickbait title, it isn’t to mean ANY game is good for learning, just that there are principles in games that we can use in learning to help you learn better. In Computing we want students to try things. In Python, Flowol, Kodu, Spreadsheets, Audacity and more, we want you to try things. If …. Read More
Some good tips for starting out, when you’re moving from junior coding at GCSE into proper programming at A-level. Watch and learn sixth formers. You need to be programming cool stuff for at least a year to be ready for your programming exam.
This video looks at not only the game design principles, but also the tricks the developers used to get every bit of performance and push boundaries to make Crash Bandicoot a really ground breaking game for it’s time. Contains a nice section which compares the CPU and GPU. Also comparing RAM to secondary storage (CD)
Switch to Signal for encrypted messaging, EC tells staff An interesting article about how the top government agencies and companies are ditching WhatsApp in favour of a new one called Signal. A good read for GCSE students for examples of encryption and why it’s needed and why governments are trying to ban it. One thing …. Read More
The best way to improve your programming is to try new challenges. The below are some websites that offer challenges to help you improve and see how good you are! https://coderbyte.com/challenges http://www.programmr.com/exercises?lang=python https://www.hackerrank.com/challenges/py-if-else/problem https://www.practicepython.org/ https://codingbat.com/python https://projecteuler.net/ – Caution: A-Level only
A nice video playlist on learning to program with Python. It takes it from the start, so if you’re struggling in KS4 or want to learn more before the GCSE, then it’s a good series. Let me know if you have any other good tutorials that you found useful. There is also several other links …. Read More
A really nice look at how a watch ticks and includes a flip flop – a binary counting method to get the timing spot on. Well worth a watch (no pun intended)
https://towardsdatascience.com/4-common-mistakes-python-beginners-should-avoid-89bcebd2c628 The article says beginner mistakes. That’s a bit harsh. I’ve been programming for nearly 20 years (admittedly only in Python properly for 5) and I got caught out by the default arguments being mutable. I was traversing a map, using a default argument and ended up traversing a map of 5 items about 16 …. Read More