Stanford Engineering professors are offering three of the school’s most popular computer science courses for free online this fall, and at the same time launching an experiment that could transform the way online education is delivered.
The professors are taking technologies designed to enhance learning for Stanford students and extending them to a broad online audience. They are delivering lectures as short, interactive video clips that allow students to progress at their own pace through course materials. They are offering live quizzes with instant feedback. And they are testing new technologies that allow students to rank questions that should be posed to the instructors.
The professors also hope to extend the benefits of Stanford-style education to those who lack access.
“Both in the United States and elsewhere, many people simply do not have access to a high-quality education. By putting out this initial set of courses, we hope to teach some of the latest computing technologies to anyone who wants to learn it – for free,” said Andrew Ng, an associate professor of computer science who is teaching a new online machine learning course.
The three courses – Machine Learning, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Introduction to Databases – cover material that forms the basis of some of the most prevalent technologies today, from online shopping to web search and robotics.
Showing posts with label online. Show all posts
Showing posts with label online. Show all posts
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Free Computer Science Courses Offered Online by Stanford Engineering School
via stanford.edu
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Do You Want To Test Your Idea?
While there are plenty of places where you can "test your idea", I have recently came by the few of them:
- startupSQUARE http://www.startupsquare.com
- Reincarnation of LazyWeb http://twitter.com/lazyweb
- LoveMyIdea http://www.lovemyidea.com
If you know something else that also works, I'd love to hear about them.
P.S. Neither one of these worked for me. :)
Friday, April 23, 2010
Prezi presentations
via prezi.com
It looks like a Grockit' product guy has used Prezi for making his presentation at Startup Lessons Learned (also streaming online here at http://www.justin.tv/startuplessonslearned) and I would say it looks terrific (except the choice of a tiny font that people have big problems seeing thru online streaming).
I've got to try Prezi myself now.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Did Twitter screw up something?
Well, promptly after writing a quick post on reading for GMAT, I mentioned that my blog miss something. My Twitter feed.
At the same time, though, my Twitter account actually works just fine. Hopefully, this is rather minor issue, although it looks like it stays for several minutes so far.
On the other note, what are you using for online annotating of screenshots, images and whatever note? I'm talking about all these fancy notes, comments, blocks, arrows -- I mean -- all the things you're using to communicate your visuals to somebody else?
I've tried PicBite, but actually didn't like it at all. The only thing it can do is this pretty silly rectangle with strange-direction pointing arrow, that I can't change, but can add a second one (or maybe third, and forth, and fifth...).
The good thing about it that it was easy to upload and it automatically advised to resize the image (good point!).
The bad thing (except that it doesn't do much), that it can't host the image to be shown, as well as doesn't give me a good way to download it and so on and so forth.
So what's your secret weapon in annotating things online?
At the same time, though, my Twitter account actually works just fine. Hopefully, this is rather minor issue, although it looks like it stays for several minutes so far.On the other note, what are you using for online annotating of screenshots, images and whatever note? I'm talking about all these fancy notes, comments, blocks, arrows -- I mean -- all the things you're using to communicate your visuals to somebody else?
I've tried PicBite, but actually didn't like it at all. The only thing it can do is this pretty silly rectangle with strange-direction pointing arrow, that I can't change, but can add a second one (or maybe third, and forth, and fifth...).
The good thing about it that it was easy to upload and it automatically advised to resize the image (good point!).
The bad thing (except that it doesn't do much), that it can't host the image to be shown, as well as doesn't give me a good way to download it and so on and so forth.
So what's your secret weapon in annotating things online?
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Dropbox
I gave up on using Google Docs today and replaced them with Dropbox. My brother insisted on trying them out and I did. What can I say, I like it so far. This was the best experience working with remote storage space that I ever had.
They give away 2 gigs for free, and this is more the enough for basic usage — my documents, contracts, some minor paperwork, like registrations, licenses, serials, etc were doing well enough on 256MB drive. 4x times like that would be just great.
One of the minor unhappiness was that shared folders eat up my space (as well as the document owner's). My brother shared with me some of his stuff and I got 20% less off the space. Not a big deal, though.
I try to stay away of advising some services, as far as the most of them tend to become worse within time. But the Dropbox is really cool thing to try.
They give away 2 gigs for free, and this is more the enough for basic usage — my documents, contracts, some minor paperwork, like registrations, licenses, serials, etc were doing well enough on 256MB drive. 4x times like that would be just great.
One of the minor unhappiness was that shared folders eat up my space (as well as the document owner's). My brother shared with me some of his stuff and I got 20% less off the space. Not a big deal, though.
I try to stay away of advising some services, as far as the most of them tend to become worse within time. But the Dropbox is really cool thing to try.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
New Twitter?
Well, experiencing times of having Twitter more often offline then online, the question is: when the Twitter alternative is going to show up? This doesn't sound like a rocket science and there are too many Twitter-addicted people who are willing to make a swap.
(This is a typical Twitter post, however, Twitter is down again for it.)
(This is a typical Twitter post, however, Twitter is down again for it.)
Monday, June 2, 2008
New personal finance startup idea
On the grounds of my last post about money management online, I came up with an idea of new personal finance Web application.
So here is the deal:
So here is the deal:
- Make a clone of popular desktop application. Either one would be okay. Rich features of the browsers allow you to do almost everything nowadays. Keep in mind, that the most of people have Checking, Savings, Credits and Loans, at least one, for the car. Don't give up on any of these just because you think people don't need it.
- Keep the style sticky, don't go far in the "ergonomics" and UI and UX design. The people are already stick to some specific ways of handling (and thinking!) of data. Let them stay with it.
- Use the Google Gears or anything of this kind to let your software work offline.
- Provide a number of communication tools to your software, like widgets, IM, SMS (text messaging from the cell phones), Web or good old e-mails. Make your software as easy as Twitter is for sending and receiving updates.
- Don't go far in reports, you're not developing an executive software. But be reasonable in your limits. There some things that everyone wants to know. Make sure you give them a tool for that.
- Give your site an iPhone application, both online and offline. Everybody wants iPhone nowadays. ;) Don't forget about other smartphones. However, it could be a simple e-mail and Web gateway.
- Start with the basic features, be very responsive, provide an ultimate feedback for feature requests and their status, let people know the exact day when they'll receive the feature that they want. You know, this is just numbers, it doesn't take more then a month to add some fancy splits or CSV import. Make your (prospective) clients feel that they are part of the process. Let them know that they will get what they want. (But don't be afraid to say Sorry, but not, yet for ridiculous and unreasonable requests).
- Make sure you have all features that let people the full visibility about their current financial situation. Don't make the wait for transactions clearance on the credit card, let them see the upcoming expenses, monitor the budget, let them stretch it for urgent needs by taking funds from other categories (for example, let people temporary save on restraunt expenses for the goal of buying a new laptop). Make this visual and straight forwarded. What you really need to deliver is a personal financial tool. People want to be in control and to be able to optimize their funds. Visual way of funds planning and optimization is the easiest way for the most of us.
- Charge not more then 10 dollars per month (but not much less), don't mess up with different plans. I don't want to count how many accounts do I need to handle, how many transactions would be in each, etc. Give me a choice: get it free or pay for it. But make sure you give it for free. No obligations.
- Once you're up and running, let the social networking to work. Let people give advices, mark events, whatever not. Develop content dependant advisory system. It'll pay off.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Online money management
I'm currently digging the Internet for a good, reliable money management online with full functionality on board. What do I need?
As for now, I'm going to give a try tomint.com, moneycenter.yodlee.com, budgetpulse.com, budgettracker.com, clearcheckbook.com, buxfer.com and mvelopes.com. I liked the concept of helpful guidance and tips from wesabe.com, but it's too different from the application that I'm looking for. I'll also try to evaluate expensr.com against my req's. After my last quick look it seemed to be the only one possible solution.
Wondering, why is it so hard to replicate Quicken for Mac, iBank 3 or Moneydance online? Sounds like an easy thing that can become extremely sticky as soon as you provide million of ways to get connected to it. This is a kind of a thing that can be done in a new way, easier and friendlier, and can rock the market.
mint.com can't add transactions manually, so it's out of my list. But it was pretty nice though. It's bad that it misses this functionality and it's very basic for me. However, people say that mint.com still in beta, so there are chances that they finally will decide to deliver this function. I'd be happy to take a look at it then.
moneycenter.yodlee.com looks like it can do everything for me, however, I couldn't pass through linking accounts to it. I couldn't find Bank of America Credit Card there (well, it is in the list, but can't get linked), and I couldn't add an account manually (while it advises me to, it never allows me ;). So, it's out of the list also.
expensr.com has no split transactions, poor account management, no loan accounts, like for a car, or a student loans. No transaction schedule or I didn't find one. I liked it, but still no-go.
budgetpulse.com has no split transactions, account management is manual only, no differentiation on account types (either Checking, or Savings, or Credit card or whatever not), transactions management is pretty weird. It's mostly like an application to monitor your upcoming expenses and incomes and keep the balance. It gives you a bigger picture, but not your day-to-day tool. Not the one that I need.
budgettracker.com looks like the one that really can do everything I need. It's free for basic functionality and extra features cost $2.95/month. Pretty acceptable, however, the interface is very awkward to me. I'm coming from Mac Quicken, so I was looking for something similar, at least, in concepts. Well, budgettracker.com is close on concept, but very overloaded. Keeping in mind the Web application needs to have fewer steps them the desktop one (just because it's Web and every step doesn't have the same response time as on desktop application), the budgettracker.com is too much overcomplexified. But I think it'll become pretty useful as soon as you get used to it. Two things I do not like about it. First, it doesn't seems very reliable and I don't know what is the future of it (it looks like a very minor player on the market). Second, I didn't like to get to know that it's advertised on For Sale By Publisher here. This might be a business model, but doesn't sound like a very solid one.
mvelopes. This one is very expensive comparing to all other choices. It has got three plan.
However there is one thing that makes it pretty tough for me. Originally, it's not intuitive transaction-based budget system. They are starting from the side of spending categories, called envelopes there. They don't care about your transactions (actually, they do, but don't make it straight-forwarded), but they do care about how much did you spend on each category.
I should say that their budgeting system is pretty nice and one of the best that I saw ever (even in the desktop applications). However, I need to be able to easier see the direct connection between my every single transaction and spending categories. I want to apply budgets to my actual actions, but not to adjust my actions to the budget fields.
Well, you can get used to it though. Once their concept is in your head, you're cool. However, they don't have schedules (or I didn't find them). If there are schedules, they did the great job to hide them very well. Otherwise, it's even more surprising how they did such a solid system and have no schedules there. To my understanding, schedule of transactions is a very important tool to proper funds management.
Overall I liked the mvelopes the most, however, they miss the schedule and they are pretty expensive. They deliver a nice set of functionality though. I'll keep them in mind, however, their "envelope" concept is an awkward for me. I also need to see how easily they will let me go out of the trial. ;)
clearcheckbook.com looks nice and very simple. It has no loan type of accounts though. And interface is not very good. Its dashboard could be more effective and much more informative. Not that "linked", mostly manual tool. I liked it minimalism, but I hated it at the same time. Overall, it's a nice free tool, has Google and Mac OS dashboard widgets, some AJAX in a appropriate places, but can't make me stick to it.
Originally, Quicken Online sounded like a good choice, but it misses split transactions. A no-go for me, I have too many split transactions, to keep everything in order. They also miss budgets. Very important for me, almost no-go. The reports are very weak. Not a big deal for me, they have some other way for building charts, besides, this is not actually something that I'd really miss. One of the most important things is that there are too many complains in their forum for paying for incomplete product. Not a good sign.
buxfer makes me feel a little bit dumb with all its tags. It's also not very "automatic", so relies a lot of manual processing. The splitting of transactions is very weird process. It looks like it was done just check the box in the feature list, but nobody thought about people who'll be using it. As I already said, tags, words, groups: all these are very confusing jargon. I would prefer to stick to common sense ones or to be clear on the correct usage.
P.S. I'll try to keep my requirements list updated as soon as I'll recall more features that I depend on. ;)
- Accounts for Savings, Checkings, Credit Cards, Loans (different types of, as well as giving and receiving).
- Ability to add transactions manually and sync them later through uploading any popular data format available by the Download function from the banks. Having system download the data automatically would require me to give up the passwords to it, so I am pretty concerned about sense for this function to me.
- Split transactions (one transaction split into several categories, like Household and Food, for example). Categories management as well (custom, etc).
- Schedule transactions and payments by loan, making sure that loan payments are also coming as a split transaction, separating the body of credit and interest.
- Reports, not much of them, mostly Where did I spend my money during period of time?
- Budgets, both monitoring and planning. Different budget templates are also a plus.
- Adding accounts manually, but not only those that's got Internet access.
- Notifications by e-mail and export to Calendar.
- Import Quicken data would be a huge plus, I'll be moving from Mac Quicken.
As for now, I'm going to give a try to
Wondering, why is it so hard to replicate Quicken for Mac, iBank 3 or Moneydance online? Sounds like an easy thing that can become extremely sticky as soon as you provide million of ways to get connected to it. This is a kind of a thing that can be done in a new way, easier and friendlier, and can rock the market.
mint.com can't add transactions manually, so it's out of my list. But it was pretty nice though. It's bad that it misses this functionality and it's very basic for me. However, people say that mint.com still in beta, so there are chances that they finally will decide to deliver this function. I'd be happy to take a look at it then.
moneycenter.yodlee.com looks like it can do everything for me, however, I couldn't pass through linking accounts to it. I couldn't find Bank of America Credit Card there (well, it is in the list, but can't get linked), and I couldn't add an account manually (while it advises me to, it never allows me ;). So, it's out of the list also.
expensr.com has no split transactions, poor account management, no loan accounts, like for a car, or a student loans. No transaction schedule or I didn't find one. I liked it, but still no-go.
budgetpulse.com has no split transactions, account management is manual only, no differentiation on account types (either Checking, or Savings, or Credit card or whatever not), transactions management is pretty weird. It's mostly like an application to monitor your upcoming expenses and incomes and keep the balance. It gives you a bigger picture, but not your day-to-day tool. Not the one that I need.
budgettracker.com looks like the one that really can do everything I need. It's free for basic functionality and extra features cost $2.95/month. Pretty acceptable, however, the interface is very awkward to me. I'm coming from Mac Quicken, so I was looking for something similar, at least, in concepts. Well, budgettracker.com is close on concept, but very overloaded. Keeping in mind the Web application needs to have fewer steps them the desktop one (just because it's Web and every step doesn't have the same response time as on desktop application), the budgettracker.com is too much overcomplexified. But I think it'll become pretty useful as soon as you get used to it. Two things I do not like about it. First, it doesn't seems very reliable and I don't know what is the future of it (it looks like a very minor player on the market). Second, I didn't like to get to know that it's advertised on For Sale By Publisher here. This might be a business model, but doesn't sound like a very solid one.
mvelopes. This one is very expensive comparing to all other choices. It has got three plan.
- 2-Year Plan is $189.60, charged every two years and equals to $7.90/month,
- 1-Year Plan is $129.60, charged annually and equals to $10.80/month,
- Quarterly Plan is $39.60 and equals to $13.20/month.
Please note, due to security reasons, requests for cancellation can only be processed by chatting directly with a Customer Service Representative. As such, cancellation requests transmitted to us by any other means (e.g. email, voicemail, etc.) will not be honored.This means that they will try to feed me to their sales people before they will let me go. I hate that. But let's go ahead. In overall picture, mvelopes looks like a pretty solid product with a lot of functionality.
However there is one thing that makes it pretty tough for me. Originally, it's not intuitive transaction-based budget system. They are starting from the side of spending categories, called envelopes there. They don't care about your transactions (actually, they do, but don't make it straight-forwarded), but they do care about how much did you spend on each category.
I should say that their budgeting system is pretty nice and one of the best that I saw ever (even in the desktop applications). However, I need to be able to easier see the direct connection between my every single transaction and spending categories. I want to apply budgets to my actual actions, but not to adjust my actions to the budget fields.
Well, you can get used to it though. Once their concept is in your head, you're cool. However, they don't have schedules (or I didn't find them). If there are schedules, they did the great job to hide them very well. Otherwise, it's even more surprising how they did such a solid system and have no schedules there. To my understanding, schedule of transactions is a very important tool to proper funds management.
Overall I liked the mvelopes the most, however, they miss the schedule and they are pretty expensive. They deliver a nice set of functionality though. I'll keep them in mind, however, their "envelope" concept is an awkward for me. I also need to see how easily they will let me go out of the trial. ;)
clearcheckbook.com looks nice and very simple. It has no loan type of accounts though. And interface is not very good. Its dashboard could be more effective and much more informative. Not that "linked", mostly manual tool. I liked it minimalism, but I hated it at the same time. Overall, it's a nice free tool, has Google and Mac OS dashboard widgets, some AJAX in a appropriate places, but can't make me stick to it.
Originally, Quicken Online sounded like a good choice, but it misses split transactions. A no-go for me, I have too many split transactions, to keep everything in order. They also miss budgets. Very important for me, almost no-go. The reports are very weak. Not a big deal for me, they have some other way for building charts, besides, this is not actually something that I'd really miss. One of the most important things is that there are too many complains in their forum for paying for incomplete product. Not a good sign.
buxfer makes me feel a little bit dumb with all its tags. It's also not very "automatic", so relies a lot of manual processing. The splitting of transactions is very weird process. It looks like it was done just check the box in the feature list, but nobody thought about people who'll be using it. As I already said, tags, words, groups: all these are very confusing jargon. I would prefer to stick to common sense ones or to be clear on the correct usage.
P.S. I'll try to keep my requirements list updated as soon as I'll recall more features that I depend on. ;)
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Quicken for Mac v. ?
Being out of my laptop and out of my normal work place, I just realized that I'll also miss the Mac Quicken. I'm using it pretty often for keeping my budget on track.
Today, as I realized that I have nothing now, I started to revise the available online alternatives. Well, as I started with looking for a free ones, I ended up with mint.com and expensr.com. Few minutes later, I sadly found out that mint.com is aiming very different target then Quicken. The expensr.com is somewhat closer, however, I still didn't find it to be useful as much as Quicken.
It looks to me that the accounting software needs to stay desktop application. However, it would be a terrific idea to be able to sync the online and offline versions of Quicken, so I could use Quicken for basic operations online, and still keep my desktop version for full features.
It's sad that Intuit decided to keep Online Quicken as a separate product, that is not sync'ed and not connected with desktop ones. I would be happy to pay an extra few bucks for that.
Today, as I realized that I have nothing now, I started to revise the available online alternatives. Well, as I started with looking for a free ones, I ended up with mint.com and expensr.com. Few minutes later, I sadly found out that mint.com is aiming very different target then Quicken. The expensr.com is somewhat closer, however, I still didn't find it to be useful as much as Quicken.
It looks to me that the accounting software needs to stay desktop application. However, it would be a terrific idea to be able to sync the online and offline versions of Quicken, so I could use Quicken for basic operations online, and still keep my desktop version for full features.
It's sad that Intuit decided to keep Online Quicken as a separate product, that is not sync'ed and not connected with desktop ones. I would be happy to pay an extra few bucks for that.
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