Saturday, July 26, 2008

Free College Education, Sort Of

MIT is making its entire course curriculum available for free on the internet. The only thing missing is the professor. Some of the classes that you can see have video, many have lecture notes and presentations.


The catalog has over 1800 classes and pretty much every topic area is covered.


They make a point that by using this site, you are not getting an MIT education. You're just using their materials:


MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.


What is MIT OpenCourseWare?


MIT OpenCourseWare is a free publication of MIT course materials that reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.



  • OCW is not an MIT education.

  • OCW does not grant degrees or certificates.

  • OCW does not provide access to MIT faculty.

  • Materials may not reflect entire content of the course.


You can read more in the FAQ.




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Thursday, July 24, 2008

5 Free Online Editors

Editors and word processors are personal things. Some people like command line editors like vi and others hate them. Some people want a GUI but want it to just sort of sit there, others want bells and whistles.


I like online editors because I use a lot of different computers. I tend to store text documents and source code on-line. That way it doesn't matter where I am, I always have my documents and source code available to me (as long as I have an internet connection).


Here are a few different editors (all available online) for you to try. I've run into quite a few editors (amongst other sites) that require MSIE. All of the links below will work with Firefox.


Big Huge Labs Writer - Nice, clean editor. Keyboard short cuts. Auto save. Simple, elegant. Distraction free writing.


Edit Pad - Very bare bones. Blank screen. Just start typing. If easy and free is your type, this is your editor.


Google Docs - Full featres, MS Office compatible, word processer. All the bells and whistles. Now with offline support.


Dark Copy - Another distraction free editor. Small area or full screen.


JavaScript VI - It doesn't get any more painful than this. If you hate VI, do not click this link. If you love VI, now you can access it from any computer.




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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

More Free Books

I can't believe I haven't blogged about this as yet. It's been around for a long time.


Baen books has the Baen Free Library. Now, I wouldn't call this their A+ catalog. Most of these are more frequently seen in the bargain section at Barnes and Nobles rather than a best seller list but some of these are hidden gems. There are also some books from the masters: Norton, Bujold, Hogan, Lackey, Laumer, Niven, Pournelle, Saberhagen and Turtledove.


This site is well worth a look and a bookmark. Heck, download them and put them on your laptop just in case you get stuck in an aitport some where. It might be fun to just browse them and find a new favorite.




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Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Free Sci-Fi Books

Tor has opened a new Sci-Fi community called tor.com. How appropriate. ;-)


There are blogs, forums, etc but the most important thing is the freebies. Free books to be exact. Some really good ones too. Scalzi, Carver, Turtledove, and lots more.


There are also free short works available.


Right now there are mote free novels available than stories but I expect that ratio to flip in time.


Get'em while they're hot!




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