2014/12/27

How To Stick To Your New Years Resolution - Anak IT Style


There are plenty of ways to stick your new years resolution. Whether it be to lose weight, take up a new good habit or get rid of an old bad habit, it takes commitment. Like A LOT! What if there is a way to get what you need to develop that habit all the way?

Beeminder - Be Mindful of your Goals

By making a pledge (for free) on Beeminder, it will help check on you if you are on track or not. If you stray too far, you lost your pledge. If you actually put a pledge (and this time, I mean actually pay for it like $10), that means you are invested in yourself to make sure that you achieve your goal. If you don't achieve it, you lose your $10. Check out the video below.


Now how do you make sure you achieve that new years resolution or that goal or that new good habit or getting rid of an old bad habit? Here are several web apps for you:

HabitRPG - Build a Habit While Playing RPG

Wanna play a game? No seriously, if you wanna build a habit, play at it with this nifty web app and game in RPG! And not only that, you can have more fun if you do it with a friend or more. Basically forming a party of other likeminded individuals who checks on each other to make sure that the goal is achieved.


Github - Social Coding While Networking

For those coders and programmers (and maybe designers) out there, you may have heard about Github. Well, if you wanna practice your coding skills or get better at what you do or even finish that IT project you promised your lecturer at your Uni, Github is the place to publish and get your work on track. Beeminder + Github is a powerful duo to keep track on whether you are actually progressing with your coding and designing of your project all the way to finishing an actual IT product. Get your hands on those keyboard and start coding away! Can't do it alone? Get a team and do it together with HabitRPG.

Duolingo - Learn a New Language in a Game

Ever wanted to learn Spanish but never got around to it? Learn it over on Duolingo. The app has a very intuitive interface and learning style to get you to understand and enjoy the language as you learn new words to use. I have learnt a few words and it was fun! Not only that, linking it with Beeminder will help keep in track of how far have I progress and how close I am to reaching my goal at the end. Duolingo has the following languages available:

  • Spanish
  • French
  • German
  • Italian
  • Dutch
  • Portuguese
  • Irish
  • Danish and
  • Swedish
Unfortunately, no Brunei Malay, Malaysian Malay, Indonesian Malay, and all of that Malay language and dialects. Check out the video below.


Remember, you don't have to do your new years resolution. Do it with a friend or your sibling or family. Get together, exercise, code, design, build a new good habit, get rid of a bad one. It's a lot more fun that way.

So, what's your new years resolution?


2014/12/18

Play Games While Learning to Code

There are a lot of online resources out there that teaches you to code or program. Here at Anak IT, we strive to make this learning experience fun and unique to everyone striving to be next best programmer or coder. So instead of struggling with textbooks, here are some online resources that teaches you to learn how to code while at the same time, play some games!

CodeCombat

Ever feel like swinging a sword or blocking with a shield with coding? You could if you played CodeCombat. This game teaches you Javascript, Coffeescript, Python, and a few other languages (currently at time of writing, still experimental). Your goal is predetermined by each dungeon. It’s free to play and learn!
Learn to code by playing codecombat at CodeCombat.com

Bonus: If you’re an expert already, you can create custom levels and design if you join their github project here. It uses CoffeeScript by the way.

Screeps

This one is new and upcoming on indiegogo. It is an MMO Strategy game but with less mouse-clicking and keyboard shortcuts, and more scripting with Javascript. Check out the video below

The simulation game was awesome. You may need some level of understanding with Object Orient Programming and Arrays before attempting to play this game but fun nonetheless! Feeling strategic? Support the project by contributing some funds for their game project and let’s play!

Hack ‘n’ Slash game

Lastly, there’s a game that plays quite similar to the Legend of Zelda world. But instead in this world, you can change… things. Like the behavior of each game element and object, the attributes, the stats, the modes, and much more! It doesn’t really teach you to code but you might be able to grasp the understanding of game elements through this game of what each asset can do if you change its state.


2014/12/11

Join Innovation Day 2014!

It is December, the perfect month to enjoy, take a vacation, kick-back and relax from our ever so busy lives. But guess what? Anak IT has been brewin' up an event that you might be interested in. In our efforts to introduce technology, programming and scripting to everyone, especially in Brunei, we are hosting Hour Of Code event, at iCentre. Check out our poster below:



Interested? Come and join us! Too busy? Ask your friends and family to take over for ya! Did I mention that you'll get some prizes to win if you attend? I think I didn't. Yes, there's prizes. Come down this weekend and expand your coding skills with creative games and apps and exploration in the world of programming, coding and audio mixmastering.

The event starts at 9am, this Saturday (13/12/2014) until 6pm. Help us spread the word!