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Delivered a session on Virtual Classrooms – best practices to School Teachers

I got an opportunity to present a session on etiquette and tips & tricks in the 5-day online workshop organized by IT Milan Seva Foundation and & NTU Kerala.  About 100 teachers from different schools across Kerala attended the event. The sessions were handled by experts in technology field and mine was on day-4. The program name was “പഞ്ചദിന ശാക്തീകരണ ശില്പശാല“, which formally concluded today. This stands here as my first ever technology session in Malayalam and, I am crediting this session also to my giving-back-to-community personal goal.

Best Practices Deck

Topics covered:

– Etiquettes

– Best Practices & tricks

– Google Calendar

– Google Forms

– Chrome extensions

Video recording of the same can be watched here.

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My wp-ShowGithubFile plugin is accepted by WordPress today!

Though I wrote the plugin initially for personal use, now the same is available for you to use in your WordPress sites.

Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-showgithubfile/

You can either download it from the directory, or install directly within your WordPress installation. Here is a live demo of the plugin:

001 package com.company;
002
003 import java.util.Arrays;
004
005 public class Main {
006
007     public static void main(String[] args) {
008
009         // New Customer wants to buy a bottle
010         Customer customer = new Customer();
011
012         // Customer Registration
013         customer.RegisterMe("+919999999999", PhoneType.APP ); // App or SMS?
014
015         // Assuming Registration successful
016
017         // Customer requests the token using a mobile app, or by sending SMS
018         String CustomerToken =  customer.giveMeAToken("695000"); // Pin code
019
020         if (CustomerToken != null) {
021             //  Assuming Customer gets the token and he goes to the Outlet
022         } else {
023             // Seems there are no slots available. Try again later.
024             return;
025         }
026
027
028         // At the Outlet, sales guy is scanning the token
029         Boolean OutletVerification = new Outlet().isTheTokenShownByCustomerValid(CustomerToken);
030
031         if (OutletVerification) {
032             // Assuming the validation is success
033             System.out.println("Customer says: Wow, I got the bottle!");
034         } else {
035             System.out.println("Sales guy says: Get lost!");
036         }
037     }
038
039     public enum PhoneType { APP, SMS };
040
041     private static class VQServer {
042         // Database
043         public String[] tokenDB = { "A", "B","C","D","E" };
044         public String[] Outlets = {"Outlet1", "Outlet2", "Outlet3"};
045
046         public void registerCustomer(String phoneNumber, PhoneType phonetype) {
047             // Register customer
048
049         }
050         public String requestNewTokenByCustomer(String pinCode) {
051             // Logic for - Token generation logic
052             // Logic for - Find nearest outlet using pinCode
053
054             // Send token by SMS if PhoneType is SMS
055
056             return "C"; // Sample token
057         }
058
059         public Boolean validateTokenByOutlet(String token) {
060             return Arrays.asList(tokenDB).contains(token); // Validate
061         }
062     };
063
064     static VQServer vqServer = new VQServer();
065
066     private static class Customer {
067
068         public String giveMeAToken(String pinCode) {
069             return vqServer.requestNewTokenByCustomer(pinCode);
070         }
071         public void RegisterMe(String phoneNumber, PhoneType phonetype) {
072             // Customer Registration
073             vqServer.registerCustomer(phoneNumber, phonetype);
074         }
075     }
076     private static class Outlet {
077         public Boolean isTheTokenShownByCustomerValid(String token) {
078             return vqServer.validateTokenByOutlet(token);
079         }
080     }
081 }
View in GitHub | Made with wp-showgithubfile plugin
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Microsoft Build 2020 – Highlights

Find my notes on Microsoft 2020 Build – virtual event, held on 19,20 & 21st May 2020.

Build Home – https://mybuild.microsoft.com/

Microsoft 365

  • Fluid Framework – A new framework to build distributed web applications. (in preview) [Link]
  • Project Cortex – Classify organization content using AI to topics. Knowledge base to improve employees’ organizational intelligence and productivity (in preview). Microsoft Graph based APIs will be available.[Link]
  • Microsoft Lists – Will have templates for quick lists, color formatting, and the ability to create alerts, track issues, assets, routines, contacts, and inventory for companies [Link]
  • Office Scripting [Link]
  • Outlook – Compose email messages with text prediction
  • Excel – New features – new capabilities, contextual experiences [Link]
  • Misc. – Office Add-In debugger Extension for VS Code

Teams

  • Teams to get customizable templates
  • Easily create Chatbots
  • Power Platform Integration
  • Developers can build and publish Teams app using Visual Studio and VS Code
  • Easy integration of custom apps and Power Apps using single click
  • Share Power BI reports in Teams
  • Schedule virtual appoints in Teams
  • Broadcast events and create studio productions from virtual stage

Reference: [Link]

Power Platform

  • Trying to bring in low-code RPA into Power Automate with the acquisition of Softomotive [Link]
  • New “Add to Teams” experience

Azure

  • Azure Synapse Link
    • Bringing database services and analytics together in real time [Link]
  • Azure ML
    • New “responsible machine learning” tools in AML. This will help developers understand, protect and control their models throughout the machine learning lifecycle. [Link][Link]
  • AI Supercomputer
    • New infrastructure available in Azure to train extremely large AI models [Link]
  • Azure Arc & Azure Stack Hub (updates)
    • Azure Arc – For customers who want to simplify complex and distributed environments across on-premises, edge and multicloud, Azure Arc enables deployment of Azure services anywhere and extends Azure management to any infrastructure [Link]
    • Azure Stack Hub – Azure Stack Hub broadens Azure to let you run apps in an on-premises environment and deliver Azure services in your datacenter [Link]
  • Azure SQL Edge (in preview)
    • Combines new capabilities such as data streaming and time series with in-database machine learning and graph features [Link]
  • Azure Quantum
    • One-stop-shop in Azure that gives you the freedom to create your own path to scalable quantum computing. [Link]

Developers

  • Visual Studio Codespaces (formerly Visual Studio Online) [Link]
    • Cloud-hosted, managed dev environments accessible from anywhere
  • Project Reunion
    • Unifying app development across the billion windows 10 devices [Link]
    • Breaking the barrier between Win32 and UWP APIs.
  • WSL / Windows Subsystem for Linux [Link]
    • Support for Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 distros
    • Run all Linux apps in WSL
    • GPU support
  • .NET
    • C# 9 – preview is available [Link]
  • Blazor
    • WebAssembly is out of preview
  • Microsoft Graph Services
    • productivity-focused services powered by Microsoft 365 and Azure, that are designed specifically for developers who are building high-value applications [Link]
  • Windows Package Manager
    • Native Package Manager for Windows 10 (in preview) [Link]

Certifications

  • Azure IoT Developer Specialty Certification

Misc.

  • Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare
    • Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare brings together trusted and integrated
      capabilities for customers and partners that enrich patient engagement and
      connects health teams to help improve collaboration, decision-making, and
      operational efficiencies [Link]
  • New Microsoft Edge