Ten years ago, we always provided equipment for delegates to use during courses. Delegates had their own desktop systems at work for the most part, and moving those into a training room was impractical. But times have changes, and more often than not these days - for programming courses such as
Python especially - most delegates use their own laptops. Not only does that mean they have the environment that they'll be using late on available to them during the course, but it also means they can retain any notes they take and examples they have written.
But the move to delegate's own computers has brought a new issue us - their systems are not loaded with the various example data files that we may use for exercises during the course. It's easy enough to download the files as they're required, but getting everyone to put in a URL each time data's needed is a bit of a bind. So - in response to customer feedback last week - I've provided a single short URL that allows delegates to grab all of the data files in one go.
http://melksh.am/coursedata
That runs a PHP script ...
<?php
# Section here that checks that whc_data is present, correct and up to date
$result = `tar czf - whc_data`;
header("Content-type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=whc_data.tgz");
header("Pragma: no-cache");
header("Expires: 0");
print $result;
?>
Want to learn more about the short but clever stuff here? It's covered on our
PHP courses
We remain happy to provide systems for delegates to use on ANY course, and always carry one or two spare machines with us for customer use, even if advised that they'll be using their own. For courses such as Linux, Apache httpd and Tomcat, we still prefer and expect delegates to use our machines as we reconfigure a number of admin settings during the course, which delegates won't want to do to their own systems! (written 2013-07-05, updated 2013-07-15)
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
G401 - Well House Consultants - On Site courses [139] Just provide a room and the students - (2004-12-03)
[191] Setting up a training room for a course - (2005-01-27)
[213] Off to Munich - (2005-02-13)
[241] Dress for training - (2005-03-10)
[382] Central London Courses - Perl, PHP, Python, Tcl, MySQL - (2005-07-18)
[438] Fair system for travel and accommodation expenses - (2005-09-07)
[439] You cant - (2005-09-08)
[1027] Cue the music, I'm happy. - (2007-01-09)
[1465] Perl, PHP, Python, Tcl, Linux, MySQL, Ruby courses ... - (2007-12-09)
[1600] Cambidge - Tcl, Expect and Perl courses - (2008-04-04)
[1781] Reception - (2008-09-01)
[2041] httpd, Tomcat and PHP course enhancements - (2009-02-14)
[2309] Lua training class in Spanish - (2009-07-29)
[2311] Floor to ceiling - (2009-07-30)
[2801] Binary data handling with unpack in Perl - (2010-06-10)
[2810] A course review - for the tutor to complete - (2010-06-14)
[2928] Public (scheduled) or private course? Book direct, or through a third party? - (2010-08-19)
[2956] On site course - travel and accommodation expenses - (2010-09-14)
[3131] Lua, Tcl, Python; Worldwide training classes - (2011-01-14)
[3137] Training Classes - should the training company provide a system for each delegate to use? - (2011-01-18)
[3691] Back in Cambridge to give a Lua course - (2012-04-09)
[3715] Changing face - Filton - (2012-05-01)
[3898] The course must go on - improvements to tutor travel plans, with immediate effect - (2012-10-17)
[3950] 10 reasons why I travel the night before a course starts - (2012-12-10)
[4230] Well House Consultants - course prices for 2014 - (2013-12-26)
[4602] Training course and hotel room prices - 2016 - (2015-12-31)
[4739] A year of changes for Lisa and Graham Ellis, and Well House - (2017-05-27)
[4769] Python, Tcl, Lua and other Open Source programming courses for 2018 - (2017-12-31)
G303 - Well House Consultants - During the course [56] Dress Code - (2004-09-20)
[273] Course Picture - (2005-04-09)
[342] The evening after the course - (2005-06-09)
[455] A Stengthening day - (2005-10-04)
[570] Features and Benefits - (2006-01-20)
[640] Training Centre Pictures - (2006-03-09)
[670] Architectural Heritage - Devizes - (2006-04-04)
[1035] Longer hours and better value courses - (2007-01-15)
[1245] Ensuring that our tutor answers YOUR questions - (2007-06-25)
[1363] One computer per delegate, or pair programming? - (2007-09-23)
[1420] The Learning Perl crew, October 2007 - (2007-11-03)
[1459] Interactive training, and advancing techniques further - (2007-12-05)
[1466] Effective Java training - the bootcamp approach - (2007-12-09)
[1816] Holt on holt - (2008-09-29)
[2342] Training Classes in other tongues - (2009-08-10)
[2560] Training comparison to QA Training, Learning Tree, GB Direct. - (2010-01-02)
[3233] C / C++ Course Lunch - sitting out at the West End - (2011-04-07)
[3588] Learning about how to help people learning - and retaining - (2012-01-21)
[3771] Fine evening, country walk from Melksham - pictures - (2012-06-21)
[4558] Well House Consultants - Python courses / what's special. - (2015-10-28)
Some other Articles
How do I post automatically from a PHP script to my Twitter account? Introducing your product to Well House Consultants - single, personally tuned email pleaseSetting up your MacBook Air as a mobile broadband routerIn the hills above Harlech, and on the coast tooUsing your own laptop on our courses - now even easier!West Coast (of Wales) - railway and stations in picturesSoft furnishings up a Welsh MountainSimple OO demonstration in C++, comparison to PythonAllocating memory dynamically in a static language like CExploring the area ... Ynys, near Harlech