Early this week Gnash 0.8.8 was released. Despite the small increment in version number, which would make this seem like a minor maintenance release, the difference between version 0.8.8 and the earlier 0.8.7 is like night and day.
FuXi -- Python-based, bi-directional logical reasoning system for the semantic web from the folks at the Open Knowledge Foundation. (via About Inferencing) Harness the Power of Being an Idiot -- I learn by trying to build something, there's no other way I can discover the devils-in-the-details. Unfortunately that's an incredibly inefficient way to gain knowledge. I basically wander around...
The end of the road for the Nexus One (LWN) -- The pessimistic among us can be forgiven for concluding that the battle for open handsets is being lost. The carriers determine which devices will be successful in the market, and they have absolutely no interest in openness. Customers are irresistibly drawn to heavily advertised, shiny devices with low...
Conflict Minerals and Blood Tech (Joey Devilla) -- electronic components have a human and environmental cost. I remember Saul Griffith asking me, "do you want to kill gorillas or dolphins?" for one component. Now we can add child militias and horrific rape to the list. (via Simon Willison) Meteor -- an open source HTTP server that serves streaming data...
Conflict Minerals and Blood Tech (Joey Devilla) -- electronic components have a human and environmental cost. I remember Saul Griffith asking me, "do you want to kill gorillas or dolphins?" for one component. Now we can add child militias and horrific rape to the list. (via Simon Willison) Meteor -- an open source HTTP server that serves streaming data...
After weeks of concern about the "catastrophic state of it's finances" and an indefiniete delay in the release of version 2010.1, the French website LeMagIT is reporting that Mandriva has been saved by new investors.
Adobe has, at least temporarily, ended support for Flash Player on 64-bit Linux. No updated version is available. Adobe's message for 64-bit Linux users, at least for now, is "No Flash for you!"
In this podcast interview, Apache co-founder Brian Behlendorf discusses the CONNECT project and the role data can play in improving patient care and the medical system.
I first ran into what turns out to be a recurring problem when I installed Pardus 2009 last fall. The installer would lock up. Since then I have run into an almost identical problem in openSUSE11.2, Slackware 13.1 and SalixOS 13.1. It appears that the wireless chipset as implemented in these netbooks conflicts with the ssb module, causing the system to freeze.
This week I am taking FreeBSD 8.0 for a spin. So far, I like it enough that it will probably be my normal desktop environment. It seems to have the right stuff: my PC seems markedly faster. FreeBSD's slogan is...
Best way to teach programming to children?
What motivates you to become a programmer?
How to activate a Motorola Droid without a Verizon data plan
How to measure Facebook activity with the Facebook API and Perl
What's new in Photoshop CS5Share knowledge, ask questions on O'Reilly Answers today.
Wikileaks Launched on Stolen Documents (Wired) -- Wired claims the first set of documents was obtained by running a Tor node that users connected to ("exit node") and saving the plaintext that was sent to the users, without their knowledge. Reminds me of the adage that nothing big in Silicon Valley starts without being some degree of evil first:...
PSTSDK -- Apache-licensed code from Microsoft to read Outlook files. Covered by Microsoft's Open Specification Promise not to assert related patents against users of this library. Cheap Android Tablet -- not multitouch, but only $136. Good for hacking with in the meantime. (via Hacker News) Real-Time Collaborative Editing with Websockets, node.js, and Redis -- uses Chrome's websockets alternative to...
Google Hiring by the Lake Wobegon Strategy -- having just run some interviews myself, I recognise the wisdom in what they say. Another hiring strategy we use is no hiring manager. Whenever you give project managers responsibility for hiring for their own projects they'll take the best candidate in the pool, even if that candidate is sub-standard for the...
To whatever part of the general non-geek public is even aware of Linux the names "Linux" and "Ubuntu" are all but interchangeable. Over the past few years I've come to the conclusion that this state of affairs is, at best, unfortunate.
I knew in advance that venting my frustrations with Ubuntu in the form of an article yesterday would stir up a hornet's nest. [...] Having read all the comments I'd like to clarify my thoughts on the subject.
Common MySQL Queries -- a useful reference. MySociety's Next 12 Months -- two new projects, FixMyTransport and "Project Fosbury". The latter is a more general tool to help people organise their own campaigns for change. riak -- scalable key-value store with JSON interface. (via joshua on Delicious) Notes from NoSQL Live Boston -- full of juicy nuggets of info...
Epigrams in Programming -- all from the remarkable Alan Perlis. By the time I learned that he was responsible for such gems as "Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon", "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing", and "Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to...
This post shows how to write a web service using Test-Driven Development. Our source code example is the exemplary active_merchant contribution to Ruby on Rails. It reveals how developer tests can correctly attack remote web services. Programmers writing clients (or servers) for any kind of web service should use these techniques. My next post will extend this one into the Abstract Test Pattern.
PHP/SQL Programming Certificate — The PHP/SQL Programming Certificate series is comprised of four courses covering beginning to advanced PHP programming, beginning to advanced database programming using the SQL language, database theory, and integrated Web 2.0 programming using PHP and SQL on the Unix/Linux mySQL platform.
