I remember the first big lurching migrations in Developer’s Tools when the PowerPC came into view (CodeWarrior marked the move from Pascal to C), then subsequent to that OS 9 to OS X (moved from C to Objective-C) then the last big migration was from PowerPC to Intel. Now today we got Swift to mark the next migration from Objective-C to a faster language altogether.
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Testing, Testing: How Google And Amazon Can Help Make Websites Rock Solid – ReadWrite
It’s not unprecedented: Google already offers a testing suite for Android apps, though that’s focused on making sure they run well on smartphones and tablets, not testing the cloud-based services they connect to. If Google added testing services for the websites and services those apps connect to, it would have an end-to-end lock on developing for both the Web and mobile.
via Testing, Testing: How Google And Amazon Can Help Make Websites Rock Solid – ReadWrite.
Load testing websites and web-apps is a market whose time has come. I know where I work we have Project group who has a guy who manages an installation of Silk as a load tester. Behind that is a little farm of old Latitude E6400s that he manages from the Silk console to point at whichever app is in development/QA/testing before it goes into production. Knowing there’s potential for a cloud-based tool for this makes me very, very interested.
As outsourcing goes, the Software as a Service (SaaS) or Platform as a Service (PaaS) or even Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) categories are great as raw materials. But if there was just an app that I could login to, spin up some VMs install my load-test tool of choice and then manage them from my desktop, I would feel like I had accomplished something. Or failing that even just a toolkit for load testing with whatever tool du jour is already available (nothing is perfect that way) would be cool too. And better yet, if I could do that with an updated tool whenever I needed to conduct a round of testing, the tool would take into account things like the Heart Bleed bug in a timely fashion. That’s the kind of benefit a cloud-based, centrally managed, centrally updated Load Test service could provide.
And now as Microsoft has just announced a partnership with Salesforce on their Azure cloud platform, things get even more interesting. Not only could you develop using an existing toolkit like Salesforce.com, but host it on more than one cloud platform (AWS or Azure) as your needs change. And I would hope this would include unit test, load test and the whole sweet suite of security auditing one would expect for a webapp (thereby helping prevent vulnerabilities like HeartBleed OpenSSL).
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TrueCrypt, An Open-Source Whole-Disk Encryption System, Leaves Users High And Dry
More word on TrueCrypt closing up shop and taking out one of the best full disk encryption utilities available for free or for money.
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Justin.tv gets rid of its archives, discontinues premium service
Always remember, clouds may come and clouds may go but always cover your butt. Get local copies of everything even when it seems like a rock solid, long term player. If all your stuff is in Google’s Cloud, can you really say you “own” your videos hosted there? I’m sure more than a few people felt the same way about any of their Justin.tv videos too.
Pioneering live video streaming site Justin.tv is getting rid of all of its archived content, and won’t offer the ability to record and archive any live streams going forward. The company made the announcement in a blog post this week, which read in part:
“We found that more than half of our VODs are unwatched (with 0 or 1 total views), while the vast majority are rarely watched (with 10 or less views). This data was essential in better understanding how our service is being used. (…) It’s quite clear: JTV is a home for live broadcasts. Viewers come to justin.tv because they want to consume content and interact with their communities in real-time.”
The changes will go into effect on June 8, which is also when Justin.tv will delete all previously archived content. Also affected will be broadcasters who have been paying for a premium account, which previously…
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Here’s what you need to know about the sudden and mysterious death of TrueCrypt
Not just weirded out but truly Disturbing. TrueCrypt has shutdown. Outside of PGP, there or unix freeware alternatives there isn’t a free desktop full-disk encryption utility for Windows. This is like Lavabit.com vanishing into thin air. Wonder if it’s related to Edward Snowden like Lavabit was.
The web security scene is thoroughly weirded out following the abrupt and inexplicable closure of the TrueCrypt project.
TrueCrypt was an anonymously authored piece of disk encryption software that came well-recommended — even Edward Snowden was keen on teaching people how to use it. It allowed users to create hidden volumes whose very existence would only be revealed with a secret password. This “plausible deniability” aspect was designed to protect users facing physical or legal attackers, who would remain ignorant of the secret compartment’s existence and would therefore not start breaking kneecaps or threatening jail terms in order to find the password.
Any excuse for an XKCD comic:
So long…
Sometime on Wednesday, a message went up on the TrueCrypt web page, announcing that the software was “not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues,” before going on to state:
“This page exists only to help migrate…
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Surface Pro 3 isn’t a superb tablet (but that may be OK)
There’s a difference between a tablet and a pen tablet. MS really committed to the pen tablet back in 2002 with Win XP Tablet Edition. That’s when OneNote hit the market and it’s been a pen friendly app from the get go. I challenge all competitors to achieve the level of function MS has achieved with the Surface Pro with a pen stylus. If you want or demand to use a pen with your tablet, go Surface Pro. If you want to just sit back and tap/swipe/read get just a tablet, not a pen tablet.
Since last week, I’ve been using the Surface Pro 3 review unit Microsoft loaned me on a nearly full-time basis. I normally use a Chromebook(s goog) for my computing activities, both work and personal, so it has been a bit of an adjustment. So far, though, the Surface Pro 3 has worked quite well for me, at least as a laptop.
The device isn’t just a laptop, though — without the optional $129 Type Cover, it’s far more of a tablet. So after getting through my work days, I’ve put my current tablets aside — an iPad Air(s aapl) and Google Nexus 10 — and used the Surface Pro 3 as a slate.
For me, the Surface Pro 3 doesn’t work better than either of the tablets I normally use. It’s larger, heavier — about the same weight as the initial iPad — doesn’t have some of the tablet…
View original post 722 more words
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ARM targets enterprise with 32-core, 1.6TB/sec bandwidth beastie • The Register
The Register’s logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Speaking of speeds and feeds, ARM claims that when running at 2GHz, the CoreLink CCN-508 can deliver up to 1.6TB/sec of usable system bandwidth – and that’s “T” as in “tera”. When equipped with DDR4 memory, its four-channel memory system can nudge up to around 75GB/sec.
via ARM targets enterprise with 32-core, 1.6TB/sec bandwidth beastie • The Register. Goodbye Calxeda, SeaMicro. Tilera, hello ARM! I’m so happy to see a project like this see light of day and hopefully get picked up by a licensee of ARM. If this part can find it’s way into a shipping product whatever device, appliance, gateway or server it might be that would be fantastic. ARM is predicting pretty high throughput capability on this chip. I just wish they had an equally capable memory bus or memory controller. Four channels of DDR4 RAM will net you only 75GB/sec bandwidth when coupled up with this chip. But we shouldn’t be too much a perfectionist and demand the full theoretical throughput of 1.6TB (at least not yet). This is the perfect experimental testing ground to see what hybrid of NVRAM and DRAM might be able to inch up the performance on the memory bus. I’m specifically referencing something like the IBM/SanDisk UltraDIMM and similar products like it that would act as an integrated memory layer resident in the DIMM slots on a well designed custom motherboard. That to me would mark the entry into a new class of high speed computing for general usage or even cloud-type data center usage. I know cloud providers prefer virtualized everything, virtual machines, virtual storage, virtual networking. I just hope that a low power, high throughput CPU is matched up with something equal to it’s I/O capabilities.
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Take Control with Twitter Lists
I started using lists, but then I stopped. Now I’m back at it again, and will start using them to keep up with the flood of tweets. Really great tips and will be definitely checking out Tweetdeck. More columns means better use of my screen real estate.
Carpet Bomberz Inc. 