More Mainframe Fun
I recently "released" (he says in quotes because it's still sub-alpha, albeit functional) PigIron 0.3 Java Class Library for IBM VM SMAPI. I blogged previously about PigIron. Working on PigIron has made me refresh my view of mainframe programming resources.
Envycasts Advanced ActiveRecord Review
DCT readers of my posts know how interested I am in the power of vidcasts, especially ones that fully engage the viewer. I recently received an invitation from Gregg Pollack of Envycasts, to check out their new Advanced ActiveRecord vidcast. And the verdict is...
FIJI Fun - Still Crazy After All These Years
In 2001 I posted the last public changes of my ForthIsh Java Interpreter to SourceForge. There was a lot of interest in Java interpreters at that time. FIJI was a pretty good cut but the arcaneness of addressing Java classes in RPN insured a manageably small user community, so to speak.
Jump ahead to this week when
Embrace Your Constraints: Code Contests
Regardless of our background, programming language of choice, or political persuasion, most developers have at least one thing in common: we enjoy building things. As full-on members of the creative class, however, we're also likely to have a million ideas for useful gadgets, web services, and applications, but comparatively little time to execute on them. Sigh.Fortunately, given modern web savvy tool sets, it's easier than ever to launch a website or application. In fact, yo
Google Launches Google Video For Business
The company is using its Google Apps business to provide the infrastructure necessary to search videos, restrict access to them, rate them, comment on them, and download them.
Busy Week For E-Discovery
Three new product releases aimed at the electronic discovery market close out the last week of summer.
Content Management Help For Law Firms
Lawyers need a little love from content management systems, too, and the recent product and partnership announcements from Open Text and Interwoven should fit the bill nicely.
BlackBerry Wins Versus Windows Mobile For Google Apps Mail
After a flawed experience with one of the first Windows Mobile-based Motorola Q's, Microsoft outfitted me with a Samsung SCH-i760 smartphone which, from an industrial design perspective, is one of the best designs for a smartphone I've ever experienced (more on that in a second). Unfortunately, integrating WinMobile 6.0's version of Outlook with Google Apps-based Gmail was so problematic that I gave up in favor of a company-furnished BlackBerry. Bla
Smaller Businesses Drive SaaS Growth In China
Worldwide, the market for SaaS is projected to grow 25% annually and reach $19.3 billion by 2011. Much of the fuel for the growth comes from China, where the annual growth rate is pegged 33% and almost 20% of the total market ($3.8 billion). And in China, the SMBs are the growth engine -- 42 million of them contributed 60 % of GDP and by 2012 there will be 50 million.
Zi Renews Nokia Contract
The multiyear contract to provide its text products to Nokia calls for a 100% increase in first year revenue over the existing contract, the company says.
Learning about Text Analytics
I spend a lot of time on teaching materials on text analytics: articles, presentations, and courses. I've gotten positive feedback about my introductory materials, which I designed for practitioners (like myself) rather than for academics or researchers. There are great resources out there — technical papers and white papers, case studies, software, etc. — but you have to get the basics down first...
Leaked Documents, Unintended Access: That's Also Life In The Cloud
Running a business in the cloud, or even part of a business, is great for so many reasons: It's cheap (sometimes free), incredibly convenient, and simple. But life on your private little cloud can get unintentionally, and unknowingly, crowded with extra eyes if you're not very careful.
MapReduce: And You Were There
There's been a lot of buzz lately about Google's MapReduce framework for speeding up the processing of large datasets. It makes you wonder, did Google just dream this up in last couple years while all of the database vendors were sleeping? Or, paraphrasing Isaac Newton, were they standing on the shoulders of giants? The answer is, both.
Smartphone Apps For The Rest Of Us
Even if you use Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon -- or don't have an iPhone for your AT&T connection -- you can still get games, music, location-based services, and other mobile content on your phone. Here's how.
Acquia Expands Its Commercial Drupal Private Beta
It appears that Acquia, the startup focused on releasing a commercial version of open source content management system Drupal, is moving briskly toward a full launch. Its private beta program has kicked into high gear this week with a new batch of invitations being given out at both Drupalcon Szeged and by TechCrunch. Going forward, Acquia plans to dole out about 100 new invi
Comcast Orders Extra-Large Customer Caps
Yesterday, DSL Reports broke the news that Comcast is planning to implement a 250-GB monthly bandwidth limit, starting in October. All I can say is that it's about time.
No Blueprint Yet For Private Clouds
Many people don't like the concept of "private clouds," including my colleague John Foley and Sam Johnston ("The case against 'private clouds' "), since by definition cloud computing involves letting people plug into shared IT services in data centers that aren't their own. As oxymorons go, though, private cloud computing doesn't st
Google Unveils Android's App Store
A competitor to Apple's App Store, the Android Market will allow users to browse, purchase, install, and rate applications on Android handsets.
Breaking News: Google Announces Android Market, Tackles Apple
Today Google announced its competitor to the iPhone Apps Store, the Android Market. The market will be a place where content developers can publish applications for Android phones, and Android users can go to discover and download them to their devices. Booyah!
Open Source Code Auditing By Design, Not Happenstance
If there's any one thing you hear said consistently about open source, it's the security benefits. My take: given how much we depend on software, we need to stop assuming open source = secure, and take steps to make sure that happens. Here's one idea how.
Why MapReduce Matters to SQL Data Warehousing
Greenplum and Aster Data have both just announced the integration of MapReduce into their SQL MPP data warehouse products. So why do I think this could be a big deal? The short answer is "Because MapReduce offers dramatic performance gains in analytic application areas that still need great performance speed-up." The long answer goes something like this...
Biden's Record Is Inconsistent On Cyber-Rights Issues
Joe Biden has a mixed record on privacy and Internet civil liberties issues. He often votes with the FBI and media companies against consumers and citizens. He sponsored legislation designed to make it illegal to circumvent copy-protection -- even on content and devices you legally own. He also sought to weaken encryption, and introduce a bill like the controversial PATRIOT Act long before 9/11. But in other areas he's defended privacy and cyber-rights.
Micosoft's SQL Strategy For Massive Data Sets
Cloud computing service providers like Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo are all hard at work on a new generation of parallel data processing tools that will make it easier for each company to store and analyze enormous data sets such as search logs and click streams.
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