The Insider News

The Next Web[^]:

We’ve just received an invite from Microsoft to an event on May 21st where it will show off the next version of its Xbox console and media box. The next version of the company’s media play has been expected for a while, especially as Sony unveiled most of its PlayStation 4 at an event a few weeks ago. The next Xbox, which is code-named Durango, has been heavily rumored to include a large focus on entertainment and television content as well as games. A new, far more sensitive Kinect sensor has also been rumored for the event.

Free Culture Foundation[^]:

A handful of myths have become common defenses of the W3C’s plan for “Encrypted Media Extensions” (EME), a Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) scheme for HTML5, the next version of the markup language upon which the Web is built. These arguments obscure the threat this poses to a free and open web and why we must send a strong and clear message to the W3C and its member organizations, that DRM in HTML5 is a betrayal to all Web users and undermines the W3C’s self-stated mission.... The W3C exists to bring the vision of an undivided ‘One Web’ to its full potential, and DRM is antithetical to that goal.

GamesIndustry International[^]:

What's the future of crowdfunding? "I definitely think crowdfunding is going to be part of gaming going forward. I really like what it's doing," said Roberts. "There's this whole idea that one thing is the dominant platform. It used to be console's in, and then console's over and it's Facebook, now Facebook's over and it's mobile, now mobile is passé and it's tablet and free-to-play. I think as the industry gets bigger and it diversifies, there's room for many different things."

Dark Reading[^]:

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are steadily increasing in size and speed, creating new problems for enterprise defenses, according to a study published today. Arbor Networks' first quarter ATLAS report, which measures the size and speed of DDoS attacks, says the average size of a DDoS attack continues to grow at about 20 percent a year. The average attack during Q1 was about 1.77 Gbps, up from about 1.48 Gbps in 2012.

Scott Hanselman[^]:

I've been getting a LOT of Blog Comment Spam lately, just in the at two weeks. I run all my comments through the Akismet Service, and I pay for it. However, this particular flavor of spam has been making it through consistently. It has a pattern, through, and I'd been trying to figure it out when this LARGE comment showed up. Apparently while they were messing about trying to spam me, they posted their entire source template. I'm embedding it below as a Gist...

Visual Studio ALM + Team Foundation Server Blog[^]:

There’s a lot of good content on IntelliTrace and we’ve grabbed a few links here to have in one place. If you’ve got some time and want to get to know more about IntelliTrace in Visual Studio these are great places to go.

Nikolai Tillmann's Blog[^]:

Code Digger generates interesting values that show different behaviors of your .NET code. The result is a table showing for which inputs your code produces which outputs.... Under the hood, Code Digger uses the Pex engine and Microsoft Research’s Z3 constraint solver to systematically analyze all branches in the code, trying to generate a test suite that achieves high code coverage.

Haacked[^]:

In a recent post... I suggested that developers can and ought do a better job of testing their own code.... There was some interesting pushback in the comments. Some took it to mean that we should get rid of all the testers. Whoa whoa whoa there! Slow down folks. I can see how some might come to that conclusion. I did mention that my colleague Drew wants to destroy the role of QA. But it’s not because we want to just watch it burn. Rather, we’re interested in something better rising from the ashes. It’s not that there’s no need for testers in a software shop. It’s that what we need is a better idea of what a tester is.

Mathieu Fenniak[^]:

When you release your Web API, it’s carved into stone. It’s a scary commitment to never make an incompatible change. If you fail, you’ll have irate customers yelling in your inbox, followed by your boss, and then your boss’s boss. You have to support this API. Forever. Unless you version it, right? ... Before you struggle with how to version your API, I want you to know how to design your API to avoid future incompatibilities. It is possible to design your API in a manner that reduces its fragility and increases its resilience to change. The key is to design your API around its intent.

Julie Ann Horvath is not a robot.[^]:

About a month ago, I passed my one year mark at GitHub. Here's ten things I've learned...

Hal's (Im)Perfect Vision[^]:

When I joined Microsoft in early 1994 I discovered what I then considered a somewhat odd way of driving product development. I would sit in Bill’s reviews of product plans and many would have as a key goal of the release “Win Reviews”.... Recall that we are talking (effectively) pre-Internet. The dominant force in communicating information about computer hardware and software were a handful of print magazines. As the PC era reached its pre-Internet peak these publications had grown to the size of small (and sometimes not so small) phone books. And they were filled with reviews of new products and comparisons of competing products. Trying to decide between Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, and Lotus Ami Pro? Or Windows vs. OS/2?Articles in these magazines were going to weigh heavily in your decision process.

LinkedIn[^]:

They don’t prepare you for this in college or admit it in job interviews. The harsh reality is that if you are middle-aged, write computer code for a living, and earn a six-figure salary, you’re headed for the unemployment lines. Your market value declines as you age and it becomes harder and harder to get a job. I know this post will provoke anger, outrage, and denial. But, sadly, this is the way things are in the tech world. It’s an “up or out” profession.

ZDNet[^]:

Microsoft's Office team has run like clockwork for at least the past decade. The 5,000 or so Office engineers delivered a new version of Office every 2.5 to 3 years without fail. But these days, two or three years between new product releases is considered an eternity. While it's all well and good for the trains to run on time, the trains need to run a lot faster. In addition, these days, the different Office client, server and services trains don't all need to be on the same schedule.

Netsparker[^]:

I personally do not agree with the myth that hackers are always a step ahead. I think that the IT industry is way behind from where it should be. I am using the results of hundreds of web application security scans performed with Netsparker web application security scanner as an example to show that the IT industry can do much better in terms of security.

tech2.in.com[^]

One of the most controversial changes Microsoft made to Windows in its latest iteration - Windows 8 - is the removal of the Start button and menu. According to The Verge, the company wants to bring it back with Windows 8.1, which is also known as Windows Blue. While the button will make its comeback, the Start menu itself will still be absent.

Richard Banks[^]:

In Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 (VS 2012.1) Microsoft delivered a feature for the Ultimate edition called Code Map with the goal of visualising relationships in code. In Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 (VS 2012.2) they’ve extended the Code Map experience to include debugging support and the ability to generate code maps on the fly as a debugging session is conducted. If you saw the announcement then you may have had one of the following reactions. Reaction 1 would be something like “Oh. It’s in Ultimate. I don’t have it. I’ll ignore it”. The second might be similar to mine: “Is this really going to be that useful?”. After ignoring it for a bit I decided to answer that question for myself.

betanews.com[^]:

It seems to be fashionable at the moment to be negative about Windows 8. People like to whine about how the Modern UI gets in the way and how the rest of it is just Windows 7 with some of the furniture rearranged. Some analysts are even blaming Windows 8 for poor PC sales. Well, I’m sorry Windows 8 deniers, you’re wrong. I’ve used every major version of Windows since 3.1, I’ve been using Windows 8 since the Developer Preview versions and I think it’s Microsoft’s best effort yet.