The Insider News

8th Light[^]:

There are too many databases in the world with completely unencrypted passwords. Even when databases have encrypted passwords, they typically do not implement protection that is strong enough to keep them from being stolen, and used maliciously. With the advancements in computing technology, we now need another approach to store passwords and keep them safe from prying eyes. Fortunately, you don't have to be a cryptography expert to use good password protection.

All this[^]:

The new version of iBooks allows you to read books in a continuous scroll instead of page by page. This has, surprisingly, set off an argument on which is the better way to read an ebook. I don’t get it. Paging is clearly an artifact of the technology of paper books, a technology I love deeply, but one that doesn’t make a lot of sense in an ebook reader.

Smashing Coding[^]:

JavaScript engines such as Google’s V8 (Chrome, Node) are specifically designed for the fast execution of large JavaScript applications. As you develop, if you care about memory usage and performance, you should be aware of some of what’s going on in your user’s browser’s JavaScript engine behind the scenes.

Numeric Javascript[^]:

The Numeric Javascript library allows you to perform sophisticated numerical computations in pure javascript in the browser and elsewhere. Although Javascript does not reach the same performance as native programs, the Numeric Javascript library is carefully tuned to obtain the best possible performance for a Javascript program.

danielmiessler.com[^]:

tcpdump is the premier network analysis tool for information security professionals. Having a solid grasp of this über-powerful application is mandatory for anyone desiring a thorough understanding of TCP/IP. Many prefer to use higher level analysis tools such as Ethereal Wireshark, but I believe this to usually be a mistake. In a discipline so dependent on a true understanding of concepts vs. rote learning, it's important to stay fluent in the underlying mechanics of the TCP/IP suite. A thorough grasp of these protocols allows one to troubleshoot at a level far beyond the average analyst, but mastery of the protocols is only possible through continued exposure to them.

Raspberry Pi[^]:

We’re very pleased to announce the immediate availability of RISC OS for the Raspberry Pi. First released in 1987, its origins can be traced back to the original team that developed the ARM microprocessor. RISC OS is owned by Castle Technology Ltd, and maintained by RISC OS Open Ltd. This version is made available free of charge to Raspberry Pi users.

cek.log[^]:

We are finally, really, truly, on the cusp of a NUI explosion. We’ve seen massive improvements in the real-world usage of touch (iPhone), voice (Siri), and computer vision (Kinect) the the last few years. I think this is just the beginning. There will be huge strides made in voice and touch based input, but in my view, the area where our world will be rocked the most is in computer vision. Cameras are everywhere. They are dirt cheap. They can see things we can’t. And as amazing as the tech in Kinect is at decoding all those signals, interpreting them, and figuring out your body’s intent is, you haven’t seen anything yet.

MAA[^]:

The creator of the popular web comic xkcd muses about the merits of pen and paper versus computer coding, tic-tac-toe, and where he sits on the scale of intellectual purity.

PCWorld[^]:

Printing anything from anywhere is no longer fantasy. In fact, it's often a necessity if using a smartphone, tablet, or laptop is an essential part of your daily workflow. Cases in point: You receive a huge spreadsheet attachment on your smartphone, and need a way to view the document without squinting. Or you revise a PowerPoint deck just as your plane lands, and need to print it before you arrive at a meeting. Or maybe you’re just staying with family out of town, and need to print a boarding pass directly from your phone.

Ars Technica[^]:

Currently, there are four major types of e-voting around the world that are worth keeping an eye on: Brazil’s homegrown direct recording electronic (DRE) setup, Australia’s open-source software, Estonia’s Internet voting, and a Spanish startup’s efforts to expand what’s been called "crypto-voting." Each of these approaches has its own unique set of problems, but the primary obstacles they present for many voting officials and computer scientists is their lack of ability to verify source code and expense.

Ars Technica[^]:

At BUILD in Redmond today, Microsoft announced its plans to improve C++ standards conformance in its Visual Studio development environment, and talked about ways in which C++ would become a better, regularly updated, modern programming language. Microsoft developer and C++ standard committee chair Herb Sutter introduced work being done by the C++ community to make the language better, and also discussed the work being done by Microsoft to make its own compiler better.

Atomic Spin[^]:

So it turns out C is a functional language too! On the way to Strange Loop this year, John Van Enk and I were trying to find a way to write some C code that avoided dynamic (malloc) allocation. We discovered a technique that allows you to forgo the use of malloc in many common cases. It also enables very pure functional C code. You doubt? I shall demonstrate!

Kenny Kerr[^]:

When I first started writing concurrent software, C++ had no support for synchronization. Windows itself had only a handful of synchronization primitives, all of which were implemented in the kernel. I tended to use a critical section unless I needed to synchronize across processes, in which case I used a mutex.... Today the synchronization landscape has changed dramatically. There are a plethora of choices for the C++ programmer.

Elm[^]:

If you have worked with AJAX or node.js or any other callback heavy framework, you have probably been to Callback Hell. Your whole application ends up being passed around as callbacks, making the code extremely difficult to read and maintain. The resulting tangled mess of code is often pejoritively called spaghetti code, a term borrowed from the days of goto.

Rodrigo Alves Vieira[^]:

Suppose you’re learning Python, you should try to build a copy of the cat program with it or try to implement tree, for example. Unix programs are often small and focused on doing something unique and doing it very well (read more about the concept), which is also ideal for learning to program. Just pick up a single problem and solve it in the best way possible.

Hack a Day[^]:

Carlos started his investigations into the properties of prime numbers by drawing a series of circles on a number line in AutoCAD. These circles were of diameters of all the integers, and going down the number line, these circles started to have an interesting, chaotic pattern (see above picture). Carlos found that whenever two circles intersected, that position was a prime number. It’s really nothing more than a Sieve of Eratosthenes, but it’s a very cool-looking visualization nonetheless.