The Insider News

Krebs on Security[^]:

Less than 24 hours after Oracle patched a dangerous security hole in its Java software that was being used to seize control over Windows PCs, miscreants in the Underweb were already selling an exploit for a different and apparently still-unpatched zero-day vulnerability in Java, KrebsOnSecurity has learned.

Channel 9[^]:

Learn about the latest and greatest C++ performance features. All hardware being produced by Intel, ARM and AMD is now mulit-core with each core supporting a rich instruction set supporting vectorization of ordinary C++ that uses 128-bit registers. Additionally, on chip GPU’s are going through their 3rd iteration in many hardware product lines thus making general purpose computing on the GPU important. This talk provides an accessible overview of all the new hardware and how C++ allows the developer to take advantage of it. We start with the engineering of auto-vectorization and auto-parallelization for existing unaltered C/C++ programs, progress to PPL and then tie in the new C++ AMP language extensions.

Grenouille Bouillie[^]:

Today’s 3D graphics are generated by hardware capable of filling petagazillions of pixels per second, so young readers may not realize that the memory bandwidth at the time made the simple task of filling the screen with polygons more than a few times per second a challenge in itself. Starglider 2 was smooth!… which, at the time, did not mean 60fps like today, more like 10-15 when the screen got crowded. Remember, this was the time where the boink demo was considered extremely cool. In summary, doing better than Starglider meant something like filling two thirds of the screen, having 15 objects on screen instead of 4, and remaining above 10 frames per second.

BrandonSavage.net[^]:

When I was first starting out in development, I thought that writing code was pretty easy. It took me a while (and a long learning process) before I realized that writing code is harder than it looks. Looking back on some of that first code, I wonder how it ever worked, how I avoided a serious security problem, and what I was thinking about when I wrote some of that code. Experience is the way that most of us learn how to write code, but experience is a lousy teacher: it gives the lesson after the test. Here are some ways you can improve your code writing right now.

CSharp on the Fritz[^]:

Some time ago, I ran across this conundrum: Why does Visual Studio continue to build projects when a dependent project failed to compile? So, I took it upon myself to figure out how to stop the Visual Studio compiler from building projects unnecessarily. That is: stop building immediately after it encounters an error. My solution took the form of a Visual Studio macro. For the uninitiated: that means writing some Visual Basic code to manage the IDE. For the initiated: You can cringe with me...

ZDNet[^]:

Like other PC hardware manufacturers, Dell's core business has been squeezed as tablets and mobile devices have started to take center stage as the device of choice for many in business and consumers alike. As someone who uses a variety of device but who principally uses desktop machines you might be forgiven for wondering what the fuss is about. After all, if your day is spent writing 'stuff,' creating multi-media content, entering invoices, manipulating spreadsheets or other CPU intensive activities, then the desktop really is the best tool for the job. At least for the time being. However, that cannot mask the secular trends with which Dell has been battling the last few years.

Errata Security[^]:

That's what's scary about the Aaron Swartz indictment. He was indicted for wire-fraud for concealing his "true identity", for doing what I do. But at no time was he asked for his true identity. His true identity was not needed to access the JSTOR documents. JSTOR allowed anybody from the MIT network to access their documents, and MIT allowed anybody to access their network without requiring identity. Let me repeat that: nobody asked Aaron for his true identity, but he was indicted for wirefraud for concealing his true identity. He was indicted for doing the same things I do every day.

The Verge[^]:

To say that Nolan Bushnell single-handedly created the arcade would probably be overstating it: coin-operated machines had been popular in America for decades by the time he got his start in the early '70s, and the pinball arcade had a storied (and notorious) spot in American history. It is also undeniable, however, that the video game arcade would not have happened without him. The video game arcade had its roots in 1971, when Computer Space, the first commercially sold, coin-operated video game, was designed by Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Though considered a failure at the time, the game was revolutionary, and formed the foundations of a new industry.

betanews.com[^]:

I really should heed my own advice. Yesterday I warned you that all preview versions of Windows 8 would expire. You had two choices -- upgrade to gold code or deal with a computer that reboots every two hours. Hopefully you went with the former, but I chose the latter with a desktop PC that I rarely use. I had the nerve to say to myself that "I will get it tomorrow".

Wired.com[^]:

For the last four and a half years, the iOS App Store has been a promised land for independent game developers. Teams consisting of only two or three people could develop and publish an app and have a real shot at hitting the top of the charts. Anybody could hit it big: a pair of Croatian brothers (Doodle Jump), a husband-and-wife team (Temple Run) or a construction worker with minimal programming experience (Geared). It was a modern-day gold rush. Those days are officially over. In fact, they ended in 2011.