The Insider News

Brent Ozar Unlimited[^]:

Hi. I’m a former developer who’s moved into database administration, and here’s what I wish somebody would have told me when I got started.

[LWN.net][^]:

Contemporary compilers are capable of performing a wide variety of optimizations on the code they produce. Quite a bit of effort goes into these optimization passes, with different compiler projects competing to produce the best results for common code patterns. But the nature of current hardware is such that some optimizations can have surprising results.... GCC provides an optimization option (-Os) with a different objective: it instructs the compiler to produce more compact code, even if there is some resulting performance cost. Such an option has obvious value if one is compiling for a space-constrained environment like a small device. But it turns out that, in some situations, optimizing for space can also produce faster code.

Intel Developer Zone[^]:

A couple of months ago, I was lucky enough to be asked if I would like to participate in an upcoming Intel challenge, known at the time as Ultimate Coder 2. Having followed the original Ultimate Coder competition, I was highly chuffed to even be considered. I had to submit a proposal for an application that would work on a convertible Ultrabook™ and would make use of something called Perceptual Computing. Fortunately for me, I'd been inspired a couple of days earlier to write an application and describe how it was developed on CodeProject - my regular hangout for writing about things that interest me and that haven't really been covered much by others.

Easel Blog[^]:

When you ask a web developer what makes good markup, you’ll probably get some mix of the following: readable code, separation of content and style, semantically meaningful markup, cross-browser/device support, graceful degradation, standards compliance, and performance. Each of these aspects of a markup are important, however, they can’t all be the highest priority.... The best developers understand these constraints and deliver markup that balances these factors in an ideal manner.

The Industry[^]:

As was evident with the insane adoption of iOS, developers – or lack thereof – will make or break a platform. Ubuntu is doing an incredible job making sure everything is as easy to access and implement as possible. Apps can be native, using OpenGL and QMP, with C, C++, and Javascript or can run as HTML5 web apps, independent of the browser. This is a huge factor for many developers, as it allows more flexibility in deciding what direction to take their applications. This option will help the platform a great deal, even if unintentional from the developers.

AllThingsD[^]:

Apple, Facebook, Twitter — all hacked. And there’s probably more to come. In the spate of large companies hacked in recent weeks, it seems that many of them have one thing in common. Many of them have visited one compromised web site specifically devoted to sharing information related to mobile development. It’s a hub for many companies concentrated on the mobile space, and it’s not just tech companies.

TechHive[^]:

When the Xbox 360 originally launched back in 2005—followed by the Wii and PS3 in 2006—the question was "which console should I buy?" A lot has happened in the gaming scene since then, between smartphones, tablets, streaming media, Ouya, and the rebirth of PC gaming—and that's just the beginning. Now the question becomes, "should I buy a console in the first place?" We take a look at the competition stacked up against the next generation consoles, where consoles have changed this generation, and where they will need to go if they want to keep up.

NYTimes.com[^]:

An unusually detailed 60-page study, to be released Tuesday by Mandiant, an American computer security firm, tracks for the first time individual members of the most sophisticated of the Chinese hacking groups — known to many of its victims in the United States as “Comment Crew” or “Shanghai Group” — to the doorstep of the military unit’s headquarters. The firm was not able to place the hackers inside the 12-story building, but makes a case there is no other plausible explanation for why so many attacks come out of one comparatively small area. “Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398,” said Kevin Mandia, the founder and chief executive of Mandiant, in an interview last week, “or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.”

Gamasutra[^]:

After the first SimCity beta weekend had ended, I read an article by Norman Chan over at Tested.com in which he attempted to discover the best suburban city layout according to the game. It's hugely interesting stuff, and quite frankly I hadn't considered the idea of putting this new SimCity to real-world use. So when the second beta weekend rolled around, I decided to have a crack at testing some theories that I have about my own hometown...