The Insider News

Electronic Frontier Foundation[^]:

Today, the Guardian newspaper confirmed what EFF (and many others) have long claimed: the NSA is conducting widespread, untargeted, domestic surveillance on millions of Americans.... In plain language: the order gave the NSA a record of every Verizon customer’s call history -- every call made, the location of the phone, the time of the call, the duration of the call, and other “identifying information” for the phone and call.

Exploring IE[^]:

On World Environment Day, we are proud to announce that Internet Explorer continues to be the most energy-efficient browser on Windows 8, according to the Center for Sustainable Energy Systems at Fraunhofer USA. When compared to Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer uses up to 18% less energy. This means that if every Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox user in the United States switched to Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 for a year, the energy saved could power over 10,000 households in the United States for that year.

aeonmagazine.com[^]:

We web developers are the limiting reagent of every start-up experiment, we’re the sine qua non, because we’re the only ones who know how to reify app ideas as actual working software. In fact, we are so much the essence of these small companies that, in Silicon Valley, a start-up with no revenue is said to be worth exactly the number of developers it has on staff. The rule of thumb is that each one counts for $1 million. It helps that there aren’t enough of us to go around.

idownloadblog[^]

Joseph Brown, the guy behind the recent string of hacked carrier updates, has posted a rather interesting report this morning on why he thinks the hacks have been so successful. And the reason may just surprise you.

Developers are Authors
This is truly a concept that has only dawned on me recently - in fact, probably within the past day or two. The ironic part about this, I’ve actually considered myself an author for the past 3 years, since the release of my first book. And most developers I meet or work with seem to have the same reaction when I tell them, “Oh you’re an author, that’s pretty cool.” When in fact – as the title states – all developers are authors, including you! Now let me tell you why.

As I stated at the start of the article, this is really new information to me, but has had a really strong impact on the way I think. Firstly, I cannot take any credit for this statement as I read it in a book. If you follow me on Twitter, you will know that the name of the book is Clean Code by Robert C. Martin – the initiator of agile software development and extreme programming.

CodeProject[^]:

Hi, I am Abhishek Sur from the City of Joy, India. I work for Buildfusion Inc. as a Technical Architect. I am addicted to code, you could say. I like to write code, even when I am sick or unwell. My mood improves simply by writing good code. I do a lot of code reviews, fix bugs, and even help fellow developers on how to write better, well structured code.

Windows Azure[^]:

Windows Azure Infrastructure Services is a stepping stone that organizations can use to migrate some of their existing workloads to the cloud, as is with no changes, while at the same time taking advantage of more modern "Platform-as-a-Service" capabilities of Windows Azure in a hybrid fashion. We've seen organizations run everything from simple development and test SQL Server workloads to complex distributed mission critical workloads. Here's a few things we've learned from their experiences.

programming in the twenty-first century[^]:

The first compiled language I used was the Assembler Editor cartridge for the Atari 8-bit computers. Really, it had the awful name "Assembler Editor." I expect some pedantic folks want to interject that an assembler is not a compiler. At one time I would have made that argument myself. But there was a very clear divide between editing 6502 code and running it, a divide that took time to cross, when the textual source was converted into machine-runnable form. Contrast that to Atari BASIC, the only language I knew previously, which didn't feature a human-initiated conversion step and the inevitable time it took.

GitHub[^]:

The Bayesian method is the natural approach to inference, yet it is hidden from readers behind chapters of slow, mathematical analysis. The typical text on Bayesian inference involves two to three chapters on probability theory, then enters what Bayesian inference is. Unfortunately, due to mathematical intractability of most Bayesian models, the reader is only shown simple, artificial examples. This can leave the user with a so-what feeling about Bayesian inference. In fact, this was the author's own prior opinion.

Channel 9[^]:

In this episode, our identity wizard Vittorio Bertocci (you can identify true wizards by the long hair, even though most other wizards carry that hair under the chin) explains Windows Azure Active Directory and its role in the Windows Azure platform.

ITworld[^]:

What developers see as iterative and flexible, users see as disorganized and never-ending. Here’s how some experienced developers have changed that perception.

Hack a Day[^]:

David Crane, designer of Pitfall for the Atari 2600 gave a talk at the 2011 Game Developer’s Conference. His 38-minute presentation rounds up to a full hour with the Q&A afterwards. It’s a bit dry to start, but he hits his stride about half way through and it’s chock-full of juicy morsels about the way things used to be.

John Bristowe[^]:

Armed with Kendo UI DataViz, I felt compelled to share information with folks in the developer community about a growing concern of mine; the weight of web pages or, what I like to call "webpage obesity". In terms of bytes-on-the-wire, the Internet is getting fat. Quite fat, in fact. For example, did you know that an average webpage is around 1.4 MB? Not surprised? You should be. "But, why should I care?" you may ask. The reason is simple: performance.

ZDNet[^]:

Microsoft will make available as part of its upcoming Windows 8.1 "Blue" release of Windows client the rumored Outlook 2013 RT mail client, company officials confirmed on June 5. Microsoft's Chief Financial Officer of Windows, Tami Reller, made the announcement during the Computex show in Taipei, claiming that Office RT is a top business and consumer feature request.

AllThingsD[^]:

Ever wish you could talk to your dog? Understand what’s bothering him? How much of the time she paces around when you’re not home? Whistle, a startup that makes a wearable tracking device for dogs, wants to help. This summer, it plans to start shipping a $99.95 metal disc that affixes to a standard collar, and promises to go for 10 days on a single charge.... Owners can then chart their Whistle-wearing dogs’ daily minutes spent walking, playing and resting, as detected by an accelerometer and displayed on a free Whistle iPhone app.

History of Lisp[^]:

This paper concentrates on the development of the basic ideas and distinguishes two periods - Summer 1956 through Summer 1958 when most of the key ideas were developed (some of which were implemented in the FORTRAN based FLPL), and Fall 1958 through 1962 when the programming language was implemented and applied to problems of artificial intelligence. After 1962, the development of LISP became multi-stranded, and different ideas were pursued in different places.

Bad Developers Should NOT Use Frameworks
The sad part about this article is that the people that actually need to read this won’t. Why; because they simply don’t care about what they do. It really is the honest truth. Nonetheless, I will courageously continue writing in hopes that the good developers will magically convey this message to the people who need to learn it!