The Insider News

Infinite Undo[^]:

I have repeatedly been confounded to discover just how many mistakes in both test and application code stem from misunderstandings or misconceptions about time. By this I mean both the interesting way in which computers handle time, and the fundamental gotchas inherent in how we humans have constructed our calendar — daylight savings being just the tip of the iceberg.

AVG[^]:

This is an impressive and first-time experience in my anti-virus career. I chatted with a hacker while debugging a virus. Yes, it’s true. It happened when the Threat team were researching key loggers for Diablo III while many game players playing this game found their accounts stolen.... This hacker was not so foolish to tell us all the truth. He then shut down our system remotely.

Embedded in Academia[^]:

The other day a student and I were trying to understand a subtle part of the C standard. Often, the easiest way to clarify this kind of issue is to recognize that compiler writers have already grappled with it — so just write some code and see what various compilers do with it.... That’s a lot of trouble being caused by a two-line function.

D. J. Power[^]:

Spreadsheets have been used by accountants for hundreds of years. Computerized or electronic spreadsheets are of much more recent origin. Information Systems oral history and some published newspaper and magazine stories celebrate Dan Bricklin as the "father" of the electronic spreadsheet. Bricklin and Bob Frankston then co-invented or co-created the software program VisiCalc. What happened after that?

Technology Review[^]:

The advertising industry is brawling with some of the biggest names in technology: Microsoft, Mozilla, and the World Wide Web Consortium, the standards body for the Web. The fight is taking place because the consortium, known as W3C, is developing a new "Do Not Track" standard so Web users can signal that online ad targeting companies should leave them alone. Advertising industry representatives say the standards-setting process has turned into an existential threat that could mean the end of free online content.

tapadoo[^]:

Many years ago, Microsoft made a decision to OEM their operating system. It went stellar, and runs on machines built by lots of manufacturers. These machines support peripherals developed by an even larger number of companies. There’s no doubting the success this has led to. There’s a knock on effect though...

Businessweek[^]:

With the release of Windows 8 looming, Microsoft was indeed desperate for a hardware company to do something to blunt Apple’s runaway tablet machine. The Surface tablet represents an indictment of the entire PC and device industry, which has stood by for a couple of years trying to mimic Apple with a parade of hapless, copycat products.

ZDNet[^]:

Yesterday Microsoft announced it would be making two Windows tablets of its own — one Windows 8-based and another Windows RT-based. Today, pundits, partners and potential customers are sifting through thousands of articles, the streaming video feed of the announcement and online documents for more particulars about the coming devices. Here’s what I’ve found so far.