The Insider News

Geek Out of Water - Gil Zilberfeld's Ramblings[^]:

What we do is set deadlines. Some of the deadlines are real – like a tradeshow we need the product for. Some are there because someone just put a date on the table. Once we have a deadline, we’re starting our way towards the goal.

Ray Wenderlich[^]:

The goal of this tutorial is to give you confidence with some of the basics of Objective-C. Instead of taking a “let’s explain every piece of syntax” approach, we’re going to take the approach of diving right in and giving you some hands-on experience and an example to work from. It will then be a lot easier for you to consult a reference when necessary moving forward.

Rodney Rehm[^]:

A couple of weeks ago it seemed my daily business became sorting DOMElements. This quickly became boring enough to be investigated more thoroughly. So this post sums up everything you should know about sorting DOMElements in Javascript (… using jQuery, of course).

Smore[^]:

Our research shows that people love two things: failed Microsoft technologies and obscure Javascript libraries. Naturally, we decided to combine the two. Clippy.js is a full Javascript implementation of Microsoft Agent (AKA Clippy and friends), ready to be embedded in any website.

Ars Technica[^]:

America's broadband strategy isn't working very well. Unfortunately, it's not clear how to fix it. The experiences of other nations can yield useful insights, but such examples only get us so far. Still, the first step to fixing the American broadband policy is to admit that we have a problem. And I now admit it.

John V. Petersen[^]:

Bottom line, the issue has more to do with business, the business of computing and less do with the technical aspects of computing.

Scott Hanselman[^]:

I like hearing stories about how people got into computers and programming. Perhaps if I blog my story, you'll share yours.

Mobile Opportunity[^]:

My conclusion is that Windows 8 in its current form is very different; attractive in some ways, and disturbing in others. It combines an interesting new interface with baffling changes to Windows compatibility, and amateur mistakes in customer messaging. Add up all the changes, and I am very worried that Microsoft may be about to shoot itself in the foot spectacularly.

Phoronix[^]:

Last week I wrote that the open-source graphics card is dead. The developer behind Project VGA has now written a lengthy email to me to explain why the open-source graphics card is no more.

High Scalability[^]:

Web crawlers have been around as long as the Web has -- and before the web, there were crawlers for gopher and ftp. You would think that 25 years of experience would render crawling a solved problem, but the vast growth of the web and new inventions in the technology of webspam and other unsavory content results in a constant supply of new challenges.

Christian Heilmann[^]:

I am always amazed about the lack of support for progressive enhancement on the web. Whenever you mention it, you face a lot of “yeah, but…” and you feel having to defend something that should be ingrained in the DNA of anyone who works on the web.

Ethereal Bits[^]:

If you’re a software developer (or frankly, if you spend a large portion of your day sitting in a chair in front of a computer) you will be more productive if you find a way to incorporate a workout into your daily routine. I literally believe that if you’re working 8 hour days today, you will get more done working 7 hours and squeezing in a 30-40 minutes of physical exercise.

Connor Montgomery[^]:

Making modular and reusable code is something we should all be doing to keep the quality of it up to par. A very simple way to make reusable modules of code in node.js is to create generalized modules (no pun intended). In this post, we’re going to recreate the domai.nr module from scratch, and hopefully you learn a few things along the way!

MindShift[^]:

What is it about middle school and mathematics? Decades of educational research demonstrate that during the years between elementary school and high school, many students disengage from math and don’t regain their interest—to the detriment of their later schooling, and even their adult careers.

Monkey Mace[^]:

Why build a new messaging product when the basic functionality of email combined with a little effort from the user can achieve the same result?

Ars Technica[^]:

What the media have called Britain's "cookie law" became enforceable this weekend and will require UK-based website operators to give visitors notification if the website will use any method of tracking—not just cookies but other types of analytics as well—on the user's computer.

All this[^]:

If you didn’t know better, you’d get the impression that the purpose of the accelerometers is to determine a device’s static orientation. And although they can do that, the true purpose of accelerometers is to measure—no surprise here—acceleration, a distinctly dynamic quantity.