The Insider News

TidBITS[^]:

Without some details about the 160 attacks on “critical infrastructure” in 2011, it’s impossible to evaluate whether the solution is stronger hardware, better training, or advanced deep-breathing relaxation techniques. Some Internet attacks are the equivalent of knocking on a door and trying the handle to see if it’s unlocked. These might be targeted against millions of computers in numeric sequence, and happen to include “critical infrastructure” only by accident.

Dave Bost[^]:

A common dream of most developers is to develop a game. Game development can be very intimidating to jump into straight away. The hardest decision is to determine what kind of game you’re going to create – what’s the backstory, who are the actors, what’s their purpose, what does success look like, and so on. One of the more popular casual game types and one not to intimidating for new game developers to jump into is the Tower Defense game genre.

Macdrifter[^]:

I'll skip the rumor mongering that lead to the NFC speculations and get straight to it. I'm glad Apple is not using NFC in the new iPhone. My iPhone already has one of the best data transmission options available, a retina display and a high resolution camera. NFC is solving the wrong problem. Here's the real problem: how do we communicate data a short distance as quick as possible with the least effort?

The Code Project[^]:

Welcome to our continuing series of Code Project interviews.

Jimmy Bogard's Blog[^]:

My first foray into Agile was with a product team back in 2004-2005. It was my first “real” job out of college, and my first experience with a death march. During the death march, I was struck on how bad the idea of death marching was. Working weekends, long hours etc. were a sign of failure not on the development team, but our a failure to plan, set expectations, and deliver frequently. This rather horrible experience pushed me to explore better options, leading me into Scrum and XP.

Channel 9[^]:

In partnership with the Visual Studio team, we are launching Code Snippets for Windows Store apps, a collection of around 60 IntelliSense Code Snippets for common Windows Store app programming tasks. The snippets are available for Visual Basic, C#, C++, and JavaScript developers. For example, if you don’t know how to copy a file in JavaScript or C++, just right-click, select Insert Snippet, select the code snippet, and it will automatically add the code to your Windows app.

Robot App Store[^]:

iRobot has published an API for Roomba - the Roomba SCI (Serial Command Interface). The idea is very simple: you need to transfer byte array to Roomba’s serial port.... Each byte holds a single command or a command-group. We will go deeper into that later on...

Bell Labs[^]:

Dennis also had a deliciously wry sense of humor. He was once asked: In your experience, how long does it take for a novice programmer to become a reasonably proficient C developer capable of writing nontrivial production code? Dennis replied: I don’t know. I never had to learn C. To the software world, Dennis was a genius. To those who were privileged to know him, he was a mensch.

The Visual Studio Blog[^]:

It would be impossible to list every feature in Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop. However, in this post I want to tell you about some of the new tools and capabilities in the product that have not been available in any other Express products in the past. I’d also like to answer some of the questions you’ve been asking about what we’re including in this edition. Unless otherwise mentioned, the features listed are supported for all languages that are included in Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop – C++, C#, and Visual Basic.

Medium[^]:

The latest iOS application has doubled engagement (double the stories). It is pretty amazing to see a product as large as Facebook get rebooted in this way. The app looked pretty much the same (a few UX touches, but pretty minimal) before and after. So obviously, HTML5 sucks and native rocks. Not so fast. Let’s look at what we know from the history of the Facebook app.

unixmages.com[^]:

Hello, Young Mage! Welcome to the Tower of Nix! Here you!ll begin your training in the skills of Unix. I'll be your Instructor and Narrator. We here at the tower understand if you!re a little nervous or unsure about learning something so new and different. However, I can assure you that your stay and training at the Tower will be none other than the best! Before we begin, I'd like to give you a brief history of the craft you are about to learn.