O'Reilly News and Commentary

TurboGears2

2013-05-23T07:51:04-08:10

Alessandro Molina, is CTO at Axant.it and a member of the TurboGears web framework development team. I recently got the chance to sit down with him to talk about the exciting opportunities TurboGears offers users, how being open source has …

TurboGears Just Keeps Getting Better

2013-05-23T07:51:04-08:11

Burning the silos

2013-05-23T07:20:03-08:12

If I’ve seen any theme come up repeatedly over the past year, it’s getting product cycle times down. It’s not the sexiest or most interesting theme, but it’s everywhere: if it’s not on the front burner, it’s always simmering in …

How Web Pages Can Extend (or Drain) Mobile Device Battery Life

2013-05-23T06:15:41-08:13

According to recent Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecasts (PDF), the number of mobile-connected devices will surpass the world’s population this year, and by 2015, there will be 788 million mobile-only Internet users. A recent paper, “Who Killed My Battery: Analyzing …

End-to-End JavaScript Quality Analysis

2013-05-23T04:51:26-08:14

The rise of single-page web applications means that front-end developers need to pay attention not only to network transport optimization, but also to rendering and computation performance. With applications written in JavaScript, the language tooling itself has not really caught …

Doug Hanks on how the MX series is changing the game

2013-05-23T04:51:26-08:15

Doug Hanks (@douglashanksjr) is an O’Reilly author (Juniper MX Series) and a data center architect at Juniper Networks. He is currently working on one of Juniper’s most popular devices – the MX Series. The MX is a routing device that’s …

Four short links: 23 May 2013

2013-05-23T04:20:19-08:16

Kindle Worlds Fine Print — Amazon’s fanfic publishing system has a few flaws: no pr0n, no slash (crossovers), and Amazon Publishing will acquire all rights to your new stories, including global publication rights, for the term of copyright. I can’t …

Talking about in-memory

2013-05-22T11:19:30-08:17

I flew to the west coast this week to attend Maker Faire with my computer-programming, ham-radio-building, hardware-curious teenage cousin. I’ve attended twice in New York but this was my first trip to the mothership. Wow. So much cool stuff to …

Four short links: 22 May 2013

2013-05-22T05:19:44-08:18

XBox One Kinect Controller (Guardian) — the new Kinect controller can detect gaze, heartbeat, and the buttons on your shirt. Surveillance and the Internet of Things (Bruce Schneier) — Lots has been written about the “Internet of Things” and how …

From JavaScript to Declarative Markup

2013-05-22T04:18:58-08:19

Web architecture separates structured content (markup), presentation (style), and behavior (JavaScript). As recently as a decade ago, many developers worked in all three, but the years since Ajax arrived have brought more specialization. The rise of JavaScript in particular has …

Looking ahead to a world of data-dominated decisions

2013-05-21T13:06:34-08:20

Measuring a world-shaking trend with feet planted in every area of human endeavor cannot be achieved in a popular book of 200 pages, but one has to start somewhere. I am happy to recommend the adept efforts of Viktor Mayer-Schnberger …

Four short links: 21 May 2013

2013-05-21T05:19:59-08:21

Hyperinflation in Diablo 3 — interesting discussion about how video games regulate currency availability, and how Diablo 3 appears to have messed up. several weeks after the game’s debut a source claimed that there were at least 1,000 bots active …

Dart Is Not the Language You Think It Is

2013-05-21T04:18:46-08:22

When Dart was originally launched, many developers mistook it for some sort of Java clone. In truth, Dart is inspired by a range of languages such as Smalltalk, Strongtalk, Erlang, C#, and JavaScript. Get past the semicolons and curly braces, …

JavaScript Flexibility: Fun, But Use with Care

2013-05-21T04:18:46-08:23

When you begin programming in JavaScript, you’ll need to use variables. A variable is just a bit of storage to hold a value. Just about every line of code you write will use a variable of one kind or another, …

Google Glass: From Google I/O to Maker Faire

2013-05-20T14:48:39-08:24

I had quite an experience at Maker Faire this weekend. So instead of a follow up on Google I/O today I’m going talk about how wearables, specifically Google Glass, seem to be bringing people closer together rather than farther apart. …

Upward Mobility: Special Effects Wizardry

2013-05-20T11:51:08-08:25

Most developers aren’t great UI designers (although, as with everything, there are exceptions). But there are a few quick tricks that can dress up an app, even if you don’t eat and breathe Photoshop. Let’s look at a simple iPad …

Four short links: 20 May 2013

2013-05-20T05:19:31-08:26

Our Fair Deal — international coalition (EFF, InternetNZ, Demand Progress, Creative Freedom Foundation, many others) raising awareness and petitioning lawmakers to reject copyright proposals that restrict the open Internet, access to knowledge, economic opportunity and our fundamental rights. (via Susan …

Building Windows 8 Apps, Hadoop Developer Track Course, Write/Speak/Code, and More

2013-05-20T04:18:26-08:27

Each Monday, we round up upcoming event highlights from the programming and technology spaces. Have an event to share? Send us a note. Zero to App in Two Weeks webcast: Kraig Brockschmidt shares lessons learned to help you improve your …

Kate Matsudaira: If You Dont Understand People, You Dont Understand Ops

2013-05-20T04:18:26-08:28

While automation is clearly making everyone’s lives who work in Operations much better, startup founder Kate Matsudaira (@katemats) acknowledges that “No one ever does their work in a vaccum.” You can try as much as possible to Automate All The …

Improving options for unlocking your graph data

2013-05-19T09:37:11-08:29

The popular open source project GraphLab received a major boost early this week when a new company comprised of its founding developers, raised funding to develop analytic tools for graph data sets. GraphLab Inc. will continue to use the open …

Strata Week: Are customized Google maps a neutrality win or the next filter bubble?

2013-05-17T11:35:15-08:30

Google aims for a new level of map customization Google introduced a new version of Google maps at Google I/O this week that learns from each use to customize itself to individual users, adapting based on user clicks and searches. …

Software and the physical world

2013-05-17T09:19:43-08:31

In this episode of the Radar podcast series Jon Bruner and I are joined by Mike Loukides as we muse more on software and the physical world. No coffee shop clatter in the background this time around as we were …

Google I/O, Big Data Adolescence, Visualization, and the Future of Open Source

2013-05-17T04:17:23-08:32

Google I/O: O’Reilly Editor Rachel Roumeliotis reports from the conference floor. Big Data, Cool Kids: Fumbling toward the adolescence of big data tools. Code as Art: Interactive Data Visualization for the Web author Scott Murray on becoming a code artist. …

Three organizations pressing for change in societys approach to computing

2013-05-16T08:20:08-08:33

Taking advantage of a recent trip to Washington, DC, I had the privilege of visiting three non-profit organizations who are leaders in the application of computers to changing society. First, I attended the annual meeting of the Association for Computing …

Four short links: 16 May 2013

2013-05-16T05:20:34-08:34

Australian Filter Scope Creep — The Federal Government has confirmed its financial regulator has started requiring Australian Internet service providers to block websites suspected of providing fraudulent financial opportunities, in a move which appears to also open the door for …

Hypermedia APIs

2013-05-16T04:18:56-08:35

Mike Amundsen explains why developers should explore hypermedia possibilities as they develop RESTful applications.

Exploring Hypermedia with Mike Amundsen

2013-05-16T04:18:56-08:36

The Web’s flexibility has helped it to survive and thrive, pushing well beyond the browser-based universe where it first showed its promise. While I’ve spent most of my time working with the HTML/CSS/JavaScript side, the HTTP side of the original …

A Matter of Semantics

2013-05-16T02:46:20-08:37

Messages on the Web carry three levels of information: Structure Semantics, Protocol Semantics, and Application Semantics. No matter the implementation style, all three of these are needed for any successful communication between client and server. This threesome (S-P-A) forms the …

Google I/O 2013: Android Studio, Google Play Music: All Access, and New Advances in Search

2013-05-16T23:49:21-08:38

While there was no skydiving this year to show off Google’s new wearable Glass, there were plenty of attendees wearing them proudly including me. This year hardware, however, didn’t take center stage. The focus was on new tools and upgrades …

Six disruptive possibilities from big data

2013-05-15T10:01:57-08:39

My new book, Disruptive Possibilities: How Big Data Changes Everything, is derived directly from my experience as a performance and platform architect in the old enterprise world and the new, Internet-scale world. I pre-date the Hadoop crew at Yahoo!, but …