O'Reilly News: Microsoft

Developer Week in Review: Developers are our most important asset? - A good hacker is hard to find, a cheap data center is hard to get to, and the app store model is hard to ignore

2011-12-09T20:30:00Z

An argument for the value of highly productive programmers, datacenters head for the country to save a few bucks, and the app store model seems to be taking over the industry, and not just for mobile.

Developer Week in Review: Siri is the talk of the town - Voice-driven apps on the horizon, take Stanford CS courses on the house, and JavaScript flexes its muscles.

2011-11-30T19:00:00Z

Everyone either wants to be just like Siri or thinks it's (she's?) a waste of time. Stanford expands its free CS curriculum, and JavaScript gains encryption and a JVM implementation.

Developer Week in Review: Talking to your phone - Getting serious about Siri, Open Office on the rocks, and Google embraces SQL.

2011-10-21T18:30:00Z

This week, we ask if Apple's Siri has more than novelty value, and decide it does. Open Office needs you (or at least your money) to stay afloat, and Google bends to developer pressure and finally adds SQL support to its cloud computing platform.

Developer Week in Review: Android proves fruitful for Microsoft - More bucks for Microsoft, more horsepower for SPARC, and more votes for ... someone.

2011-09-29T16:00:00Z

Samsung agrees to pay Microsoft royalties for Android use. Elsewhere, Oracle keeps the SPARC line alive, and the hackability of voting machines is exposed.

Five digital design ideas from Windows 8 - With Metro, it's clear Microsoft has put a lot of thought into touchscreen design.

2011-09-20T15:00:00Z

Microsoft's Metro interface offers plenty for digital book designers to study. The best part? Whether or not Microsoft actually ships something that matches their demo, designers can benefit from the great thinking they've done.

Developer Week in Review: Windows 8 Developer Preview goes public - Win8 for free, Google throws a Dart, and Congress whiffs on patent reform.

2011-09-15T14:00:00Z

Microsoft changes tack on a Windows 8 alpha, Google is darting away from JavaScript, and the great Patent Reform of 2011 reforms little.

Four short links: 31 August 2011 - Maps on Android, Security Laws, Trough of Potential, and Enterprise Gamification

2011-08-31T10:00:00Z

OSMdroid -- The OpenStreetMapView is a (almost) full/free replacement for Android's MapView class. Also see this tutorial. (via Simon Gianoutsos) 10 Immutable Laws of Security (Microsoft) -- an oldie but a goodie. Law #1: If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it's not your computer anymore. What's in The Trough? (BERG London)...

Developer Week in Review: Mobile's embedded irony - Who really profits from Android sales? And does the world need another source control system?

2011-07-20T20:00:00Z

Microsoft profits from Google's toils, why you shouldn't put older developers out to pasture, and a new source control system enters the fray.

Four short links: 18 July 2011 - Organisational Warfare, RTFM, Timezone Shapefile, Microsoft Adventure

2011-07-18T15:35:00Z

Organisational Warfare (Simon Wardley) -- notes on the commoditisation of software, with interesting analyses of the positions of some large players. On closer inspection, Salesforce seems to be doing more than just commoditisation with an ILC pattern, as can be clearly seen from Radian's 6 acquisition. They also seem to be operating a tower and moat strategy, i.e. creating...

Developer Week in Review: Start your lawyers! - If the lawsuit fits, the Kinect SDK for Windows arrives, and IPv6 day fails to excite.

2011-06-22T19:00:00Z

The legal community continued to feed off IP disputes among software giants, Microsoft brings the Kinect SDK to Windows, and the web switches IPv6 on for a day, but did anyone notice?

Developer Week in Review: Are .NET programmers going extinct? - Microsoft embraces HTML5, selling a startup at 15, and a new version of Java looms.

2011-06-15T16:30:00Z

For Microsoft programmers, the week brought fear, uncertainty and doubt regarding their future as an elite class of developers. For a lucky teen, it brought a big paycheck. And for fans of Java, it brought a new version of the popular language one step closer to release.

Four short links: 2 June 2011 - Windows 8, CC YouTube, Corporate Innovation, and Crypto Lifetimes

2011-06-02T10:00:00Z

Building Windows 8 - Video #1 (YouTube) -- lovely to see Microsoft's operating system finally leaping past a 2002 look and feel. YouTube Offers Creative Commons Licensing (BoingBoing) -- bravo! Redefiners Capturing Media Growth Dollars -- Anil Dash's corporate presentation about innovating within large (media) companies. The initial slides are money posturing to get the attention of the audience,...

Functions are values: explore C# lambda types in Visual Studio

2011-04-09T20:23:03Z

I love that a college professor of mine from long ago, Bob Harper, is tackling the tricky issue of how to teach students about the nature of functions in his new Existential Type blog. His post got me thinking about how you'd go about teaching this concept to a learner—specifically, in my case, a C# learner. I've given it a bit of thought, and here's what I've come up with.

Developer Week in Review - WWDC tickets are here and gone, Gosling goes to Google, and irony at MySQL.

2011-03-30T17:00:00Z

If you wanted WWDC tickets, you better have had a fast mouse finger. But if James Gosling wants to go to Google I/O, he'll have an inside track next year. Meanwhile, MySQL needs to practice what they preach, security-wise.

Developer Week in Review - Amazon buys itself a lawsuit, a setting Sun.com, and the new name in databases

2011-03-23T14:30:00Z

What's in a name? For Amazon's new Appstore, it was a lawsuit. For Oracle's sun.com domain, big money. And would MySQL by any other name smell as sweet?

Inside the e-wars: Barnes & Noble Woes and the Digital Marketplace: A 1-2 Punch

2011-03-07T18:54:37Z

Borders and Barnes & Noble used to be great. The #1 and #2 booksellers in the U.S., building out new superstores like they were going to grow forever. Three years ago, a new Borders was built in Olympia. It's...

Developer Week in Review - Special Jeopardy edition featuring Nokia, MacBook Pro rumors, and Google's Public Data Explorer.

2011-02-17T15:00:00Z

Tired of everyone making "Terminator" or "Matrix" references to Watson's domination of its pitiful human rivals? Well, we go old school with our media references, as we look at Nokia's fickleness, new toys for geeks, and Google's campaign for pretty data.

Four short links: 14 February 2011 - Vesting Incentives, Camera Hacks, iPad Longform Saviour?, and Bogus Science

2011-02-14T11:00:00Z

Stephen Elop is a Flight Risk (Silicon Beat) -- a foresight-filled 2008 article that doesn't make Nokia's new CEO look good. A reminder to boards and CEOs that option vesting schedules matter. (via Hacker News) CHDK -- Canon Hack Development Kit gives point-and-shoot Canon digital camera new features like RAW images, motion detection, a USB remote, full control over...

In Google's "glass house," a battle with Bing looms - Commentary: Copy or theft? How Google set themselves up to get Bing’d.

2011-02-03T16:30:00Z

Is Google's recent war of words with Microsoft a case of calling a thief out by name, or a matter of pot calling kettle black?

Developer Week in Review - iOS and Android kick out new SDKs, Microsoft head count decreases by one, and the Today Show struggles with the @ symbol

2011-02-02T16:30:00Z

Snowed in, we look at new mobile SDKs, old Microsoft employees, and really old video about the Internet.

Developer Week in Review - Unix IP on the block, AT&T can't keep a secret, and take one tablet and call me in the morning

2011-01-12T19:00:00Z

This week, Unix was for sale, then it wasn't, then it was again. AT&T announced the most poorly kept secret in the history of secrets. And the tablet was all the rage at CES.

Four short links: 11 January 2011 - Microsoft and the Web, URL Library, Optimism, and NoSQL Instruction

2011-01-11T11:00:00Z

Dive Into 2010 (Mark Pilgrim) -- Mark wrote a hugely popular guide to HTML5 which was available online and published by O'Reilly. 6% of visitors used some version of Internet Explorer. That is not a typo. The site works fine in Internet Explorer — the site practices what it preaches, and the live examples use a variety of fallbacks...

Developer Year in Review: Operating Systems - Windows 7 outshines Vista (not hard), Linux still in peril (hard luck), and the Mac App Store launches (hard sell)

2011-01-05T15:00:00Z

Last year saw Linux fight free of one legal morass, and perhaps right into another; Microsoft take another swing at replacing XP; and Apple bring the App Store model to the desktop.

Four short links: 21 December 2010 - Big Companyitis, Spyware Apps, Maturing Cloud, and Mobile Sync

2010-12-21T11:00:00Z

Cash Cow Disease -- quite harsh on Google and Microsoft for "ingesting not investing" in promising startups, then disconnecting them from market signals. Like pixie dust, potential future advertising revenues can be sprinkled on any revenue-negative scheme to make it look brilliant. (via Dan Martell) Your Apps Are Watching You (Wall Street Journal) -- the iPhone apps transmitted more...

Developer Year in Review: Mobile - Our look back at 2010 starts with the year in mobile.

2010-12-15T16:00:00Z

The past year brought new success for Apple, a breakout for Android, a windfall for lawyers, and app stores galore.

Developer Week in Review - What's missing from Java's upcoming release, Novell sells out, and injection protection

2010-11-24T17:45:00Z

In the latest Developer Week in Review: A look at Java's divide and conquer approach to upcoming releases, the end of an era for Novell, and a common programming shortcut that can end up cutting your throat.

Four short links: 24 November 2010 - Android, Cellphone Photos, Long-Exposure iPhone Apps, and Open Street Map

2010-11-24T11:00:00Z

What Android Is (Tim Bray) -- a good explanation of the different bits and their relationship. Cell Phone Photo Helped in Oil Spill (LA Times) -- a lone scientist working from a cell phone photo who saved the day by convincing the government that a cap it considered removing was actually working as designed. (via BoingBoing) Penki -- iPhone...

Four short links: 11 November 2010 - Bounty Paid, C Archived, Blind Queried, and Links Shared

2010-11-11T11:00:00Z

Open Kinect -- less than a week after the bounty for developing an open source driver for Microsoft's Kinect controller was announced, it is claimed. libfreenect is the software. CCAN -- the Comprehensive C Archive Network. TextCAPTCHAs -- simple questions, written in English, that are accessible to blind users. F1 -- Mozilla browser extension for sharing links via Twitter,...

Developer Week in Review - Intel opens an app store, Apache fumes over Java, old software Microsoft should open source, Apple updates on the way

2010-11-10T14:00:00Z

In this edition of Developer Week in Review: Intel opens an app store, Apache is peeved at Oracle, Microsoft open sources a language you've probably never heard of, and Radar detects an incoming salvo of point-releases from Apple.

Understanding C#: Nullable Types

2010-11-07T21:28:44Z

Every C# developer knows how to work with value types like int, double, boolean, char, and DateTime. They're really useful, but they have one flaw: they can't be set to null. Luckily, C# and .NET give you a very useful tool to for this: nullable types. You can use a nullable type any place that you need a variable that can either have a value or be null. This seems like a simple thing, but it turns out to be a highly flexible tool that can help make your programs more robust. In this tutorial, I'll show you the basics of nullable types, and give you a quick example of a program that uses them to handle unpredictable user input.