News

MySQL suport in Oracle Database Firewall   Wednesday 11 January

Oracle has released a version of Oracle Database Firewall that adds support for MySQL Enterprise Edition.

The Top Languages of 2011   Wednesday 11 January

Every January it is traditional to compare the state of the languages as indicated by the TIOBE index. So what's up and what's down this year?

Birthday Greetings to Discoverer of Quicksort   Wednesday 11 January

Tony Hoare turns 78 today. He is best known for the Quicksort algorithm which he developed in 1960. This and many other contributions earned him a knighthood for services to Computing in 2000 and the Turing Medal in 1980. 

Kinect for Windows To Launch February 1st   Tuesday 10 January

When Steve Balmer took the stage for his last keynote at CES he announced the date for Kinect for Windows to be launched -  February 1, 2012. We now have more details, including the good news that Microsoft has decided not to charge for the SDK or a licence fee for its use.

Donald Knuth in Alan Turing Year   Tuesday 10 January

Today, January 10, 2012, Donald Knuth turns 74 and tomorrow he will be the guest of honor at an event in Switzerland with the title "In the Footsteps of Alan Turing".

Application Developers Alliance   Tuesday 10 January

A new alliance for mobile developers is being launched this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The Application Developers Alliance describes itself as being 100% dedicated to helping devs build, test and ship great ideas.

MSDN Magazine January 2011 - Windows Phone 7   Tuesday 10 January

It's the start of a new year and the start of a new volume for MSDN Magazine. January 2012's issue is Vol 27, No 1. Does the new volume reflect the major changes at Microsoft?

Hadoop CTP for Azure   Monday 09 January

The community technology preview (CTP) of Hadoop for Windows Azure is now available, by invitation only, and is described as "all Metro".

Kinect for FIRST Robotics Competition 2012   Monday 09 January

The 2012 FIRST Robotics Season is now underway with around 2,500 teams of students in grades 9-12 (ages 14-18) embarking on a six-week project to build Kinect -powered robots.

Cubelets - Snap Together Your Latest Robot   Sunday 08 January

The idea of encapsulating electronic components in bricks has been re-invented. Look out for Cubelets for modular robotics. We have a video to introduce them.

Page Size Matters   Sunday 08 January

Recent research results have been interpreted as web page size suddenly ramping up, which is a cause for concern. Is this the real deal?

What Makes a Great Software Engineer   Sunday 08 January

How do you rate your co-workers and other programmers that you are acquainted with? How do they rate you? And how much confidence should we place in the results.

New Markets for WP7 Developers   Saturday 07 January

Microsoft has extended the reach of its App Hub by adding six new countries, including the really big opportunity, China. Don't get too excited, though. This is work in progress.

Google's Open Source Video Player   Saturday 07 January

Perhaps Google isn't all bad these days! A new open source HTML5 video player is yours for the download. As well as being a good showcase app it is also practically useful.

Facebook Hacker Cup 2012   Saturday 07 January

Registration is now open for the second annual Facebook algorithmic programming contest and the qualification round takes place from 20-23 January.

Kinect comes to Smart Phones?   Friday 06 January

Researchers have come up with a fast, accurate, cheap way to measure a depth field. It also promises portable depth detectors small enough to fit in a mobile phone.

NetBeans 7.1   Friday 06 January

NetBeans, the free open source IDE for Java and PHP, has reached version 7.1 and, with support for JavaFX 2.0, it's a more important upgrade than suggested by a decimal point increment.

Exciting New Joomla Year - Joomla Magazine January 2012   Friday 06 January

The team at Joomla is kicking off the New Year with the January issue of the Joomla magazine, and with news of the next major release of Joomla.

No 16-Clue Sudoku!   Thursday 05 January

The game of Sudoku was, and still is a passion, for many, but it is surprising how little we know about its algorithmic structure. Now we have the result that you can't have a problem with only 16 clues - you need more to ensure there is a unique solution.

Hadoop gets to 1.0   Thursday 05 January

The Apache Software Foundation has officially announced the release of Hadoop 1.0. The release adds some features in the areas of security and support for the Hadoop HBase database, but the most important aspect of the release is that  Hadoop is now mature enough to warrant the 1.0 marker.

Microsoft relaxes restrictions for Xbox LIVE platform   Thursday 05 January

Microsoft has made changes to the App Hub policy that  benefit independent games developers.

Professional Programmer

JavaScript Books (2012)   Thursday 05 January

I Programmer's book reviewers read over 200 programming titles per year. That's only a fraction of the programming books published, but we try to cover the important ones. In Programmer's Bookshelf we recommend the books you might find helpful at different stages in your personal development.

The Core

WinRT JavaScript - WinControls   Monday 09 January

If you are building an HTML5 app specifically for Windows 8 there is a lot to be gained in functionality by using the Windows extensions and giving your app the full Metro style. Microsoft's custom controls are  easy to use once you know how they work.

Babbage's Bag

Quick Median   Wednesday 11 January

You have probably heard of Quicksort but this is just one of many partitioning algorithms that work in clever ways to do things faster. Here we look at another of the algorithms devised by C.A.R. Hoare, the Quick Median.