News

Celebrate Programmer Day   Wednesday 12 September

Did you realize that today is Programmer Day? No? So discover why it's today and what to do about it!

Conference for Software Architects   Wednesday 12 September

The sixth annual Software Architect conference takes place in London next month. The format of two full days of workshops with two busy days of conference sessions in between makes it well worth travelling to attend.

The Matrix Reborn - Web Matrix 2   Wednesday 12 September

Microsoft's general web development tool, Web Matrix, has been released in version 2. It not only supports ASP.NET, but PHP and Node.js. It might not be open source, but it is free to download and use. What is in it for us? What is in it for Microsoft?

The New Colossus Gallery   Tuesday 11 September

I Programmer was privileged to attend a special viewing of the new gallery for the rebuilt Colossus, the valve-powered computer, designed to break codes during World War II.

Azure Data Coding   Tuesday 11 September

Researchers have developed a mathematical tool that reduces the amount of space needed to store data in data centers.

A Paper In A Tweet   Tuesday 11 September

Tiny Transactions on Computer Science sounds like a crazy idea - a complete academic paper in 140 characters! But is it? It might just be on to a really good idea.

Google I/O Hackathon Winners   Monday 10 September

The winning entries in Google's Develop for Good hackathon have been announced and are on show.

4chan Introduces API   Monday 10 September

4chan, the long-standing image-based bulletin board, has revamped its software, adding an API and new features for developers.

Alan Turing Monopoly Board   Sunday 09 September

Bletchley Park has produced a special edition Monopoly set, customized to feature locations and interests central to Turing’s life and with his portrait on all the banknotes.

World Wide Web Foundation Index   Sunday 09 September

The World Wide Web Foundation has launched an online tool for measuring the economic, political, and social impact of the Web. It show that Sweden currently leads the world in terms of the factors it measures.

A Water Droplet-Based Computer   Sunday 09 September

It is surprising what you can build a computer out of - crabs, slime mold and chemicals of all kinds. Now we have an example of a computer that makes use of water droplets.

The Bing It On Challenge   Saturday 08 September

Microsoft is inviting us to break the Google habit and try out its search engine Bing instead. The idea is to take a blind test and see whether you prefer Bing's results or Google's.

QR Codes For Memorials   Saturday 08 September

If you’ve ever sat over a beer dreaming up unlikely ways to use technology then rejected your ideas as too much, here’s an idea that may change your mind. Companies in America, Denmark and the UK are adding QR codes to gravestones that can be used to view online memorials via smartphones.

Software Carpentry - Learn To Program   Saturday 08 September

Software Carpentry is a learning resource that hasn't had much coverage. Yet it provides high quality video lectures that cover core programming and computing topics.

Twitter To Turn Off @Anywhere   Friday 07 September

Twitter is turning off its @Anywhere developer platform in December. Instead, websites wanting to include links to Twitter will need to use Twitter for Website widgets instead.

C# In The Browser   Friday 07 September

Yes, you can write C# and get it to run in any browser which is something of a surprise. Miguel de Icaza has some good ideas about how this magic can be achieved.

SQLFire - Speeds and Scales   Friday 07 September

VMware's in-memory distributed SQL database, vFabric SQLFire, can load 8 million rows in 88 seconds.

Windows Phone 8 SDK - By Appointment Only   Thursday 06 September

Developers worried about the changes that might be waiting for them in the new Windows Phone 8 API are going to have to wait even longer to find out. Microsoft has just announced that the SDK will be available soon, but only to the developers it approves.

Intel Announces New Dev Suites   Thursday 06 September

Intel has shown off  two new versions of its development suites for developers wanting to build shared memory and distributed applications.

Android Tablets Make Headway   Thursday 06 September

Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean were the two flavors of Android that increased their share of the fragmented Android user base during August. Does this suggest Android Tablets are taking off?

Professional Programmer

The New Kindles - The Rise Of Amazondroid   Friday 07 September

Amazon has just announced a new range of Kindle models. From the programmer's point of view not much has changed, but where exactly does the growing power of Amazondroid take us?

The Core

A Programmer's Guide To Octave   Wednesday 12 September

Octave is an open source language that makes doing difficult math easy. It supports matrix operations and has lots of different types of built-in mathematical operations. It isn't as well known as it deserves to be, and if you are a programmer it can be difficult to find out what you need to know. Hence a programmer's guide.

Babbage's Bag

Virtual Memory   Sunday 12 July

Virtual memory is a way of pretending that your computer has more memory than it really has. But like all good things it comes at a cost. Virtual memory is an example of trading speed for storage.