News

Open Source Homomorphic Cryptography   Wednesday 01 May

How fast things move from theoretical, through experimental to implementation. It was only recently that  a semi-practical scheme for homomorphic encryption was invented and we already have an open source implementation in C++.

Windows Azure SDK 2.0 for .NET   Wednesday 01 May

Microsoft has released the version 2.0 update of the Windows Azure SDK for .NET, with improvements to make it easier to publish, manage and debug Windows Azure websites.

Java EE 7 Approved   Wednesday 01 May

The Java EE 7 Platform JSR, and Web Profile JSR have both been approved by the Java Community Process.

Task.js Asynchronous Tasks In JavaScript   Tuesday 30 April

Task.js is a Mozilla experiment in making asynchronous cooperative tasking in JavaScript look elegant. It works by re-purposing the new yield command in the latest version of JavaScript - this is very clever stuff!

CERN Celebrates 20 Years of World Wide Web   Tuesday 30 April

Can you imagine not having the web at your fingertips? Or it  being so expensive that only big corporations and elite universities could afford it? An undertaking made 20 years ago led to the World Wide Web being freely available to all. 

May Computing MOOCs and Open Courses   Tuesday 30 April

Free online courses provide a good way to extend your knowledge and skill set. Here's our regular round up of ones that are starting this month, plus a new addition to open courseware. We also have news of a summer opportunity for students embarking on a university computer science degree.

Google Glass Is Open - Feel Free To Hack   Monday 29 April

Google Glass has been in the hands of the hacking public for some days and of course it has been jailbroken. But now Google has released the Android Kernel source code.

TraceGL - An Oscilloscope For Code   Monday 29 April

With traceGL you can see all JavaScript codeflow, in a high performance webGL visualizer. It's like an oscilloscope, for code - and if you don't know what an oscilloscope is, you want one, you really do.

MiniSWARM - Arduino WiFi Mesh   Sunday 28 April

If the Internet of Things is ever going to take off, we need cheap connected computing devices. The miniSWARM is only $20 and it's a WiFi mesh-connected Arduino - and that's just a start.

Software Engineer Third Best Job   Sunday 28 April

According to CareerCast.com, a job search site that offers career advice and job ratings, Software Engineer is now ranked  third best job in the United States.

Robot Snake To The Rescue!   Sunday 28 April

A video from Carnegie Mellon University Biorobotics Lab demonstrates how the snakelike robots developed by the lab can aid search and rescue operations in collapsed buildings.

Microsoft - Cancelling A Project   Saturday 27 April

Microsoft has just published a new white paper - Cancelling a project (without cancelling your career). Is it self help or does it intend to send us a message. Surely it cannot be serious?

WWDC Sell Out Prompts Apple To Offer More   Saturday 27 April

Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference sold out in under two minutes. Apple has now announced that video of all the conference sessions will be made available during the event and that a Tech Talks roadshow is being planned.

Wikipedia Switches to MariaDB   Friday 26 April

The online encyclopedia site has dropped MySQL in favor of MariaDB to take advantage of its improved query optimizer.

Pearson VUE Exam Scheduling System Fails   Friday 26 April

Pearson VUE is experiencing server problems that are severely impacting candidates for Cisco Certification and developer exams. To discover the unfolding sage, turn to its Facebook page.

Code Digger Finds The Values That Break Your Code   Thursday 25 April

Code Digger is a free extension for VS 2012 that will automatically find "interesting" input values for your program - where interesting usually means  "crash" or otherwise break your code. 

The MySQL Band Reforms As SkySQL   Thursday 25 April

The founders of the original MySQL, the open-source database, are getting back together in a merger between Monty Program and SkySQL.

Another Java 7 Security Flaw   Thursday 25 April

Oracle recently issued its April Critical Patch update, but a new serious security flaw has been discovered that affects the new Server JRE as well as all versions of Java 7, including the latest update.

Professional Programmer

Is The Start Button Coming Back To Windows 8?   Friday 26 April

There are very strong indications that Microsoft is planning to put the Start button back into Windows 8. Should we jump for joy? The answer is that it all depends on exactly what you mean by "Start" button. 

The Core

RubyMine The Right Way To Do Ruby   Monday 29 April

If you are still using EMACs or some other text editor to build Ruby applications, you need to consider that there are better ways to work. RubyMine is a full Ruby IDE that makes it easy to create and develop complex projects. If you have never used an IDE to program, you may not know what you are missing.

History

Edsger Dijkstra - The Poetry Of Programming   Wednesday 01 May

Edsger Dijkstra was one of the first people to worry about what a program should be and he elevated the act of programming to both an art and a science. If you only know one Dijkstra quote it should be: 
"computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes".