- Let it Snow — bookmarklet from David Flanagan that makes Javascript snowflakes fall. Awww. (via Mike Loukides)
- You Can Work on Great Technology at Startups — There are more innovative database startups at various stages in their life than I can remember right now. So true–waiting for the inevitable amalgamation, thinning out, etc. (via Nat Friedman on Twitter)
- Dropbox for Teams — an interesting package of features from a very innovative company. (via Hacker News)
- Cloud Computing Checklist — Comparison and Analysis of the Terms and Conditions of Cloud Computing Services. What to look out for when signing a cloud contract. (via Rick Shera in email)
ENTRIES TAGGED "cloud computing"
Four short links: 10 December 2010
Javascript Snowmarklet, Tech Startups, Enterprise Dropbox, and Cloud Contracts
Cloud computing's fear factor: Acknowledge, reduce, move on
If cloud computing has so much potential, why are many organizations afraid of it?
A combination of negative messages and concerns about readiness have made cloud computing the most feared of the big technology innovations. There are legitimate reasons to approach the cloud with care, but we should not be consumed by irrational fear.
Four short links: 29 November 2010
Rethinking Education, Printing Roads, Outsource Security, and Designing Phones
- Building a New Culture of Thinking and Learning (Vimeo) — interesting farewell lecture from a university physicist disillusioned with the state of teaching. He went on to work on skateboarding video games. (via Kevin Marks)
- The Road Printer (BLDGBLOG) — a machine that lays cobblestone roads, looking remarkably like a printer as it does so. Not the future, but a whiff of it. (via Brenda Wallace)
- Watersheds in Communications Security (Bruce Schneier) — Whit talked about three watersheds in modern communications security. The first was the invention of the radio. [...] The second watershed was shared computing. [...] The third watershed is cloud computing, or whatever you want to call the general trend of outsourcing computation. The punchline: Diffie’s final point is that we’re entering an era of unprecedented surveillance possibilities. It doesn’t matter if people encrypt their communications, or if they encrypt their data in storage. As long as they have to give their data to other people for processing, it will be possible to eavesdrop on. Of course the methods will change, but the result will be an enormous trove of information about everybody.
- John’s Phone — a critical look at an elegant approach to mobile phones. it’s not a smart phone, it’s not a dumb phone, it’s the phone equivalent of a snappy dresser who’s great to talk to but who doesn’t do much. Proof, however, that there are many design surprises left in the phone world. The iPhone 4 is not the final coming of the JesusPhone.
Four short links: 18 November 2010
Web of Data, Wrong Open Source, Cloud Spot Market, REST
- Predictable Web of Data — a chapter of a book that never happened, this chapter covering the wonderful YQL.
- Symbian: A Lesson on the Wrong Way to Use Open Source (GigaOm) — Open source can be used to inspire and complement successful products. It can accelerate momentum. What it can’t do is resurrect dying technology products.
- SpotCloud — a spot market for cloud capacity. (via John Clegg on Twitter)
- Richardson Maturity Model for REST — A model (developed by Leonard Richardson) that breaks down the principal elements of a REST approach into three steps. These introduce resources, http verbs, and hypermedia controls. A very good introduction to REST for those who haven’t thought hard about it yet.
5 cloud computing conundrums
CIOs will need to unravel some challenging near-term puzzles to succeed in the cloud.
While every business needs to consider public cloud computing in the context of its own needs and risk profile, I've identified a sample of puzzles that most CIOs will likely need to address.
Four short links: 26 October 2010
NoSQL Experience, Connected Future, Hacktivism, and Mobile UI Guidelines
- 12 Months with MongoDB (Worknik) — every type of retrieval got faster than their old MySQL store, and there are some other benefits too. They note that the admin tools aren’t really there for MongoDB, so “there is a blurry hand-off between IT Ops and Engineering.” (via Hacker News)
- Dawn of a New Day — Ray Ozzie’s farewell note to Microsoft. Clear definition of the challenges to come: At first blush, this world of continuous services and connected devices doesn’t seem very different than today. But those who build, deploy and manage today’s websites understand viscerally that fielding a truly continuous service is incredibly difficult and is only achieved by the most sophisticated high-scale consumer websites. And those who build and deploy application fabrics targeting connected devices understand how challenging it can be to simply & reliably just ‘sync’ or ‘stream’. To achieve these seemingly simple objectives will require dramatic innovation in human interface, hardware, software and services. (via Tim O’Reilly on Twitter)
- A Civic Hacktivism Abecedary — good ideas matched with exquisite quotes and language. My favourite: Kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight. (via Francis Irving on Twitter)
- UI Guidelines for Mobile and Web Programming — collection of pointers to official UI guidelines from Nokia, Apple, Microsoft, MeeGo, and more.
ECPA reform: Why digital due process matters
The shift to cloud computing puts Electronic Communications Privacy Act reform in the spotlight.
Academics, technology companies, and privacy and civil liberties advocates are in agreement: the laws governing electronic privacy need an update. In these video interviews, four professors and the ACLU counsel reflect on "digital due process."
"Spontaneous collaboration" and other lessons from the private sector
Padmasree Warrior on the tools and technology governments should harness.
In this wide-ranging interview, Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior weighs in on smart cities, how the signal-to-noise ratio of social media can be managed, and why open government — if done right — can improve the speed and quality of decisions.
Mobile, desktop or cloud: Where does the future of open source lie?
Stormy Peters on her biggest cloud concerns and how mobile will shape open source.
In this Q&A, OSCON speaker and GNOME foundation executive director Stormy Peters discusses the risks of cloud computing, the continued importance of desktop computing, and the interesting relationship between new mobile form factors and free software adoption.
On the performance of clouds
A study ran cloud providers through four tests. Here's some of the results.
Bitcurrent and Webmetrics ran five cloud providers through a series of tests: a small object, a large object, a million calculations, and a 500,000-row table scan. Here's some of the results and lessons learned.
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