April 1, 2012
jQuery Mobile is a library that allows you to develop mobile apps using jQuery.
Is even possible to use a jQuery Mobile program as a native app, thanks to programs like PhoneGap.
This book assumes that you already know jQuery and I think that this is good since the author can focus only on the main topic in this way.
I think you should know or study jQuery before even starting this book.
I do know that’s possible to understand jQuery code even if you don’t know anything of JavaScript if you have rock solid programming knowledge, but I discourage it.
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February 28, 2012
Mining the Social Web is a good start for anyone is going to create scripts to analyze patterns in Social Networks.
I’ve to say that this book consider that the reader already masters Python.
I think that should be written directly on the title (ie: “Mining the Social Web with Python”).
I liked the really fast approach to the Social Networks, even if a lot of times I wanted more; for this reason I consider it only a start, not a complete book.
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December 6, 2011
Gordon Lyon (also known as Fyodor), the creator of Nmap, sent an email yesterday to the Nmap mailing list pointing out that the C|Net Download.com website is altering Nmap downloadable files injecting malware into them.
It’s also possible that other files delivered by C|Net Download.com are also subject to the same problem.
This event is a very problematic one since it will create a complete loss of trust toward Download.com.
It also reminds us of a critical aspect of security: all chain steps need to be secure and trusted.
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July 23, 2011
The EeePc 1015PN, at least the European version, comes with these two video cards:
- 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation N10 Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
- 04:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT218 [ION] (rev ff)
The first one is a nice Intel integrated card that allows you to have good performance in the 99.9% of the typical netbook user-cases.
In the other hand, the Nvidia ION is way more powerful than the integrated Intel card.
ION is capable of running HD videos, full-screen Youtube HD videos, games, and much more.
The downside of the nVidia card is the power drain.
This version of ION does drain 600mA more than the Intel integrated card.
These 600mA, as you can imagine, need also to be dissipated, forcing the vent to spin at its maximum speed.
Even with the vent at the maximum speed, the temperature increases from the 4055°C (idle with ION deactivated) to 65~80° (idle with ION active).
Therefore I’ve created a script that keeps ION deactivated by default and allows the user to active it when is needed and stop it when is no more needed.
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May 22, 2011 - Settala, IT
Last weekend, the ViGLug organized an event in Settala called Brain Jumble.
The idea of this three-day event was to have a set of conferences on Linux in Business on Friday, Linux in the Public Sector on Saturday, and Linux in the Instruction Sector on Sunday.
The event has been a success, with more than 15 speeches and many people participating in it.
During those talks, many topics got covered, from Linux to Qt, to Open Street Map.
There have also been talks on democracy and Open Source.
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February 4, 2011
On the first of February, APNIC, the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, announced that the last two IPv4 class A (/8) have been assigned.
With this assignment, there are no more IPV4 classes /8 available from IANA.
This does not mean that there are no IPv4 available, but that from now on, only smaller classes will be assignable.
Also, the RIR still has some /8 classes available.
Many people see this as a clear sign that the move to IPv6 is imminent.
I do not share this optimism.
For many years companies will continue freeing IPv4 classes by implementing NATs and will sell those classes to newer companies that will require IPv4s.
Over time the average price per address will increase, squeezing out of the market the small players.
We will see a move to IPv6 at a certain point, but I doubt it will happen before 10 or 20 years.
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July 5, 2010
Two days ago, with an email to the Python Announce mailing list, Benjamin Peterson announced the release of Python 2.7.
This moment is of historical importance for the Python project since 2.7 will be the latest major 2.x release.
From now on, only the Python 3.x branch will have additional development.
To ease this change, Python 2.7 will get full support for five years.
The changes between 2.7 and 3 are easy to apply for the majority of codebases, but I suspect that many projects will not make the deadline.
The main reason for my skepticism is that open-source projects have a horrible track record for those changes.
The main reason this happens is that many libraries, used usually by many other projects, are unmaintained or so lightly maintained that such an effort will be hardly doable.
Also, until the libraries get ported, there is no way the applications or other libraries that depend on them will be ported.
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June 18, 2010
Back in the 80s, SCO was one of the first companies to sell a UNIX operating system.
The history of SCO is a complex one, with many acquisitions, merges, and renames.
But, long story short, they affirmed to be the rightful owner of many aspects of UNIX.
SCO leveraged this supposed ownership and sued many companies such as AutoZone, DaimlerChrysler, IBM, and Novell to obtain royalties.
The importance of those litigations is given by the fact that if it is true that SCO is the owner of UNIX, this will imply that they are also the owner of Linux or at least some parts of it.
The fact that such a litigious company like SCO would be the owner of Linux would be a nightmare with a substantial impact on open source companies and communities to the point that Linux’s future would be in danger.
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July 26, 2009
In a historical twist, now Microsoft contributes to Linux Kernel.
This fact can seem absurd, but Microsoft sent a 22k lines patch to better support Linux on Microsoft’s Hyper-V last week.
On the one hand, we have to remember that Steve Balmer, Microsoft CEO, back in 2001 affirmed compared Linux and Open Source to cancer.
On the other hand, it does make sense for Microsoft to ensure that Linux properly runs on Hyper-V, and there is no better way to do so than to commit the code themselves.
Also, Microsoft has entered into a deal with Novell for many millions of dollars around Linux and Windows interoperability in 2006.
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January 20, 2009
Last week, Sebastian Nyström (Vice President of Qt Software) announced that Qt would have one additional license from the next release: the LGPL.
This is a huge change from the previous Qt licensing policy and a good step in the path that Qt started many years ago.
We shall not forget that until 2000, Qt was released in a double Commercial/QPL license, and while the QPL name is Qt Public License, it was not considered Free Software by the Free Software Foundation.
In 2000, they added the GPL license to the mix, which solved all issues for the open-source community but still forced the non-open-source customer to buy from Qt Software.
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(Fabio Alessandro Locati|Fale)'s blog