[26-Aug-09] Pick of the Day: Suggestions for Windows 7

Reference:

http://features.techworld.com/operating-systems/121475/seven-things-windows-7-can-learn-from-linux/

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Seven things Windows 7 can learn from Linux

I’m so excited about the release of Windows 7. Yes, really, an old Linux tragic like me can’t wait for Microsoft’s next-generation OS. But that doesn’t mean Microsoft should stop learning. Far from it, let’s consider the perfect number of moves Redmond can make to take a leaf out of Linux’s book – for the benefit of all.

The number 7 has held a special place in numerology and mythology for centuries. Wikipedia even has page explaining its significance at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_(number).

When Windows 7 hits the scene on October millions of people will be immersed in the word 7 for the foreseeable future. How do you make something perfect even better? You learn from your competitors.

So without dwelling on the number, here are seven ways Windows 7 can improve by adopting concepts from Linux.

1. More frequent release cycles. As I’ve already explained, Microsoft’s worst enemy has been its very long release cycles. Linux distributors, on the other hand, have the opposite problem – too frequent release cycles. But what would a consumer be more interested in, an operating system that’s eight years old (Windows XP) or one that’s updated every year or even six months? Fresh product releases means fresh marketing and Microsoft knows this. From Windows 7 on it’s bye, bye many-year release cycles and hello two year cycles at the most.

2. Sane release versioning. Okay, before anyone comments about how INSANE Linux distribution release versioning is, it’s still not as bad as Windows’. Yes, there is a systematic way in which Microsoft versions its Windows releases, but that’s been hidden behind the marketing hoopla. We’ve had Windows 3.1, 95, NT, 98, 2000, Me, XP, Vista and 7 which makes perfect sense. Suddenly Ubuntu’s 7.10, 8.04, 8.10, 9.04, etc, doesn’t seem so silly after all. Nor does Fedora’s 8, 9, 10. Mac OS X? This stays the same with just minor release versions and code names - brilliant for the not-so-tech-savvy. Dumb it down Microsoft. If you’re going to name a product Windows 7, release Windows 8 after it, not “Windows Panorama” or “Windows 2012”.

3. Online OS upgrades. One thing Linux does well is allow users to perform a major OS release upgrade online. Microsoft’s boxed set cash cow may prevent this from happening soon, but it’s something that definitely should be on its radar. Want to upgrade to the next version? Click a box, pay for it and download it over the Internet. The same can be said about third-party applications as well.

4. Better Web app integration. If Microsoft learns anything from Linux or Mac OS X is that today’s desktop user is obsessed with Web apps and will do anything to get Facebook and Twitter functionality at their fingertips. The KDE hackers wrote an entire widget development framework for transferring data over the Internet and it’s now available with every modern Linux distribution. While I have no doubt Windows 7 will have enough clout to force developers into writing Web 2.0 widgets. The big questions are how much traction it will get and how long will it take. Will the native Windows 7 widgets capture people’s interest the way the others have? Microsoft needs to make it happen.

5. Support open development environments. Microsoft has come a long way with its support for standards-based development environments since the ugly tiff with Java a few years back. I’d love to see Windows 7 and its predecessors take this one step further. If it’s and open source, standards-based development environment then it can be used on Linux and this is holding Windows back. Microsoft needs to leave the politics of programming environment source code behind and give developers the tools they need, right there in the operating system. Develop bindings for open source languages and let ISVs create commercial applications. Get the great development projects on Codeplex into the OS proper.

6. Slim down for the mobile world. The rise of Linux netbooks and smartphones over the past 12 months has surely given Microsoft incentive to slim down future versions Windows. If not slim down Windows entirely, at the very least break the shackles of a monolithic product and componentise it so the OEMs can ship just what they need for their mobile computer. Sure there’s Windows Mobile, but like Symbian it was not designed to work on a small notebook. Linux is attractive to netbook markers because it can be cut down and customized for smaller, lighter end of the market. And with Windows Vista being the resource hog that it was, Windows 7 has a big task ahead to match the nimble Linux.

7. Better device support. One of the greatest misconceptions about Linux is that there is limited, if any, support for internal and external devices. In fact, the Linux kernel ships with more device drivers than any other operating system. If a device is support there is a good chance it will work with Linux. Windows, however, still relies heavily on its expansive network OEMs and ISVs to provide the functionality people expect when they purchase an after market product. Windows 7 needs to be the release that aggressively begins to integrate device drivers into the operating system they was Linux and Mac OS X have. This also helps people that are not chained to the same computer or location getting stuck without driver CDs.

So there are seven things Windows 7 can learn from Linux to make the world a better place. Feel free to suggest seven more, or, even better, take them up with Microsoft once lucky 7 shines upon us later this year.

[24-Aug-09] Pick of the Day: Advices for Computer Science Researchers

The following speech is an extract from the speech delivered at "SIGCOMM 2009", the most prestigious conference in networking. The speaker is Meeyong Cha, a very efficient network researcher currently doing her post-doc at MPI-SWS in Germany. The speech contains a useful piece of advice for those wanting to do research in Computer Science:

"Hi, I am Mia. I'm honored to be invited to speak along with Sue, Dina, and Anja, who are fantastic researchers and have been in networking research for many more years than me. So I'll be your amuse bouche appetizer today. The main course speakers will follow shortly.

Let me tell you a bit about my background. I received my PhD from KAIST in Korea last year--Sue was my advisor and I take great pride in being her first PhD student. After I graduated, I moved to MPI in Germany as a post-doc to work with Krishna Gummadi. Now I live in a small city called Saarbruecken. It's on the border between France and Germany and my favorite shopping places are hours away. You'll see my publication list doubled since I moved to Germany.

I work on online social networks. My recent research topic is focused on understanding how information propagates in online social networks, particularly on the role of "word of mouth"-based propagation. I studied this phenomenon by analyzing data on how photos propagate in the Flickr.com website. I coined a term "social cascade"--which I hope will become popular--to describe the type of information propagation that happens through online friendship. For example, we get exposed to the photos, text updates, web links our friends share online. These exposures are what I mean by social cascades. Everyday, tremendous amount of data flows through social links, which means that social cascade is playing a big role on our online experience.

For me, social cascade is a fascinating research topic, not only because it is an entirely new way that connects people, but also because it has consequences beyond the online world. In the recent Iran election, we saw how the use of Twitter lead to some of the rallies and protests in the streets of Teheran. One of my recent projects is on investigating the role Twitter played in the Iran election. Back in my office in Germany, I parse terabytes of data to understand how millions of users in Twitter collaboratively spread messages among themselves. I am also interested in knowing how such collaborative action translates into innovations and challenges in the networking and systems area.

The Internet is a network of computers, but behind computers, there are people. As more of people's offline relationships get translated online, the Internet becomes more social. Social networks therefore have big consequences on the Internet. Just like when peer-to-peer came out and it had a great impact on the Internet, social cascade will dramatically affect a lot of things we know about the Internet, such as the type of content that is available, new infrastructures that are needed, and even people's view on the Internet itself. My research vision is to understand how social cascade is re-shaping the Internet and build network systems that better support this new social interactions.

Lastly, to all the PhD students, I'd like to share one message. Do the type of research that excites you and do not hesitate to change topics if you have to. Before I fell in love with online social networks, I worked on lower layers of the network stack: including backbone designs, IP networks, peer-to-peer systems, television viewing habits, YouTube video popularity. All of these topics are interesting on their own, but they lead me to recognize that workloads in these systems are ultimately determined by humans. Now I am very happy to work on social networks.

If you fancy a career as a researcher, you'll spend tens of thousands of hours on work over the next 10 years. The only way you're ever gonna spend 10,000 hours on research is only when you truly deeply love it. If something really engages you and makes you happy, then you will put in the kind of energy and time necessary to become an expert at it.

So, besides being ambitious, disciplined, and smart and all that, I hope you find a research topic that excites you and makes you have a lot of fun during your remaining years of your PhD. Thank you and now on to the rest of the -- menu."

[22-Aug-09] Survey of the Day: Search Engine Use by Operating System

Search engines have become important entry points for the Web today and life on the Internet without a search engine is unimaginable these days. So which is the most famous search engine that is providing users with best results. That's surely a tough question to answer but there is one notable fact: open source community prefers Google over Bing.

A survey was conducted by Chitika, an online advertising network to analyse search engine usage by operating system.

Here's what they say:

With the upswing in the number of Linux boxes (thank you netbooks and Dell) and as much interest we have in the search engine market, we at Chitika thought we’d take a look at the search habits of our open-source friends. We compared the OS and search engine data for 163,211,927 searches – a sample of the Chitika network’s search data from July 30th through August 16th – and the results were quite interesting. Check them out:

Sure, Google dominates search across all categories, but what’s surprising is that a whopping 94.61% of all Linux search traffic was from Google, compared with 78.54% of Windows user searches. Compare that with Microsoft’s new “decision engine” Bing, which is holding steady at about 8% of Windows users, but is getting practically no use whatsoever by Linux users – just 0.77% of Linux searches were from Bing. Even Ask.com outdoes Bing for Linux users.

Reference:

http://chitika.com/blog/2009/08/21/chitika-study-open-source-users-love-google-hate-microsoft/

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[19-Aug-09]: Concept of the day

Programming vs Coding

Reference:

http://arjumand-atif.blogspot.com/2009/06/programming-vs-coding.html

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Recently I saw many people rejoicing over Pakistan being declared as one of a great outsourcing destination, and to many within the Pakistani software industry this is a big achievement but I am skeptical about it. Is it really a sign of progress for us or has hidden repercussions??

In my opinion being a great outsourcing destination is not much, the question that we must ask ourselves is where do we stand in the Computer Science research community? How many publications do we produce every year? The answer is of course highly unsatisfactory.

It makes me sad to say that our universities are producing coders but not programmers: many would argue with me saying they are the same but there is a world of difference between the two. The question was raised by my Professor Kyu-Young Whang in his Database class few months back and I really liked his answer:

“Programming is about design and attention to detail while coding is about knowing few tips and following them without much thinking.”

Coding is just mindlessly typing out computer commands, whereas programming is actively thinking about abstract solutions to a problem and then expressing it in code. To be a coder, you need to know the syntax, but to program, you need to understand various algorithms and data structures. Mathematics forms the core of good and efficient programming skills whereas for a coder mathematics is not of much importance. Students who are adept at math tend to perform better in computer science. They are better able to understand relationships in data, scientific computations, and algorithm design. This allows them to be better at solving problems and generating good designs from requirements and hence be a programmer. On the other side of the spectrum are the coders who just know about the language features and are aware of the features of the platform they are working for.

The harsh reality is that many of the graduates in the computer science field in Pakistan are just coders but not programmers. Many of them do not do justice to the computer science field since they either switch to MBA or they go for software development (database development, web portals, community websites etc) jobs doing monotonous work all along.

In the Computer Science community in Pakistan there is a lack of proper research being conducted and in my opinion one big reason for this is that Computer Science research needs programmers and not coders. The scenario in Pakistan is that many computer science majors, those desiring to eventually become computer scientists, programmers, systems analysts, computer hardware designers, networking specialists, or software engineers, do not have the background knowledge needed to succeed in their studies. Nor do many of them desire to get this necessary math background if there is any possible way to avoid it.

The programmers are the ones that invent thereby producing new researches in Computer Science and coming up with new, innovative ideas. Whereas coders do labor work just playing with some new technologies and enjoying the outside glimmers. After all Google was just another research with two brilliant programmers Sergey Brin and Larry Page coming up with a new algorithm of ranking. Why isn’t such research being produced in our country: answer is simple, I guess!!!

[17-Aug-09]: Debate of the day: Cloud Computing (Definition)

What is cloud computing

Today's debate of the day is cloud computing, following video give basic insight on the topic of cloud computing, while following two articles are in favor(link) and against(link) of this topic.

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Video's Reference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hplXnFUlPmg

[17-Aug-09]: Debate of the day: Cloud Computing (Against)

Reference: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman

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Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman

The concept of using web-based programs like Google's Gmail is "worse than stupidity", according to a leading advocate of free software.

Cloud computing – where IT power is delivered over the internet as you need it, rather than drawn from a desktop computer – has gained currency in recent years. Large internet and technology companies including Google, Microsoft and Amazon are pushing forward their plans to deliver information and software over the net.

But Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the computer operating system GNU, said that cloud computing was simply a trap aimed at forcing more people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that would cost them more and more over time.

"It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign," he told The Guardian.

"Somebody is saying this is inevitable – and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true."

The 55-year-old New Yorker said that computer users should be keen to keep their information in their own hands, rather than hand it over to a third party.

His comments echo those made last week by Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, who criticised the rash of cloud computing announcements as "fashion-driven" and "complete gibberish".

"The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do," he said. "The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?"

The growing number of people storing information on internet-accessible servers rather than on their own machines, has become a core part of the rise of Web 2.0 applications. Millions of people now upload personal data such as emails, photographs and, increasingly, their work, to sites owned by companies such as Google.

Computer manufacturer Dell recently even tried to trademark the term "cloud computing", although its application was refused.

But there has been growing concern that mainstream adoption of cloud computing could present a mixture of privacy and ownership issues, with users potentially being locked out of their own files.

Stallman, who is a staunch privacy advocate, advised users to stay local and stick with their own computers.

"One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control," he said. "It's just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software."

[17-Aug-09]: Debate of the day: Cloud Computing (In favor)

Reference: http://broadbandcensus.com/2008/06/google-ceo-says-the-future-belongs-to-cloud-computing/

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Google CEO Says the Future Belongs to ‘Cloud Computing’

WASHINGTON, June 9 - High-speed Internet connections, social networks like Facebook and MySpace, and the concept of “cloud computing” make it possible to “live a lot of your lives online,” Google CEO Eric Schmidt said Monday.

Schmidt said that the ability to transfer and run computer programs, data, and individual software customization temporarily to any computer — a concept known as “cloud computing” — is an important example of how new developments in Internet access facilitate a mobile lifestyle.

“There is a shift from traditional PC computing to cloud computing,” Schmidt said. “That is where the servers are somewhere else, and the servers are always just there.”

The concept can only take off when good-quality broadband is continuously available.

Still, speaking at a luncheon address to the Washington Economic Club, Schmidt called the trend — which advantages Google over traditional rivals like Microsoft — a “permanent shift in the power of computing.”

Schmidt did not specifically mention Microsoft, which has been the dominant software player in the world of personal computing. Microsoft’s future may be challenged by Google’s ascendance. He also did not mention Google’s efforts to squelch a bid by Microsoft to acquire the Internet portal Yahoo.

“Most incumbents blow transitions,” Schmidt said. “The radio companies didn’t do well in TV. Print hasn’t translated that well online.”

The techniques that are most likely to offer success to businesses under the new computing regime are those who use open systems. Companies that favor openness release information rather than seeking to keep it proprietary.

Schmidt also addressed Network Neutrality, or the move to block carriers from differentiating in the prices that they charge business users. He also said that cellular carriers could be required to allow handsets on their networks that will work on those of their rivals.

For example, he applauded the Federal Communications Commission for imposing rules that companies bidding for a certain portion of radio frequencies allow “open access” to wireless devices.

Schmidt also touched upon on Google’s management style. It requires employees to write a one-sentence summary of what they have been doing each week. It also offers certain employees 20 percent of their time to tinker on projects of their choosing.

“We could run the country [or] run the world this way,” said Schmidt

[16-Aug-09]: Video of The Day

The term Web 2.0 can now be seen as a fashion term within the world of Computer Science. If you want to sound cool, say this term. But what exactly is Web 2.0 and what are its nitty gritty explanations. Watch this excellent video for a brief explanation:

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Video's Reference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BAXvFdMBWw

[16-Aug-09]: News of The day

Reference:

http://videos.webpronews.com/2009/08/11/breaking-news-matt-cutts-explains-caffeine-update/

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Google Caffeine

Google announced yesterday that it has been working on a project called “Caffeine” that will re-write the architecture for Google’s Web search. As Matt Cutts shares exclusively with WebProNews, Caffeine is comparable to the “Big Daddy Update” back in 2005, which consisted of changes to the way Google crawls and indexes websites.

How much of an impact will Caffeine have on results? Matt says there will, hopefully, not be a big difference. Google will integrate Caffeine slowly and take user feedback into consideration.

Matt says, “If we push forward as fast as we can, double down on innovation and try to do the best that we can, [and] do the right thing for users, everything else will work out.”

This infrastructure modification will lay the foundation for future indexing changes and will also allow for the expansion of website speed and size. Incidentally, it could even provide a stronger architecture for potential real-time and semantic efforts.

If you would like to try Caffeine, you can check it out at: http://www2.sandbox.google.com/.

For more details see the video on:
http://videos.webpronews.com/2009/08/11/breaking-news-matt-cutts-explains-caffeine-update/

[13-Aug-09]: Video of The day

What is Computer Science?

This is an amazing video that explains computer science from unconventional point of view, must see.

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Video's Reference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQLUPjefuWA

[13-Aug-09]: How PlayStation 3 Works

Reference:

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/playstation-three1.htm

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Playstation 3 Cell Processor

The setup of the Cell processor is like having a team of processors all working together on one chip to handle the large computational workload needed to run next-generation video games. In order to understand how the Cell processor works, it helps to look at each of the major parts that comprise this processor.

The "Processing Element" of the Cell is a 3.2-GHz PowerPC core equipped with 512 KB of L2 cache. The PowerPC core is a type of microprocessor similar to the one you would find running the Apple G5. It's a powerful processor on its own and could easily run a computer by itself; but in the Cell, the PowerPC core is not the sole processor. Instead, it's more of a "managing processor." It delegates processing to the eight other processors on the chip, the Synergistic Processing Elements.

...

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For more on this, please visit

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/playstation-three1.htm

Computer Scientists Take Over Electronic Voting Machine With New Programming Technique

Reference:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090810161902.htm

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Computer scientists demonstrated that criminals could hack an electronic voting machine and steal votes using a malicious programming approach that had not been invented when the voting machine was designed. The team of scientists from University of California, San Diego, the University of Michigan, and Princeton University employed “return-oriented programming” to force a Sequoia AVC Advantage electronic voting machine to turn against itself and steal votes.

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For more on this, please visit

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090810161902.htm

Microsoft patches 19 bugs in sweeping security update

Reference: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9136527/Microsoft_patches_19_bugs_in_sweeping_security_update

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Microsoft today delivered nine security updates that patched 19 vulnerabilities in several crucial components of Windows, as well as in Windows Media Player, Outlook Express, IIS (Internet Information Server), Office and several other products.

Security researchers pegged Tuesday's batch as "all over the map" and a "smorgasbord" of updates.

Included in today's patches were five that plugged holes that Microsoft's own software inherited from a buggy code "library," dubbed ATL (Active Template Library), that the company and others rely on to create their programs.

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For more on this, please visit

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9136527/Microsoft_patches_19_bugs_in_sweeping_security_update

Is Adobe the next (pre-2002) Microsoft?

Reference: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10304455-245.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1

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If you're a criminal and you want to break into a network, a common attack method is to exploit a hole in software that exists on most computers, has its fair share of holes, and isn't automatically updated.

In 2002, that would have been Windows. Today, it's likely to be Adobe Reader or Flash Player, whose share of vulnerabilities and exploits are on the rise while Microsoft's is falling.

Nearly half of targeted attacks exploit holes in Acrobat Reader, which is used to read PDF (portable document format) files, according to F-Secure. Meanwhile, the number of PDF files used in dangerous Web drive-by attacks jumped from 128 during the first three and a half months of last year to more than 2,300 during that time this year, the company said.

In addition, there are more and more zero-day holes, vulnerabilities that are public before a patch is available. Like sitting ducks, users of affected software are left wide open to attack until a fix is available.

There have been zero-day exploits for the Flash Player plug-in, used for viewing rich media like videos and interactive charts on Web sites. And in one case this spring, a zero-day hole in Adobe Reader spurred security experts to recommend that users disable JavaScript.

One security researcher at Black Hat last week, who asked to remain anonymous, said: "As a result of the number of zero-day attacks on PDFs this year, large banks hate Adobe."

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For more on this, please visit

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10304455-245.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1