"dropbox" entries

Four short links: 3 July 2014

Four short links: 3 July 2014

Go Libraries, Salary Transparency, Printed Houses, and IoT Alliance

by Nat Torkington | @gnat | +Nat Torkington | July 3, 2014
  1. DropBox Opensources Go Libraries — including memcache and a general abstraction for caching layers.
  2. Transparency with Salaries (NPR) — Atkison has meetings like this all the time. He says it gives him a chance to explain why some employees make more than others — and to explain to employees how they can make more. For a lot of employees, knowing what everyone makes is less exciting than it seems. By moving from negotiation to clear expectations of salary levels, bumps, etc., I can also see it helping the company understand what it values.
  3. Printing Buildings from Recycled Materials (ComputerWorld) — The printers, supplied by WinSun Decoration Design Engineering, are 20 feet tall, 33 feet wide and 132 feet long. Like their desktop counterparts, the construction-grade WinSun 3D printers use a fused deposition modeling (FDM) technology to deposit materials one layer at a time in a process that’s similar to squeezing frosting from a pastry bag. 10 single-room buildings in a day. (via Slashdot)
  4. Microsoft Joins Internet-of-Things Alliance (Computerworld) — more vendors joining AllSeen Alliance to agree on the open comms standards for IoT apps and devices. Google/Nest notable by their absence.
Four short links: 30 August 2013

Four short links: 30 August 2013

Flexible Layouts, Web Components, Distributed SQL Database, and Reverse-Engineering Dropbox Client

by Nat Torkington | @gnat | +Nat Torkington | August 30, 2013
  1. intention.js — manipulates the DOM via HTML attributes. The methods for manipulation are placed with the elements themselves, so flexible layouts don’t seem so abstract and messy.
  2. Introducing Brick: Minimal-markup Web Components for Faster App Development (Mozilla) — a cross-browser library that provides new custom HTML tags to abstract away common user interface patterns into easy-to-use, flexible, and semantic Web Components. Built on Mozilla’s x-tags library, Brick allows you to plug simple HTML tags into your markup to implement widgets like sliders or datepickers, speeding up development by saving you from having to initially think about the under-the-hood HTML/CSS/JavaScript.
  3. F1: A Distributed SQL Database That Scales — a distributed relational database system built at Google to support the AdWords business. F1 is a hybrid database that combines high availability, the scalability of NoSQL systems like Bigtable, and the consistency and usability of traditional SQL databases. F1 is built on Spanner, which provides synchronous cross-datacenter replication and strong consistency. Synchronous replication implies higher commit latency, but we mitigate that latency by using a hierarchical schema model with structured data types and through smart application design. F1 also includes a fully functional distributed SQL query engine and automatic change tracking and publishing.
  4. Looking Inside The (Drop)Box (PDF) — This paper presents new and generic techniques, to reverse engineer frozen Python applications, which are not limited to just the Dropbox world. We describe a method to bypass Dropbox’s two factor authentication and hijack Dropbox accounts. Additionally, generic techniques to intercept SSL data using code injection techniques and monkey patching are presented. (via Tech Republic)
Four short links: 2 November 2011

Four short links: 2 November 2011

Deployment, Image Distribution, Open Source Sharing, and Soulless Programming

by Nat Torkington | @gnat | +Nat Torkington | November 2, 2011
  1. Thoughts on Web Application Deployment (OmniTI) — if your web site is your business, this stuff is critical and it’s under-taught. Everyone learns it on the job, and there’s not a lot of standardization between gigs.
  2. Github Enterprise — GitHub Enterprise is delivered in the industry-standard OVF format, which means you’ll be able to run it on virtualization layers like VMware, VirtualBox, and Oracle VM. An increasingly common way to sell web apps, but it’ll trigger GPL-style distribution terms in software licenses.
  3. SparkleShare — open source sharing tool that markets itself as “like Dropbox”. Uses git as a backend, so you can share via github.
  4. Whatever Happened to Programming? — When I was fourteen, I wrote space-invader games in BASIC on a VIC-20. If you were interested in computers back in 1982, I bet you did the same. When I was 18, I wrote multi-user dungeons in C on serial terminals attached to a Sun 3. […] Today, I mostly paste libraries together. So do you, most likely, if you work in software. Doesn’t that seem anticlimactic? Any time you are in the “someone else’s code is almost right, make the changes to improve it” situation, you’re doing unsatisfying programming. It’s factory assembly of software, not craftsmanship. Welcome to the future: you have been replaced by a machine, and the machine is you.
Four short links: 10 December 2010

Four short links: 10 December 2010

Javascript Snowmarklet, Tech Startups, Enterprise Dropbox, and Cloud Contracts

by Nat Torkington | @gnat | +Nat Torkington | December 10, 2010
  1. Let it Snow — bookmarklet from David Flanagan that makes Javascript snowflakes fall. Awww. (via Mike Loukides)
  2. 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)
  3. Dropbox for Teams — an interesting package of features from a very innovative company. (via Hacker News)
  4. 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)