TED

"Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world": www.ted.com

Certification Site

Site to ease the certification hassle @ http://www.pass4sure.org/allproducts.html

The Human Camera

If you have never seen this before, you are in for a treat. Open here: http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=0k4lsi1dql

Innovation Delusion

An article by Ralph Gomory from the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ralph-gomory/the-innovation-delusion_b_480794.html

Concurrency in Java 5

J2SE 5 very much extends and expands the concurrency model of Java. The very useful concurrency communication classes such as (bounded and unbounded) queues are introduced.

One of the best parts of new improved Java concurrency model is the new java.util.concurrent.BlockingQueue interface.

LinkedBlockingQueues and ArrayBlockingQueues do away with wait(), notify() and notifyAll() style of coding. Add to that Synchronized queues, which are simply amazing, as well as DelayQueue classes and PriorityBlockingQueues and you have yourself a whole lot of threading fun!

Other useful classes are CountDownLatch, CyclicBarrier, Executor,
CachedThreadPools, FixedThreadPools, SingleThreadExecutors, ExecutorServices, Futures, and Callable.

I think it is a good idea to look into learning synchronous, asynchronous queues, and cached threading pools, and then delve into performance considerations for atomic, lock, and concurrent methods of class, method, and attribute concurrency.

Note that there are command line switches important to concurrent programming (-X*) and also that there Runtime classes designed to help avoid OutOfMemory heap problems.

Some of these exciting stuff is covered in the "Thinking in Java 4" by Bruce Eckel but that book does not concentrate on concurrent programming.

The book to read is:

Java Concurrency in Practice
by Brian Goetz, Tim Peierls, Joshua Bloch, Joseph Bowbeer, David Holmes, Doug Lea

The Astral Religion of Antiquity and the Thinking Machines of To-day

A paper by the late historian of science, George Sarton, that is as relevant today as when it was first published 50 years ago.

http://cid-58aac97211c98e70.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/The%20Astral%20Religion%20of%20Antiquity%20and%20the%20Thinking%20Machines%20of%20To-day.pdf

Secret Origin Of Windows

http://technologizer.com/2010/03/08/the-secret-origin-of-windows/

Pivot for Web Exploration

An interesting presentation and web data visualization tool by Gary Flake (a Microsoft Technical Fellow):

http://www.ted.com/talks/gary_flake_is_pivot_a_turning_point_for_web_exploration.html

The tool is available from Microsoft Labs.

Windows Installer CleanUp Utility

Windows Installer CleanUp Utility might be able to help remove installation information for programs that were installed by using Windows Installer. Be aware that it will not remove the actual program from the computer but will remove the installation files so that one may re-start the installation, upgrade, or uninstall.

Windows Installer CleanUp Utility (for all 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows) may be found @ http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

Anti-Virus Hardware

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_10/b4169052653415.htm

Imagination

Is U.S. Killing Its Innovation Machine?

From an article by Willy C. Shih in the online edition of the Harvard Business Review:

"The market research firm iSuppli estimates that the Kindle's total manufacturing cost is $185. The most expensive single component is the $60 display, which Taiwan's Prime View International is manufacturing."

This story was taken up by the Brookings Institution under the title: "Amazon’s Kindle: Symbol of American Decline?" in which we read:

"...Because E-Ink could not control the low-temperature polysilicon and the fabrication of the display, it could not perform the system integration required for it to capture the majority of the value-add at that stage....U.S. will likely miss out on the future industries that may spring from shop-floor tinkering with the display and its production--“things like large flexible displays, future generations of electronic signage, and plastic electronics.”"

Flash Flowers

Click on the following link, when a black screen opens click any where on the screen and drag the mouse.


http://www.procreo.jp/labo/flower_garden.swf

Open-Source Windows Applications

Ten open-source Windows applications worth a look: http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=30983

Facts on Facebook

If you want to know how Facebook, the number 2 property on the Internet, does what it does, listen to:

http://cns.ucsd.edu/lecturearchive09.shtml#Roth

Free Web Applications

Free Web applications from Microsoft @ http://www.microsoft.com/web/spotlight/appgallery.aspx?WT.mc_id=nlc-web-corp-spotfeb_msdnfl

Mono Tools for Visual Studio

Mono Tools for Visual Studio enables .NET developers to migrate existing .NET applications and create new .NET applications for Linux, Mac OS X and UNIX.

Try it @ http://go.techtarget.com/r/10827019/2445277/2

Universe from Nothing

Alexander Vilenkin's paper on the creation of the Universe from nothing:

http://www.mukto-mona.com/science/physics/a_vilinkin/universe_from_nothing.pdf

The Elements of Computing Systems

"The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles" by Noam Nisan and Shimon Schocken is a project-based book that demonstrates how to build a computing system from the ground up. One learns about combinatorial & sequential logic, ALU & memory chips, CPU & von Neumann architecture, machine & assembly language, assemblers, virtual machines, parsing and code generation.

The hardware part is built using a freely provided Hardware Simulator and the software part can be tackled in any programming language(s) you choose. You can get started right now by going to the book's website @ http://www1.idc.ac.il/tecs/ which has some sample chapters and all the tools (like the Hardware Simulator) one will need to complete these projects.

Sullenberger Flight

A simulation of the Sullenberger flight landing in the Hudson River.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tE_5eiYn0D0#t=109