WORLD'S MOST INFLUENTIAL SCIENTIFIC MINDS 2015/2016.

3 Malaysian scientists have been recognized by Thomson Reuters as part of the "World's Most Influential Scientific Minds".

1) Prof Dato Ir Dr Wan Ramli Wan Daud, Fakulti Kejuruteraan & Alam Bina (Engineering & Built Environment), UKM (National University of Malaysia)

2) Prof Dr Siti Kartom Kamarudin, Timb Pengarah Institut SEL FUEL (FUEL CELL), UKM

3) Prof Dr Bassim Hameed, Kejuruteraan Kimia (Chemical Engineering), USM (Science University of Malaysia).

THANK YOU for bringing pride to the country. TERIMA KASIH kerana mengharumkan nama Negara, kekalkan usaha anda!

#SoaringUpwards Kementerian Pendidikan Tinggi Soaring Upwards

Forbes lists the top-earning YouTube stars for 2014 to 2015

Forbes has ranked the YouTube stars who earned the most for the year ending on June 1, 2015... and the money they raked in can make you seriously think that you're in the wrong line of work. The first person in the list shouldn't surprise gamers: it's Pewdiepie, who reportedly took in a jaw-dropping amount of $12 million for his video game playthroughs and commentaries. Another gamer, KSI, also made the list after taking in $4.5 million. Video gamers aren't the only ones earning sweet, sweet YouTube money, though. Comedy acts seem to be doing great on the website, as well, with duos Smosh and Fine Brothers getting $8.5 million each. Showing off her unusual talent has paid off for Lindsey Stirling, as well, seeing as she took in $6 million for dancing while playing the violin in her videos. Michelle Phan may not be uploading as many make-up tutorials these days, but she still earned $3 million, thanks to her various deals and investments.


The publication used a number of sources, including Nielsen and IMDB to come up with the figures they did. Take note that these numbers represent the entirety of the personalities' earnings before taxes, management and other fees -- an earlier report by a Swedish newspaper put Pewdiepie's earnings at $7 million in 2014 -- and include the money they got from ads, sponsorships, book deals and the like. By the way, the prankster and the self-taught baking chef who make up the bottom of the list still made $2.5 million each, so we wouldn't be surprised if you're setting up a YouTube account right as you read this.


Source: Forbes

The Coming of Third Platform

2015 is a year of accelerating disruption, based on broadening adoption of the 3rd Platform's cloud, mobile, social, big data, and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. 2015 will mark the 3rd Platform's shift to the "innovation stage," with an explosion of innovation and value creation on top of the 3rd Platform's foundation.

According to IDC Chief Analyst Frank Gens, "We are shifting into a new gear in the industry's adoption of the 3rd Platform, as cloud, mobile, big data, and the Internet of Things — and an exploding number of solutions built on them — will account for one-third of all IT spending and 100% of IT growth in 2015. Look for lots of vendor consolidation, 'strange bedfellow' partnerships, deathmatch battles for developers (and their apps), expanding cognitive/machine learning and IoT offerings, a growing focus on data supply chains, and skyrocketing influence for China."

First Platform
The first platform is the mainframe computer system, which began in the 1950s and continues today. 

Second Platform

The second platform is the client/server system, which began in the 1980s with PCs tapping into mainframe databases and applications.

Third Platform

The third platform is the third computing platform consisting of the inter-dependencies between social, mobile, analytics (big data) and cloud^.

Industry analysts and researchers have noted the impact of these technologies on business. Gartner refers to "the convergence and mutual reinforcement of four interdependent trends: social interaction, mobility, cloud, and information" as a "nexus of forces" that "is transforming the way people and businesses relate to technology"^. The International Data Corporation talks about "the 3rd Platform for IT growth and innovation, built on mobile devices, cloud services, social technologies, and big data"^. Other analysts have reported on the projected market for "third platform" technologies^. The technologies on which the Third Platform is based are not universally agreed, but commonly include mobile computing, social media, cloud computing, and big data. The Internet of Things is sometimes included^. Other technologies could be included also as they gain in importance.

The Open Platform 3.0 initiative of The Open Group aims to produce a consensus definition of the third platform, and identify open standards for it, to help enterprises gain business benefit from these technologies.


Third Platform's Four Pillars 

1. Social Technology

Gartner defined a social technology as, “Any technology that facilitates social interactions and is enabled by a communications capability, such as the Internet or a mobile device.” This extends not only to social media but also to all social technologies that make social interaction possible. A VoIP service, for example, would be considered a social technology.

In a trend that has been described as ‘social everything’, companies both big and small, will continue to inject a social element into every product and service. The cloud provides the infrastructure that makes the information accessible, the social technology helps to organise the data and facilitate access, and the mobile devices will provide the means by which most people receive the data.

2.  Mobile Devices

The Third Platform is designed to give everybody access to Big Data via mobile devices; it is this mobility that really defines the Third Platform. A company representative on the road or working from home will have instant access to data through his or her mobile device with this Third Platform whenever and wherever they need it.

A perfect example of the use of mobile devices in the Third Platform would be a school that gives every student a tablet. The tablet would take the place of textbooks and paper used in assignments, but more importantly, the student will have access to a virtual classroom at all times.
With smart mobile device sales expected to grow by 20% by the end of 2013, it is of critical importance for businesses to invest in mobile technology as soon as possible.

3. Analytics (Big Data)

The most interesting and most misunderstood component of the Third Platform is Big Data. The concept behind Big Data is to maximise the utility of all data. An executive at a company that streamlines its business functions with the Third Platform would have easy access to all of the data, including sales figures, personnel information, accounting data, financials and so on. This data can then be used to inform virtually all areas of the business.

Big Data can be further differentiated once we analyse its three distinguishing features: Variety, Volume, and Velocity.

Variety simply means that many forms of data are collected, with formats ranging from audio and video, to client log files and Tweets. Volume represents the fact that Big Data must come in massive quantities, often over a Petabyte. Finally, Velocity signifies that Big Data must be constantly streaming in for maximum effectiveness; even data that is a few days old is not ideal.

In summary, Big Data utilises and collects all forms of data, gathered from both traditional and digital sources, in order to complement a company’s decision-making processes.

4. Cloud Services

Cloud services are at the heart of the Third Platform. Having Big Data and mobile devices is one thing, but without the cloud, there will be no way to access this data from outside of the office. In the near future, almost all access to networks and big data will be accessible through cloud-based applications.

This differs greatly from the First Platform, where computer networks consisted of large mainframes. All of a company’s employees had access to the data in the mainframe but they could only access it through their desktop computers. In the Second Platform, a company’s employees could access the data in the mainframe as well as outside data, via an Internet connection.

The Third Platform now allows all of a company’s IT solutions to be available through the Cloud, accessible via a variety of mobile devices. Data storage, servers and many IT solutions, which are onsite, can now be completely cloud-based.


Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_platform
http://www.idc.com

Internet will ‘disappear’, Google boss tells Davos

TECH GIANTS: (from second left to right) Sandberg, Schmidt, Satya Nadella, and Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao sought to allay fears that the rapid pace of technological advance was killing jobs during a panel session at the 45th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. — EPA

DAVOS, Switzerland: Google boss Eric Schmidt predicted that the Internet will soon be so pervasive in every facet of our lives that it will effectively “disappear” into the background.

Speaking to the business and political elite at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Schmidt said: “There will be so many sensors, so many devices, that you won’t even sense it, it will be all around you.”

“It will be part of your presence all the time. Imagine you walk into a room and... you are interacting with all the things going on in that room.”

“A highly personalised, highly interactive and very interesting world emerges.”

On the sort of high-level panel only found among the ski slopes of Davos, a panel bringing together the heads of Google, Facebook and Microsoft and Vodafone sought to allay fears that the rapid pace of technological advance was killing jobs.

“Everyone’s worried about jobs,” admitted Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook.

With so many changes in the technology world, “the transformation is happening faster than ever before,” she acknowledged.

“But tech creates jobs not only in the tech space but outside,” she insisted.

Schmidt quoted statistics he said showed that every tech job created between five and seven jobs in a different area of the economy.

“If there were a single digital market in Europe, 400 million new and important new jobs would be created in Europe,” which is suffering from stubbornly high levels of unemployment.

The debate about whether technology is destroying jobs “has been around for hundreds of years,” said the Google boss. What is different is the speed of change.

“It’s the same that happened to the people who lost their farming jobs when the tractor came... but ultimately a globalised solution means more equality for everyone.”

Everyone has a voice

With one of the main topics at this year’s World Economic Forum being how to share out the fruits of global growth, the tech barons stressed that the greater connectivity offered by their companies ultimately helps reduce inequalities.

“Are the spoils of tech being evenly spread? That is an issue that we have to tackle head on,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive of Microsoft.

“I’m optimistic, there’s no question. If you are in the tech business, you have to be optimistic. Ultimately to me, it’s about human capital. Tech empowers humans to do great things.”

Facebook boss Sandberg said the Internet in its early forms was “all about anonymity” but now everyone was sharing everything and everyone was visible.

“Now everyone has a voice... now everyone can post, everyone can share and that gives a voice to people who have historically not had it,” she said.

Schmidt, who said he had recently come back from the reclusive state of North Korea, said he believed that technology forced potentially despotic and hermetic governments to open up as their citizens acquired more knowledge about the outside world.

“It is no longer possible for a country to step out of basic assumptions in banking, communications, morals and the way people communicate,” the Google boss said.

“You cannot isolate yourself any more. It simply doesn’t work.”

Nevertheless, Sandberg told the assembled elites that even the current pace of change was only the tip of the iceberg.

“Today, only 40% of people have Internet access,” she said, adding: “If we can do all this with 40%, imagine what we can do with 50, 60, 70%.”

Even two decades into the global spread of the Internet, the potential for opening up and growth was tremendous, she stressed.

“60% of the Internet is in English. If that doesn’t tell you how uninclusive the Internet is, then nothing will,” said the tycoon.

The World Economic Forum brings together some 2,500 of the top movers and shakers in the worlds of politics, business and finance for a four-day meeting that ends on Jan 24. — AFP

1BRIS : Laporan Ketua Audit Negara

SALAH satu perkara kontroversi yang dibangkitkan oleh Laporan Ketua Audit Negara adalah pemasangan 1BestariNet Receiver Integrated System, atau 1BRIS.

Bagi sekolah tanpa struktur LAN yang sesuai untuk jalur lebar berkelajuan tinggi, menara 1BRIS dipasang di premis itu untuk menerima dan menyampaikan isyarat tanpa wayar berkelajuan tinggi.

Sebagai sebahagian daripada proses ini, Kementerian telah mendapatkan input daripada Jabatan Penilaian dan Perkhidmatan Harta (JPPH) berkenaan dengan kadar sewa yang sesuai untuk kontraktor, YTL. JPPH dalam surat bertarikh 14 Januari 2013
telah mengesyorkan sewa bulanan sebanyak RM1,200 bagi setiap tapak 1BRIS.

Walau bagaimanapun, YTL enggan membayar jumlah ini, malah menyatakan sebaliknya bahawa syarat-syarat kontrak membenarkan mereka untuk memasang menara secara percuma.

Selepas itu, pada 14 Februari 2014, Kementerian telah memutuskan untuk mengenakan sewa token sebanyak RM1,000 setahun bagi setiap tapak 1BRIS.

Berdasarkan jumlah yang baru ini, YTL membayar jumlah yang tertunggak, iaitu RM2,416.67 bagi setiap tapak dari 1 Mei 2012 hingga 30 Jun 2014, termasuk deposit tiga bulan.

Namun demikian, RM1,000 setahun adalah jauh berbeza daripada RM1,200 sebulan yang disyorkan oleh JPPH. Malah, Laporan Ketua Audit Negara menyatakan kadar tersebut adalah 'tidak munasabah'.

Dengan sebanyak 3,203 menara 1BRIS dipasang di seluruh negara ini, pendapatan sewa pada harga RM1,200 sebulan atau RM14,400 setahun adalah RM46.12 juta setahun. Pada masa ini, YTL hanya membayar RM3.2 juta setahun. Ini bersamaan dengan kerugian pendapatan sebanyak RM42.92 juta setahun bagi Kementerian.

Selain itu, Laporan Ketua Audit Negara juga mendapati berdasarkan kontrak yang dipersetujui antara Kementerian dan YTL, semua caj utiliti yang berkaitan dengan 1BestariNet dan 1BRIS adalah ditanggung oleh Kerajaan sepanjang tempoh kontrak,
sementara kontraktor hanya bertanggungjawab untuk kos yang berkaitan dengan pemasangan, penyelenggaraan dan pengurusan 1BRIS.

Ini adalah suatu kecuaian yang serius dalam perjanjian kontrak, seperti diakui pihak Kementerian dalam jawapannya kepada Pejabat Ketua Audit Negara bahawa pemasangan menara 1BRIS telah meningkatkan kos elektrik sekolah daripada RM150
hingga RM180 sebulan.

Bagi 3,203 tapak 1BRIS di seluruh negara, peningkatan caj elektrik adalah antara RM5.77 juta hingga RM6.92 juta setahun. Dengan kata lain, jumlah ini merupakan subsidi oleh Kerajaan untuk kepentingan YTL.

Menurut Laporan Ketua Audit Negara, Kerajaan hanya melanggan perkhidmatan YTL dan tidak seharusnya dibebani dengan caj utiliti, yang sepatutnya menjadi sebahagian daripada kos operasi penyedia perkhidmatan.

Akibat kelemahan dalam kontrak 1BestariNet yang jelas berat sebelah, YTL akan memperolehi keuntungan hampir RM50 juta setahun. Selama tempoh masa 15 tahun projek ini, YTL bakal mendapat keuntungan tambahan sebanyak RM750 juta. Ini tidak termasuk keuntungan daripada penggunaan komersil menara 1BRIS.

Menurut laporan portal berita yang kini tidak berfungsi iaitu fz.com pada 10 Mei 2013, Pengarah YTL Yeoh Seok Hong dipetik sebagai berkata, "menara di sekolah-sekolah bukan sahaja akan menyediakan sambungan Internet tanpa wayar di sekolah, tetapi di sekitar kawasannya juga".

Dengan kata lain, menara 1BRIS juga akan menyediakan perkhidmatan komersial jalur lebar YES 4G kepada penduduk sekitarnya, sekaligus memungkinkan YTL untuk meraih keuntungan tambahan.

Sumber: http://goo.gl/vErH3L

A Made In Malaysia IT Startup Success Story - Tableapp

Meet Tableapp

Benson Chang is the founder of Tableapp, a real time online reservation service for restaurants in Malaysia. He and his company won a free IT upgrade as the runner-up in the Intel Level Up Your Business contest.

Tableapp was inspired by the needs of Benson's parent's F&B business. Oftentimes the staff were too busy to take reservations and had difficulty managing their customer database. Benson saw an opportunity for technology to simplify and improve the business as well as help Malaysian diners find places to eat.

Their app lets diners make an instant reservation online and provides restaurants with a guest management system. They started business in February 2013 and in little more than a year, they’ve grown quite a bit. Now, Benson has 4 staff under him including developers and salespeople and their IT is increasingly strained by new demands.

Take a journey with us as we transform Tableapp into a more mobile business with the power of Intel technology.

What’s holding Tableapp back

We got our Intel reseller in Malaysia, SNS Network, to take a look at Tableapp's business and find out how we can help:

Issue 1: Coding needs to be fast
Tableapp’s developers often make changes to the code of their app multiple times a day, taking up hours of the workday.

Issue 2: Salespeople need to be connected
The sales team has to meet restaurant owners but their PCs lacked the connectivity for them to transfer files to the office.

Issue 3: Devices should impress clients
As a technology company, Tableapp need up-to-date devices to look the part when they are trying to convince restaurant owners to sign up with their app.

How we leveled up Tableapp's business

Our Intel reseller, SNS Network, had these IT recommendations to help Tableapp work smarter and faster:

Getting the business up to speed

We replaced their old desktops with new 2 in 1 and Ultrabook™ devices. Not only do the new devices have amazing processing power that helps with productivity and time saving, they are also easy to carry around. The new PCs also come installed with McAfee security software that helps with securing Benson's valuable code. 

"Compiling data used to take 1 minute, now it’s 10 seconds. Considering we do it over 100 times a day, that’s a lot of time savings."

          says Benson, founder of Tableapp

Connectivity and mobility to work anywhere

With their office situated in the heart of the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Benson and his staff occasionally face long commutes and traffic jams. The new mobile devices also helps them save travel time by letting them work from home or a café.

Another factor making it easier to work anywhere is cloud connectivity. Tableapp has a physical server but uses Dropbox* to synchronize code updates for their software. By being able to connect and share work files from anywhere, Benson and his staff can work on the go while still fully collaborating.

Making an impression with clients

Benson and his sales team have to meet restaurant owners to demonstrate the effectiveness of their software. The new 2 in 1 device is great for this as it can show off the app in both tablet and PC mode. Its stylish design also creates a strong impression.

Ready to take on the world! 

With the IT upgrade complete, Benson and his team at Tableapp are able to perform at a whole new level:

• They are now more productive with the new powerful PCs.
• It's easier for them to work anywhere with mobile devices and easy connectivity.
• Sales demonstrations are now more impressive with the 2 in 1 devices.

Tableapp is now looking to grow beyond Malaysia, sharing their app with nearby countries.

Resource:
Intel.com. (28.9.2014). App Developer Case Study: Tableapp . Retrieved from http://smb.intel.sg/insights/case-study/tableapp?eid=12a_Outbrain_SMB+Content+Syndication+MY-Q3

Kamu Hilang Sesuatu Yang Penting Kerana Alat Telekomunikasi

Wahai sahabatku,
Kamu ada masa untuk diluangkan untuk tulisan aku ini? Maksud aku ialah dalam banyak-banyak aktiviti – membaca Whatsapp, membaca status Facebook, mesej kekawan, baca berita di internet, mencari di Google, tengah main game, telefon yang tidak henti berbunyi, melayari YouTube dan muzik – kamu ada tak masa untuk membaca tulisan aku ini?

Dengan kehidupan kamu yang sibuk, sudah tentu kamu sedang menyoal samada berbaloi ke tak untuk kamu menghabiskan masa kamu yang berharga untuk membaca tulisan yang agak panjang ini. Untuk kamu rasa berbaloi, tulisan ini mestilah ditulis dengan sangat baik.

Siapa kamu sebenarnya, wahai sahabatku? Sebagaimana orang lain, kamu adalah seorang yang bersemangat, sibuk, berangkaian dan bercita-cita. Kamu sentiasa mengejar untuk memiliki alat elektronik terbaru untuk membolehkan kamu berkomunikasi dengan pelbagai cara. Bagi kamu, sangat penting untuk sentiasa mengikuti perkembangan terbaru. Kerana itu, kamu selalu terikat dengan alat telekomunikasi kamu – telefon, iPAD ataupun komputer.

Sedarkah, kamu tidak terlepas daripada terfikir siapa yang email kamu dan siapa yang akan menelefon kamu ketika kamu bersukan, solat mahupun di tandas. Sebaik kelas kamu habis, perkara pertama yang kamu akan lakukan ialah menyemak telefon untuk melihat apakah ada mesej, email atau miscall yang menanti kamu. Apabila ada pensyarah yang tidak izinkan kamu membawa telefon ke kelas, kamu memikirkan cara bagaimana kamu boleh seludup telefon untuk dibawa ke kelas.

Kamu hidup seolah-olah menjauhkan diri kamu daripada alat telekomunikasi adalah satu perkara yang teramat sangat susah bagi kamu. Wahai sahabatku, betulkah apa yang aku kata?

Kamu sentiasa berfikir bahawa kamu perlu sentiasa online demi keluarga, sekolah mahupun kerja. “Bagaimana kalau ada kawan, rakan sekerja, bos atau ahli keluarga yang perlukan saya segera?” – itulah persoalan yang sentiasa berlegar di minda kamu. “Aku mesti pastikan aku boleh dihubungi pada bila-bila masa!” – itulah idea yang tertanam di mindamu.

Wahai sahabatku,
Tidak dinafikan bahawa teknologi membawa banyak kebaikan, namun banyak juga perkara negatif yang dibawanya sekiranya kamu terlalu terikat dengannya tanpa sedar. Kamu akan merasa tergesa-gesa dan cemas dengan masa; kamu makan dengan cepat, dan sering makan sambil bermain telefon dan di depan komputer; kamu tidak dapat menumpukan fokus untuk masa yang lama; dan kamu mengalami kelesuan minda.

Kamu sedar bahawa stress boleh mendatangkan kemudaratan, tapi kamu tidak sedar bahawa badan dan minda kamu sebenarnya telah lama stress akibat terlalu terikat dengan alat komunikasi kamu. Pada zaman ini, kamu tidak akan dapat melepaskan iPAD, telefon dan alat kamunikasi kamu, meskipun di dalam hati, kamu ingin tahu apakah impak segala pelbagai komunikasi canggih ini pada kehidupan kamu…

Sedarkah kamu bahawa kerana alat-alat telekomunikasi ini – kamu telah kehilangan sesuatu yang amat penting – iaitu kualiti minda kerana kamu telah ditelan teknologi tanpa sedar.

Wahai sahabatku,
Setakat ini dulu tulisan aku kali ini. Renungkanlah dulu sebelum aku menghuraikannya dengan lebih lanjut di tulisan-tulisan akan datang.

Senyum!
TUAN IBRAHIM TUAN MAN | 28 September 2014. 

Saluting 19 Generations Of Computer Programmers

By Peter Wayner, InfoWorld

From punch cards to JavaScript, computing history owes everything to those who've programmed the machines.

 The computer industry has been through a number of generations, each with its own distinctive flavor, often defined by a programming language or technology. They burst out with newborn fervor before settling into a comfortable middle age -- still kicking somewhere because software never really dies.

These new technologies often group programmers by generation. When programmers enter the job market and learn a language, they may stick with the same syntax for life. It's not that it's hard to learn a new language; you can often make more money with the expertise you have, so the generations live on.

Here is our guide to some of the more dominant tech generations in computer history, as embodied by the programmers who gave them life.

Punch-card programmers

The '60s-era computers received instructions from cards with punched holes, a scheme that dates to the earliest programmable looms for weaving cloth. There was recently a story about a punch card programmer for looms in England that still use the old technology to make lace.
Language of choice: Fortran
Special skill: Not dropping the deck of punch cards
Social media strategy: Joining the right country club
Other career choice: Advertising
Clothing: Dark flannel suit
Rhetorical tic: "They say there's a need for five computers, but I think doubling or tripling that estimate would be more accurate."
Car: Oldsmobile
Song: Ella Fitzgerald's "Mack the Knife"
Favorite artifact: Wreath made of punch cards

Space Shuttle programmers

This crew worked with 8086 chips and kept the shuttles running by searching eBay for replacement hardware. The computers may not have had much memory, but they traveled farther than the biggest mainframes and fanciest racks.
Language of choice: Assembly code
Special skill: Remembering which register is already swapped to RAM
Social media strategy: Logged into Facebook once to friend spouse and neighbor
Other career choice: Disco lighting designer
Clothing: Leisure suits
Rhetorical tic: "If we don't do it, the Russians will win."
Car: Cadillac Eldorado
Song: Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon"
Favorite artifact: 8086 chip

Cray programmers

There was a time when the fastest computers were built by a small company run by an enigmatic genius who spent off-hours digging tunnels in his basement.
Language of choice: Cray's automatically vectorizing Fortran
Special skill: Setting up loops so the Fortran compiler could vectorize them
Social media strategy: Going to the company holiday party
Other career choice: NASA rocket scientist
Clothing: White shirt with pocket protector
Rhetorical tic: "It's classified."
Car: Nondescript sedan that blends into the NSA parking lot
Song: Wendy Carlos and Benjamin Folkman's "Switched-On Bach"
Favorite artifact: Cray sitting in the NCM outside Fort Meade

Cobol programmers

The first big adopters of computers never would have succeeded without a simple mechanism for writing software that supported the core business. Cobol was the first great tool for writing what the enterprise programmers call "business logic."
Other language of choice: Fortran
Special skill: Using self-modifying code like ALTER X TO PROCEED TO Y
Social media strategy: Sends out Christmas cards printed on paper
Other career choice: Stereo designer
Clothing: Tracksuit left over from an early morning mall walk
Rhetorical tic: "It's cool."
Car: Honda Civic
Song: Gillian Hills, "Zou Bisou Bisou"
Favorite artifact: Something signed by Grace Hopper

Basic programmers

Invented to help Dartmouth students learn to write endless loops, Basic became the dominant early PC language when Bill Gates released Microsoft Basic. All the early games and software for the PCs were written in Basic. Today it lives on as Visual Basic.
Other language of choice: Assembly code
Special skill: Using GOTO without creating spaghetti code
Social media strategy: Going to Studio 54
Other career choice: Fast-food restaurant developer
Clothing: Bell bottoms
Rhetorical tic: "It's easy."
Car: Last convertible
Song: Blondie, "Heart of Glass"
Favorite artifact: Cassette version of Microsoft Basic

C programmers

C grew hand in hand with all of the variations of Unix and is still used by those who love Unix and Linux. It remains the tool of choice for those who program "close to the metal."
Other language of choice: C++
Special skill: Remembering to free everything malloced
Social media strategy: Posts to Usenet three times a month
Other career choice: Bell telephone switch technician
Clothing: Red Hat T-shirt from the early days
Rhetorical tic: "Wouldn't you rather handle the memory yourself?"
Car: Original Toyota Land Cruiser
Song: Something by the Ramones
Favorite artifact: Bell Labs coffee cup

C++ programmers

When C programmers looked at the idea of object-oriented programming, they created C++, a baroque version that worked best when the programmer was able to keep track of all the complicated ways code could interact. It took all of the garage-grade DIY intensity and added another way for programmers to prove themselves worthy.
Other language of choice: C
Special skill: Multiple inheritance
Social media strategy: Friendster
Other career choice: Pinball wizard
Clothing: Jeans jacket with safety pins
Rhetorical tic: "Java pretty much broke object-oriented programming."
Car: Ford Explorer
Song: The Clash's "Clash City Rockers"
Favorite artifact: Borland C++ T-shirt

Objective-C programmers (first generation)

There are two groups of people who fell in love with Objective-C: the people who bought a NeXT machine and those who bought an iPhone. The first generation went on to rescue Apple in its darkest days.
Other language of choice: Smalltalk
Special skill: Using InterfaceBuilder
Social media strategy: Subscribes to 42 mailing lists
Other career choice: Wall Street investment banker
Clothing: Hawaiian shirt
Rhetorical tic: "You mean C++ doesn't do that for you?"
Car: Mazda RX-7 or BMW 325
Song: Anything by Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, or anyone else liked by Steve Jobs
Favorite artifact: NeXT machine

Perl programmers

The simple language for manipulating text files appeared around the same time as the Internet, so when people needed to fix Web servers, they turned first to Perl.
Other language of choice: Unix shell scripts
Special skill: Regular expressions
Social media strategy: Arguing on Slashdot
Other career choice: Roboticist building simulated dinosaurs for malls
Clothing: Jacket and T-shirt
Rhetorical tic: "It's the duct tape of the Internet."
Car: Tuned Honda Civic
Song: Pantera's "Cemetery Gates"
Favorite artifact: First edition of O'Reilly's Perl handbook

PHP programmers

Many PHP programmers fell into PHP by accident. They were creating HTML, and they needed a bit of dynamic logic. One tag led to another, and they found themselves creating websites and CMSes with the code.
Other language of choice: JavaScript
Special skill:Juggling the coding layer and the HTML markup
Social media strategy: More than 1,000 friends on Facebook; still logs into MySpace
Other career choice: Mortgage broker
Clothing: T-shirt depicting logo of pre-bubble startup you've never heard of
Rhetorical tic: "Monetize the eyeballs."
Car: Aging SUV
Song: The Cure's "Just Like Heaven"
Favorite artifact: Orange Kozmo moped

Java programmers

The first great language for the Internet, Java was driven by the promise of running everywhere. The desktops never surrendered to the server farms, but the introductory programming classes did.
Other language of choice: Pascal
Special skill: Creating extralong variable names in camel case so the code is self-documenting
Social media strategy: Checks Java.net account for local Java Users Group meetings
Other career choice: Y2K programmer
Clothing: Java One polo shirt
Rhetorical tic: "The JVM will just handle it in another thread."
Car: Mazda Miata
Song: Talking Heads' "Wild Wild Life"
Favorite artifact: Something signed by Jim Gosling

C# programmers

They fell in love with Java but remained loyal to Microsoft, perhaps because the boss insisted. The code looks similar. The idioms work the same way. It's pretty much the same as Java, but with a few fixes worked into the mix.
Other language of choice: .Net
Special skill: Navigating the .Net documentation
Social media strategy: Wondering whether Skype counts as social media
Other career choice: Starbucks barista
Clothing: Freebie Windows 98 tennis cap
Rhetorical tic: "It's really more efficient than the JVM."
Car: Toyota Prius
Song: Nirvana's "Come As You Are"
Favorite artifact: A Windows 8 phone

JavaScript programmers (first generation)

The first group of JavaScript programmers weren't really programmers but Web designers who needed their page to do a bit more. Many just wanted to check inputs, but a few ushered in the unending era of garish animations.
Other language of choice: HTML
Special skill: Remembering to put the function between script tags
Social media strategy: Going to a friend's GeoCities page
Other career choice: Chain restaurant manager
Rhetorical tic: "It works on IE 5.5 but not 6.0 yet."
Clothing: Parachute pants
Car: Ford Taurus
Song: Beastie Boys' "So What'cha Want"
Favorite artifact: Netscape Share Certificate

Ruby on Rails programmers

It takes all of 10 minutes to wrap a nice website around MySQL, then years to fiddle with it. The Ruby language offers a clean, low-punctuation syntax, while the Rails framework makes it easy to type the smallest files around. It's almost as if it were designed by carpal-tunnel sufferers.
Other language of choice: SQL
Special skill: Getting your stack to run on JRuby
Social media strategy: Writing a personal version of Facebook in 20 lines of code
Other career choice: Molecular gastronomist
Clothing: Plaid shirt and jeans
Rhetorical tic: "You just need a few tables and you're done."
Car: Minivan
Song: "The Rails Song"
Favorite artifact: 37 Signals T-shirt

Objective-C programmers (second generation)

The second generation of Objective-C lovers appeared during the app gold rush after Apple opened up the iPhone to apps written by outsiders. Suddenly a language slowly dying was reborn.
Other language of choice: JavaScript
Special skill: Figuring out how to make the layout manager work
Social media strategy: Posts pictures to Instagram and Hipstamatic but never uses words
Other career choice: Mortgage foreclosure processor
Clothing: Hoodie
Rhetorical tic: "This will sell millions."
Car: BMW
Song: Feist's "1234" or anything else chosen for an Apple commercial
Favorite artifact: iPod with a wheel

JavaScript programmers (second generation)

At some point, JavaScript programming turned into a professional path with snooty ideas and endless debates about clean code. Today, many Web pages are powered by sophisticated stacks that can only be maintained by skilled coders. The field is dominated by libraries that abstract away browser incongruities and offer a sophisticated plug-in structure.
Other language of choice: jQuery
Special skill: Closures
Social media strategy: Waiting for App.net
Other career choice: Working as a barista
Clothing: Hoodie
Rhetorical tic: "There's an open source jQuery plug-in that does it."
Car: Fixed-gear bicycle
Song: M83, "Midnight City"
Favorite artifact: Brendan Eich DM

Haskell programmers

The language of the future offers a functional, statically typed mechanism that can reduce the complexity of event-driven code. The main users are still found in universities, but that's changing as cool open source projects gain traction.
Other language of choice: ML
Special skill: Getting around the prohibitions on keeping state around
Social media strategy: Alumni Notes, Reddit
Other career choice: Professor of mathematics
Clothing: Turtleneck sweater with elbow patches
Rhetorical tic: "I like my laziness effortless and ubiquitous."
Car: Yugo
Song: Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Klavierstücke IX"
Favorite artifact: Möbius strip

Hadoop programmers

The tool for building map/reduce jobs is technically not a language, but a collection of libraries written in Java. Not that it matters -- writing the code requires a talent for spotting the best way to spread out the workload over a cluster of machines.
Other language of choice: Java
Special skill: Making sure the data is always local
Social media strategy: Yahoo coding conferences
Other career choice: Actuary
Clothing: Flannel shirt with beard, where possible
Rhetorical tic: "Big data."
Car: Retro Schwinn 10-speed bike
Song: Dan Deacon's electronica
Favorite artifact: Stuffed elephant

Node.js programmers

They learned JavaScript to add an Easter egg to their band's website. Now they're working for the enterprise using that same JavaScript to handle $10 billion in forex transactions a day.
Other language of choice: jQuery
Special skill: Trying to remember not to block the server with code that takes too long to execute
Social media strategy: Still bummed Diaspora hasn't gone far
Other career choice: Going to college
Clothing: Ironic T-shirt from Old Navy
Rhetorical tic: "Threads can be concurrent? Are you sure?"
Car: Skateboard
Song: "Video Games" by Lana del Rey
Favorite artifact: Rooted Android phone running Node

Credit: http://www.infoworld.com
 

 

Portable Software Applications that run from USB

Independently reviewed and categorized Free Portable Software, Portable Freeware, and Open Source Portable Applications that can be stored and run directly from a USB Flash Drive, without the need to install the software to a PC.

Bring your office applications, email, web browser, instant messaging software, games, graphical editors, media player, anti virus software, recovery tools, encryption utilities, P2P file sharing utilities and more with you.

Most, but not all of these freeware and open source third party portable apps were created by their respective authors with the ability to be run entirely from the portable device, and in many cases these portable tools allow you to save your personal settings, changes, and work created with the tools back to the same device.

http://www.pendriveapps.com/

Best Way to Keep Your Company Computers Safe

For years, antivirus software was the gold standard for securing your IT. But the cloud has changed the nature of the game.

Run a quick Google search for "Internet security protection" and you'll come across plenty of antivirus software solutions claiming to protect your company's devices against the multitude of nasty infections out there on the Web. Historically, antivirus software has been the foremost choice of protection for CIOs against these threats.


These days, as companies and consumers increasingly conduct their business in the cloud, securing virtual identities, browsing activity, and personal data arguably has become more important than securing physical devices. Now that we've added mobile to the mix--especially in the case of Apple's iPhone, a device that's fairly secure by default--the need to protect the device has been overshadowed by the increasing need to secure our online interactions.

So, should you still include antivirus software in your IT budget?


How the Cloud Is Changing Security

Until recently, I've been a big believer in the idea of securing both your device and your browsing activities. The general consensus amongst CIOs was to protect their teams with both an antivirus to secure their computers and mobile devices and a personal VPN to protect employees against online threats. However, I had coffee a couple weeks back with Monish Bhatia, a security expert over at MacNN who's been writing about these issues for years; he posed an interesting question that made me think twice about the need for antivirus: "Do we really need antivirus if we're using a personal VPN and thus securing all browsing, passwords, websites visited and our personal privacy in the cloud?"

To understand the answer to this question, we have to think about how viruses infect our devices. In the old days it was through installing floppy disks or thumb drives. Now that those are long gone, most viruses infect your device through the Web or via email exchanges. But if both the Web and your email are protected by cloud security, it's highly unlikely that viruses will ever make it as far as your device. If this is the case, will the need for antivirus software be less important in the future?


Think Beyond the Device

As more and more businesses and consumers entrust reams of precious, and highly confidential, data to the cloud, direct threats to devices become less relevant than the threat of compromising our identities or personal data--via Google docs, Dropbox files, passwords, search activities, or sites visited--online. Every week, stories of massive hacks, stolen data, and compromised security pepper the headlines. From Google and LinkedIn to Lockheed Martin and Citibank, giants in the tech, banking, and defense sectors--just to name a few--have been hacked in recent months. But it's not usually their devices that come under direct attack; it's a weakness in their security systems that make them vulnerable to hackers. (Identity theft affected 10 millions Americans last year, and your identity is a lot more likely to be stolen online than anywhere else.)


Enter cloud security players that protect the Web, rather than the device, and the role of antivirus companies is greatly diminished. When my company launched Hotspot Shield, an app that encrypts all pages visited and enables users to stay completely private when browsing the Web, we weren't sure how big the demand for secure browsing and identity protection online would be. But with the move to the cloud, we've experienced firsthand the need to secure not only the device, but all online interactions and browsing.


I'm certainly not encouraging businesses to scrap their antivirus protection, but it's essential that companies pay more attention to securing their online activities. By doing so, you'll eliminate many of the threats that antivirus companies try to solve, before these threats ever make it near your devices. Just the way a good highway patrolman secures the highways to protect the cities, properly securing your business in the cloud will keep your data and, in turn, your devices out of hackers' reach, before it's too late.

Email Doesn't Have to Suck

There's a better way to manage your inbox--let SaneBox do most of the work for you.

Email is a pain. There are simply too many messages to handle—and I'm not even talking about spam from marketers (I use a separate address to collect those emails). The headache is the increasing number of legitimate business messages—it's a humongous time-suck that only seems to be getting worse.
Two years ago I answered nearly every message. A year ago I downgraded to at least trying to read them all. Last winter I started scanning the sender subject fields concentrating on the ones coming from people I knew or looked like they might contain information I needed. And lately, I've been considering closing my account and starting over with a private address reserved for only work colleagues and select sources.
Until, that is, I tried SaneBox.

It's like Gmail's Priority Inbox feature in that it looks at your messages and prior history engaging with those senders and decides which emails you're likely to deem most important.

When you turn on the Priority Inbox feature in Gmail, Google separates your email into three categories: Important and unread, Starred, and Everything Else; all the mail is still in your inbox, but the important messages are up top.

SaneBox is a bit different in that it removes less important messages from your inbox completely, moving them to an @SaneLater folder that you can peruse whenever you want. If SaneBox puts an important message into that folder you can move it to your inbox and it remembers the action so the next time you receive a message from that person, it will go to your inbox.

Priority Inbox is trainable in this way, as well; the more you move stuff around, the better it gets at categorization. But I prefer SaneBox.

SaneBox vs. Gmail's Priority Inbox

SaneBox gives you a custom dashboard including a timeline that graphs how many important and less important emails you get every day. My current average, according to SaneBox, is 81 a day. If I took a minute to read, digest, and respond to each one of them, that's nearly an hour and a half a day going through email. If you figure there's at least 250 work days in a year, I'm spending 375 hours annually on email. That's not acceptable.

In addition to the @SaneLater folder that stores non-essential messages, you can also enable folders such as @SaneNews for newsletters and @SaneBlackHole for those messages you want to send straight to your Trash. (Ha! Finally I'm getting revenge on a certain five-letter-titled fitness magazine that has not let me unsubscribe to its newsletters for two full years!)

Automated nagging!

And it also has a nifty feature that lets you CC or BCC a message to @SaneBox.com to remind you if someone doesn't respond.

So let's say you need an answer from your boss about a project and you need it no later than two days from now. In the CC field just include the address 2days@SaneBox.com and in two days SaneBox will put the message back in the top of your inbox if she never replied to it. This way you remember to bug her again.
SaneBox also creates an @SaneRemindMe folder that lets you keep track of all the messages to which you still need replies. Use oneweek@SaneBox.com, June5@SaneBox.com or 5minutes@SaneBox.com; it doesn't matter, SaneBox will figure out the time frame you need.

The service is $5 a month and works with email clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail, iPhone, and Android and as well most email services like Microsoft Exchange, Yahoo, AOL, and Gmail.  The only service it doesn't currently support is Hotmail.

 Source: Inc.com

3 Cloud Services That Make Work Easier

Protect yourself against data loss, security blunders, and--that real productivity killer--inefficiency.

 

Bring up the cloud and you're likely to find people who either love it or don't trust it—no matter how secure and reliable you tell them it is.

It's easy to see it both ways.

For small businesses, cloud storage is affordable and frees you up from maintaining expensive physical servers that need upkeep. And it also makes accessing, updating, and sharing files—usually from any device—simple and fast.

Yet it's not without risk. High-profile outage incidents have shown that no entity is completely immune from hackers or downtime, regardless of what cloud service providers would have you believe.
If you're willing to give it a try, here are three services worth checking out:

File Backup: CrashPlan

Unlike other cloud storage providers that swear secondary backup isn't necessary, Minneapolis-based Code 42 Software advocates backing up important data to more than one place and makes it simple to do so as a complement to its cloud storage.

"Our Midwest ethos here is that you shouldn't really trust either method 100% and that's why we make it really easy to use more than one," says Code 42 CMO Mike Evangelist. "If you don't care about being able to get your data back of course just put all those eggs in one basket."

And unlike Dropbox or SugarSync that back up only the files you tell them to, Code 42's CrashPlan software automatically backs up everything on your hard drive—as much as once a minute—and encrypts it all before it leaves your computer. It also lets you back up to other computers and attached external hard drives as well as access, update, and share your files from mobile devices.

Another useful feature is that CrashPlan keeps copies of all versions of your files and even those you have deleted.  This means, for example, that you can go back and retrieve a version of a PowerPoint presentation you were using last year if you decide you liked it better than a more recent one.  And if you've ever accidentally deleted or lost a file you know how aggravating and time-consuming it is to recreate it. That's not a worry with CrashPlan.

Cost: Unlimited online storage for a single computer is just $7.49 a month. Alternately, you can buy a certain amount of online storage and share it across computers—plans range from 50GB for $17.49 a month all the way up to 4 terabytes for $999 a month. A 1 terabyte plan is probably enough for 30-40 computers. You can also check out CrashPlan's calculator widget which can give you a more precise estimate.

Online Collaboration: Mindjet Connect

Many cloud storage services claim to offer online collaboration features but Mindjet Connect is different because helping people get work done together regardless of their locations is its forte, not some add-on function.

While Mindjet Connect lets you share files, communicate with business partners, and manage projects, it also helps teams do research, collect ideas and thoughts in a collaborative fashion, brainstorm issues and alternative paths, set goals, establish a plan, and coordinate team actions.

What's missing from some solutions that tout collaborative features is a method for encouraging and capturing ideas and collective thinking. That type of brainstorming in the traditional setting typically involves a conference room with a white board, possibly a video conference component, as well as people taking notes and that, according to Mindjet CEO Scott Raskin, doesn't exist in most other cloud solutions.

"With our product you can create an information map and lay out in a visual format all your ideas and thoughts [about the project], someone else can interact with that in real time and add comments the two of you can see. It's almost like you're working on the same white board but the whiteboard has structure," Raskin says.

Cost: Mindjet Connect is free for individual users. Business plans start at $12.75 per user per month (with volume discounts ).

Sync Devices: Huddle Sync

IT administrators aren't big fans of employees using for work some of the most popular cloud storage and syncing solutions. Why not? If one of your company's documents ends up in Google's index or on some peer-to-peer file sharing site they're the ones who have to do damage control.

Huddle Sync, Huddle's enterprise file synchronization platform, is different from consumer sync tools because it was built to meet enterprise security and compliance requirements and uses learning algorithms and predictive technology to fully sync only certain files. Not only that but it keeps track of where company data is stored and who has synced what files, as well as provides full audit trails for every single file.
Another interesting feature involves remote wiping of data. While plenty of tools are able to do this when a device is lost, stolen, or when an employee leaves a company, Huddle Sync is different because it can remove only business data and leave personal stuff intact. This is a great feature considering many people use their own devices for work.

Huddle Sync is currently in private beta but you can register at the site if you want to try it out.

Cost: Free when it's part of a Huddle subscription, which begins at $20 per user per month.

Fake Intel Core i7 CPU

Fake Intel Core i7 CPU – Perfectly Normal?From the outside the box looks perfectly normal… right?