Eugenia Loli Archive

Geeks.com were very generous sending us over their SupportPlus SP-PMP51C (aka Sorell SV-10) portable media player for a review. This PMP is unique because among extended media features (20GB, A/V playback/rec, line-in, fm radio/rec, voice rec, text viewer, OGG support, lots of accessories) it also includes a 1.3MP swivel camera (with VGA video recording) selling at the fair price of $199 (use the promo code "GEEKPLUS" to buy the item for just $149).

Many of us use the terms "programmer" and "developer" interchangeably. When someone asks me what I do for a living I tend to describe my vocation as "computer programmer" rather than "software developer", because the former seems to be understood more readily by those unfamiliar with IT. Even when writing pieces for this site, I tend to swap back and forth between the two terms, to try and avoid sounding repetitive. But in truth, there is a world of difference between a computer programmer and a software developer (editor's note: aka engineer and there is also a difference with a software architect).

As computer technology moves forward, you'll already have the established base and experience working with FreeBSD 64-bit. It's not about higher performance except in compiling software, high-end graphics rendering, and math-intensive work such as compressing files or in complex cryptology applications. It's about future-proofing.

Tomorrow, Terra Soft will officially announce the construction of the world's first Cell-based supercomputing cluster. Terra Soft will use the test cluster 'E.coli' to conduct advanced software development, optimization, and testing with emphasis on Y-HPC and Y-Bio applied to the Cell Broadband Engine. The production cluster 'Amoeba' will be made available to select University and Department of Energy laboratories to further life sciences research. The clusters will incorporate, in part, Cell-based PS3 systems.

Most people haven't heard of QNX Software, though they've likely come in contact with it. The real-time operating system is used where software failure can lead to catastrophic consequences, even death - from high-speed trains to air traffic control towers to highway toll systems. It's also used in more than 100 different types of cars on the road.

So, Windows is no longer cutting the mustard and you need a more scalable, reliable and higher performing environment. You may be running Oracle Financials, PeopleSoft or any of a number of ERP applications. Or you may be looking to deploy a new Web portal with something like IBM WebSphere with a DB2 backend or WebLogic and Oracle.

A lot has been said about the new user interface for Windows Vista. In this chapter from his latest book, Paul McFedries runs through the foundation, functions, and eye candy for Vista's latest UI.

As your projects become more sophisticated, you will need a better way to reuse and customize existing software. To facilitate code reuse, especially the reuse of algorithms, C# includes a feature called generics. Mark Michaelis discusses generics in C# in this sample chapter.

The POWER5 processor is a 64-bit workhorse used in a variety of settings. Part 1 of this Assembly language for Power Architecture series is an introduction to assembly language concepts and the PowerPC instruction set. The series as a whole will introduce assembly language in general, specifically language programming for the POWER5.

The latest release of GNOME is here: GNOME 2.16.1, a bug fixing release. Release notess: admin, bindings, desktop and platform. Source code: admin sources, bindings sources, desktop sources and finally, platform sources. Additionally, GTK+ 2.10.6 was also released with some bugfixes in it.

This new chapter describes the overall philosophy behind Aqua icons and shows how to design application, document, toolbar, and other types of icons for Mac OS X. To represent your application in Mac OS X, it's essential to create high-quality Aqua-style application icons that scale well in the various places the icon appears - the Dock, Finder previews, alert dialogs, and so on.

A consortium of major universities, using Homeland Security Department money, is developing software that would let the government monitor negative opinions of the United States or its leaders in newspapers and other publications overseas. Such a "sentiment analysis" is intended to identify potential threats to the nation, security officials said.

ATL Server is an extension of ATL that enables you to write ISAPI applications and bring your C++ skills to the World Wide Web. Learn how ATL Server works in this sample chapter.

From the kernel to the shell, Windows Vista is a very different OS than XPSP2. How so? Here, Charles interviews Architect Nar Ganapathy whose team of highly skilled engineers write the Windows IO system, driver frameworks and related technologies. So, what, exactly, is new in Windows Vista with regard to IO? What does it mean, exactly, to users and developers? Tune in. Learn.