Saturday, February 28, 2015

Windows App Studio

Windows App Studio–Free Tool to create apps in Windows Stores|Microsoft
"Windows App Studio. A free, online app creation tool that allows you to quickly build Windows (Store) and Windows Phone apps to publish, test, and share. Make changes, add content, and toggle between phone and tablet views to watch your app come alive.

And if you want to advanced programming features, Windows App Studio generates your source code ready for Visual Studio - a feature no other app-builder tool provides."

Templates

hub

ASP.NET 5

ScottGu's Blog - Introducing ASP.NET 5
"The ASP.NET 5 preview is now available as a preview release, and you can start using it today by downloading the latest CTP of Visual Studio 2015
...
ASP.NET 5 is an open source web framework for building modern web applications that can be developed and run on Windows, Linux and the Mac. It includes the MVC 6 framework, which now combines the features of MVC and Web API into a single web programming framework. ASP.NET 5 will also be the basis for SignalR 3 - enabling you to add real time functionality to cloud connected applications. ASP.NET 5 is built on the .NET Core runtime, but it can also be run on the full .NET Framework for maximum compatibility."

ASP.NET vNext | The ASP.NET Site

IoT: Spark Electron: Arduino + cellular

Spark Electron brings inexpensive cellular connectivity to IoT
"... a tiny $39 circuit board that you can think of as a cellular-connected Arduino with a SIM card. It also has an ARM Cortex M3 processor, 128K RAM, 1MB of flash storage, and a USB port... Spark’s plan runs $3 per month for 1MB of data; each additional MB costs $1."

Car Dashboards: Apple, Google, Microsoft

The Race to Save Your Car's Dashboard
The Race to Save Your Car's Dashboard

Google and Apple Fight for the Car Dashboard - NYTimes.com
"Apple’s CarPlay system uses an iPhone to power a car’s center screen. 
Google has a rival system Android Auto.
Roughly two dozen car brands have signed on with each system; many cars will offer both."


Microsoft wants to bring its Windows tiles to your car dashboard | Digital Trends

Car Dashboard UI Collection — Medium


"BMW Future Vision Concept 2014"

"Tesla Model S production"
\
"Mercedes Benz S-Class Coupe 2014 Production"

" Aston Martin Lagonda 1976 Production"

Friday, February 27, 2015

Alan Kay: software: Architecture Cathedrals vs Pile Pyramids; Flow

Alan Kay - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alan Kay - Wikiquote
  • "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
  • "Point of view is worth 80 IQ points."
  • "Technology is anything that wasn't around when you were born."
  • "Actually I made up the term "object-oriented", and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind."


"Every object could have its own URL or IP address"
"Semantic Interoperability" will lead to "universal interface language"

Pyramids and cathedrals - Invisible to the eye
 Alan Kay"Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves.
... we were really trying to do pyramids, not gothic cathedrals. 
That, in fact accounts for much of the structure of modern operating systems today
...
Or, you can come up with a new concept, which the people who started getting interested in complex structures many years ago did. They called it architecture. Literally, the designing and building of successful arches. A non-obvious, a non-linear interaction between simple materials to give you non-obvious synergies..."

Arch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alan Kay Demos GRaIL - YouTube

An Interview with Computing Pioneer Alan Kay - YouTube (2013)

Alan Key, Turing Award Lecture - YouTube

"Instrumental reasoning" (most people care what contributes to their current goals)
vs. "interest in ideas" (about 5% of people, motivated by ideas, transform their goals)
Another contrast on reward: "inner motivated" (15%) vs. "outer motivated" (85%) people.
Because of this, it takes a long time from introducing new idea and accepting it.

Most of complexity is absolutely unnecessary. 
Most successful projects put effort in keeping things simple.

Object-oriented is about messages, not about objects so much.

Optimal state for learning is "Flow", between being bored and being anxious.
The way to make "flow" area wider is to reduce "anxious" and "bored" areas.
Less anxious, by making it safer to try things, i.e. by introducing "undo".
Less boring, by making it more "attractive / interesting", i.e GUI. 

squeakland : home of squeak etoys

Viewpoints Research Institute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Net neutrality

Net neutrality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Net neutrality (also network neutrality, Internet neutrality, or net equality) is the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on theInternet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication."

#2015-02-26
"The Federal Communications Commission approved the policy known as net neutrality by a 3-2 vote at its Thursday meeting, with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler saying the policy will ensure "that no one — whether government or corporate — should control free open access to the Internet."

Thursday, February 26, 2015

HTTP/2

HTTP/2 Specifications Approved for Publication @ InfoQ
"HTTP/2 specifications have been approved for publication, according to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). 15 years after the launch of HTTP/1.1, IETF have gone through over 200 design issues, 17 drafts, and 30 implementations to get the specification approved to be published as standards-track RFCs."

Compared to HTTP/1.1 the key differences include
  • HTTP/2 is binary, rather than textual
  • Instead of being ordered and blocking, HTTP/2 is fully multiplexed -- using just one connection for parallelism
  • using header compression, HTTP/2 reduces overhead
  • HTTP/2 allows servers to “push” responses proactively into client caches
"It is based on SPDY"


Desktop Web Applications: "Atom Shell"

atom/atom-shell · GitHub:

"The Atom Shell framework lets you write cross-platform desktop applications using JavaScript, HTML and CSS. It is based on node.js and Chromium and is used in the Atom editor."

"atom-shell-starter is a base application that you can use to get started writing your own cross-platform (Win/Mac/Linux) Desktop apps via Atom Shell. This template is extracted from the Atom source code, cleaned up to be more generic, and to be a great starting point for a production app."


"Slack is a platform for team communication: everything in one place, instantly searchable, available wherever you go. platform for team communication: everything in one place, instantly searchable, available wherever you go."

atom-shell/atom-shell-vs-node-webkit.md at master · atom/atom-shell · GitHub

What are the functional differences between node-webkit, brackets-shell and atom-shell? - Stack Overflow

NW.js
NW.js lets you call all Node.js modules directly from DOM and enables a new way of writing applications with all Web technologies. It was previously known as "node-webkit" project.




Wednesday, February 25, 2015

book: The Innovators by Walter Isaacson (!)

A fascinating story about people and history of creating of computers and the internet.
I have slightly extended a list of links from (and to) Wikipedia.
A list is a not an optimal format for this, a visual graph would be better.
This story is still unfolding, with Mobile, IoT, biotech and many other areas of science and technology improving exponentially by efforts of innovators.

The Innovators | Book by Walter Isaacson | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster:


The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution: Walter Isaacson: 9781476708690: Amazon.com: Books

Book Review: ‘The Innovators’ by Walter Isaacson - WSJ

The Innovators : NPR

The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Some of the innovators covered in the book include:"

    mobile web documents: ePub

    There is often a need for packaging web content as a portable file, like PDF but based on web technologies. ePub is a solution for this. ePub format is a simple zip of a XML index file and HTML pages, and it has an advantage of being flexible for various screen sizes: very important for mobile, and reading text documents.

    EPUB - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Besides desktop and mobile apps, there are also JavaScript apps for that, even a "app" extension for Chrome web browser. And since future Microsoft web browser Spartan will also be compatible, this is almost universal and simple solution!

    Readium - Chrome Web Store

    Readium | Digital Publishing meets Open Web

    .epub eBooks Tutorial - Introduction: What is ePub? Why should I use it?

    There are various tools for creating ePub, some  of them free and open source.
    EPUB - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (editing)

    free tool: calibre - E-book management
    How to Convert a Word Document to Epub: 15 Steps (with Pictures)

    free tool: Sigil (application) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


    Another popular format for mobile documents is "mobi", a proprietary format used by Amazon Kindle.
    Comparison of e-book formats - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Tuesday, February 24, 2015

    Pebble Time @ Kickstarter

    Pebble Time - Awesome Smartwatch, No Compromises by Pebble Technology — Kickstarter

    "Color e-paper smartwatch with up to 7 days of battery and
    a new timeline interface that highlights what's important in your day."

    Pebble Time - Awesome Smartwatch, No Compromises's video poster

    $159 for first 10000 backers, the regular price will be $199

    Very effective marketing.



    Pebble's Insane Success Proves That Kickstarter Is Now a Marketing Tool | WIRED

    "Pebble has broken its own impressive record, raising $500,000 in just 17 minutes for its latest watch, the Pebble Time"


    Monday, February 23, 2015

    Asus mini PCs

    ASUS PCs for Business - Mini PCs: The most back-saving upgrade you'll make



    ASUS Small Form Factor PCs

    Tesla Motors: home battery, worth as Apple by 2025

    This could be a bigger business than electric cars, and could enable "smart grid" (and lower bill).
    Quite appropriate for name (of Nikola) Tesla, and reputation of Elon Musk.

    Elon Musk says Tesla will unveil a new kind of battery to power your home | The Verge:
    "...Musk had laid out his ambition to make something that would live in consumers' homes, instead of their cars. "We are trying to figure out what would be a cool stationary (battery) pack," Musk said. "Some will be like the Model S pack: something flat, 5 inches off the wall, wall-mounted, with a beautiful cover, an integrated bi-directional inverter, and plug and play."

    Tesla's Elon Musk: On Creating A 'Cool' Battery System For Home Energy Storage
    "Tesla already is working with SolarCity, which bundles Tesla’s battery systems with solar panels and market them to consumers and businesses. Musk is SolarCity’s chairman and a cousin of the solar company’s two founders."

    Elon Musk: Tesla Could Be Worth As Much As Apple Is By 2025 | CleanTechnica

    tesla-model-s-lineup

    Sunday, February 22, 2015

    Tesla P85D vs Challenger Hellcat

    Warm-Up Lap: Tesla P85D Demolishes Challenger Hellcat - Gas 2
    "The Dodge Challenger Hellcat is a no-holds-barred quarter-mile machine that represents the 707 horsepower zenith of the American muscle car. The Tesla Model S P85D is the 691 horsepower poster child of the plug-in car movement... all-wheel drive Model S launches with precision and little fanfare, knocking down a record-setting 11.68 at 114 MPH, making it both the quickest and fastest production electric car out there."

    3D printer, $599

    Printrbot Assembled Metal Simple 3D Printer, Black, PLA Filament, 1.75mm Ubis Hot End, 6" x 6" x 6" Build Volume: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
    $599

    Printrbot | Affordable high resolution 3D printers

    3D Printer Shootout - $600 Printrbot vs. $20,000 uPrint SE Plus - Scott Hanselman
    Coffee Cup 3D Print from a Printrbot Simple Metal on one side and a Stratasys uPrint SE Pro on the other
    One cup is printed on $25000 printer, and other on $600 printer.
    Which is which?

    Windows 8 supports 3D printing
    My 3D model with support


    SVG Analog Clock

    12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
    demosthenes.info – An SVG Analog Clock In 6 Lines of JavaScript
    edit: Minimized Real-Time Responsive SVG Clock
    Analog Clock
    File:Animated analog SVG clock.svg - Wikimedia Commons
    Animated analog SVG clock running @ Wikimedia

    Saturday, February 21, 2015

    Music to Code By (for "Flow" / "Zone")

    Music to Code By by Carl Franklin

    3 x 25 min ("pomodoro size")

    Oracle Software in Silicon Cloud ?

    While most of "industry" is moving to many ARM based (and Intel low-power chips)
    Oracle/Sun is custom designing chips for in-memory database optimization...
    What "Cloud" has to do with this?
    Oracle's recent effort to become "cloud ready", so it is marketing...

    Oracle Software in Silicon Cloud

    video: Oracle Streams Search Page

    Microsoft is testing alternative hardware improvement for Azure "cloud,"
    where a custom programmable co-processor can significantly
    improve speed of a server for dedicated purpose: web, database, etc.
    Ushering in the Era of Programmable Hardware | Microsoft Research Luminaries | Channel 9


    How to stream local video to Chromecast

    How to stream local video to Chromecast? - All About Chromecast
    "It is simple. In the address bar... type file://c:/path/yourvideo.mp4 
    Once the video is played in Chrome browser, you can sent it to TV through Chromecast using the Google cast extension.

    For Google Cast extension, you can set the quality to High (720p) or Extreme (720p high bitrate) to get a reasonable video quality on a full HD TV."

    ​IoT, containers, API: Canonical, Amazon, Microsoft...

    ​Canonical partners with Amazon, Microsoft, and others on Internet of Things | ZDNet:
    "Maybe Microsoft does love Linux! Canonical, the company behindUbuntu Linux, announced this week that both Microsoft and Amazon have agreed to publish their Internet of Things (IoT) application programming interfaces (APIs) on Ubuntu Core.

    Canonical wants Ubuntu Core to become the operating system for the IoT. Ubuntu Core, like CoreOS and Red Hat's Project Atomic, uses a lightweight Linux server to support containers. Unlike the others, which are pointed exclusively for the data-center and the cloud, Canonical also sees Ubuntu Core as being ideal for devices as well."

    ubuntu-internet-of-things.jpg


    How about mobile phones and desktops? 
    This is where containers would be very useful, in particular for security, portability and efficiency. 

    Friday, February 20, 2015

    Azure: Machine Learning Service

    ScottGu's Blog - Azure: Machine Learning Service, Hadoop Storm, Cluster Scaling, Linux Support, Site Recovery and More
    • Machine Learning: General Availability of the Azure Machine Learning Service
    • Hadoop: General Availability of Apache Storm Support, Hadoop 2.6 support, Cluster Scaling, Node Size Selection and preview of next Linux OS support
    • Site Recovery: General Availability of DR capabilities with SAN arrays
    image

    What is Microsoft doing with machine learning? @ InfoWorld

    Channel 9 Implements The Azure Machine Learning Recommendations API | C9Team | Channel 9


    Data Visualizations @ Udacity

    15 Data Visualizations That Will Blow Your Mind - Udacity - Climb Higher








    Thursday, February 19, 2015

    Functional Programming in Javascript

    Functional Programming in Javascript by Jafar Husain
    "Functional programming provides developers with the tools to abstract common collection operations into reusable, composable building blocks. You'll be surprised to learn that most of the operations you perform on collections can be accomplished with five simple functions:

    • map
    • filter
    • mergeAll
    • reduce
    • zip

    jhusain/learnrx @ GitHub
    "...a series of interactive exercises for learning Microsoft's Reactive Extensions (Rx) Library for Javascript... the key to learning Rx is training yourself to use functional programming to manipulate collections. Functional programming provides developers with the tools to abstract common collection operations into reusable, composable building blocks"

    Tuesday, February 17, 2015

    data: RSSBus

    RSSBus - Integration Your Way
    "RSSBus provides high-performance, reliable, and fully-extensible products that simplify the process of producing, consuming, and integrating data."
    (ADO.NET, Java/ODBC, SQL, Excel, BizTalk)

    RSSBus - Data Connectors

    This platform is developed by /n software, that sells excellent libraries of networking related programming libraries, also sold as subscriptions.
    RSSBus - About Us
    /n software - Contact Us

    Mobile Deep Linking (App Links)

    Mobile deep linking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    "In the context of the mobile apps, deep linking consists of using a uniform resource identifier (URI) that links to a specific location within a mobile app (i.e.exampleApp://location/123456), rather than simply launching the app (i.e. exampleApp://). Depending on the mobile device, the URI required to trigger the app may be different (e.g. exampleiOSApp://location/123456 versus exampleAndroidApp://launch?location=123456).
    ...
    This link fb://profile/33138223345 is an example of a mobile deep link. The URI contains all the information needed to launch directly into a particular location within an app, in this case the Wikipedia page within the Facebook app, instead of simply launching the Facebook app fb://."


    App Links on iOS @ Facebook



    Monday, February 16, 2015

    == book: Badass: Making Users Awesome: Kathy Sierra, Bert Bates ==

    badass - Wiktionary
    (US, slang) Having extreme appearance, attitude, or behavior that is considered admirable. Synonyms (admirable): cool, awesome

    Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates sold more than 2 million books with no marketing budget. Now they are helping others do similar successes.

    book: Badass: Making Users Awesome - O'Reilly Media
    Sample chapter (60+ pages)

    Badass: Making Users Awesome: Kathy Sierra, Bert Bates: 9781491919019: Amazon.com: Books
    "...question: given competing products of equal pricing, promotion, and perceived quality, why does one outsell the others?
    ... The answers to what makes a sustainable bestseller aren’t in the successful product. The answers are in the successful product’s users."

    Kathy Sierra: Building the minimum Badass User, Business of Software. A masterclass in thinking about software product development. - Business of Software US

    video: Kathy Sierra: Building the minimum Badass User, Business of Software 2012 on Vimeo
    video: Kathy Sierra - Building the Minimum Bad Ass User. Part Two. Unfinished Business... on Vimeo

    The bar for making a product great is usually quite high ("Book awesome")
    The bar for helping the user be better (by using product) is usually much lower ("User awesome")
    So it is much more effective to focus on helping user be great, by using your product.
    Design literacy


    Kathy Sierra on Designing for Badass - Business of Software US
    Our goal as product owners should be to 
    take our users up the expertise curve as much as possible, as fast as possible

    Definition of expertise: Given a representative task,
    experts perform in a superior way, more reliably, than non experts (not novices).

    Therefore, badass = reliably superior performance.


    Goal of Awesome Products: Creating "Badass" Users


    Deliberate Practice (learning method) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    ...how expert one becomes at a skill has more to do with how one practices than with merely performing a skill a large number of times. An expert breaks down the skills that are required to be expert and focuses on improving those skill chunks during practice or day-to-day activities, often paired with immediate coaching feedback. Another important feature of deliberate practice lies in continually practicing a skill at more challenging levels with the intention of mastering it."


    Creating Passionate Users: How to be an expert
    Howtobeanexpert

    Building the Minimum Badass User Pt 2 - Unfinished Business. Kathy Sierra - Business of Software US
    "Half a skill beats a half-assed skill
    In fact, half a skill beats lots and lots of half-assed skills. 
    So it’s better to have just a tiny, tiny, sub skill completely nailed to very high quality."

    Making Badass Developers - Kathy Sierra (Serious Pony) keynote - YouTube
    Published on Apr 22, 2015
    "From Fluent 2015. "Every moment of every day there’s a new language, framework, format, protocol to learn. Nobody has a more dynamic skill set than a web developer. We’ll look at the one metaskill to rule them all: The ability to come up to speed and stay there, over and over again."


    Badass: Making users awesome – Kathy Sierra: Book Review at Mark Needham
    2015 03 20 06 52 51


    DraganSr: In The Zone: the Flow State

    Flow | This Emotional Life
    "flow is the point where your challenges meet your skills"


    elearn Magazine: Gamification: Using Game Mechanics to Enhance eLearning
    "Giving your learner choices by designing nonlinear eLearning can help engage your user.
    ...as the challenge of an experience rises, the skill of the participant must also grow in direct proportion. 
    ...If a user's skill exceeds the challenge of the experience, they will become bored.
    ...if the challenge exceeds the participant's skill, they will suffer anxiety.
    ...an optimal user experience is illustrated in the "Flow Channel" as the squiggly line.


    Related books:

    web: HTML5 Offline (IndexedDB)

    Web could work in "disconnected" mode, as mobile apps, but it is more involved than standard "always connected" web pages / apps.

    Offline.js – Handle your users losing their internet connection like a pro @ GitHub
    Offline.js Simulate UI

    Android Apps in Chrome Browser

    How to Run Android Apps Inside Chrome on Any Desktop Operating System
    ARC: The App Runtime for Chrome (or ARC) is the piece of software that allows Android apps to run in Chrome. In the same way that ART (and the older Dalvik) currently run Android apps in Android itself. By making a modified version of the Android runtime for Chrome, Google can allow developers to add support for Chrome without rebuilding their apps from the ground up.

    About App Runtime for Chrome (Beta) - Chromebook Help

    Sunday, February 15, 2015

    Apache Mesos, Data Center Operating System (DCOS)

    A16z Podcast: The Datacenter Needs an Operating System | Andreessen Horowitz
    "Mesosphere’s Benjamin Hindman, the co-creator of Apache Mesos (which came out ofthe U.C. Berkeley AMPLab), joins Steven Sinofsky, a16z board partner (who formerly oversaw the Windows division at Microsoft) for a discussion about all-things-OS."


    "Apache Mesos abstracts CPU, memory, storage, and other compute resources away from machines (physical or virtual), enabling fault-tolerant and elastic distributed systems to easily be built and run effectively."


    "What is Mesos? A distributed systems kernel
    Mesos is built using the same principles as the Linux kernel, only at a different level of abstraction. The Mesos kernel runs on every machine and provides applications (e.g., Hadoop, Spark, Kafka, Elastic Search) with API’s for resource management and scheduling across entire datacenter and cloud environments. Project Features:
    • Scalability to 10,000s of nodes
    • Fault-tolerant replicated master and slaves using ZooKeeper
    • Support for Docker containers
    • Native isolation between tasks with Linux Containers
    • Multi-resource scheduling (memory, CPU, disk, and ports)
    • Java, Python and C++ APIs for developing new parallel applications
    • Web UI for viewing cluster state"

    This is raising level of abstraction in data center to "task", that could include multiple processes running on virtual or physical servers, or preferably in containers.  Already used at scale in Twitter, Netflix, PayPal, Airbnb, and others: mesos.apache.org/documentation/latest/powered-by-mesos/

    Mesos @ InfoQ



    mobile: Cyanogen: Android + Windows?

    if you can't beat them, join them - Wiktionary

    Microsoft to invest in Cyanogen, which hopes to take Android from Google | Ars Technica
    "According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft will be investing in Cyanogen, Inc., the Android ROM builder. The report says that Microsoft would be a "minority investor" in a $70 million round of financing that values Cyanogen in the "high hundreds of millions.""
    With current smartphone hardware, there is no technical limitation to run multiple platforms, Android JavaVM and WinRT .NET for example, as well as Chrome/Spartan and Mozilla Web apps. 

    CyanogenMod may need a better name for wider audience, so they could mix Android and Windows to AndroWin for example :) With recent Microsoft open-sourcing of .NET, that may be possible. They the users could access 
    • Android apps from Google store and 
    • Windows apps from Microsoft store, and 
    • Web apps from many places. 
    The name Androwin is already used for running Android apps on Windows desktop, but as Apple has demonstrated with iPhone (that was first trademarked by Cisco), getting name is not a significant issue. 

    So the mix may be the best of all worlds. Or is it?
    The world does not need more platforms and confusion.
    It needs a common apps platform, and open apps marketplace for developers and users. 
    That is where Microsoft could help. 
    Like Xamarin, but simpler, free, and cloud based. 



    cloud, containers: Windows Server 2016

    What's next for Microsoft's Windows Server 2016 | ZDNet

    Next Windows Server Getting More Cloud Optimized -- Redmondmag.com

    Saturday, February 14, 2015

    mobile: iOS home screen button for web app

    web-apps instead of store-apps

    How to Add a Link Button to the Home Screen of an iPhone
    Add a Link Button to the Home Screen of an iPhone Step 3 Version 3.jpg Add a Link Button to the Home Screen of an iPhone Step 4 Version 3.jpg

    Javascript for "Add to Home Screen" on iPhone? - Stack Overflow

    Mobile Bookmark Bubble · h5bp/mobile-boilerplate Wiki @ GitHub

    mobile-bookmark-bubble - Promote your mobile web application by helping users bookmark it - Google Project Hosting
    "The Mobile Bookmark Bubble is a JavaScript library that adds a promo bubble to the bottom of your mobile web application, inviting users to bookmark the app to their device's home screen. The library uses HTML5 local storage to track whether the promo has been displayed already, to avoid constantly nagging users.

    The current implementation of this library specifically targets Mobile Safari, the web browser used on iPhone and iPad devices."


    How to Add Websites to the Home Screen on Any Smartphone or Tablet

    mobile multi-platform: Silver (Swift on Android, Java, .NET)

    RemObjects Silver
    "Silver is a free implementation of Apple's Swift programming language.
    With Silver, you can use Swift to write code directly against the .NET, Java, Android and Cocoa APIs. And you can also share a lot of non-UI code between platforms.
    ...
    Built on over ten years of solid compiler knowledge and technology, Silver is a truly native Swift compiler for the .NET CLR, the Java/Android JVM and the Cocoa runtime."


    music: ThePianoGuys (behind the scenes)

    ThePianoGuys
    ThePianoGuys - YouTube
    The Piano Guys - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia







    web, programming: Try Ruby

    Try Ruby: learn the basics of the Ruby language in your browser.
    "Ruby is a programming language from Japan (available at ruby-lang.org) which is revolutionizing the web. The beauty of Ruby is found in its balance between simplicity and power.
    Try out Ruby code in the prompt on the right."


    podcast: Creating Ruby with Yukihiro Matsumoto (Matz) recorded LIVE in Japan on the Hanselminutes Technology Podcast: Fresh Air for Developers

    www.rubyinside.com/media/poignant-guide.pdf

    Why Ruby? by Jeff Atwood @ Coding Horror
    Jeff selected Ruby for being open source and nice platform and community.
    But most of web (and other) apps are mostly based on JavaScript now:
    "...Discourse is... even more of a JavaScript project than a Ruby on Rails project. Don't believe me? Just go to try.discourse.org and view source. A Discourse forum is not so much a website as it is a full-blown JavaScript application that happens to run in your browser."

    predicting future accurately: Arthur C. Clarke, 1976; Smart Watch-Phone?

    Amazing!  Quotes:
    "Don't commute, communicate"
    "In the world of future, travel will be for pleasure, not necessity"

    Arthur C. Clarke Describes Accurately 2016...in 1976 [Video]


    So, the next step is Smart Phone-Watch in one device. Who will do it right?

    There was many music players before iPod, many mobile phones before iPhone,
    many tablets before iPad...
    It appears that Apple usually needs to show the way... but Samsung keeps trying...

    Samsung Watch Phone
MORE PICTURES
    Samsung Galaxy Gear S R750W Smart Watch w/ Curved Super AMOLED Display (Black) - International Version No Warranty

    Friday, February 13, 2015

    thing: LG curved 34-inch monitor

    LG announces a curved, 34-inch monitor that's tailor-made for gamers | The Verge

    LG 34UC97-S: 34" Class 21:9 UltraWide™ WQHD IPS Curved LED Monitor (34.0" Diagonal) | LG USA
    3440*1440

    LG 34UC97 34-inch Ultra-Wide Curved Monitor Review @ TomsHardware

    LG 34UC97 Black 34” Ultrawide 21:9 WQHD IPS Curved Monitor LED Backlight LCD, 300 cd/m2 100,000:1, Dual HDMI / Dual ThunderBolt ports, 2xUSB 3.0 ports, Built-In Speakers - Newegg.com
    $1,292.99

    web: Component Kitchen (+ 2015 calendar)

    Home – Component Kitchen
    "a place to learn about the new web components features in HTML that will transform how you create web apps and sites"

    Print a handy 2015 wall calendar built with web components – Component Kitchen

    Printable Wall Calendar (made with Web Components)

    JanMiksovsky/printable-wall-calendar @ GitHub



    podcast: Web Components with Cory House @ .NET Rocks!

    WebComponents.org

    HTML5 Rocks - A resource for open web HTML5 developers


    free ebook: iOS 8 Day by Day (Programming)

    iOS charts, grids, developer tools, custom UI controls, iPhone, iPad
    "From a developer's perspective, iOS 8 was one of the biggest updates from Apple in quite some time. In addition to an entire new programming language in Swift, there are also over 4,000 new APIs which enhance the operating system itself"


    Thursday, February 12, 2015

    books summaries: Actionable Books

    Summaries – Actionable Books

    web: Durandal => Aurelia

    Announcing Aurelia with Rob Eisenberg @ .NET Rocks!
    "what happens next? Aurelia is Rob's vision of what web developers need to build effective browser-based client applications. Rob talks about implementing Aurelia to utilize ECMAScript 6 and 7 while still polyfilling back to ES5 - the Javascript you recognize"


    SmartPhones vs. PCs (innovators solution?)

    The home and the mobile supply chain — Benedict Evans (podcast) (a16z’s stream on SoundCloud)



    SmartPhones is a new Personal Computers: a classic case of "innovators dilemma"

    Disruptive innovation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


    Wrinkling the Chasm: How the Innovator’s Dilemma can guide the strategy of entrepreneurial businesses | Cogblog

    Disruptive Innovation (Clayton Christensen)

    Exec Summaries The Innovators Solution *


    With technology acceleration, what will be the next PC?
    SmartWatch, HoloLens, or some other cloud-connected IoT gadget?



    hybrid cloud: VMware vSphere 6

    Introducing VMware vSphere 6 - The Foundation for Hybrid Cloud:
    "VMware vSphere 6 to Deliver More Than 650 New Features and Innovations- New VMware OpenStack Distribution Delivers Simple Path to Building OpenStack Clouds
    ...
    Instant Clone Technology - Introduced as Project Fargo, a technology preview at VMworld® 2014 San Francisco, VMware's Instant Clone technology will make it possible to rapidly clone and provision thousands of container instances and virtual machines to make new virtual infrastructure available in sub-second timeframes "

    Wednesday, February 11, 2015

    presentations: Alan Kay, Douglas Engelbart

    Chris Granger - Coding is not the new literacy
    "Modeling is the new literacy
    Modeling is creating a representation of a system (or process) that can be explored or used.
    ...
    To put it simply, the next great advance in human ability comes from being able to externalize the mental models we spend our entire lives creating."

    Tuesday, February 10, 2015

    Trillion-Dollar Ideas

    Our Exciting, Weird, and Scary Future: Q&A With Peter Diamandis | PCMag.com
    In Bold, Diamandis explains how technology has opened access to powerful tools and will allow just about anyone to create the next world-changing, billion-dollar idea (if not trillion-dollar idea)
    Peter Diamandis Bold Book