News (68)

Is Google's App Engine a lock-in honeypot?

Some developers fear that Google is aiming to lock them into to the App Engine platform — Google's application hosting service — but Google refutes any claim it has evil intentions. Read more »

Google sets Bigtable for free life in the cloud

Web developers will soon be able to host their applications on Google's infrastructure for free — up to a point. Read more »

Facebook on the decline as 'virus' apps take hold

Privacy problems and propagation of "virus-like" applications has led to a marked decline in the use of Facebook's developer platform, according to industry analysts Ovum. Read more »

Softricity speeds app virtualisation

By virtualising the application, SoftGrid aims to break the 'tyranny' of the link between operating system and application. Read more »

Microsoft looks to extinguish LAMP

The threat of open source web application software has led the software giant to produce smaller, cheaper versions of some of its tools. Read more »

Stallman warns of cloud vendor lock-in

Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman this week said cloud computing was "stupidity" that ultimately would result in vendor lock-in and escalating costs. Read more »

"Locked down" Linux dispenses Justice

The Victorian Department of Justice (DoJ) is understood to have deployed a secure, "locked-down" Linux environment across more than 100 desktops in state prisons. Read more »

Apache group aims at J2EE applications

The Apache Software Foundation launches a project to develop Web application software based on Sun's Java. Read more »

SugarCRM launches project-planning application

Three years after establishing itself as one of the first specialist CRM vendors running its software on Linux, SugarCRM has launched into the project-planning market. Read more »

Open source adoption ramps up

Eighty five percent of companies are already using open source software, with most of the remaining 15 per cent expecting to do so within the next year, according to analysts at Gartner. Read more »

Features (122)

Using NOLOCK and READPAST table hints in SQL Server

Table locking hints provide developers much tighter control of their transactions. Look at the benefits and disadvantages of using the NOLOCK and READPAST table hints in SQL Server. Read more »

A Beginners Guide to Threading

The golden age for programmers is over. For a decade we have been able to get away with writing slow code, knowing that the hardware would pick up the slack. Not so any more, hardware developers have decided that software developers need to raise their game, and get ready for a generation of multi-core processors. Read more »

Lock up in ColdFusion

Simultaneously handling multiple execution threads offers much higher performance but make sure you properly lock reads and writes to shared variables in ColdFusion MX. A look at the process. Read more »

Scalability vs. performance

One of the mental conflicts with building a scalable application is that all of the layers that we add for scalability hurt the performance of the application. Read more »

Windows Application Verifier can help you build better code

If you're building an application, it's likely that you'll want it to play nice with Windows. Microsoft's Windows Application Verifier can ensure that your application will work with current and future versions of Windows. Read more »

Web application security frameworks (WASF), Part 2: Database lookup

Often, you will want parts of your Web application to be exclusive to certain users. This access distinction requires the use of Web application security frameworks. Continuing our series on Web app security, we explore the database lookup framework. Read more »

Building effective .NET reporting systems

Don't make the mistake of treating reporting as an afterthought when you design an application. Learn which questions you need to ask when you're considering reporting needs for your .NET application. Read more »

Follow these steps to secure your data layer

A secure data layer is essential for a truly secure application. Learn how to nurture a secure environment for the pivotal Data tier of your application with the correct tools. Read more »

Basic rules for building and managing distributed data services

Take a look at how to build an application composed of multiple services and how to manage data efficiently in a distributed system. Read more »

Locking down Microsoft SQL Server

One of the easiest ways to avoid rewrites is to make security a priority during the initial database design. Builder.com shows you how to enforce security at each tier. Read more »

Blog (10)

How Google's App Engine stacks up with Amazon's EC2

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- We compare Amazon's approach to providing infrastructure services to Google's. Read more »

AppEngine: Google's Python boost

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- I'm sure I am not the only person who will be learning a thing or three about Python due to AppEngine curiosity -- for that, Python should give Google thanks. Read more »

Google embraces and extends Facebook apps

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- With less effort than negotiating for a 1.6% stake in Facebook, has Google simply outmanoeuvred everybody with their write once, run anywhere approach to social applications? Read more »

In a world of Goliaths, who's got a stone?

David McAmis [blogs:theneteffect] -- It seems like it is that time of year again... the days are getting longer, the weather is getting a bit warmer and the top-tier software vendors are on a buying spree. Will you get lost in the shuffle? Why not support your local software developer! Read more »

The Downside of RAD

David McAmis [blogs:theneteffect] -- Rapid Application Development is all the hype lately, with claims of being able to churn out functional applications in under two weeks. One popular technique is to lock end-users and developers in a conference room for 10 days and build the application on the fly. Read more »

If the Riya RIA had a Flash UI, you wouldn't need this

Andrew Muller [blogs:nouveauricheinternet] -- A video piece on Cnet got my interest - a search engine that could recognise faces and text in images. When I decided to check it out I discovered that because the developers had chosen Ajax for their UI there were issues with cross browser/OS compatibility - Safari users need not apply right now. Read more »

DataPortability has big names on board, but a long road ahead

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- There's been plenty of talk about data portability over the past few weeks, what with Facebook taking issue with a Plaxo script that imported user data from one social network to the other. But the news has mostly dealt with tiffing and squabbling -- until now. Read more »

Microsoft's two faces of SharePoint

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- One way or another, proprietary and open-source companies need an answer to SharePoint. Content is the center of the enterprise ecosystem, when all is said and done. SharePoint is Microsoft's answer for controlling the next decade of IT. Read more »

Flash VoIP to expand

Andrew Muller [blogs:nouveauricheinternet] -- You may not have used Flash to make a call to a friend over the weekend, but chances are you could be doing that in the not too distant future. Read more »

What's a Beta these days?

Matt Overington [blogs:bricksandmortar] -- Betas are now so widespread that the term is becoming meaningless. Read more »

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  • Staff Crying, mooning and leaving

    In this week's roundup we see that continuous whining can get results, Linux users get 64-bit Flash and Moonlight previews, the latest in the Yahoo/Microsoft relationship and Senator Conroy ducks and weave in Senate Question Time. Read more »

    -- posted by Staff

  • Brendon Chase Sun eye Web developers with Netbeans 6.5

    Despite the recent employment axe hitting Sun the company has pushed out a new release of its Netbeans open source IDE with an eye to appeal more to Web developers. Read more »

    -- posted by Brendon Chase

  • Renai LeMay BarCamp buzz: Let the hacking continue

    Attending last weekend's BarCamp in Sydney, it was hard to escape the conclusion that a certain "dot-com bust" flavour had seeped into the kool aid previously being drunk by Australia's web 2.0 and early stage start-up sector. Read more »

    -- posted by Renai LeMay

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