Posted by Alin Irimie
on January 30, 2009
Until I’ll see the video myself, I trust the guys at SYS-CON Media. Here’s a good description of the event.
HP Morons Think Cloud Computing Means Selling Ink on the Web
— An HP crackpot who appeared on CNBC’s “Dispatches from Davos” on Friday, January 30, 2009 described Cloud Computing to Maria Bartiromo as desgining and printing color brochures online on HP’s website and printing them by using HP inks and toner cardridges. The moron [...] also explained that Cloud Computing would be the most significant technology for corporations to come out of recession.
The HP moron further explained that … Continue reading…
Posted by Alin Irimie
on January 30, 2009
Expert blogger Long Zheng blows the wistle on a security flaw in the Windows 7 operating system. Even though is just BETA, what really bothers me is the Microsoft’s apparent ignorance towards the matter on their official Windows 7 beta feedback channel by noting the issue as “by design” and hinting it won’t be fixed in the retail version. Say what?
Is this how Microsoft is going to handle windows azure security? I hope not.
The security flaw was discovered by a developer, Rafael Rivera.
You can read the whole story in their blogs.
Posted by Alin Irimie
on January 29, 2009
We talked before about Microsoft’s web sandbox here. Web Sandbox is using a common technique called “virtualization”, so the javascript code instead of being executed directly in the browser is executed in the “sandbox” first. The sandbox runs in any modern browser: IE7/8, Firefox 2/3, Chrome, Opera. It is doing this by injecting this layer between the html page (with css, javascript etc) and the browser. This virtualized layer transforms the code into an “executable” entity that will run in the sandbox. The sandbox then checks for security issues by running the javascripts.
Just the other day, Microsoft released much of the source code for the Web Sandbox project available under the Open Source Apache License 2.0. Web Sandbox project is not sponsored or endorsed by the Apache Software Foundation and is not an ASF project.).
You can track the latest changes in the discussion forum.
Posted by Alin Irimie
on January 28, 2009
The cloud is crashing too often. However, if you want to be notified when something like this happens with Windows Azure, here’s the .NET Services Announcements page. Today we’ve got:
We are currently experiencing an outage of the account provisioning system for .NET Services and SQL Data Services (http://portal .ex.azure.microsoft.com). We are working to resolve this issue and apologize for the inconvenience.
I already subscribed to their RSS feed.
Posted by Alin Irimie
on January 28, 2009
This is cool. Yesterday Microsoft released RC1 of ASP .NET MVC. Check it out here. The RC1, which offers several new capabilities and bug fixes, is feature-complete. The final release is slated to ship next month barring any critical issues in the RC1, according to a blog posting by Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s developer division.
The ASP.NET MVC RC1 release provides a new Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework on top of the existing ASP.NET 3.5 runtime. This means that developers can take advantage of the MVC design patterns to create their Web Applications which includes the ability to achieve and maintain a clear separation of concerns (the UI or view from the business and application logic and backend data), as well as facilitate test driven development (TDD). Continue reading…
Posted by Alin Irimie
on January 28, 2009
It is a common question these days whether to go “cloud” or stay on premises. One of the reasons is the price. To answer this question we use a little spreadsheet that calculates the approximate pricing between Amazon services and on premises custom solution. Of course, there are some assumptions made and the formula is not perfect. However, works for us and probably somebody will find it useful as well.
The scenario in the spreadsheet is for a company wanting to process lots of files (eg. pdf, images). Green cells is input data. Other cells is calculated data. The document is stored using google docs. You can access it here and save a copy in excel if you want to play with the numbers.
Feel free to email me for any feedback, suggestions.
Posted by Alin Irimie
on January 27, 2009
Cloud computing makes it easy to build applications that run reliably, even under heavy loads. However as a developer you need to know if and when the cloud, and hence your application, is having problems.
Cloud Status, the first iPhone application from Babilim Light Industries, allows you to monitor the status of Google App Engine, Amazon Web Services and Twitter in real time.
How does it work? Each service has a separate page, status for the various services is indicated by the icon next to the service. Clicking on each service component will provide further information as to the current status of that component, and any problems that it might be experiencing.
Babilim Light Industries is a small technology consulting company based in the South West of England run by Alasdair Allan.
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Posted by Alin Irimie
on January 26, 2009
Symantec released today their GoEverywhere (beta) solution, “a secure SaaS-based workspace that allows users to access their preferred third party web-based email, IM, office and other online applications from one central online location“.
The goEverywhere desktop is similar to your Windows desktop but it is hosted on the internet rather than locally on your computer. It is commonly called a “webtop”. Your webtop is located in the GO data center, safe and secure. Your data can be saved on your computer locally or you can use the SafeFiles storage service.
goEverywhere provides you exciting new features while eliminating many of the common computer management tasks we all hate to do. Continue reading…
Posted by Alin Irimie
on January 23, 2009
It is a big milestone for this blog, after a few moths of Windows Azure and incredible “Cloud-mania” here we are, the 100th post. Thanks everybody for reading and for your feedback.
Since the release of Windows Azure and the conception of this blog, the “cloud” evolved more rapidly than any other modern software technology. People are already talking about standards, maturity models, taxonomies and all other must-haves of an emerging technology or trend. Even the meaning of the word “cloud” keeps changing every day with big names jumping on the bandwagon of naming anything done on the internet as “cloud-something”.
I got mixed reactions following my previous post where I was expressing my concern about the confusion regarding the “cloud” and the inability of Microsoft to take the lead and set the trends instead of adding more confusion to the subject. I still think Microsoft direction and leadership is not clear in the “cloud” field.
Many people try to come up with a definition of what cloud computing is. For me, is simple - the “cloud” is a software platform, highly scalable and 100% available. We need to start with a high standard. This is not grid computing, or another something that runs on the internet. It is “cloud” computing. Yes, 100% availability. This is the promise of cloud computing, a worry free platform. Bring it on!
Posted by Alin Irimie
on January 22, 2009
To keep up with the competition, IBM released a full online suite of products called LotusLive. LotusLive is a cloud based suite of products, social networking and collaboration services, meant to simplify and improve business interactions with customers, partners and colleagues. LotusLive helps you bring people and information together quickly and simply in an easy-to-use environment, designed with security in mind.
| LotusLive Engage |
LotusLive Connections |
 Integrated suite of Web collaboration tools designed around your online Web meeting service. |
 Integrated suite of Web collaboration services including file sharing, activity management, instant messaging, and networking capabilities. |
| LotusLive Meetings |
LotusLive Events |
 Full-featured, online meetings with integrated Web, voice and video conferencing. |
 Online Event management service that includes Lotus Sametime Unyte Meeting plus registration, promotion, post-event follow up tools and more. |
| LotusLive Notes |
LotusLive iNotes |
 Time-tested and proven Lotus Notes e-mail hosted for you by IBM. This service is a simple way to provide industry-leading online email solutions for your business. |
 Security-rich, Web-based messaging service for exchanging e-mail and files with a Web browser and Internet connection. |
IBM announced that Lotus Notes ActiveSync support will be released later this year. The code is already live, and was demonstrated in a seminar earlier today at Lotusphere in move to catchup with Microsoft, who released push e-mail for Microsoft Exchange in March 2008.
Continue reading…
