When I first learned about it, I cried. That was an odd reaction on my part. I never met or interacted with Steve Jobs and I’m not what most would define as an Apple fanboy.

I reflected upon what led me to shed tears for someone who was, technically, a stranger to me and came to realize that Steve Jobs affected and inspired my life far more that I cared to admit.

My deep sadness wasn’t just for a relatively young person who died and left a grieving family behind. It was sadness for the loss of a visionary leader who relentlessly showed us the art of what’s possible. I couldn’t help but feel the sudden end of an era. No “one more thing” left to anticipate with excitement and curiosity.

Steve didn’t personally create or invent many of Apple’s products, but he ensured that the end results we managed to get our hands on were nothing short of inspiring. He was a visionary for countless consumers, developers, entrepreneurs, and even competitors.

He managed to inspire a whole industry, while doing what he truly loved. Millions of entrepreneurs world wide have been inspired to do the same as a result of his work. This may be his greatest legacy and something that will live on in all of us long after his passing.

Goodbye, Steve, and thank you for everything.

Credit: Matt Yohe

No related posts.

The submission deadline has been extended to Monday, October 10th, 11:59pm PST, so there’s still time for you participate, if you wish.

Three participants will be selected for an all-paid trip to IOD in Las Vegas three weeks from now. You don’t have to be a student to participate; professionals and hobbyists are more than welcome to take part, too.

The extension has been granted thanks to the unprecedented level of interest, with almost 2,000 people taking the course (many of whom asked for an extension).

You can take the course and not participate in the challenge, but participating is a good chance to put your knowledge to the test when it comes to solving a real world problem of your choice.

The submissions received so far have been very interesting, and include topics spanning from global warming to calculations on the cup size of fashion models.

If you can think of an application for which MapReduce technology is able find insightful answers amongst a large dataset, consider taking the challenge. Who knows, you might just land yourself a trip to Vegas!

No related posts.

Early feedback has been great and helped shape the book. The reception by early readers and reviewers has been nothing short of incredible. Here is one:

My career got a huge boost when I got serious about blogging, two years ago. So I’m in absolute awe at this amazing book, going above and beyond the best advice I’ve ever heard on the subject. I wish I would have read this two years ago, as I had to learn this the hard way. Honestly, this book has got me inspired to get back to writing more.
—Derek Sivers, founder, CD Baby, sivers.org

I’m pretty confident, humbly, that you’ll love it. It provides you with all the info you really need to succeed with your own blog, and it does so in an organized manner that will get you to plan, build, promote, benefit from, and grow your own blog.

While useful to a general audience, the book was specifically written for developers and technically minded entrepreneurs (e.g., hackers and founders). Above all, it aims to be a practical book packed with actionable advice, and not your typical fluffy book about blogging.

You can buy the beta here, and please let me know what you think about it once you get around to read it. I’m very excited to be able to share the fruits of much hard work that took most of my evenings and weekends for the past few months.

No related posts.

This is a heads up for my readers who are interested in Big Data. Follow these steps to learn Hadoop and get a chance to win a trip to Las Vegas:

1. Register with Big Data University.
2. Enroll and complete the free Hadoop Fundamentals I course.
3. You’ll receive a certificate of completion and an invitation to partecipate in the first Hadoop Programming Challenge.
4. On October 3rd, three participants to this challenge will be selected for a free, all expenses paid, trip to Information on Demand (IOD) 2011 in Las Vegas on October 23rd – 27th.

Best of luck to you.

(Hat tip to Free DB2)

No related posts.

What’s more interesting to me is that IBM has implemented a completely new full text search engine known as DB2 Text Search, which will probably be available to the public as an add-on in a week or so. We had a couple of different text search engines in the past, but IBM decided to focus on just one and make it as good as it gets. I look forward to playing with it, and reporting here on the blog about its capabilities in a future article.

For the time being, I encourage you to download DB2 Express-C 9.7.4. As a reminder, it’s free, and you can use in production without having to pay a fee.

No related posts.

Google I/O 2011 is bringing together thousands of developers to share, learn and create; we want you to be part of of this free developer event!

On Tuesday May 10th, eleven of our North American offices will be opening their doors to share the magic of I/O. Even though you might not be able to make it to San Francisco for the conference, we are bringing together passionate and talented developers in the local community to watch the conference through live streaming at the Google Waterloo Office.

We’ll be featuring live streaming of the keynote speakers and popular breakout sessions, as well as demonstrations & tech talks from local Canadian Googlers.You’ll have the opportunity to connect with fellow developers, enjoy beverages and bites, and enter to win raffle prizes (like a Samsung Galaxy Tab!). Space is limited, so attendance will be granted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Google IO Main Site
Click here for details, locations and to RSVP

Looking forward to seeing you in May,
The Google I/O Extended Team

Questions? Email lexib at Big G

Seats are going fast, so RSVP now if you are interested in this event.

No related posts.

IBM has been working hard to create a new, substantial upgrade of DB2. Thanks to the Early Experience program, you can now test drive the recently released Alpha 4 in the cloud for free. Despite its name, it’s a pretty solid release, so I wholeheartedly invite you to try it out.

To apply for the early experience program, all you have to do is fill out this form. If you’d like to run DB2 on your own machine, you can get the current edition of DB2 Express-C here (it’s also free).

Possibly related posts:

1. Free version of Ruby in Steel
2. The most important programming language today
3. Installing and configuring DB2 Express-C 9.7 on Ubuntu 9.04 Server

Over the past 25 years they’ve managed to deeply influence the world of computing and technology. The ideas promoted by the FSF’s foundation and leader, Richard Stallman, have certainly veered on the radical side. However, even if you don’t agree with this group’s ideology, I’d argue that we are afforded a lot more software freedom thanks to their activism.

Free and Open Source software (FOSS) has made our world a better place, and even if we put certain ideologies aside, software that is expandable, adaptable and often (but not necessarily) available for free is certainly a good thing for the end user.

Yet the business world has only partially embraced FOSS, and it’s rare to see an organization that exclusively runs its operations using only Open Source software and web applications that have been released under OSI approved licenses.

There are many reasons why this is the case, but the fundamental one is that software is only a means to an end for most businesses. They’ll use whatever they feel works best, is cheapest, best supported, and that they’re most familiar with. After all, they’re in business to make money, so religiously adhering to software philosophies is not usually at the top of their priority list.

Open Source business models

You’ll notice that for the most part, companies who develop FOSS don’t make their money from that FOSS itself. While they could theoretically sell it, the existence of clauses that allow their customers to redistribute the software for free makes it a less than ideal business model.

As such, better business models had to be invented to workaround the practical (not theoretical) limitations of making money with FOSS. The three most common of which are: dual licenses, Open Core, and support-based (and combinations thereof).

(Note that I’m mostly talking about desktop software here. Open source web apps tend to capitalize on the hosted nature of the service and are easier to monetize even when the software itself becomes freely available.)

Dual license: A commercial license is often used in conjunction with viral Open Source licenses like the GPL. A company setting up a dual license of this kind essentially relies on other companies’ inability to accept the viral license (because they don’t want to give their code away just because they used it in conjunction with your GPL code).

Open Core: The core product is Open Source, but if you want extra features, that are often indispensable to businesses, you’ll have to pay for them (as they’re commercial and proprietary). A company adopting this model is essentially using a freemium model, in which they use Open Source as a gateway to selling you proprietary software (which is the real way they make their money).

Support-based: Finally, there is the support option. Development companies went from basically having a license to print money to a much less scalable business model where they generate revenue based on the support they provide. Incidentally, while support is not the main “vocation” of most people who start software companies, it can be a lucrative avenue nevertheless.

Open Source as a nice to have

My point is that in all three cases, businesses may appreciate the Open Source nature, but it’s not a key factor in their decision making. In fact, in the first case they are buying a commercial license to escape the contractual limitations of an Open Source license; in the second case, they are paying outright for proprietary software; and in the third case, they are paying for the assurance that the software is maintained and that there’s going to be someone who’s accountable and ready to assist if problems arise (this is a real problem with many less popular community-driven Open Source projects).

In short, as long as the software fits the bill, companies will not take an idealistic view when it comes to software, but rather focus on what affects their bottom-line. It’s fairly safe to say that most companies really care about having software that is reliable, saves them time (their most precious resource), and that’s well supported. Open Source is a “nice to have” for most of them.

Why would you use commercial databases?

As an advocate for the DB2 team I often hear people ask, “Why would you use DB2 when MySQL is free and Open Source?”. The truth is that countless companies use DB2 because they know it ends up being cheaper in terms of both time and cost, when compared to Open Source database solutions.

I don’t doubt that many developers who work with Open Source technologies may care about their database being free (as in beer), free (as in speech), and its ability to meet a subset of functionalities available in pretty much any relational databases. In that case, MySQL is fine. But the needs of companies, both large and small, will often differ from that of your typical solo hacker.

IBM has an extensive number of DB2 customers because these companies care about features that don’t exist or are very rough around the edges in many Open Source databases.

Most of our customers care about:

• Proven reliability and advanced security features;
• Utmost performance;
• Ability to natively handle XML documents and data (some industries have to do so as a result of regulations);
• Vertical and horizontal scalability as their business grow;
• Advanced and easySQL Replication and High Availability and Disaster Recovery (HADR) tools;
• Backup compression to save storage costs (it’s not an issue if you have a web app that stores a grand total of 50MB of data, but it’s fundamental when you have 50TB);
• 24/7 support from a reputable company that will truly stand behind the product they sell;
• Ease of administration (DB2 offers autonomic features that pretty much self-adjust DB2 automatically based on the workload and usage it’s handed);
• Overall TCO (which involves a lot more than just looking at the price tag for the software).

DB2 rocks all of these very crucial points. Furthermore, with the DB2 Express-C version, you get to use a production ready version absolutely for free.

Don’t let the name scare you. Oracle has really given the “Express” brand a bad vibe. Oracle XE is full of security holes, hasn’t been updated in 5 years, and is a severely crippled edition. Conversely, DB2 Express-C is regularly updated and impose very little limitations on you.

True, even DB2 Express-C has some limitations when it comes to the kinds of resources that it can use (up to 2GB of RAM and 2 CPU cores). Fear not though, it’s still plenty useful for many startups or small businesses (it’s used in production by many such folks). With DB2 Express-C there are no limits on the number of databases, their sizes, the number of users, connections, etc. It’s the perfect starter edition. The presence of three commercial editions (Express-C FTL or Express, Workgroup, and Advanced Enterprise) guarantees you that as your business flourishes, DB2 will grow with you.

How far can you go with top of the line hardware and the commercial editions? Let’s put it this way: every time you buy something with your VISA, that transaction passes through DB2. Furthermore, DB2 holds the world record for TPC-C benchmarks, with over 10,000,000 transactions per minute.

Let’s make DB2 available to more startups

Today IBM is announcing new pricing to extend the benefits of our support and commercial edition to a greater number of startups and small businesses. You can get the commercial Fixed Term License for about $1,500 per server, per year. (I pay more per year to host this blog.) Aside from 24/7 support, regular fix pack updates, and the clustering option for SQL Replication and HADR, this DB2 Express-C license will also allow you to use up to 4GB of RAM and 4 CPU cores. (There is an Express edition if you’d prefer to pay a one time fee, rather than a yearly one, or if you’d like to pay through other metrics such as per user.)

Commercial databases, particularly innovative ones like DB2, have their place in our industry both today and in the future, even in the face of the indisputable popularity of Open Source options. Businesses should evaluate proprietary and Open Source solutions on technical merits rather than ideological ones. In my opinion, there is space for both of these models to peacefully coexist to better serve the diverse needs of the business world.

DISCLAIMER: These are my controversial opinions on the topic at hand. They do not represent the opinions of IBM or anyone else associated with IBM. In fact, I wrote this post at 2 AM on my own laptop and published it on my personal blog. No executives were consulted (or harmed) in the making of this post.

No related posts.

Apple just released a brand new, gorgeous looking Mac mini. This major upgrade brings us two different models: a desktop one and a server version (priced at $699 and $999, respectively).

Equipped with a HDMI port, the desktop edition of the Mac mini makes for a perfect Home Theater PC. It’s small and stylish, and as such is a great fit in your living room. Most of the reviews I’ve read focus on its use as a highly capable HTPC (despite its lack of a Blu-Ray drive).

However, I see the new Mac Mini in a different light. At $700 it is far too expensive for a HTPC, yet it’s ideal as an entry-level machine for web, Mac, and iOS development (it’s almost as cheap as a Hackintosh, minus the headache).

Mac Minis will do the job and be more than capable thanks to their adequate, albeit not spectacular, hardware specs. If my MacBook Pro were to die today, I would definitely consider purchasing one for development purposes. Would you?

No related posts.

Image © Sooperkuh.

Did the IP 173.203.211.51 belong to a malicious user?

No. It belongs to etacts (a social plugin for Gmail), who has confirmed that the IP is one of theirs. They were authorized by me to access my inbox via IMAP for “analytics” purposes.

Why did you originally think that it could have been a malicious user?

A reverse-lookup of the IP address did not show an etacts hostname, as it had in the past, but instead a generic Slicehost server. A search quickly revealed that other people had complained online about the same IP accessing their inbox, too. This was a red flag, but contrary to some peoples’ interpretation, I didn’t freak out about it.

Oh come on, you freaked out, admit it.

Not quite, but I was reasonably concerned.

Were you a bit paranoid about it?

No.

But they are after you.

Really? Who?

Everyone. Everyone is after you.

Oh.

What about Zoho Discussions and Trendly?

Zoho and Trendly are the only two services I granted access to my Google account. In practice, this means I simply logged in using Google as a single sign-on, instead of creating a new account for each of those services. This type of OAuth-like authentication does not provide third party companies with your password, as explained by Google in this help page.

Contrary to my initial post, Zoho and Trendly could not have been the culprits. etacts on the other hand required a username and password in order to work. This is likely to change when Google introduces OAuth for IMAP.

Shouldn’t you — or anyone — know better than give your password to third parties?

Generally speaking, yes. You shouldn’t share your password with anybody. In this case, I assessed the risks and benefits of doing so, and opted for the convenience of the service, feeling that etacts was/is trustworthy.

etacts is a YCombinator-funded startup and its entire business model depends, for the time being, on people trusting them with their login credentials. Until Google launches OAuth for IMAP, there isn’t really a way around this scenario, if you want to use such a service.

I fully understand that some people may feel that it’s never wise to trust a third party regardless of the benefits involved into the equation.

Shouldn’t etacts attempt to prevent such false alarms?

Yes, and the team at etacts was very proactive in terms of proposing possible solutions to prevent those users who trust them from needlessly worrying when an usual IP is recorded. Publishing a list of their IPs and ensuring that reverse lookups of such IPs lead to actual etacts hostnames, were two of the potential solutions that they suggested.

So was it much ado about nothing?

Yes and no. Without a doubt, the event that led me to write the article was the false alarm, but the real motivation behind it was to bring Google’s access log to people’s attention, regardless of whether they shared their password or not. In fact, following my post there were reports of people who’d discovered there had been illicit accesses to their accounts.

I also published the article to share some suggestions on what to do when dealing with an intrusion.

Why did you say that you changed the password on a wired computer?

As I mention in the post, it was unlikely that someone managed to sniff my password by whatever means. Occam’s Razor did point towards the service I’d given my password to, which I made clear in my initial post.

I happened to have a newly formatted Linux desktop, so I used that one. It didn’t take any extra effort on my part. In my case, using that or using my laptop would have been no different (in fact, I used my WiFi throughout the whole ordeal, and I haven’t bothered to change my WiFi password either).

Since those were general suggestions in a checklist of sort, it didn’t hurt to include it for people who may have had their password sniffed (even though such scenario would require further action).

You don’t need DBAN to remove possible keyloggers

That’s true, you don’t. I’d been planning to do a clean install on my MacBook Pro for a long time, so I thought I’d take the opportunity and go ahead with it now. As well, formatting one’s hard drive to remove keyloggers is still a valid suggestion for those who did have their password keylogged.

You don’t need DBAN for a new installation either

These days it’s rather rare that I do a brand new installation, so when I do, I like to start with a clean slate. Booting with DBAN and running a quick erase to zero in every bit is not an overly lengthy process. It’s an unnecessary step, that is unless you have unicorn riding midget pr0n to hide.

Do you have unicorn pr0n to hide?

Only a few gigabytes.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post is that, after changing your password, you may want to remove the app authorization from your list of authorized third parties for your Google Account.

BTW, what’s up with the server dying on us?

When I setup my server (a long time ago), NGINX wasn’t as established as it is today. So I went with Apache which is a slow and heavy beast. If you add that WordPress is resource hungry as well, you get a fine tuned 1GB of RAM slice that struggled with several thousand visitors in the span of a few hours. An strace of the Apache processes revealed that despite APC and the WordPress SuperCache plugin, PHP was still hogging resources like doing so is going out of style. (Despite my server issues more than 20,000 visitors managed to read the article from my old server.)

I have now moved this blog to a 4GB, 2 CPUs server in the cloud, using NGINX as a web server. I will slowly port my other blogs as well as I migrate away from Slicehost. This setup should be able to handle much heavier loads (at least in theory). If you notice any problems, please don’t hesitate to let me know. (I officially declare my current deployment as an alpha “release”).

That should wrap things up in regards to this Gmail investigation, folks. Time to move on.

No related posts.