With every new year comes a feeling of collective renewal—as if the list of everything we did and hoped to do in the previous year has been reset. Resolutions are made. New goals are written down and pasted to refrigerators, computer monitors, and bulletin boards.
Perhaps one of your goals is to become a better programmer. It’s something almost every developer can strive for—the only problem is deciding how to go about it. If you want a stronger conceptual knowledge base, you could read several cookbooks, essential handbooks, definitive references, guides for developers, and countless other resources. While this approach to learning would give you a well-rounded knowledge, such an undertaking requires much more time than most developers have. This is where Syncfusion’s Succinctly series of free e-books fits into your plans.
The first entry in the Succinctly series for 2013 is Data Structures Succinctly Part 1 by Robert Horvick. With it, you’ll improve your knowledge of linked lists, arrays, stacks, queues, binary search trees, and sets. You’ll learn how these structures behave, how to interact with them, and the algorithms behind their methods and classes. Horvick goes a step further to detail data structures’ operational and resource complexity to ensure you clearly understand what using a specific structure involves. As the title says, this is part one of a two-part series, so keep an eye on Syncfusion for Data Structures Succinctly Part 2.
With the Succinctly series, becoming a better programmer is one resolution you can keep in 2013. Each volume is around 100 pages, features detailed code samples, and is guaranteed to kick-start your learning process in whatever technology you decide to learn. We’ve published eleven books since we started the series last May, including books on Git, HTTP, C++, F#, Objective-C, and many more. Lucky for you, slowing down is not on our agenda. From all of us at Syncfusion, we wish you a happy New Year, and happy learning!
I’ll admit, I hadn’t read Getting Things Done until now. Sorry. I guess I never got around to do it.
Luckily, I seem to be half a GTD’er to start with – which means the topic of security in this context has been on my mind for quite some time. While it’s not something swept under the rug completely (one example being the steps taken by Evernote) it’s seemingly not being seen as the big problem it really is.
Recently in Sweden we’ve had a few well publicized break-ins into web services, where password files (either in clear text or with unsalted hashes) have been released into the wild. This in turn lead to the public discovery that government officials, security experts and police personnel have used third party web systems – like GMail – to store official or company data.
That is unacceptable – unless we change the current mindset of everyone involved in the current transition to “data in the cloud”. It’s not enough that a service uses well protected servers. It’s not enough if only a few admins have access to the data center. It’s not enough if my password is encrypted and that you promise me you won’t sell my info to third party companies.
It’s not enough, as long as a single person besides myself can access the data I’ve stored on your servers, in clear text.
I’d like to implement GTD, or some derivative, fully in my life. I cannot do it though, since as with many others in the “2.0-crowd” the border between what would be called my personal life and what I do at work is increasingly diffuse. I’ve worked far too long with security to allow myself to put up a single work related note, mail or photo on a server not controlled by my company. I’d go so far as to bluntly state that if you do, you’re naïve as to the risks involved and the amount of corporate spying (company and government sponsored) being performed.
Now, this is probably solvable. Data portability, open APIs and open authentication schemes could and should be followed by personal privacy. While causing trouble for cloud computing, using a private key system where all my different access devices will encrypt the data sent to the servers – and decrypt when fetching, will satisfy the privacy fears.
(The problem with cloud computing is, of course, that encrypted data is likely not modifyable. If we were to let the cloud computer modify the data it would need to be able to decrypt it, and while doing so the data would indeed become readable by spyware)
You shouldn’t. What should be offered by all cloud computing companies is a way for their service to use computing and storage resources at an external site, where private keys could be used in a secure environment. The access APIs would be the same, but the flow of information would be routed differently depending on the user’s credentials. This would allow for a single user to have personal data that he or she would be able to entrust to a single company like one of the above, but when in their professional capacity it would be possible to instead route the data through other servers with more inherit trust and capabilities.
This would allow cutting edge Web 2.0 to become trusted tools that could be used by companies other than small startups (which, sorry to say, seldom cares about security) and would reverse the worrying trend that only large suppliers with an existing business relationship are allowed to deliver (sub standard at that) collaboration utilities.
Come to think of it, what I just described is a B2B service directed at Web 2.0 companies. There should be someone already trying to implement it.
University of California Cooperative Extension farm advisor Glenn McGourty is taking a scientific look at a biodynamic farming practice called “carbon cycling” in a 1.5-acre Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard at the U.C. Hopland Research and Extension Center in Mendocino County, the trade magazine Wines & Vines reports.
“Carbon cycling” is getting increased attention due to concerns about global warming, which scientists believe is partly caused by carbon released into the planet’s upper atmosphere. The breakdown of soil carbon speeds up under more intense crop management systems that require extensive tillage.
“Biodynamic farmers recycle almost all of their agricultural waste products,” McGourty said. “When you cycle carbon into your own farm, you recycle the vegetative waste and animal manure, and use crop rotation to break pest and disease cycles. You grow cover crops to enhance carbon fixation in the soil. You conserve energy by not hauling what some consider waste materials away from the farm. In turn, crop and animal residues provide nutrition for your crops.”
Enhancing the carbon cycle on the farm, McGourty said, is an environmental service that agriculture can provide by parking carbon in the soil, rather than allowing it to drift into earth’s upper atmosphere.
“We’ve got 3,000 acres of certified organic vineyards and 1,500 acres of biodynamic farms in Mendocino County,” McGourty noted. “I’m committed to helping all of my clientele. I want them all to be successful at what they do.”