Virtualization Performance Gap

"Load Testing a Virtual Web Application: Measuring the Performance Impact of
Virtualizing a Web Application Server" shows how bad virtualization impacts the performance of a processor with hyperthreading. Not a trivial problem since the performance drop is rather significant.....

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

Blogging can hurt hiring chances

"Skills & Careers: Net reputations ruin job hopes. Blogging and social network bloopers can hurt your employability"

So, one needs to be careful what one posts online. Which is why I don't use my real name (and try not to make any real ties between my email and name with my set of blogs).

I used to have a big online presence many years ago, but then things like google made myself (my past) much more visible, so I went hiding for a few years. And then 2 years ago or so I restarted blogging with my new ID. Who knows? I may come out of hiding if I can't find any jobs (yes I'm looking for a new job again... sigh) and get my own business started....

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

C/C++ Teaching Tool

Few weeks ago, I thought about would make a good business and I was inspired by the idea of being more practical (rather than say, Game Development Universe). I thought why not a teaching to learn C (and C++)? This way, it can be packaged and sold to [high school or adult] students who want to master the C (and C++) programming language to help get a real job.

There are plenty of free compilers and web sites, as well as for fee tutorials, books, etc.

What would set my product apart would be to tie a compiler with a simulator so that one can see the effects of one's code on a real simulator. A bidirectional tie would be very cool: changing one's code would show a colored difference on the execution, or changing the binary on the simulator would flag the diff on the original C/C++ code.

Anyway, that was few weeks ago: Today, I was on a phone interview and I was asked about my work with C++ which I haven't done for almost a year and I did very poorly. I've forgotten all kinds of details, and was given the afternoon to regroup and retry but that didn't help (since I today's a workday and I only took 1 hour of lunch break to google). Afterwards, I thought: "man I wish I had this very C++ learning tool."

Also, last week, I had a phone interview where I was asked about few things I never had any real world experience (multi-thread programming). With a simulator + sample code, I would have been few steps ahead -- possibly :-).

I'll have to come up with a cool project name first :-)

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

Why Paper is Better

I'm watching NHK Professional program and what struck me very interesting is to see the CEO of DeNA who brought out her paper organizer. She pointed out that it's very quick to open and no need to wait (for boot time). Here are my thoughts on paper:

1. No wait: it's always there, ready to be used. No boot and no power up time. And nothing to install (software wise). You just use the paper (or book). However, once it's printed or written, then you can easily start with clean slate and start a fresh (which is easy to do with hardware or HW).
   
2. Portable: it is rather small and light. Computer hardware is usually too large, even those micro PC (like OQO). Or on the other hand, with PDA, the screen is too small.
   
3. Customizable: it can be folded or even cut to be even smaller. A hardware (PDA or computer) is fixed size. You can add peripherals but not remove the core HW. By tearing out a piece of paper, you can share the information easily, too. With computers, you must use the same hardware (like Palm IR "beaming") or both connected to internet to do email based exchange.
   
4. Direct location: a book (like dictionary or Bible) or diary or organizer, you can get a feel for the page you're looking for and find it quickly by knowing the physical position ("muscle memory" at work). With computer, there is no such interface (touch or digitized screen has that potential but I've yet to see such an interface). The closest thing is like the iPod interface where faster turn jumps you further along, but the problem is that it's easy to overshoot with such an interface (much like fast forwarding a video).
5. Freedom: with paper, you can have outlines and forms and even printed text but you can write (add) as much as you want (depends on the font size) in any location. Computers on the other hand, you can delete and move and edit (with pencil you can edit too but not so easy).
   

(I may have to go find my old notes on these thoughts and will update when I have time.)

On a related note, there's a youtube of "Introducing the book" which I believe is funny spin on what a book is from our modern perspective (with "tech support" giving a hand).

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved

JPC: java PC simulator

"JPC: Computer Virtualization in Java" sounds like a promising project (hat tip to /.). However, I'm not impressed after using the demo: the initial interactivity is good but on Java 1.5 after few seconds of playing the lag between input and output turns pretty much unusable (was playing Invader). There is probably some kind of garbage collection timing problem, I would assume since it hangs for a split second and then the image speeds up to real time and pauses or slows down. Not very useful for me (on 2.13 GHz Pentium M with 2GB of RAM).

I suppose newer 1.6* Java might help but still....

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

YouTube of Gaming?

"Site wants to become YouTube of games" introduces Kongregate, which is yet another game sharing site. Unfortunately, they don't support any tools themselves, just Flash based game. Not what I would call interesting, since I want people to learn how to write great code not just make money...

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

Virtualization Saves Money

For computer buyers. "Virtualization leads IDC to cut server forecast." It's bad news for chip and computer makers but great news for those who have to buy them. With virtualization, you get more bang for your buck which translates to better usage of existing hardware which means lower capital cost which means companies who provide computer services (web servers, etc.) can pass on the savings to their customers.

Like any technology break throughs, it takes time to see real savings but once it catches on the price change is permanent. I love how technology gets faster, better and cheaper over time....

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

Desktop Alternatives

There are two news on desktop alternatives: Mozilla is working (or at least talking about it) on a XUL based desktop. Adobe has released their Apollo desktop environment.

They both sound promising but I doubt if either one will really take off. I'd bet more on XUL since it is open source drive but Adobe has the money to push their stuff.

What they all need is a super great debug environment which I have yet see nor hear out there....

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

Multi-Core Debug

I was looking through JavaOne conference program and noticed Groovy language and was intrigued by it. But what really got my attention was "Java Platform Performance on Multicore: Better Performance or Bigger Headache?"

AMD is touting their AMD CodeAnalyst™ Performance Analyzer which is proposed as a tool to improve performance of multi-threaded Java program. But based on the above abstract, it seems to be a step closer to using such tools to help debug code.

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

Real home based business: Y's Staff

Yuri Tazawa has started a business in Japan, Y's Staff, with about 100 contract employees who, almost all of them, work from home all over Japan. The best intro in English I found is found in "Rising Internet Use Quietly Transforms Way Japanese Live." (it's out of date since this article was written 7 years ago.)

Sounds promising to me but I'll have to read up more on the company to find out if it seems like my ideal.

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

PlayFirst

Here's yet another game SDK: PlayFirst.

The cool part is that they allow you to run on various environment (PC, Mac, web) and support localization to other languages.

I don't like the fact that you have to program in C++.

Oh well....

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.