It may seem odd to write a blog about blogs. Having said that, it might also seem perfectly normal, too.
We’re proud of our blogs and hope you find them both interesting and informative. And we’re very pleased now to have been included in Online IT Degrees’ Top 100 Blogs for the industry.
The second annual PHP TestFest is currently underway and this weekend the PHP NorthWest user group met to make their contribution with Ben, Rowan and myself representing Plusnet. The aim is to improve the amount of PHP source code that is covered by tests thereby giving developers increased confidence that unintentional behavior changes are not made. These tests are run frequency and the results are published on gcov.php.net.
Having used PHP for a number of years to build a career and pay the bills, it feels particularly satisfying to contribute something back to the project. Also, those people making significant contribution may apply for a $username@php.net email address which looks cool on a business card!
With the recent release of PHP5.3RC2, the main focus is on improving code coverage for the 5.3 branch. PHP core developer Scott MacVicar started the day with an introduction on how-to compile from source as well as run the existing tests. After pizza, we got down to the business of writing tests, starting with a simple example which I’ll run through… More…
After reading Matt’s Twitter blog that he published a couple of weeks ago, I thought I’d take the opportunity to write a follow-up piece about my own experiences with the increasingly popular micro-blogging cum social networking service of the moment.
What I found particularly interesting about Matt’s blog were some of the comments that readers had left. Whilst there aren’t many, what is evident from these comments is something that I’ve noticed on a much larger scale when chatting to friends, family and work associates about the new social networking phenomena – You either love it, or you hate it! More…
It’s my regular Wednesday night EOD Editor slot… however it will be last one I do for a while! I’m off on my holidays for 2 weeks next week! *Does a Jig*.
While I’m getting pre-holiday giddiness, lets see what everyone else has been up to.
More…
It was a surprise to me today to learn that Microsoft have now actually shipped a couple of their much flaunted Surface products to customers.
The story of unpacking and first use gets picked up on the Amnesia Blog.
The question will be how long it takes for these to become common in public spaces. If you’re a waiter or waitress, maybe you will be feeling a little concerned right now?
Ian
I shudder to think of the number of times I have, in my capacity as geek to my friends and relatives, been forced to make a personal visit simply to install a piece of software or to diagnose a problem they’re having. All because I needed to see their screen, or needed them to take me through the steps leading up to a fault. How many hours have been wasted on the road when they could have been more usefully spent actually sorting out their problem, which of course translates to more time in the pub. Thankfully, I don’t do that any more. That’s not to say I don’t help out my friends or family, they’re friends and family after all. No, these days I use Crossloop. RDP didn’t suit my needs at all, especially when a) I want the end-user to actually learn something and b) I often need the assistance of the user – ‘what were you doing when it crashed?’ I needed something like WinVNC, something which gave me the power of control, and the user the visibility. WinVNC is good, but not very secure. Plus using it often raises a red flag in whatever anti-virus/anti-spyware software you’re running.
Crossloop combines the power of WinVNC with the security of SSL. Connecting to a central service, connectivity between users is setup transparently to both sides – somthing taken care of by the Crossloop servers. The steps are really simple…
The helper side is just as simple
Both sides then establish the SSL tunnel over which the session traffic will be routed, to help prevent man-in-the-middle style attacks or discovery. Then, when the tunnel is setup, WinVNC launches with the remote display on the Helpers PC. Very cool.
But the fun doesn’t stop there. What if you don’t have a family geek? Do you steal a suitably pasty faced yoof from the local supermarket? Thankfully there is an army of Crossloop members sat there just waiting for your cry for help. They’ll help you whatever your problem, and they’ll do it for free. Yes, you heard me, free. Altruism at its best. The singular drawback is that its WinVNC component still, sometimes, gets caught by the most stringent anti-malware applications which kinda breaks the whole process – frustrating as you don’t have access to the user’s PC in order to carry out the install to gain access to the user’s PC. In most cases, adding the application to your anti-malware’s whitelist BEFORE running it will fix that little problem – adding it after is akin to closing the gate after the horse has bolted, WinVNC will already have been quarantined.
Check out these links, they show Crossloop in action.
http://crossloop.typepad.com/bringing_people_closer/2007/12/crossloop-raise
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzbcuiMiwX0
Quite frankly, Crossloop is the best remote desktop app I’ve used… It blows RDP away for the obvious reasons, but more importantly as a user you can have a high level of confidence that the guy on the other end of the connection is a good guy, and that your problem will be sorted out.
–
Disclaimer: Crossloop is an external application. PlusNet provides no guarantees as to its functionality, or warranty for any damage that using it may cause.
Last week I discussed the possible cost savings from a virtualised setup, and although this would be seen as the main driver for a lot of people there are a host of other benefits that you gain.
As I posted last week, a lot of businesses are guilty of using virtualisation for the sake of it, rather than weighing up the advantages and disadvantages to see what benefit it will, or will not, bring.
Virtualisation is a word bandied around by managers as some kind of Holy Grail, able to improve the design of any system, save you money, save the cheerleader and save the world. As you may already have guessed, this is not the case. It is true, however, that virtualisation can bring a host of benefits to a datacentre environment. More…
People are split firmly into two camps with regards to their view of the OSX Operating system. There are those that love it and those that haven’t tried it yet.
Up until now OSX has been strictly “for Macs only” (aside from hacking around getting an illegally modified version installed on a PC), but Psystar, a Miami company, announced this week of the launch of the £200 “Open PC” that is capable of running an unmodified Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
When you compare the configuration of the OpenPC with that of a Mac Mini you find that “the Mac Mini costs 150% of the price of the OpenPC while offering poorer performance, smaller storage space, and RAM”.
Apple ran an authorized Mac clone program for a stint of about two years in the mid-to-late 90’s, but upon Steve Jobs’ return to the business this was ceased.
Following the announcement by Psystar earlier this week, their website crashed under the load. The company said its web traffic peaked at over 30,000 hits per second on Monday, causing an outage; so there’s an undoubted demand for what they are offering.
It will be interesting to see how quickly the Apple legal team respond…
Matt Grest
Head of Future Development
PlusNet
Here at Plusnet we're always trying to use clever open source things to make our lives easier. Sometimes we write our own and make other people's lives easier too!
We sell broadband, phone, VoIP and more to homes and businesses in the UK. Winner of 9 out of 11 Categories in the 2008 USwitch survey. Winner of "Best Consumer ISP" at 2008 ISPA awards. Voted number 1 in the Broadband Choices 2008 survey.
© Plusnet plc All Rights Reserved. E&OE
Community Site News is powered by WordPress
