Dr. Blip's PC-Doctor Blog

Entries from May 2008

Information

Frontpage
About PC-Doctor
Who is Dr. Blip
Fair Play

Resources

Categories



All categories

Authors

A Theory of Scheduling Low Priority Work

Posted by fred.bertsch in Software at 12:00 | Monday, May 26. 2008

PC-Doctor delivers an enormous number of different products to different customers. Each customer gets a different product, and they get frequent updates to that product as well. Delivering these products requires complex synchronization between dozens of engineers. We've gotten great at scheduling the most important work. Our clients love us for that.

However, the low priority projects get released significantly less reliably. Until recently, I'd assumed that this problem was unique to PC-Doctor. Based on some extremely sketchy evidence from another company, I'm going to release my Theory Of Scheduling Low priOrity Work (TOSLOW).

Continue reading "A Theory of Scheduling Low Priority Work"

Comments (6)
Rating:
  2. -2
  3. -1
  4. 0
  5. +1
  6. +2
Current Rating: 4.17 of 5, 6 vote(s) 286 hits
Bookmark A Theory of Scheduling Low Priority Work at del.icio.us Digg A Theory of Scheduling Low Priority Work Bloglines A Theory of Scheduling Low Priority Work Technorati A Theory of Scheduling Low Priority Work Fark this: A Theory of Scheduling Low Priority Work Bookmark A Theory of Scheduling Low Priority Work at YahooMyWeb Bookmark A Theory of Scheduling Low Priority Work at Furl.net Bookmark A Theory of Scheduling Low Priority Work at reddit.com Bookmark A Theory of Scheduling Low Priority Work at blinklist.com Bookmark A Theory of Scheduling Low Priority Work at NewsVine Bookmark A Theory of Scheduling Low Priority Work at blogmarks Bookmark A Theory of Scheduling Low Priority Work at Ma.gnolia.com Stumble It!

Making Regexes Readable

Posted by fred.bertsch in Software at 13:01 | Wednesday, May 21. 2008

Regular expressions are extremely powerful. They have a tendency, however, to grow and turn into unreadable messes. What have people done to try to tame them?

Perl is often on the forefront of regex technology. It allows multiline regexes with ignored whitespace and comments. That's nice, and it's a great step in the right direction. If your regex grows much more than that example, then you'll still have a mess.

Click through to see another solution.

Continue reading "Making Regexes Readable"

Be the First, Leave Your Comments Now!
Rating:
  2. -2
  3. -1
  4. 0
  5. +1
  6. +2
Current Rating: 5 of 5, 1 vote(s) 212 hits
Bookmark Making Regexes Readable at del.icio.us Digg Making Regexes Readable Bloglines Making Regexes Readable Technorati Making Regexes Readable Fark this: Making Regexes Readable Bookmark Making Regexes Readable at YahooMyWeb Bookmark Making Regexes Readable at Furl.net Bookmark Making Regexes Readable at reddit.com Bookmark Making Regexes Readable at blinklist.com Bookmark Making Regexes Readable at NewsVine Bookmark Making Regexes Readable at blogmarks Bookmark Making Regexes Readable at Ma.gnolia.com Stumble It!

Anonymous Methods in C# are Your Friend

Posted by Harold.DeArmas at 13:38 | Tuesday, May 20. 2008

A previous post warned of some of the dangers of using Anonymous methods in C#. Yes, it's true you can get yourself into serious trouble with these C# treats. But as you play with them some more, you can actually see that they are much more fun and less scary than you might first think.

One of the first things you need to realize when anonymous methods are created is that they capture / hijack variables that are used in that anonymous method from the scope that they were originally in. So yes, modifying the variable from a particular scope is going to change its value for everyone else within that same scope as well, regardless of which block it is executed from. This is very different from the Java way of doing things (as I understand) where a variable that is accessed from an inner class must be declared as final, read-only, uninteresting. That's not to say that you can't do the same thing in Java, but one dimensional arrays are such a pain. I digress.

Continue reading "Anonymous Methods in C# are Your Friend"

Be the First, Leave Your Comments Now!
Rating:
  2. -2
  3. -1
  4. 0
  5. +1
  6. +2
Current Rating: 2.33 of 5, 3 vote(s) 326 hits
Bookmark Anonymous Methods in C# are Your Friend at del.icio.us Digg Anonymous Methods in C# are Your Friend Bloglines Anonymous Methods in C# are Your Friend Technorati Anonymous Methods in C# are Your Friend Fark this: Anonymous Methods in C# are Your Friend Bookmark Anonymous Methods in C# are Your Friend at YahooMyWeb Bookmark Anonymous Methods in C# are Your Friend at Furl.net Bookmark Anonymous Methods in C# are Your Friend at reddit.com Bookmark Anonymous Methods in C# are Your Friend at blinklist.com Bookmark Anonymous Methods in C# are Your Friend at NewsVine Bookmark Anonymous Methods in C# are Your Friend at blogmarks Bookmark Anonymous Methods in C# are Your Friend at Ma.gnolia.com Stumble It!

Nginx vs. Apache2 - in Rails Running Death Match

Posted by Andy Koch at 15:13 | Thursday, May 15. 2008

Recently I proposed running Nginx rather than Apache as the frontend web server for a soon to deployed Rails app that shall remain nameless. The response I received was that Nginx was unknown and likely introduced security risks. My response was, "maybe, but Nginx is faster and uses less server resources". To which I was ordered... "prove it".

And so I did, by setting up my Rails app on a local server with all things being the same but switching the frontend servers (Nginx, Apache) and running a set of performance tests. The results were interesting and I was able to create some pretty graphs of the results.


Continue reading "Nginx vs. Apache2 - in Rails Running Death Match"

Comments (3)
Rating:
  2. -2
  3. -1
  4. 0
  5. +1
  6. +2
Current Rating: 5 of 5, 2 vote(s) 598 hits
Bookmark Nginx vs. Apache2 - in Rails Running Death Match at del.icio.us Digg Nginx vs. Apache2 - in Rails Running Death Match Bloglines Nginx vs. Apache2 - in Rails Running Death Match Technorati Nginx vs. Apache2 - in Rails Running Death Match Fark this: Nginx vs. Apache2 - in Rails Running Death Match Bookmark Nginx vs. Apache2 - in Rails Running Death Match at YahooMyWeb Bookmark Nginx vs. Apache2 - in Rails Running Death Match at Furl.net Bookmark Nginx vs. Apache2 - in Rails Running Death Match at reddit.com Bookmark Nginx vs. Apache2 - in Rails Running Death Match at blinklist.com Bookmark Nginx vs. Apache2 - in Rails Running Death Match at NewsVine Bookmark Nginx vs. Apache2 - in Rails Running Death Match at blogmarks Bookmark Nginx vs. Apache2 - in Rails Running Death Match at Ma.gnolia.com Stumble It!

Anonymous Methods in C# Cause Subtle Programming Errors.

Posted by fred.bertsch in Software at 07:52 | Monday, May 12. 2008

Lambda expressions and anonymous methods in C# are more complicated than you probably think. Microsoft points out that an incomplete understanding of them can result in "subtle programming errors". After running into exactly that, I'd agree. While I haven't tried it, Lambda expressions in C# 3 are supposed to do exactly the same thing.


Continue reading "Anonymous Methods in C# Cause Subtle Programming Errors."

Be the First, Leave Your Comments Now!
Rating:
  2. -2
  3. -1
  4. 0
  5. +1
  6. +2
Current Rating: none, 0 vote(s) 300 hits
Bookmark Anonymous Methods in C# Cause Subtle Programming Errors. at del.icio.us Digg Anonymous Methods in C# Cause Subtle Programming Errors. Bloglines Anonymous Methods in C# Cause Subtle Programming Errors. Technorati Anonymous Methods in C# Cause Subtle Programming Errors. Fark this: Anonymous Methods in C# Cause Subtle Programming Errors. Bookmark Anonymous Methods in C# Cause Subtle Programming Errors. at YahooMyWeb Bookmark Anonymous Methods in C# Cause Subtle Programming Errors. at Furl.net Bookmark Anonymous Methods in C# Cause Subtle Programming Errors. at reddit.com Bookmark Anonymous Methods in C# Cause Subtle Programming Errors. at blinklist.com Bookmark Anonymous Methods in C# Cause Subtle Programming Errors. at NewsVine Bookmark Anonymous Methods in C# Cause Subtle Programming Errors. at blogmarks Bookmark Anonymous Methods in C# Cause Subtle Programming Errors. at Ma.gnolia.com Stumble It!

Will it Burn - Episode 1

Posted by Dr. Blip in Grab Bag at 12:14 | Tuesday, May 6. 2008

Ever use a magnifying glass to smoke something? Ever wonder what a really, really big lens could do? Dr. Blip wondered too, and when he saw a three-by-four-foot Fresnel lens offered by American Science and Surplus, he just had to see what it would do to a hard drive. Here are the results, in the first of a series of “Will it Burn” videos, wherein we explore the combustibility of various items in the safety of the Nevada desert. Yes this is a knock-off of –er-- inspired by “Will it Blend” – and it’s much, much more fun (and more dangerous, as you will see in the out-take).

Enjoy this first installment, and please post your comments. We’re interested in your feedback, including ideas about what to “focus” on next.

Please note: no live PC components were harmed in the making of this film.


Be the First, Leave Your Comments Now!
Rating:
  2. -2
  3. -1
  4. 0
  5. +1
  6. +2
Current Rating: 4.38 of 5, 16 vote(s) 835 hits
Bookmark Will it Burn - Episode 1 at del.icio.us Digg Will it Burn - Episode 1 Bloglines Will it Burn - Episode 1 Technorati Will it Burn - Episode 1 Fark this: Will it Burn - Episode 1 Bookmark Will it Burn - Episode 1 at YahooMyWeb Bookmark Will it Burn - Episode 1 at Furl.net Bookmark Will it Burn - Episode 1 at reddit.com Bookmark Will it Burn - Episode 1 at blinklist.com Bookmark Will it Burn - Episode 1 at NewsVine Bookmark Will it Burn - Episode 1 at blogmarks Bookmark Will it Burn - Episode 1 at Ma.gnolia.com Stumble It!

Developing a New Framework

Posted by fred.bertsch in Software at 12:00 | Monday, May 5. 2008

This post is a bit of a change for me. I'm actually going to write about my work for PC-Doctor! I'm actually a bit embarrassed at how rare that's been.

I want to talk about how to design a brand new framework. It's not something that everyone has to do, and it's not something that anyone does frequently. However, there's very little information on the web about the differences between creating a library and a framework.

Continue reading "Developing a New Framework"

Comments (4)
Rating:
  2. -2
  3. -1
  4. 0
  5. +1
  6. +2
Current Rating: 5 of 5, 2 vote(s) 383 hits
Bookmark Developing a New Framework at del.icio.us Digg Developing a New Framework Bloglines Developing a New Framework Technorati Developing a New Framework Fark this: Developing a New Framework Bookmark Developing a New Framework at YahooMyWeb Bookmark Developing a New Framework at Furl.net Bookmark Developing a New Framework at reddit.com Bookmark Developing a New Framework at blinklist.com Bookmark Developing a New Framework at NewsVine Bookmark Developing a New Framework at blogmarks Bookmark Developing a New Framework at Ma.gnolia.com Stumble It!
(Page 1 of 1, totaling 7 entries)

© 2008 PC-Doctor, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Quicksearch

Syndicate

Polls

Did you buy an iPhone 3G?
Yes
No
Plan to

Archives

Archives

September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
Recent...
Older...

Registration

Register with our blog! Enter your data, submit the form and receive further instructions via mail. A valid email address is required for verification. Only registered users may comment.





Login

Open login screen