Recently I attended the “Changing the Odds” conference put on by the Harlem Children’s Zone and PolicyLink.org. The HCZ has a storied history of helping youth with evidence-based harm reduction techniques. It has seen such success that it is currently being used as a model by the Obama Administration.
I was invited as a member of the Promise Neighborhood Research Consortium where I hold Concentric Sky’s seat on the steering board. The PNRC is an NIH funded consortium with a mandate to extend the mission of the HCZ to communities around the US. Concentric Sky is the PNRC’s primary technology partner.
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Google Wave was born out of the notion that while email and instant messaging work well, they were both created a long time ago. As the lead developer puts it - “Wave is what email would look like if it were invented today.” Indeed it is.
Nearly everyone uses email and instant messaging on the web these days, but imagine if you could tie those together with a wiki - and then add real-time playback functionality, on-the-fly language translation and drag-and-drop file sharing. Google Wave does all this and a lot more.
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We attended Google I/O this year and were pleasantly surprised to see that it’s fast becoming a playground for innovation and a place for serious collaboration among developers. I attended a number of interesting sessions, and of course the Android lightning talks. I left the conference this year very excited about some of Google’s initiatives, particularly Google Wave.
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JavaOne is happening this week. One of the primary highlights is the Java Store - recently announced on Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s blog. The Java Store is the largest developer-to-consumer software distribution channel to date and shows great potential. It is a powerful entry into the market and could be a game changer in both the desktop and mobile spaces.
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TechStart, a non-profit organization founded by the Software Association of Oregon, launched their new website recently. TechStart’s mission is:
To promote technology education to strengthen the teamwork, critical thinking, creativity, and problem solving skills of K-12 students and, in so doing, awaken a passion for technology among all Oregon students.
I had the pleasure of working with President Chris Brooks and his team to develop TechStart’s new website. Working with non-profit organizations is personally gratifying; my frequent non-profit projects are one of many reasons why I love working at Concentric Sky. I’m particularly happy to work with TechStart, and hope that the next generation of students will benefit from an early introduction to math and science as much as I have.
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At Concentric Sky, we spend a lot of time thinking about how to make technology better. Sometimes that means making something faster. Sometimes it means making it more fun or easier to use. Often it means making something more reliable.
The foundation for a reliable Internet technology is a reliable network and, perhaps even more importantly, a reliable server. We host all of our services on top-tier hardware from top-tier vendors. Modern computers are extremely complex, however, and even a AAA vendor can’t guarantee that none of their machines go out the door without minor problems. In light of that, before a server goes into production at Concentric Sky, it gets an early workout from a variety of testing tools to make absolutely sure that everything is performing exactly as it should. A recent addition to our suite of tools is Breakin from Advanced Clustering Technologies, Inc.
Breakin puts an extremely heavy, focused load on a server’s processor, RAM, and hard disks. The 72 hour stress test exposes small imperfections and failures in the hardware - problems that would go unnoticed during the normal run of things.
I’ve had several instances where brand new and seemingly healthy machines fell down under the stress that Breakin put them under. By doing this testing pre-deployment, we dramatically lower the chances that we will have unexpected hardware failures in production. That’s good for everyone.
Like most of the software we use, Breakin is Open Source - but it doesn’t seem to be under a specific license. Visit Advanced Clustering for more information. If you host your own systems, download a copy yourself and give it a try. Even if you don’t discover problems lurking in your hardware, the peace of mind you gain will be worth the time!
Joshua Marinacci from Sun dropped by today. It’s always great to see him - and he brings us such cool toys! This time, we got a chance to play with Sun Lab’s new Sun SPOT (Small Programmable Object Technology). These amazing little gadgets actually run Java in a Squawk Virtual Machine embedded right into the device.
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Joshua Marinacci from Sun dropped by to give us a sneak preview of JavaFX. We were quite impressed. The JavaFX team is re-envisioning the Applet as the delivery system for a new type of RIA (Rich Internet Application) - one that can cross the lines traditionally drawn between the browser and the desktop. The Java browser plug-in now runs in a separate system process from the web browser. This allows for innovative new ways of connecting data far beyond the reach of what is capable with Flash. If that wasn’t enough, simple JavaFX applications can be built with the use of a free Photoshop plugin and standard naming taxonomies. This is definitely a technology to keep your eye on. Learn more at Josh’s blog: http://weblogs.java.net/blog/joshy/
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