Magnificent BitTorrent Speed or Half-Baked Magic Beans?
Jul15

Magnificent BitTorrent Speed or Half-Baked Magic Beans?

By now most people will be familiar with the news that BitTorrent Inc. recently released a new version of its dominant uTorrent client. The claims are that this will revolutionize torrenting, with people able to earn BTT in exchange for seeding. The plan is that this will make swarms more healthy because there is more bandwidth available. This, in turn, should speed up downloads – for BTT-spending uTorrent users, at least. The...

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Fake MPAA Asks Google to Remove Thousands of URLs, Including MPAA.org
Jul15

Fake MPAA Asks Google to Remove Thousands of URLs, Including MPAA.org

In 2012, Google first published a Transparency Report for search-related copyright takedown notices. This rather enlightening database allows outsiders to check what URLs copyright holders want removed from the search engine. In recent years Google has processed more than four billion URLs. While most of these requests are legitimate, there have also been plenty of errors, mistakes, and in some instances; clear abuse. Most of the...

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What is POSIX? Richard Stallman explains
Jul15

What is POSIX? Richard Stallman explains

What is POSIX, and why does it matter? It’s a term you’ve likely seen in technical writing, but it often gets lost in a sea of techno-initialisms and jargon-that-ends-in-X. I emailed Dr. Richard Stallman (better known in hacker circles as RMS) to find out more about the term’s origin and the concept behind it. read...

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Understanding software design patterns
Jul15

Understanding software design patterns

If you are a programmer or a student pursuing computer science or a similar discipline, sooner or later, you will encounter the term “software design pattern.” According to Wikipedia, “a software design pattern is a general, reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem within a given context in software design.” Here is my take on the definition: When you have been working on a coding project for a while,...

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What movie genre does your typical day most resemble?
Jul15

What movie genre does your typical day most resemble?

Have you ever daydreamed about what type of movie “A Day in the Life of [Your Name Here]” would be? As a sysadmin or other IT professional, your day can vary depending on what issues arise. Does your workday typically play out as planned, or does it tend to go off script? Which movie genre best describes your typical day? Superhero blockbuster: When you save the day after Thanos deletes the world’s DNS records,...

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