The folks at Super Talent have added a new model, the Pico D, to its line of ultra-diminutive USB Flash drives. The Pico series of USB drives, measuring in at 1.4 inches, is an inch shorter than most USB drives on the market today, says the company. Other features include a pivoting lid that won't get lost, shock and water resistance and transfer speeds up to 30MB/sec. Not to mention that the little guy is kinda cute too.
Despite the importance of debugging, many new programmers are unaware of techniques that reduce the time needed to find and fix programming errors. To the rescue is the new book The Art of Debugging with GDB, DDD, and Eclipse by Norman Matloff and Peter Jay Salzman, published by No Starch Press. Leveraging the open-source development tools GDB, DDD and Eclipse, the book illustrates an assortment of real-world coding errors—from simple typos to major logical blunders—to discuss how to manage memory, understand core dumps and trace programming errors to their root cause. The book also covers topics that the publisher says other debugging books omit, such as threaded, server/client, GUI and parallel programming.
As the Ajax wave surges on, one of its well-known providers, WaveMaker, is adding new Ajax-related tools, such as Visual Ajax Studio 4.0. The product is an open-source development tool that “makes it easy to build visually stunning Web applications”. The company claims that “with just 15 mouse clicks and zero coding, a developer can build and deploy a sleek, Web-based application”. The new 4.0 release offers faster development time, better-quality applications, the company's own Live Layout data display, enhanced drag-and-drop capabilities and IDE-quality editing that exposes the source code and offers syntax highlighting. Visual Ajax Studio 4.0 supports Linux, Mac OS X 10.5 and Windows XP and Vista.
Perforce 2008.1 is the latest release of Perforce Software's software configuration management (SCM) system, which versions and manages source code and all digital assets. The 2008.1 release extends visual differencing functionality to images, enabling enterprise developers and engineers to manage all content with one SCM solution. Image differencing supports most common image files, including TIFF, JPG and GIF, and can be extended to support other image formats through the Qt API. Another new feature is improved remote access, which is accomplished via the Perforce Proxy, a self-maintaining proxy server that offloads file decompression to the client.
Just in the nick of time for the justifiably hyped Python 3000 is Tarek Ziadé's Expert Python Programming, “a practical tour of Python application development”, says publisher Packt. The book starts with setting up the best Python development environment and moves on to agile methodologies and applying proven object-oriented principles to one's design. Other skills readers will learn include writing efficient syntax, writing an application based on several eggs, distributing and deploying applications with zc.buildout and applying design patterns. Expert Python Programming is for developers who already are building Python applications but want to build better ones by applying best practices and new development techniques.
SEH says that its new PS56 WLAN Print Server interface card will make your network printing more secure. Utilizing the highly secure WPA and WPA2 encryption standards, the IPv6-enabled PS56 will connect all HP output devices with an EIO port to a wireless 802.11g network. Because the WPA and WPA2 standards have not yet been cracked, offers SEH, they are regarded as the safest protection for WLANs. To enhance security further, the PS56 also includes TLS/SSL encryption and several IEEE 802.1X authentication methods. The interface card simply slides into the respective slot on the printer unit and is easily configurable and manageable.
European companies often get the jump on their North American counterparts regarding the addition of Linux compatibility. A fine example is Italy's Memopal, which now offers a Linux version of its on-line backup utility. Memopal offers automatic and continuous backup to a remote server via a secure Internet connection, a service that has been lacking in the Linux space. The company claims that its Memopal Global File System archiving technology provides a distributed filesystem that supports up to 100 million terabytes of storage, transparent read-write compression, hot-add scalability and more. In beta at the time of this writing, Memopal for Linux supports Ubuntu 8.04 and Debian Etch.
While other laptops hog the mainstream media glory, the Linux-based ASUSTeK's Eee PC is the underdog “little PC that could”. To get to know this now darling of the Linux community, get your hands on William Lawrence's Using the Eee PC from Que. The book covers everything from turning on the machine and connecting it to the Internet, as well as how to upgrade and update it. The machine-book combination will help you convert your loved ones to Linux while keeping their after-hours tech-support calls to you at a minimum.