I previously wrote about an offer for a free copy of Microsoft Visual Studio, well, mine came today. While it look it’s time about getting here, it finally arrived. The book, while not the full version, is larger than I expected, and looks like it should be worth reading. I’m a bit disappointed in how soon that the discount for the MCP exam expires, as with the schedule I have for the desktop MCTS I don’t think I’ll have time to make use of it.
All in all, this is one of the best free offers I’ve seen Microsoft release. The offer is still open (closes the 17th), so if you’ve not signed up for yours – you should hurry.
When Intel and various industry partners started talking about “ultra-books” as competition against Apple and tablets, I was more than a little skeptical. Ultra-books are small and light weight – but not cheap (average price being around $1,000) and rather underpowered compared to what you can get for the same money with a more traditional laptop (they are basically MacBook Air knock-offs). I had written them off almost as soon as they were announced.
Visual Basic is at an interesting crossroads, it’s at a critical juncture between two paths. One path, it has followed since its earliest days, where simplicity and ease of use ruled over maintainability and solid design. The other, the longer, harder road, is that of design over ease. With the release of Visual Basic .NET, a major shift occurred in the direction the language is taking, though looking back now, nearly 5 years later, I’m finding myself concerned for the future of the language.
Recently I was leaving a store after doing some Christmas shopping, as I entered my car someone recognized me and waved – this is the story of what went through my mind in that moment, the mistakes it revealed, and the regret that went with it.
For those that are here in hopes of an article on information security or development, please pardon the interruption; this is about human nature. I know the value of your time so I try to diverge from my normal topics as little as possible, but this incident was striking enough that I thought it worthy of publication.
Researchers are still working to understand the impact of the Juniper incident – the details of how the VPN traffic decryption backdoor are still not fully understood. That such devastating backdoors could make it in to such a security-critical product, and remain for years undetected has shocked many (and pushed many others deeper into their cynicism).
There are though, some questions that are far more important in the long run:
Alice wants to send an encrypted message to Bob; she knows his address, but doesn’t know the public key that goes with that address. Using GPG, Alice would look up his address on a key server, the issue is of course that anyone can upload a key associated with Bob’s address.
Using the “web of trust” model, Alice would look at the different keys and see which ones are signed, and if any of them are signed by people she knows.
I previously wrote about an offer for a free copy of Microsoft Visual Studio, well, mine came today. While it look it’s time about getting here, it finally arrived. The book, while not the full version, is larger than I expected, and looks like it should be worth reading. I’m a bit disappointed in how soon that the discount for the MCP exam expires, as with the schedule I have for the desktop MCTS I don’t think I’ll have time to make use of it.