Phitek Blackbox C14 earphones review

The bass will shake the wax out of your ears!

http://www.iphoneworld.ca/iphone-reviews/2010/01/31/phitek-blackbox-c14-earphones/

Noise cancelling earphones (not headphones) with a kick-ass bass. Designed in NZ

The Complete Software Developer

Very good article:
http://www.ericdaugherty.com/blog/2010/01/complete-software-developer.html

Education

While a Computer Science or Computer Engineering degree is not required to develop software, it can provide an understanding of the foundational elements on which everything else is built. Understanding both how a computer actually works, and the fundamentals of algorithms, data structures, and operating system design will provide a solid theoretical foundation for an entire career. I also believe it is important that the degree focuses on theory more than practice 

I find that a lot embedded software engineers lack knowledge of experience whatsoever with OO concepts. That's gonna hurt when devices become big enough so that C won't just cope with large projects.
I hope though we'll skip C++ altogether.

Consulting

I believe that every new college graduate's first job should be with a consulting company. Not just any consulting company, but one large enough and experienced enough that it provides real training on how to be a Consultant, in addition to how to develop software. Consulting is a skill, and it is one that will pay dividends through an entire career.

It's been true for me.

• Build a product 

• Work for a startup

• Learn

• Mentor

• Build and mantain your Network

I couldn't agree more

4RF unveils a new radio product

Today 4RF launches Aprisa SR, a point to multi-point radio product we've been working on for the last couple of years. Here's the press release from 4rf.com:

4RF Communications launches the Aprisa SR multipoint radio for future-proof, security-enhanced, Smart SCADA networks We have unveiled our new product, the Aprisa SR Smart SCADA multipoint radio, at the European Utilities Telecom Council annual conference. Used by oil, gas, and utility companies for a wide range of monitoring and control applications, the Aprisa SR is a point-to-multipoint Smart SCADA radio operating in the 400-470 MHz licensed spectrum band, with a 12.5 kHz channel size and narrowband 9.6 kbps capacity. The Aprisa SR has been designed to address the key concerns facing the industry: the need for enhanced security, the need to efficiently handle the increasing complexity of SCADA networks, and the evolution to an IP-based and smart grid infrastructure. See the press release here - Aprisa SR Press Release See the datasheet here - Aprisa SR Datasheet If you have any questions about the Aprisa SR please email us at sales@4rf.com

You don't need a 64 bit OS to address >4GB

Very good article, explaining why, here: http://www.geoffchappell.com/viewer.htm?doc=notes/windows/license/memory.htm

Linux Conference to be held in Wellington

http://www.lca2010.org.nz/

LCA2010 will be held from Monday 18 January to Saturday 23 January 2010 at the Wellington Convention Centre inWellington, New Zealand, home of the little blue penguin or Kororā as they are called in Māori, New Zealand's indigenous language. What better place to bring the world's biggest gathering of Linux enthusiasts?


Registration is now open

The Expurgation of Maniac Mansion

A JavaScript guru, Douglas Crockford, had previously worked at Lucasfilm!

The Expurgation of Maniac Mansion for the Nintendo Entertainment System

Software Developer vacancy at 4RF

SEEK - Embedded Software Developer Job in Wellington

Embedded Software Developer

If you have a tertiary qualification such as a degree in electronic engineering, and consider yourself to be a competent designer of software for embedded systems, then this may be the ideal position for you.

We have a vacancy for an experienced Software Developer to work on state-of-the-art radio products. You will be required to follow a disciplined engineering approach while taking responsibility for a range of software development activities such as capturing requirements, designing, coding, testing, and integrating.

You will need to be a competent C programmer, have experience with using a commercial Real-Time Operating System (RTOS), and have specialist knowledge of Network Security technologies including Authentication, Authorisation, and Encryption. A good understanding of Ethernet and Internet Protocols such as ARP, TCP/IP, Telnet, SSH, FTP, HTTP, and SNMP is highly desirable, and preference will be given to candidates who are familiar with wireless protocols and data interfaces.

An interest in radio systems, wireless networks, and protocols is obviously essential.

For further information please download/view the position description at http://www.4rf.com/careers/vacancies/SoftwareDeveloper.pdf

To apply for this role, please forward your CV direct to Paul Knot at paul.knot@4rf.com

Paul Knot
Software Manager
4RF Communications

4RF on a $2.9m profit roll - technology | Stuff.co.nz

4RF on a $2.9m profit roll - technology | Stuff.co.nz

Hi-tech Wellington manufacturer 4RF has defied the global economic gloom and posted a $2.9 million profit for the year ending March.

The company, which makes microwave radio equipment for transmitting data wirelessly over long distances, boosted its revenues 24 per cent to $23.7m.

Chairman Peter Troughton says the economic conditions have made sales growth difficult.

"4RF has experienced instances of major project delays, particularly in the highly cyclical telco sector.

"That said, the company continues to be successful in winning new business, having signed up an average of four new end users per month in the fiscal year."

Most of these customers are in the utility and government sectors and should be relatively protected during the downturn, he says.

The company will trial a new product with large European customers towards the end of this financial year.

Chief executive Ian Troughton says that, as with any product, it will take a while to build sales.

"We don't think it will have any major impact on our results in the short term, but as a longer-term prospect we're really excited about it."

4RF has boosted its research and development and international sales teams and now has 75 staff, most of whom are in Wellington, he says.

"One good thing about the credit crunch is that there are quite a lot of good-quality people around. It's a good time to hire internationally."

The lingering downturn will make business challenging for the rest of the year and into 2010, he says.

4RF has customers in 111 countries and offices in North America, France, Britain, the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

Exports account for more than 90 per cent of its sales.

The firm won the global gold category for its export success at Wellington's Gold Awards this year.

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - RSS readers modeled after email clients are fundamentally broken

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - RSS readers modeled after email clients are fundamentally broken

The information overflow problem is certainly one of the biggest we need to solve in the near future

Computerworld > Boutique consulting firms aren't for everyone

Good article

Computerworld > Boutique consulting firms aren't for everyone

Twitter on Scala

Someone's using Scala in the real world.

Twitter on Scala

James Gosling warns of ‘culture clash’ if IBM buys Sun

James Gosling warns of ‘culture clash’ if IBM buys Sun

Questions and Answers | Broadband in New Zealand | Information and Communications Technology

Questions and Answers | Broadband in New Zealand | Information and Communications Technology

Answers, answers!

TiVo HD Review from cnet Australia

Coming to NZ before Christmas

TiVo HD Review - Personal Video Recorders

the TiVo HD is one of the ugliest set-top boxes we've ever seen. It's big, it's silver and black, and the front-mounted LEDs tell you almost nothing. It looks less like a luxury AV component and more like a network storage box.

Java Posse, this week

I love this week's Java Posse (#231) The Java Posse

There's a nice discussion about the mobile space: how it'd be nice to have JavaFX for UI stuff on Android. As they've noticed, JavaFX is not a complete stack, it doesn't want to compete against the numerous existing OSs for the mobile. But instead, it sits only at the application level.
That's a departure from the original project, Savaje.
Also, Android's declerative UI is not well suited for animations or games so there JavaFX would make sense.
Very funny the story at the end of a child being named after Martin Odersky, the creator of Scala.

InfoQ: Language Parity: Closures and the JVM

InfoQ: Language Parity: Closures and the JVM

Neil Gafter gives crystal clear reasons why it would be really useful to add closures to Java.

Meet Sun Microsystem's Open Source man in Wellington

Event Details

Simon Phipps, Sun Microsystems Global CTO for Open Source will be in Wellington for one day only on Monday, 26 January 2009.  This proposed open forum will provide the opportunity for interested parties to discuss the role of Open Source in today's increasingly demanding working environment.

Time:
    4.30pm  Registration and afternoon tea
    5pm   Session commences
    7pm   Finish

Technology futurist Simon Phipps is a well-known computer industry insider and commentator and as well as having a widely-read weblog he speaks frequently at industry events on technology trends and futures. At various times he has programmed mainframes, Windows and on the Web. Currently the Chief Open Source Officer at Sun Microsystems, Inc., he was previously involved in OSI standards in the 80s, in the earliest commercial collaborative conferencing software in the early 90s, in introducing Java and XML to IBM and most recently with Sun's launching Sun's blogging site, blogs.sun.com. He lives in the UK, is based at Sun's Menlo Park campus in California and can be contacted via http://www.webmink.net

This event is being sponsored by Sun Microsystems.

Picasa + Snapfish: finally printing is easy and fast in NZ too!

Google has released version 3 of the excellent Picasa, a free photo management tool
Google Photos Blog: A closer look at Picasa 3 (beta!)

But even better news is that Digitalmax has teamed up with HP's SnapFish and since Picasa can upload photos directly onto SnapFish, finally printing has become so easy and affordable!

I've used Digitalmax in the past, when they had specials for big prints in digital aspect ratio.
It's an excellent service but the potential savings wouldn't justify the hassle of using their antiquated tool for uploading pictures.
Recently they had revamped their website but they hadn't come up yet with a decent client software to facilitate the uploading process.

Well done Digitalmax, we're certainly going to use your services much more often in the future.
By the way, thank you very much for the 50 free prints that are given away as a welcome bonus!

Efficient use of resources in Android

Now that Android is out, people will start looking into that great (and big) code produced by Google engineers.

One thing they have always claimed is that the Dalvik VM is safe, with each instance running in a separate process, while still efficient with resource sharing among instances.
I didn't know how that could be possibile since processes in Linux (on MMU-ful processors) have got dinstinct address spaces.

But now I've gone back to a presentation I hadn't listened to carefully enough at the time.
http://sites.google.com/site/io/dalvik-vm-internals

Basically, a Dalvik VM process is created at the beginning. Each new instance of the VM is a 'fork' of the original one (that is called, ironically, Zygote).
What I did not know is that the 'fork' action in Unix is highly efficient and makes a copy of the memory pages just when they get modified, which you wouldn't expect for most code.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork(operatingsystem)

Something to be said...

Embedded Systems Design - Embedded.com: "Software developers are a breed apart from the standard consumer. Writing a software program requires logic, a good and detailed memory, and a certain comfort with exactitude and creativity. Consequently, the people who write software programs tend to be smart, literal minded, logical people with good memories and organized thoughts--sometimes to an extreme.

Developers are typically very intelligent, good with numbers and abstract concepts, and have an eye for detail. They tend to live in and care about the programming life, and these highly analytical people are often passionate about chosen technologies with an almost religious fervor for or against a vendor or a vendor's technology. Developers can be extremely literal minded, sometimes to a fault. Because code logic is the process of following precise instructions, solving problems often requires exhaustive technical detail as well as a broad overview of the context in which a product is used."