Any application that needs to scale needs to designed to do so from the beginning. Or at least that’s what I used to think. Even when Amazon introduced EC2 and S3 there were still design requirements that you needed to consider. In fact, I actually started this project with S3 as the back-end. The idea was to store the URLs on S3 which had very quick response times and use quick scalable hosting (I hadn’t decided which hosting service at that time) with round-robin DNS to scale the front-end. It was a simple architecture but it would have worked. But…before I was able to go very far with the project, Google launched AppEngine. AppEngine took an entirely different approach to scalability. Use their SDK and platform and don’t even bother with scalability. So, I decided to switch over and give it a try.
Archive for Editorial
With the new 2.0 firmware and the new App Store on iTunes you can get most of the functionality that you need without jailbreaking.
The following list are the apps that I use daily and can’t live without. As an added benefit, all of these are also free apps available from the iTunes Music Store.
I was checking out my twitters and noticed a post by Leo Laporte (Twit.tv) about a new social service called Plurk. My first reaction is that this is extremely cool! My second reaction is that i’m not sure it knows what it wants to be when it grows up.
Ok. It simply doesn’t get any easier than this. I’ve gone through all the backflips (you can read about them on my blog) and have downgraded, upgraded, sidegraded and jailbroken iTouches in just about every way possible on Windows. I’ve read about the ZiPhone jailbreak and have periodically checked the status of that but on previous visits, it looked like it was a work in progress for Windows anyway. So, I tried it tonight…and it worked so quickly I wasn’t even sure it was jailbroken, but sure enough, the Installer icon is on my home page ready for me to add any apps that I might want. So here’s what you need to do…
The following images are some of the cooler themes that are available for a 1.1.3 jailbroken iTouch running Summerboard.
Enjoy!
Apple has just sent out invitations to press and developers to an event hosting the introduction of the iPhone SDK. It’s about time!
Whether you like Macs or not, whether you like Apple or not, you have to admit, the iPod and iTouch are simply cool! I used to admire HP engineering but with the iPod, the iPhone, the iTouch and the MacBooks (especially the MacBook Air), i have to say the award for best hardware design goes to Apple.
And now, for the moment we’ve all been waiting for…well, the moment, i’ve been waiting for anyway…
Steve Jobs: “Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February.”
Bruce Schneier, author of Applied Cryptography and other books and articles on security and privacy, leaves his wireless network unprotected. My first reaction was probably the same as yours. What an idiot! He then goes on to make a few points that made me regret my first reaction. Bruce highlights the many other ways we take security for granted including leaving doors unlocked, drive in the rain while on a cellphone (whew!) and make other security sacrifices for the sake of convenience.
He explains that while it leaves your computers more vulnerable to leave your wifi open, you are exposed when you use your laptop in a public location anyway so you had better learn to secure your computer.
While I agree with nearly all of Bruce’s comments, I think i’ll keep my wifi secure. Oh yeah…i’m going to start locking the back door when I leave the house now as well! 
Less than a week after it came out Sony BMG was planning to sell music not loaded down with copyright, they’re officially selling DRM-free MP3s through Amazon’s MP3 store later this month, making it the first to carry DRM-free music from all four major labels.
It had to happen sooner or later.
