As most of you should be aware I spent last year back at university studying for a Master of Science degree in Information Security. I took the exams for that course in May of 2008, and have just this week received the grades for those courses. Here goes:
Security Management
71
Introduction to Cryptography and Security Mechanisms
92
Network Security
90
Computer Security (Operating Systems)
90
Computer Crime
72
Smart Cards & Token Security and Applications
80
Obviously I’m rather pleased with these grades. Security Management and Computer Crime were both essay exams, and it’s usually harder to get a very high grade in an essay exam, but I would have liked to have achieved an 80 (or higher!) in Computer Crime—I thought I nailed that one!
In a world wide web landscape where the choice of OS, browser, and engine are becoming more and more open and free the importance of standards in the way websites are written and displayed cannot be stressed enough. If a developer has to make hacks and workarounds to ensure his site displays correctly and uniformly on a browser then in my opinion that browser has failed in its single most important job: to correctly parse, render and display the site as it is coded1.
As if I hadn’t made it clear enough already, I like WebKit. A lot! I’ve commented on its speed and reliability, but one reason that I haven’t mentioned so far is standards compliance. The single most important test available today for standards compliance on the web is the Acid3 test, and today the WebKit team have announced that the final hurdle in fully passing the Acid3 test has been overcome.
A little while back I noted that the new V8 JavaScript engine written and employed by Google for their new browser Chrome was to be included in the official WebKit source repository. What I didn’t note there is that I simply see no need for it, since the WebKit project’s own JavaScript engine SquirrelFish is already the fastest engine there is. Well, recently SquirelFish has again had its speed improved. The new SquirrelFish Extreme engine runs more than twice as fast as the previous version. Wow!
This chart shows WebKit’s JavaScript performance in different versions - bigger bars are better.
Well, it seems that I may not have to bother with Chrome at all. Its shared underpinnings with Safari mean that porting the best parts of Chrome to WebKit, and hence Safari, has already begun.
One of the larger innovations of Google Chrome, the V8 JavaScript engine, is incredibly fast. The WebKit project has its own new JavaScript engine, SquirrelFish, used in Mobile Safari and the WebKit nightlies. Still, the code base for V8 along with the Skia graphics library are making their way into the main WebKit repository. The Skia graphics library may already be in some of the newest nightly builds.
If you’re a fan of rollercoasters you’re probably also one of these people who love pushing themselves to find the next big ride. Well you’ll have to go to America for that unfortunately, since they have all the best ones there anyway, but the new Fahrenheit ride at Hershey Park in Pennsylvania might be too much for even the most hardened of stomachs. Featuring a 97 degree drop — that’s 7 degrees past vertical — you’ll pull 4Gs as you spin around the bottom of the dip, which is more than astronauts experience during a space shuttle launch.
As many of you know, I’m a big fan of the Safari web browser on the Mac platform1 and others of you will know that in fact I use the nightly builds of the WebKit rendering engine rather than the official supported releases from Apple, as the nightlies tend to have newer functionality for only a very small stability hit.2 Well the latest update has got me very excited…
The magnitude of the awesome required to pull this off astounds me! While I’m sure it can’t be 100% justifiable to the environmentalists to send a briefcase all around the world just to make a drawing, I’m impressed nonetheless.
I wonder what might be done to make a bigger drawing than a global one? Off to the moon next?
The 17th of March 2008, I sent away a briefcase containing a GPS device with the express transportation company DHL. I gave them exact travel intructions, where to go and in what order. 55 days later the briefcase returned to Stockholm. The GPS automatically recorded the briefcase’s journey around the world. Due to the GPS drawing technique and the magnitude of the drawing, the self portrait had to be made in only one stroke. That giant stroke passed through 6 continents and 62 countries, thus becoming 110 644 km long.
For those of you lucky enough to own a Mac you may have come across Adium, the multi-chat client that supports no fewer than fifteen different chat protocols. Well, prepare to make that sixteen, as Adium is set to support Facebook Chat in the next stable release. Woo hoo! (Though I actually don’t use Facebook Chat at all…)
Good news, Facebook fans! I’ve just finished adding Facebook Chat support to Adium for the next release.
Now I’ve got to get me one of these… If only it used the accelerometer to determine when you’re waving the damned thing in front of an interesting object and played that cool scanning sound…
Once you "turn it on" by clicking the power button, you can switch between three functions and view related animations. Every minute or so, a window pops up with a snide remark like, "The Federation is shocked. The Enterprise actually ferried an alien VIP from one place to another without serious incident."
I have to say, that no matter how dangerous and geeky this is, I’m very impressed, and sorta jealous.
When Everett Bradford flicks his middle finger, jets of fire shoot out of the palm of his hand. He’s built himself a fully-functional, wrist-mounted flame thrower that turns him into the real-life equivalent of the Pyro, the firestarting mutant from the X-Men. In the … video, Bradford gives a quick demo of what his "Pyro" system can do.
In a world wide web landscape where the choice of OS, browser, and engine are becoming more and more open and free the importance of standards in the way websites are written and displayed cannot be stressed enough. If a developer has to make hacks and workarounds to ensure his site displays correctly and uniformly on a browser then in my opinion that browser has failed in its single most important job: to correctly parse, render and display the site as it is coded
Chrome features are coming to WebKit
Biggest Drawing in the World
Adium - Blog
iPhone as Tricorder - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
