Python News Desk

The Power of Google and the Promise of Cloud Computing

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:45:00 EST

Evans Data Corp announced that use of the Python scripting language has increased by 45% since Spring 2008 according to the most recent North American Development Survey to be released this week to subscribers. Only 13% of developers used Python before Google announced its App Engine platform in Spring 2008, which at the time only supported Python, but that number has increased to 20.3% today. Other scripting language use remained relatively constant, with only small gains or losses in popularity among languages such as Ruby, PHP, Perl and Actionscript.

World's First 16GB, 2 Virtual Rank Memory Module

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:45:00 EST

Netlist, Inc. launches HyperCloud, the world's first 16GB, 2 virtual rank (vRank) memory module for servers. A double-data-rate three, registered dual in-line memory module (DDR3 RDIMM), HyperCloud maximizes server utilization to improve datacenter application performance. HyperCloud allows 384 Gigabytes (GB) of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) to be populated in a single dual socket server, reaching unprecedented levels of server performance. HyperCloud utilizes Netlist's patented rank multiplication ASIC technology to fully populate three memory channels with 16GB vRank RDIMMs. Four physical ranks are hidden from the memory controller hub and presented as 2 vRanks. Dual socket servers can then be fully populated with 24 16GB 2 vRank RDIMMs reaching a total capacity of 384GB.

Big Data Kills 30-Year-Old Market

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:20:00 EST

According to Aster Data, applications need to go to “Big Data,” not the other way around. And to do that the company’s got a massively parallel data-application server that can embed applications inside a massively scalable MPP data warehouse and analyze petabytes of data – or terabytes, if that’s all you’ve got – ultra-fast. Apps are automatically parallelized for scale; users can take their existing Java, C, C++, C#, .NET, Perl and Python applications, MapReduce-enable them and push them down into the data.

Internet Evolution Launches New Midmarket Clan

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:55:00 EDT

TechWeb's Internet Evolution social network unveiled its Midmarket Clan, the latest in a series of specialty user groups designed to serve unique technology and industry segments. The Midmarket Clan is intended for IT professionals and executive management from companies with revenues in the $10 million to $100 million range that have 100 to 1,000 employees.

Rackspace Cloud APIs Open Sourced

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:30:00 EDT

Rackspace Hosting Thursday open sourced the specifications for its Cloud Servers and Cloud Files APIs under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license. It says it worked with developers in an open community to create the specifications and they can now copy, implement and modify the specs, which Rackspace figures should help enable a "truly open cloud." Of course Eucalyptus already offers an open source cloudware.

Zeus Technology Named “Bronze Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s Cloud Computing Expo

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 07:00:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced today that the developer of application traffic management software Zeus Technology was named "Bronze Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 2nd International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, which will take place on March 30-April 1, 2009, in New York City. The event is expected to attract over 1,200 developers, engineers, architects, IT managers, and hardware and software professionals of every stripe.

An Introduction to Ant

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:15:00 EST

Writing shell scripts to automate the build and deploy process for ColdFusion applications is not very much fun. The Jakarta Ant project is an open-source, cross-platform alternative that makes it easy to automate the build and deploy process.

Appcelerator Named "Platinum Sponsor" of AJAX World RIA Conference, October 20-22, in San Jose, California

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:00:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced today that the leading global rich Internet technology provider Appcelerator named "Platinum Sponsor" of SYS-CON's upcoming AJAX World Conference & Expo 2008 West, which will take place October 20-22, 2008, at the Fairmont Hotel in the heart of Silicon Valley, in San Jose, California. Appcelerator, Inc. is an open source software company specializing in products and services for rapid rich Internet application (RIA) and SOA-based services development. The Appcelerator Platform SDKs enable developers to develop rich Ajax and DHTML applications using cross-browser widgets, a unique Web Expression Language and other open standards-based languages like HTML and CSS - without the use of Javascript. Appcelerator supports most languages, including Java, Ruby, PHP, .NET, Python and Perl.

I Have Three Free Guest Passes for the iPhone Developer Summit

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:00:00 EDT

As a speaker at the upcoming AJAX World RIA Conference & Expo, I just received an email from Lindsay over at SYS-CON Events. She just informed me about the coupon code "spkrguestbootcamp" (lower case) that I can use to invite three guests with. I am not planning to bring anyone with me from Sydney, Australia, so here it is for you to take advantage of. The registration page can be found here. Here is a list of speakers that I copied from the conference website.

IBM's Got Its Head in the Clouds

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:00:00 EDT

Reminding people of how its backing was the making of Linux, IBM, to no one's surprise, has thrown its support behind cloud computing, that delicious nexus of every chi-chi buzzword technology currently in vogue: Web 2.0, rich Internet applications, software-as-a-service, SOA, grid computing, Web Services, virtualization and utility computing. IBM calls its initiative Blue Cloud - like it could have another name - and claims it's a 'game-changing model for Internet-scale computing,' providing customer with just the right size computer power while at one and the same time being 'green' as well as 'self-healing and self-managing' based on open standards and Linux. Lordy, if this thing was a cute guy with money, it would be every mother's dream.

Red Hat Pits Itself Against VMware

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:00:00 EDT

Watching VMware stock and its market cap spike since it IPO'd must have had Red Hat positively pea green with envyWatching VMware stock and its market cap spike since it IPO'd must have had Red Hat positively pea green with envy - so green in fact that it's gonna try taking VMware on by pushing the Xen virtualization integrated in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Red Hat's new goal is to underpin 50% of the world's servers by 2015. And since virtualization is projected to take over the world by then that's a lot of Xen virtualization - and there's no extra cost in it like there is with VMware since it's bundled with RHEL. (Red Hat's telling people they'll save $20,000-$30,000 a server.) Red Hat claims it's got its first 18,000 virtualized servers - although it's a little fuzzy about whether those 18,000 are actually in production - anyway, it's confident they'll get there eventually after all the testing and evaluating is done.

SYS-CON's Virtualization Conference & Expo: Themes & Topics

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:30:00 EDT

From Application Virtualization to Xen, a round-up of the virtualization themes & topics being discussed in NYC June 23-24, 2008 by the world-class speaker faculty at the 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held by SYS-CON Events in The Roosevelt Hotel, in midtown Manhattan.

Engelbart's Usability Dilemma: Efficiency vs Ease-of-Use

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:15:00 EDT

The mouse was the original idea of Doug Engelbart who was the head of the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at Stanford Research Institute. Engelbart's philosophy is best embodied, in my opinion, in the design of another device that he invented, the five-finger keyboard - with keys like a piano, used by one hand. The problem was, Engelbart's five-finger keyboard and mouse combination was very difficult to learn.

EC Threats Pry Microsoft Clam Open

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:00:00 EST

Microsoft today attempted to exorcize the interoperability bogeymen that have haunted it since it was first discovered to be using secret APIs 20 years ago, bogeymen that now quote European antitrust law at it and carry writs from the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg. To avoid further confrontation with the European Commission, which opened a broad investigation of Microsoft's interoperability last month, the company said it would voluntarily open up all the APIs and communications protocols in its biggest revenue producers now and forever. To be clear, it said that these are the APIs and protocols 'used by other Microsoft products.'

Perforce Software Delivers State-of-the-Art Application Lifecycle Management

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 14:15:00 EST

Perforce Software announced the availability of the SDK for the Perforce Defect Tracking Gateway. Using the SDK, customers and vendors can develop improved integrations to commercial and in-house issue tracking systems, strengthening project management capabilities throughout the development lifecycle. The SDK is part of the newest version of Perforce's Fast Software Configuration Management (SCM) system, Perforce 2007.3. Christopher Seiwald, president and chief technology officer of Perforce Software said, We believe SCM is at the core of ALM and is the hard part of the technology proposition to get right. From small development shops to massive installations, our customers view Perforce's ability to integrate tightly with other tools as a major asset in building their custom ALM solutions. According to Jim Duggan, vice president of research at Gartner, Inc., 'Large companies often have multiple technology lifecycles to manage and coordinate. An ALM solution woven from integration-friendly best-of-breed solutions is an important option, improving visibility and control without major disruptions to the development process.'

Opera Reopens Browser War; Charges Microsoft with Antitrust

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:30:00 EST

Norwegian browser maker Opera Software ASA has complained to the European Commission that Microsoft is abusing its dominant position by tying its Internet Explorer browser to the Windows operating system and hindering interoperability by not following accepted Web standards. It wants IE unbundled or Windows to preinstall competitive browsers on the desktop. And - and this seems extraordinary even for Europeans - it wants the EC to compel Microsoft to support open web standards 'accepted by the web-authoring communities.'

The Top 250 Players in the Cloud Computing Ecosystem

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:45:00 EST

A robust ecosystem of solutions providers is emerging around cloud computing. Here, SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Journal expands its list of most active players in the fast-emerging Cloud Ecosystem, from the 'mere' 100 we identified back in January of this year, to 250 - testimony, if any further were needed, to the fierce and continuing growth of the "Elastic IT" paradigm throughout the world of enterprise computing.

Python Creator Guido van Rossum to Present the Next-Generation Python 3000

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:30:00 EST

Python, the open source programming language that sees itself as an alternative to Java and brags about being used at Google, Industrial Light & Magic and NASA, will be having its PyCon user conference March 14-16 at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O'Hare Hotel. Python creator Guido van Rossum, now working for Google, is supposed to present the next-generation Python 3000 in the works for two years. See http://us.python.org.

Dojo Hits 1.0

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:45:00 EST

The three-year-old Dojo Foundation has put out version 1.0 of Dojo, an open source JavaScript toolkit for AJAX development meant for building rich Web 2.0 applications without proprietary plug-ins or single-vendor solutions. The widgetry makes use of Google Gears, Google's solution for making applications work both on- and offline. What Dojo calls Dojo Offline is based on it. The toolkit is all of 25K in size and supports progressive enhancement and animations and is supposed to open the door to a wealth of high-quality widgets and extension modules. Dojo also supports the Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer and Opera browsers and the OpenAjax Alliance Hub 1.0 to guarantee interoperability with other toolkits IBM, Sun, BEA and AOL are Dojo backers.

Egenera Signs First Virtualization 2.0 Partner

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 12:30:00 EST

Egenera, which claims it's the archetype Virtualization 2.0 company to VMware's Virtualization 1.0 - and is going put its PAN Manager software on other people's hardware to prove it - has convinced Fujitsu Siemens, which OEMs Egenera's BladeFrame servers, to put PAN on its own industry-standard Primergy servers. It's Egenera's first PAN partnership since the American company said last week that it was setting up a software line of business around PAN and would move the software out through fellow OEMs. Fujitsu Siemens says the widgetry will form part of its FlexFrame Infrastructure, its latest milestone in its Dynamic Data Center strategy of creating business-responsive IT using the latest virtualization and automation technologies.