O'Reilly News & Commentary

Top Stories: November 28-December 2, 2011 - Info overload vs. consumption, how big data is shaping business, and why we need the "paperless book."

By Mac Slocum
December 2, 2011

This week on O'Reilly: Author Clay Johnson explained why information consumption, not overload, is what needs to be managed. Also, Alistair Croll looked at the relationship between business intelligence and big data, and Todd Sattersten made a case for the paperless book.

Links on the side - A simple solution for including hyperlinks without undermining focus.

By Peter Meyers
November 8, 2011

Digital documents that help readers focus are the ones that we're most likely to remember. Those that send us scampering around the web will be more easily forgotten.

Four short links: 26 October 2011 - CPAN's Sweet 0x10, Social Reading, Questioning Polls, and 3D Manufacturing

By Nat Torkington
October 26, 2011

CPAN Turns 0x10 -- sixteenth anniversary of the creation of the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network. Now holds 480k objects. Subtext -- social bookreading by adding chat, links, etc. to a book. I haven't tried the implementation yet but I've wanted this for years. (Just haven't wanted to jump into the cesspool of rights negotiations enough to actually build it...

Top Stories: October 10-14, 2011 - The obstacles of indoor navigation, "Moneyball" for software engineers, and a call for hyperlinking restraint.

By Mac Slocum
October 14, 2011

This week on O'Reilly: Nick Farina explained why smartphones have yet to crack the indoor navigation problem, we explored the relationship between "Moneyball" and software engineering, and Pete Meyers looked at the pros and cons of links in ebooks.

Linking in ebooks: How much is too much? - Ebook hyperlinks don't always lead to a smooth reading experience.

By Peter Meyers
October 11, 2011

Ebook producers must decide if the destinations behind embedded links are worth the disruptions they might cause.

ePayments Week: AliPay gets physical - Barcodes in china, acoustic fingerprinting, and mCommerce is on the rise.

By David Sims
July 7, 2011

China's top online payment service launches a barcode payment system. Also, an app looks for acoustic fingerprints and mCommerce is predicted to hit $670 billion by 2015.

Developer Week in Review: Are .NET programmers going extinct? - Microsoft embraces HTML5, selling a startup at 15, and a new version of Java looms.

By James Turner
June 15, 2011

For Microsoft programmers, the week brought fear, uncertainty and doubt regarding their future as an elite class of developers. For a lucky teen, it brought a big paycheck. And for fans of Java, it brought a new version of the popular language one step closer to release.

Developer Week in Review: Buying a lawsuit with an in-app purchase - In-app purchasing called into question, Mono moves on, and you've got new perl.

By James Turner
May 18, 2011

This week Apple's iOS developer community got a patent wake up call, the recently discarded Mono project found a new home, and a favorite scripting language got a new version.

Four short links: 9 May 2011 - iPhone Anonymity, Fabbed Souvenirs, Perl+Go=Campher, and Javascript Slides

By Nat Torkington
May 9, 2011

UDID DeAnonymization -- a developer exposed an API that connected UDID to other information such as Facebook ID. The API has been closed, but it remains true that your iPhone has a primary key and darn near every app developer has a database linking your UDID to other details about you. Apple requires this to not be public, but...

Four short links: 19 April 2011 - Elegant Boxes, Dashboard in PHP, Management Theory Disparaged, and Obsolete Technology

By Nat Torkington
April 19, 2011

Lines (Mark Jason Dominus) -- If you wanted to hear more about phylogeny, Java programming, or tree algorithms, you are about to be disappointed. The subject of my article today is those fat black lines. Anatomy of a clever piece of everyday programming. There is no part of this program of which I am proud. Rather, I am proud...

ePayments Week: Facebook's focus on mobile - The social network gets hyperlocal, data privacy promises abound, and mobile app revenues could triple.

By David Sims
January 27, 2011

In the latest edition of ePayments Week: Facebook wants to be with you always -- which sounds cozy, so long as you trust them to do the right thing with that information.

Four short links: 14 January 2011 - Borders, Monitoring, Data Visualization, and Localization

By Nat Torkington
January 14, 2011

What Went Wrong at Borders (The Atlantic) -- a short summary of the decline and fall of Borders. Borders has a special place in our hearts at O'Reilly: it was a buyer for Borders who pointed out that Programming Perl was one of their top-selling books in any category, which got Tim focused on the Open Source story. Virtues...

Developer Year in Review: Programming Languages - Java's wild ride, multicore drives functional, and a look at how the usual programming suspects stacked up in 2010.

By James Turner
December 22, 2010

This year brought confusion and chaos in the Java space, continued growth for functional languages due to the attack of multicore, and the usual popularity for all of the dynamic languages we know and love.

Open Question: Does a link = endorsement? - The tricky business of hyperlink intent.

By Mac Slocum
December 13, 2010

A defamation lawsuit hinging on the intent behind hyperlinks leads to a host of questions: Do you assume that a link is an endorsement? Does that assumption apply to your own linking behavior?

How to Install MongoDB - What's new in O'Reilly Answers: Install MongoDB, using the iPhone's GPS interntionally, what to learn after HTML and CSS, and much more.

By O'Reilly Media
September 16, 2010

In this excerpt from MongoDB: The Definitive Guide we offer a step by step guide on how to install MongoDB and get it up and running smoothly. Precompiled binaries are available for Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, and Solaris. On most platforms you can download the archive from mongodb.org, inflate it, and run the binary. The MongoDB server requires a directory it can write database files to and a port it can listen for connections on. The following section covers the entire install on the two variants of system: Windows and everything else (Linux, Max, Solaris). Read more.More from O'Reilly Answers:Using the iPhone's GPS internationallyI just learned HTML/CSS. Now what?Which Perl XML module should I use?5 ways to get music and video on your iPhone using iTunes Share knowledge, ask questions on O'Reilly Answers today.

New OST Course! "Perl 2: Intermediate Perl" by Peter Scott

By Trish Gray
September 8, 2010

The O'Reilly School of Technology is excited to announce the release of Perl 2: Intermediate Perl. This is the second course in the upcoming Perl Programming Certificate Series, and right now you can enroll at 50% off normal tuition. Check out the below video of me introducing our Perl author, Peter Scott:

On re-reading Steven Levy's "Hackers" - Why the "Hackers" thesis still holds. Plus: How hyperlinks created new context in the ebook edition.

By Andy Oram
August 17, 2010

Spiffing "Hackers" up for the book version has paid off by delivering a new dimension to the book that readers are reporting back on favorably. Here I offer my reactions to re-reading the text after 25 years and a discussion of the links we added to the electronic version.

Four short links: 1 July 2010 - Component Costs, Streaming Server, RC Parts, and MySQL SSD Goodness

By Nat Torkington
July 1, 2010

Conflict Minerals and Blood Tech (Joey Devilla) -- electronic components have a human and environmental cost. I remember Saul Griffith asking me, "do you want to kill gorillas or dolphins?" for one component. Now we can add child militias and horrific rape to the list. (via Simon Willison) Meteor -- an open source HTTP server that serves streaming data...

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