云计算的时候人人都打算沾云带雾的，这个知识云也就是将关键词之间的联系图示化了，有些像是之前MSR的人立方。

http://yun.hudong.com/%E7%BD%97%E9%9C%87%E6%9E%97.html

真是很震撼，前几天才和BellLabs的朋友见面，并在几个朋友之间聚会时说到比较看好HW，结果今天就看到这条新闻[1]。也许让人郁闷的不是ALU要被出售，而是没有人要 - 虽然这可能是非技术原因。至于NSN是否打算合并ALU，虽然看上去合理，但是前景也不被看好[2] - 4合1的公司谁知道行不行？我看里面尽是政治斗争了。

Huawei said it has no interest in buying a stake in rival vendor Alcatel-Lucent, quelling noisy speculation of a possible tie-up between the two rival network equipment vendors.

"Our customer-centric innovation strategy is driving Huawei's growth and that remains our strategy," Ross Gan, Huawei's global head of corporate communications, told Reuters. "Huawei has no plans to take a stake in Alcatel-Lucent."

Alcatel-Lucent's stock surged 16 percent Wednesday in part on market speculation that Chinese vendors had an interest in the company. A spokeswoman for the other potential Chinese suitor, ZTE, said she had no information about any pending deal involving Alcatel-Lucent. "I think it just a rumor," she said.

Earlier this week, another Reuters article speculated about a possible merger between Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens Networks.

Indeed, both Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens Networks face increasingly intense market pressure from Huawei and ZTE, which have both nearly doubled their market share during the past year, according to Dell'Oro. In the second quarter, Alcatel-Lucent reported a quarterly profit for the first time since the company was formed in 2006, largely based on asset sales. The company had a net profit of $19.6 million in the quarter, compared with a net loss of $1.54 billion in the year-ago quarter.

1. http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINSP50505720090828?rpc=44
2. http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/should-alca-lu-and-nsn-merge/2009-08-25?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

看到有人说开心网收费了，上去一看，果然在【礼物】组件中出现了收费礼物，当然是虚拟的礼物，而非真实的礼物了。目前一共有包括蛋糕、手套等图片在内的107种礼物，每件礼物收费2元开心币。开心币是需要用真实的钱来兑换，在支持给自己充值的同时，也支持给好友充值。估计这些创意都来自腾讯的创意。这种前向收费结合后向广告收费模式，看来开心网已经逐步走向成熟。

目前支持的种类挺多，支持包括：网银、支付宝、部分省市的移动充值卡、联通充值卡、以及移动话费。比较不理解的是前面几种都是1：1兑换，而移动话费则是5元话费充值3元开心币，不知道为什么有歧视政策。另外，我在【买房子】、【争车位】组件中均有不少的虚拟财产，不知道什么时候可以转化为实际财富！！

参考开心网的收费手段，中移动在推广互联网业务方面有天生的优势，这类小额支付可以直接和手机绑定；而且相应的软件和系统也非常成熟；并且可以用于通话或者其他方面的费用。虚拟货币和实际货币的作用在缓缓缩小，说不定哪一天就能够互相通用了。大家抓紧积攒各类虚拟货币吧:)

虽然同等价位和性能参数的相机有很多，包括柯达、三星和一些日系产品，但还是选择爱国者，国货还是需要支持的。初步测试了一下，感觉V1018还是挺不错的，如下：

1. 小巧方便。体积比我的神达A701手机还要小，千万像素，具备2.7寸液晶屏幕，使用两节AA电池
2. 具备电子防抖功能。和EOS 350D的自动模式对比一下，V1018在室内拍摄的效果还略好些
3. 预置模式较多，够傻瓜

不过缺点也很明显：

1. 耗电较大。两节随机的AA干电池用了一会儿就撑不住了
2. USB接口不是常见的mini-A接口，而是micro-AB接口，导致俺常见的USB线均不好用了

其余特点等用用再说。看到网上有人他买的V1018经常死机，这一点我没有遇到。相机的可靠性要求比手机低多了，手机需要能够长时连续运行，而相机总是重新启动，数据也写入SD，memory leak问题影响不大。

《北京晚报》的日记 - 张丽

        如果说现在有哪一级政府、哪一个部门还对网络民意心存蔑视，那可真是太不与时俱进了。虽然不至于每个地方都有网络发言人，但接受群众反映意见的信箱已然屡见不鲜。这是     “上达天听”的通途吗？重庆晨报报道，宁波鄞州一网友不久前向所在地区长信箱反映居民出行难问题。结果过了6天，等来网上回复，就两个字——已阅。鄞州区区长信箱负责人证实确有此事，但他认为其中存在一些误会。按照官方说法，区长信箱对信访件有3种处理方式。这封信属于“非个人事件，涉及面广而杂，把信件转给相关部门阅读”，不需要相关部门直接向当事人回复。

        “已阅”，这是官腔儿，翻译成白话就是“知道了”。过去谁最爱写这仨字儿呢？皇上。拜《百家讲坛》等节目所赐，不是搞历史研究的人，也从电视上看到了皇帝御批。大臣洋洋洒洒写了好几页，皇帝往往批一个“知道了”。古时候的皇上日理万机，问题是21世纪的区长也忙成了这样？不是“个人事件”，需要“转给相关部门”，这是打官腔儿的理由吗？多说两句，把情况给发信人讲明白了，或者更进一步，告诉发信人应该找哪些部门去反映问题，不就完了吗？

        我们不相信，纳税人掏钱养活的公务员们连想到这一点的水平都没有。之所以官样回复得如此赫然、如此理直气壮，恐怕和当年皇上的心理多少有些契合，觉得普天之下莫非王土，“知道了”就不错了，“已阅”就很对得起你了。

        可皇上也不都是件件“知道了”，雍正皇帝还写过千字的御批。毕竟“民为邦本，本固邦宁”。我们的区长是不是知道这句话不好妄加判断，但民生无小事总还是该晓得的。一件小事解决不好，就会滚雪球般变成大事，况且出行难更是关系到不少人的群体问题。群众向领导反映问题，其基础还在于信任领导，对领导抱有希望。什么时候，大家被“已阅”这种官腔儿冷落得不去反映了，就麻烦了。
http://www.kaixin001.com/diary/view.php?uid=36923628&did=18817047

阅
已阅
已阅知

一方面无线通信老大欲在数据业务方面赶超ISP，另一方面是PC届三甲选手希望PK移动终端市场霸主。无论中移动能否获得成功，看来Dell总是会获得机会，毕竟Dell推出的是通用的EDGE+AGPS+Android终端，而非TD终端。

It's official. Dell has entered the smartphone business.
After months of rumor and speculation, Dell confirmed it is working with China Mobile on a smartphone, known as the Mini 3i. The announcement was made in conjunction with the launch of China Mobile's application platform, the Mobile Market, which will offer music, games, videos and other entertainment applications.
China Mobile spokeswoman Rainie Lei told the Wall Street Journal that the Mini 3i would support the application platform. Dell China spokeswoman Teresa Shen declined to comment on the device's specifications, according to the Journal.

Although Dell declined to comment on the Mini 3i's specs, several blogs have posted unofficial pictures and specs of the device. According to the Boy Genius Report as well as the Chinese blog Netease, the phone runs an operating system based on Google's Android platform called Open Mobile System. The phone also features GSM/GPRS/EDGE support, a 3.5-inch touchscreen display and a 3-megapixel camera. The phone does not have WiFi or a physical keyboard.

Neither China Mobile nor Dell provided pricing or availability information for the phone, and Dell did not say if, or when, the phone would be available in the United States.

Dell's entry into the smartphone market comes at a critical time. As smartphone heavyweights Apple, Research In Motion and HTC attempt to solidify their positions, a range of vendors including Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson have signaled their intent to bolster their own smartphone efforts.

Pictures：http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/08/17/dells-mini-3i-now-official-in-china/

一个离开者发表的一篇文章，有些感触：http://blakrak.ycool.com/post.3328301.html

PrimeBase XT是一个MySQL的事务引擎，在这个BASE的时代还有人搞ACID引擎并不奇怪，ACID在交易型数据库应用中是仍是最为成熟和灵活的，支持用户希望的各种数据操作。不过PBXT中比较有意思的是出现一些BigTable的特点：

1. 用多版本解决写冲突，避免使用数据锁
2. 使用一次写，即不写datafile，而是直接写入logfile
3. 不动态回收空间，而是使用后台进程根据阈值顺序写入新文件来实现垃圾回收
4. 大量使用指针
5. 数据文件动态扩展

上述部分特征和BigTable的思路颇为吻合，不过某些地方还是存在一些问题：
1. 由于数据不分片，可能有可能造成Logfile过大，并造成垃圾回收时间过长
2. 数据文件过大，对数据并行处理不利
3. 需要提供更为复杂的索引管理

估计PBXT单节点对于中小数据规模的交易型数据库应用很有益处，考虑到MySQL Federation，因此很可能对于大型应用也是支持的。

Paul McCullagh在2005开始写PBXT，Whitepaper写于2006年3月，而BigTable论文是2006年10月才公开发布，因此很难说Paul参考了Jeff Dean的设计思路。其实数据库面临的问题大家都看见了，解决的思路也差不多，很有殊途同归的感觉。

PBXT今年完成了1.0.08RC，并且与时俱进地和Drizzle、MariaDB也有集成，一个想法从萌生到初成花费了将近4年的时间，这就是价值。在此bs一下夸夸其谈，不务实际的人 - 是不是自己也有这种趋势？Maybe， Maybe not！

更多信息：
1. 下载：http://www.primebase.org/download/index.php
2. http://askmonty.org/wiki/index.php/MariaDB

Huawei农村包围城市的战略似乎在国外也适用的，居然已经部署了1百万WiMAX基站

Clearwire added Chinese vendor Huawei to its list of WiMAX suppliers that currently includes Motorola, Samsung, Cisco, Ciena and Dragonwave. Clearwire is currently building a greenfield WiMAX network in the U.S., and so far has launched its Clear-branded service in Portland, Ore., Atlanta and Las Vegas.

During a call with reporters this morning, Clearwire Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer John Saw said that Huawei will supply the firm with radio access network equipment including base stations, element management system components and other network hardware. In particular, Saw said that Huawei was selected for Clearwire's network because it is the first vendor to make a multicarrier, four-transport base station that will provide extra capacity and streamlined deployment.

Huawei Senior Vice President of Marketing and Product Management Charlie Chen said the company has more than 2,000 engineers working on WiMAX R&D, and has already shipped more than 1 million WiMAX base stations.

Clearwire has said that by the end of 2010 it wants to cover 120 million POPs. The company will reports its second quarter earnings later today.

链接：
http://www.fiercewireless.com/press-releases/clearwire-adds-huawei-wimax-supplier-and-names-strategic-infrastructure-providers-fir?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

最近刚刚想考虑一下云计算时代的softeng，忽然看到此文，有些眩晕。再读原文，才发现并非不要SE，而是不能过度measure，即不必过度control，而是需要Agile一些。就目前来说，或者更长远一些，采用Agile的理由远远高于Control，这在Jim HighSmith的 ASD一书中也早有阐述。不过DeMarco同志是传统SE的代表之一，这次看来他是真的是打心眼里面有所改变了。

下面转载的原文是Jeff Atwood的blog，不过其标题很容易让人误解为不需要SE，准确的理解是不需要那种传统僵化，强调Comand&control的SE。DeMarco的原文在这里：http://www2.computer.org/cms/Computer.org/ComputingNow/homepage/2009/0709/rW_SO_Viewpoints.pdf

Software Engineering: Dead?

2009年7月19日 星期日 下午3:59

Jeff Atwood

I was utterly floored when I read this new IEEE article by Tom DeMarco (pdf). See if you can tell why.

My early metrics book, Controlling Software Projects: Management, Measurement, and Estimates [1986], played a role in the way many budding software engineers quantified work and planned their projects. In my reflective mood, I'm wondering, was its advice correct at the time, is it still relevant, and do I still believe that metrics are a must for any successful software development effort? My answers are no, no, and no.

I'm gradually coming to the conclusion that software engineering is an idea whose time has come and gone.

Software development is and always will be somewhat experimental. The actual software construction isn't necessarily experimental, but its conception is. And this is where our focus ought to be. It's where our focus always ought to have been.

If your head just exploded, don't be alarmed. Mine did too. To somewhat reduce the migraine headache you might now be experiencing from reading the above summary, I highly recommend scanning the entire two page article pdf.

Tom DeMarco is one of the most deeply respected authority figures in the software industry, having coauthored the brilliant and seminal Peopleware as well as many other near-classic software project management books like Waltzing With Bears. For a guy of Tom's caliber, experience, and influence to come out and just flat out say that Software Engineering is Dead …

… well, as Keanu Reeves once said, whoa.

That's kind of a big deal. It's scary.

And yet, it's also a release. It's as if a crushing weight has been lifted from my chest. I can publicly acknowledge what I've slowly, gradually realized over the last 5 to 10 years of my career as a software developer: what we do is craftsmanship, not engineering. And I can say this proudly, unashamedly, with nary a shred of self-doubt.

I think Joel Spolsky, my business partner, recently had a similar epiphany. He wrote about it in How Hard Could It Be?: The Unproven Path:

I have pretty deeply held ideas about how to develop software, but I mostly kept them to myself. That turned out to be a good thing, because as the organization took shape, nearly all these principles were abandoned.

As for what this all means, I'm still trying to figure that out. I abandoned seven long-held principles about business and software engineering, and nothing terrible happened. Have I been too cautious in the past? Perhaps I was willing to be a little reckless because this was just a side project for me and not my main business. The experience is certainly a useful reminder that it's OK to throw caution to the wind when you're building something completely new and have no idea where it's going to take you.

Yes, I could add a lot of defensive software engineering caveats here about the particulars of the software project you're working on: its type (mission critical, of course), its size (Google scale, naturally), the audience (millions of daily users, obviously), and so forth.

But I'm not going to do that.

What DeMarco seems to be saying -- and, at least, what I am definitely saying -- is that control is ultimately illusory on software development projects. If you want to move your project forward, the only reliable way to do that is to cultivate a deep sense of software craftsmanship and professionalism around it.

The guys and gals who show up every day eager to hone their craft, who are passionate about building stuff that matters to them, and perhaps in some small way, to the rest of the world -- those are the people and projects that will ultimately succeed.

Everything else is just noise.

[advertisement] Interested in agile? See how a world-leading software vendor is practicing agile.

OU已经不是一个新玩意了，只是一直没有用过。尝试了一下，发现OU的思路和其他WebHosting、或者说SaaS的思路不一样：OU是将本机的资源穿越防火墙和好友Share，OU只需提供域名和少量的存储能力，包括留言本、聊天室。而所有资源的share，包括文件、多媒体、照片都是直接通过本地资源来共享的。为此，OU需要在本地安装Web服务。我猜想这种能力仅在开机的时候别人才能访问到，而如果关机，也许别人就无法访问了。总的来说，很有些像P2P。

与现有的各种托管方式相比，OU优点是：
1. 运营商不需提供很多的资源，包括计算、网络和存储能力
2. 用户不需上载文件，免去了上载、更新之苦
不过缺点也同样明显：
1. 需要消耗用户计算机的资源（这也是Opera所说的现在网络、硬件能力大大提高云云）
2. 用户不需上载，但是还是需要目录分类

未来，到底是哪一种模式占优，是很难猜测的，也许这两种模式需要结合，让用户有一种最优化的体验。比如说用户可以上载一些公开的内容，但是私有内容的各项则还是需要通过本地存储来实现 - 似乎和目前IM的能力重叠了。

另外，Opera浏览器越来越好用了:-)

我的位置：http://home.qlw.operaunite.com/fridge/

听说永中也推出了WebOffice，上去试用了一下，感觉这个Office和GoogleDoc、MS-WebOffice还是不一样的：永中WebOffice虽然也支持网络存储，但基础技术是JavaApplet而非纯JavaScript。这一点和永中Office本身是基于Java开发的身世有关系。其实只要用户体验好，基于什么技术倒是次要的。永中WebOffice中还用到了GWT等多种技术，不过除去GWT，其他各种可能有版权问题的技术都在About中写明白了，也许GWT可以免声明使用。

测试链接：http://www.eioffice.cn/static/WebOffice.html#fileManager

几个相关图片：

永中科技的网络版办公软件套装WebOffice将保持类似于微软Office的风格，在IE或火狐浏览器上运行。与谷歌文档一样，这种应用程序能在远程服务器上保存用户工作，用户则可通过任何PC登入远程服务器。永中科技已经对外宣布了Web Office，其大部分工作都已完成，目前正在进行最后的测试。

永中科技还将提供内部网版本的WebOffice，能在公司的内部服务器上运行，可连接Lotus Notes等其他办公软件。荣明俊称，永中科技可能在本月发布最初的服务器版本。

永中科技尚未公布WebOffice的定价，但其最新的单机型企业版软件套装售价为不到人民币1200元(约合176美元)，基本型个人版则是免费的。与此相比，微软Office Standard 2007的售价约为400美元。

1. http://tech.sina.com.cn/it/2009-08-08/01563334328.shtml
2. http://www.eioffice.cn/static/intimacy.html

第三个整合了MapReduce能力的商业化数据库就此诞生，从介绍中看，其中FlexStore 架构可能参考了一些BigTable论文的概念，比如ColumnFamily。Vertica和MapReduce的整合，虽然官方说此方案是数据库内对MR的支持，与Hive、HadoopDB这类“初级”的整合有所不同。但是内部知情人士说其模式与GP、Aster的整合方式仍有区别，并不那么紧密。据说Vertica的MR整合方案是基于Cloudera的DBInputFormat，但是在架构方面做了优化，包括：

• Cloudera’s DBInputFormat assumes the database runs on a single computer, or a single head node of an MPP system. Vertica’s technology, however, runs on peer parallel nodes with no head, and so Vertica adapted the DBInputFormat technology accordingly.
• Vertica lets you push down Map functions to the database. 
• Vertica lets you do Reduce functions (or Map functions, if you don’t push them down to the database) on a separate cluster than you run the database software. Vertica asserts that its customers and prospects all want to do this. Right here is the big difference between Vertica’s MapReduce integration and Aster’s or Greenplum’s. (Aster would also say that Vertica’s weaker MapReduce/SQL programming integration is a big difference as well.)
• Indeed, Vertica lets you Reduce into a different DBMS than Vertica, if you choose.
• Vertica gives you flexibility on the size of the Map and Reduce clusters. Omer agreed with me when I said there were some limits on how fast one can add or subtract nodes in a Vertica grid, because there’s data redistribution involved. But one can add/change/delete Hadoop clusters extremely quickly.

Vertica 3.5的主要改进如下：

http://www.vertica.com/company/news/vertica-analytic-database-broadens-reach-with-flexstore

其中有个PortableApp获得了好几个奖项，上去一看，原来是USB绿色软件，有些出人意料。虽然改动开源软件并使之Portable，但是这毕竟不是新创软件。也许评选的角度是用户的重视而非技术的创新吧。

现在是一个不缺少代码的时代，如何整合并使之为人所用可能就更有意义了。

Best Tool or Utility for SysAdmins

phpMyAdmin
18.82%

Best Project for Academia

XMind
21.54%

Most Likely to Change the Way You Do Everything

PortableApps.com: Portable Software/USB
20.21%

Best Project for Multimedia

Audacity
32.09%

Best Tool or Utility for Developers

Notepad++
19.21%

Best Visual Design

PortableApps.com: Portable Software/USB
27.87%

Best Project for Gamers

ScummVM
20.38%

Best Project for the Enterprise

Firebird
18.05%

Best Project for Government

OpenOffice.org
48.27%

Best Commercial Open Source Project

PortableApps.com: Portable Software/USB
41.74%

Best New Project

eeebuntu
27.52%

Best Project

PortableApps.com: Portable Software/USB
16.45%

虚拟化目前是被当做是云计算的关键技术，其实我倒不这么认为，抽象化和隔离才是云计算的关键技术，而现有的虚拟化只是一种最为简单的实现方式，或者说是一种兼容传统应用的实现方式。虚拟化技术的核心是虚拟机，即Hypervisor技术，此物将一个物理机从逻辑上隔离为多个虚拟机，每个虚拟机需要安装GuestOS才能提供对应用的支持。这就带来了虚拟机的问题：1. GuestOS消耗大量的CPU、Ram资源 2. 网络IO能力下降 3. HD IO能力下降 4. Hypervisor的额外开支。从下图不难看出这个问题：

这也是为什么某些有实力的云计算通用平台不适用虚拟化技术的原因。替代现有虚拟化技术的方案一般可基于特定语言的抽象化技术(不妨成为Language Virtualization Environment，LVE），这一方面保证了应用的隔离，一方面提供了通用的开发能力，JVM、.NET、Python、PHP、Rail、Erlang等都可以提供LVM方案（当然还需要OS的支持，不是一个解释器就可以解决问题的），目前GAE、Azure都是商用的通用云平台，我猜测SunCloud也许会提供JVM方案，可惜被Oracle搅和了。效率更好抽象化技术可以不必采用LVE，而是直接让操作系统能够为一组进程（Process Group，PG）分配资源，并提供管理，PG的实例我相信是存在的，但是这可能不是主流。

虚拟化技术仍然是很有用的，我认为最大的用处是兼容Legacy系统。改变不可能一夜之间发生，多种系统的混合和过度是必经之路。此外，虚拟化技术日趋成熟后，很可能会走向复用GuestOS，代价可能是让Hypervisor更为复杂，这可能和LVE、PG技术逐步趋同:)

另，本文没有讨论抽象化资源管理，以后可以进一步分析。HS的一篇文章提供了类似的观点，如下：

Virtualization offers a lot of benefits, but it also comes with a cost (memory, CPU, network, IO, licensing). If you are in or running a cloud then some form of virtualization may not even be an option. But if you are running your own string of servers you can choose to go without. Free will and all that. Should you or shouldn't you?

In a detailed comparison the folks at 37signals found that running their Rails application servers without virtualization resulted in A 66% reduction in the response time while handling multiples of the traffic is beyond what I expected.

As is common 37signals runs their big database servers without virtualization. They use a scale-up approach at the database tier so extracting every bit of performance out of those servers is key. Application servers typically use a scale-out approach for scalability, which is virtualization friendly, but that says nothing about performance.

Finding performance increases, especially when you are running on a dynamic language is a challenge. The improvements found by 37signals were significant. Something to consider when you are casting around wondering how you can get more bang for your buck.

http://highscalability.com/strategy-devirtualize-more-vroom

自驾到野生动物园，听从moon的建议，采购了一批胡萝卜。才发现果然很合算，将近7斤胡萝卜才8元钱，而动物园的报价是1元1根:-) 和猛兽们仅仅一窗之隔的感觉很有刺激，马来熊很调皮，喜欢扒你的车窗摇吃的，而狮子则更愿意睡觉或者自顾自走来走去，完全当你透明，老虎喜欢乘凉…

图片用MS的skydrive保存，也算是云计算了。