Computer Science Stuff

Safari 4 Beta, is officially the fastest browser to this date. On benchmarks it has blown internet explorer (of course) and firefox out the water with it’s speed. Now that we are stepping deeper and deeper into the age of web applications,  JavaScript is becoming more and more essential. Apple has something called, The Nitro Engine. This Nitro Engine is especially for JavaScript which also beat Google Chrome V8 engine for the JavaScript. The Nitro engine in Safari 4 runs JavaScript 4.2 times faster than Safari 3.

“Apple created Safari to bring innovation, speed and open standards back into web browsers, and today it takes another big step forward,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Safari 4 is the fastest and most efficient browser for Mac and Windows, with great integration of HTML 5 and CSS 3 web standards that enables the next generation of interactive web applications.”

i-Bench HTML (in seconds)
Mac and Windows
Safari 4 Beta  - 1.06 s
Chrome   1.0  - 1.38 s
Firefox 3.0 - 3.11 s
Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 - 3.16 s
IE 7  - 3.25 s
IE 8 Beta - 4.71 s

i-Bench JavaScript (in seconds)
Mac and Windows
Safari 4 Beta – 0.14 s
Chrome 1.0 – 0.20 s
Firefox 3.0 – 0.76 s
Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 – 1.04 s
IE 7 – 1.81 s
IE 8 Beta – 0.73 s

SunSpider JavaScript (in milliseconds)
Mac and Windows
Safari 4 Beta – 657.07 ms
Chrome 1.0 – 853.13 ms
Firefox 3.0 – 2399.20 ms
Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 – 1034.47 ms
IE 7  – 19902.20 ms
IE 8 Beta  – 4137.80 ms

Now the next question is how secure it is? I mean Safari 4 can be fast but if it isn’t secure enough that means you can get robbed faster. Well this is what Apple has to say, “Safari also provides secure encryption technologies to prevent eavesdropping, forgery, and digital tampering while you browse the Internet. It offers standards-based authentication for logging into secure websites, and it supports the most popular proxy protocols.”

So we will see how that will draw out it is still in it’s beta version. I still believe Firefox 3 is the most secure browser, but Safari 4 has the title for the fastest browser for 2009.

Popularity: 45% [?]

Every now and then you need to tune up your programming skills. Even football players have to keep lifting to keep their level of strength.  So as a programmer what do you to keep your level of skill or raise your level of skill? Well I have the answer for you. These are a list of some very good websites to take your programming level too the next level.

• Facebook
• Ed’s Programming Contest Problem Archive
• ACM programming problems

These problems should definitely get your brain going, if these problems are not big enough for you, you can always solve this problem. Tell me how it goes, lol.

Popularity: 25% [?]

When I first heard about the Google Phone, I was a little skeptical about it and saw it as no competition to the Iphone. But after reading and studying the operating system I’m a little impressed. If you check out the news you will see Verizon is even turning to the Android. That is a very big surprise mainly because Verizon keeps it software pretty proprietary.  This also shows indication of desperation or recognizing how superior the Iphone made other phone companies or how superior Google is becoming.

Features

• Documentation for it is beautiful
• Every program is ran independently of each other under a special virtual machine
• Everything application has to be written in Java, lol. (I know I’m going to hear it)
• It uses the Linux Kernel (The backbone of linux which makes it compatible with a large number of hardware) which is a big plus.

This operating system which was first platform on the G1 is actually going to expand into a bigger operating system for the Desktop. So the operating system, Android is actually the new face for the Google Desktop Operating System.

Check it out!

• What is Android?
• Developer section
• Android Blog
• Programs for your G1

Popularity: 24% [?]

Ever since this recession hit, there have been numerous I mean numerous people losing jobs.  And the trend has shown no slowing in the past few weeks. Now with all these people being laid off you have to ask yourself what are they doing or what are you doing? Well so people have been trying to find work, living off of savings or turning to cybercrime. There has been a recent study from McAfee and Purdue University’s Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security displaying angry employees have been turning to cybercrime using their corporate data access to steal, exploit and damage information networks, and may have cost businesses as much as $1 trillion globally.

Cyber thieves have hit the Veterans Affairs Department, the Transportation Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and several other agencies in the past two years. The Congressional High Tech Caucus is examining the issue, which means funding to protect data is likely to remain strong.  From http://washingtontechnology.com

On December 18, 2008, Reuters reported on a two-day “cyberwar” simulation that revealed the United States is unprepared for a major hostile attack against vital computer networks. “This is equivalent in my mind to before September 11 … we were awakened to the threat on the morning after September 11,” said Booz Allen’s Mark Gerencser. From Booz Allen Hamiliton website

PandaLabs has predicted a continuing increase in the amount of malware (viruses, worms, Trojans, etc.) in circulation in 2009. Between January and August 2008, Panda Security’s laboratory had detected as many malware strains as in the previous 17 years combined, and this tendency is expected to continue or even grow in 2009. From http://govtech.com website

Or just simply google cyber threats in 2009 you will see that it will hit businesses and ordinary alike in 2009. The question is what are you going to do about it? To be continued….lol. Leave your comments, I’m interested to hear your thoughts about this.

Popularity: 30% [?]