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Update 2012-03-25: It turns out, it’s just some object oriented C: Kaspersky Lab experts now say with a high degree of certainty that the Duqu framework was written using a custom object-oriented extension to C, generally called “OO C” and compiled with Microsoft Visual Studio Compiler 2008 (MSVC 2008) with special options for optimizing code size and inline expansion. Source If you missed it in the news, you should definitely read this: The Mystery of the Duqu Framework. ...

I’m a huge fan of all the cloud technologies. I’ve been working on a M2M project on top of cassandra and I can really say I love this distributed database. I’d like to give my feedback on this great database. Easy management Cassandra doesn’t require any kind of manual management for complex operations like sharding data accross node restore a crashed server or put a new or a previous disconnected node back into the cluster. You just have to tell the nodes to join the cluster and watch him do all the work. ...

I switched to Free Mobile. It’s not really the fact that I’m saving 55% on my current plan that motivated me, but rather the idea that I’ll never have to monitor my usage again and that I won’t have to take a landline phone and manually copy (too old-fashioned) phone numbers in the future. My mother, however, won’t switch to Free Mobile because she would be saddened to participate in the layoff of thousands of telemarketers at competing mobile phone operators. ...

On my spare time, I manage a handful of servers. And even if it’s not really my job, I try to do it well and efficiently. All of them work on Debian because it’s simple to manage. I started using cron-apt a few years ago. I started by upgrading everything automatically, this was a big mistake. I switched to only sending mails on available upgrades and doing the upgrade manually. But this is also quite painful because 95% of the time, it consists in typing “apt-get dist-upgrade -y” and waiting and I have lots more interestings things to do. ...

I’ve been testing btrfs for some months now. One of the most interesting features of this file-system is its snapshoting capabilities. Before that I was using rsnapshot. The issue with rsnapshot is that its lowest atomic level for snapshotting is the files themselves using hard-links. So any database table where one row is changed is copied completely. Btrfs as you might guess will only copy the modified chunks (I don’t know the atomicity of them [but who cares?]). ...

I bought a Kindle. It might sound strange considering I already have an iPad, but I couldn’t help myself to buy a “e-ink” enabled device. The user experience around the Kindle is OK but not great, because it’s not a touch screen. The real amazing thing is the sync between amazon, the kindle and all the other possible devices. There’s the sync when you buy a book. It appears instantly on the device. This feeling is so great. You do the “one click buy” and plop, you can read it. I know you can download most of the ebooks for free. But it takes at least 10 times more time. And I think we should prefer to download things legally when it’s at a fair price and faster to download than illegally. And there’s the sync between your devices: I can read the same book on my iPad (better at night), my iPhone (I always have it) or the kindle. And every time I open any of these devices, it tells me “You were last reading on page X on this device, do you want to go there ?”. So thank you amazon for making a better world. ...

Same title. I wish I was more original. I’ve been missing writing on this blog. It’s very fulfilling to write stuff around subjects we love. Outdated This doc has been moved to the javacint website. What’s new in this document ? Netbeans 7.0 with the TC65i The use of pre-processor Small thougths around the EGS5. Personnal advices on project/product management This can be considered as a draft. I’m waiting for your comments, even (or especially) negative ones, to help me improve this document.

I’ve been working in a company for two years now (which is the longest time I have ever worked in the same company). I wasn’t supposed to do a lot of C++ but this is what I ended up doing and on a calculation intensive software. I ended up having to learn a thing or two about improving performances. I wrote these lines for new comers to the C++ performance optimizing problems. ...

Hi everyone, I updated the TC65Dev document. Mostly because there’s a good chance I will only have less free time. I modified few parts and added some new content. It is now 50 pages long, this is a lot more than I originally intended to do. Click here to get it

I went Saturday morning at 9:30 AM to the Apple Store at Opéra and got my iPad 2 an hour later. What surprised me the most was the attitude of the salespeople - they sell you the cool/Mac attitude along with the iPad. I got a WiFi version, so no GPS geolocation. The iPad wasn’t geolocating me at all, which is quite annoying for apps like Allociné that offer “nearby” showings, or Google Maps for “nearby” businesses. After an update from 4.3 to 4.3.1, no more issues - I was located within 50 meters. The coolest part is that the geolocation changes when I move around the apartment. So WiFi-based geolocation, although not very precise, is quite usable. ...