Angus Thinks

Category: Internet Stuff

  • Webkit Javascript Optimizing JIT compiler(s)

    Is your JIT compiled javascript function running too slow?
    No worries, just wait and the javascript engine will recompile it and then replace the function with a faster version!

    But that’s not fast enough either?
    Webkit will compile another version using more optimizations, using code from LLVM.

    Is the function still executing some long running loop?
    No problem! The javascript engine will copy all of the current state and build a new compiled function that starts at the beginning of that loop, then replace the old slower function with the new one, while it is still running!
    It gets flipped over at the beginning of the next run through the loop.
    (see the Hot-Loop Transfer section of the original article)

    Just from the description, this sounds stupendously complicated. But the performance improvements are apparently quite considerable.

    I’m truly impressed by the effort that goes in and the work that’s been done on this.

    🙂

    Read the original post for the full details:
    https://www.webkit.org/blog/3362/introducing-the-webkit-ftl-jit/

     

  • 280 Slides

    A cool new online presentation tool:

    http://280slides.com/Editor/

    The slide show application is really nice in that it feels very much like a desktop application when in use, even down the way buttons and key presses behave. The object rotation is particularly clever.

    Another thing that makes this one clever though is the underlying framework, which is said to compile cocoa like code into dynamic web pages. It will apparently even be opensourced at some stage!

  • Handy database of recommended Mac Apps

    Johan Basberg (who designed the beautiful SQLEditor icon) has a handy list of recommended mac applications at

    http://dittverk.no/mac/files/tag-editor.php

    And SQLEditor is on this list 🙂

  • ACM computer science key works

    The ACM is offering free downloads of selected classic works of computer science to anyone who signs up.

    http://www.acm.org/classics 

    (via  Lambda The Ultimate and Dusty Decks)

  • OneMonthApp and SQLEditor

    OneMonthApp is using SQLEditor!

    OneMonthApp is a project where they are building a complete web application in a month. It’s going to be a simple and easy to use cash flow application, apparently. And they’re going to make it free, which is great too.
    I’ve signed up to be notified when it’s done, which the counter is promising for sometime in the next couple of days. (They started in September, so less than a month)
    Stephen over at OneMonthApp very kindly included SQLEditor in a list of 20 tools for web application development that they’re using for the project.
    Maybe I need an “I use SQLEditor” badge icon or something?

  • iTunes tv shows in the UK

    Well the iTunes store is finally offering tv shows in the uk. It’s totally disappointing. The prices are ridiculously expensive and the list of shows is small.
    All of the MalcolmHardie software sales are denominated in dollars so I watch the exchange rate with great interest.

    The current exchange rate at xe.com as of today is 2.01599 USD to 1 British Pound. (In the reverse direction that is 0.49603 British Pounds to 1 USD).

    iTunes in the US charge 1.99USD for most tv shows. Therefore the UK price correctly should be 99 pence. (0.99 British Pounds). Given the usual kind of price gouging that goes on, possibly 1.29 or even 1.39 would have been acceptable.
    Instead they have decided to charge 1.89 British Pounds. This is almost twice as expensive!
    Add 9 pence and it would be exactly twice as expensive.

    I almost thought of writing to them and asking if they have mistaken the exchange rate somehow.

    The most annoying thing is that while the catalogue will increase in size, the prices will probably be fixed.

  • Retro Mac OS WordPress theme

    This made me laugh when I saw it:

    http://www.modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk/article/retro-mac-os-wordpress-theme

    Definitely memories of simpler times 😉

  • Site redesign

    So, if you’ve visited the MalcolmHardie.com site today you’ll have seen the new site design.

    It’s Blue.

    But that’s not all. The layout structure of each page has been substantially changed (for the first time since 2004, I think)
    . The new 2 column design is also wider (960px) and offers more flexibility than the old 3 column design. There are new graphics and section headings and a new about page (with a message from me!).
    The MalcolmHardie logo has been used in a reversed white on blue form, which I think worked out quite well and the main body is black/dark gray 13px Lucida Grande on a white background. (With Verdana as the second choice)

    The content management has also been improved. The whole site is now a sort of wiki. Although it is somewhat static as wikis go. Each web page is now a wiki page that is rendered when necessary to deliver the page. Page expiry dates match the wiki source document expiry and all of the meta-data is cached into a database so that things like recently changed lists can be generated. The next iteration of the system may also cache the text as well.

    Apache is configured to serve the wiki pages only after any existing index pages, so the whole thing can be switched to static html without recoding (if necessary).

    There were several things that I really wanted to do with the re-design.

    The first, obviously, was to get the web2.0 thing going. The first step in the design process was therefore to identify the gradient that I wanted to use. The blue/blue gradient seemed to be a good choice here. Although I didn’t in the end go for reflection or glass effects, several prototypes had glass effects. 😉

    The second was to serve html pages as html pages with a .html extension. Which was achieved (mostly)

    The third thing was to clean up the arrangement of the site, previously there had been a mix of systems used to generate content from an interesting (but probably obsolete) attempt at a php visual class library, through ordinary php to finally plain html. The new wiki style system is consistent across the site. (I’m hoping that this will last)

    Software

    The site is written in php and uses a mysql database (standard, boring even!)

    I used the PEAR Text_Wiki classes to handle the wiki side of things.

    The wiki dialect is Text_Wiki default with extra classes to do php includes and page meta data in the same document.

    Things I hope to improve

    At the moment there are some limitations to the wiki syntax. This means there are more blocks of raw php and html than I want. Eventually I hope to write some more wiki plugins to reduce this

    Another area that could be improved is the concept of relative pages within the site. Currently the wiki links are hierarchical with the full link required each time.

    I’m very interested to know if you like the new design. Feel free to send me email or add a comment below.

  • HTMLValidator

    HTMLValidator 1.0b1 has just been released.

    It runs on PowerPC or Intel Macs with Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

    The current version expires 28th February 2007.

    HTMLValidator is a new desktop HTML validator that works on both web pages and files. It’s something I’ve been working on for a while now in between SQLEditor releases. The main motivation is that I often seem to use the W3C validator, but I can’t always do that with files I’m working on locally. I also tried installing the W3C validator on a local web server and although it works, it seems to require a lot of installation effort, with different dependencies. So the idea occurred to me: what if you could have a drag and drop installation. From there came a web version using drag and drop and finally the application bundle version that is being distributed from today.
    The earlier application versions actually displayed the results in an html webview in a window, while the newer releases display the results in a table.

    On the drawing board for future releases are more validation options, the capability to validate multiple pages and the ability to watch pages for changes and then validate. Also better printing and Applescript support (although both of these are present in the current version).

    I’m really interested to know what you think of HTMLValidator so feel free to send in comments, either to me personally Angus [DOT] Hardie [AT] malcolmhardie [DOT] com or to the support [AT] malcolmhardie [DOT] com email address

  • IP PBX delivered on an iPod?

    “We have put our complete IP PBX on it [the iPod Shuffle]”, says Dr. Harry Behrens, Managing Director of 4S newcom. “It is so compact that even on the smallest iPod Shuffle (512 MB) enough room is left for 4 full hours of music.”

    [link]