While we normally try to offer a position or provide you with a technology path, I wanted to bring some technology news to your attention with a quick post. I feel that these items are important in and of themselves, so I wanted to give you this quick rundown.
Security News
1. Google’s Chrome browser was the only major browser not hacked at a conference of hackers.
This is worth noting as it is also the youngest of the four major browsers: Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Apple’s Safari, Mozilla’s Firefox, and Google’s Chrome. Though Chrome shares it lineage with Apple’s Safari, it is so much harder to crack that hackers largely ignore it. Perhaps IT departments should take a serious look at this app?
Optimization
2. Salesforce has optimized their cloud so well, they only need 1,000 servers. Add to that the fact that it is mirrored, so it is really only utilizing 500 servers.
This news is amazing! Salesforce should start marketing their solution as an eco-friendly green solution. According to Salesforce they have 1.5 million subscribers, 55, 000 enterprise customers, and 30 millions lines of 3rd party code in the ecosystem. I am a huge fan of the cloud computing movement, I even tried to do some of this in 2000 with Sun, we just weren’t there yet with the technology. I was recently involved with deploying a system into the cloud and I was very impressed.
We selected GoGrid for our foray into the cloud, and we were happily surprised. Deployment was seamless and fast, database server and application server deployed and functional within an hour. While I don’t want this to be a commercial for GoGrid, unless they pay :), I do want to stress that the cloud is a much friendlier place today.
Semantic Search
3. Google announced that they have put new semantic search technology into the Almighty Google Algorithm.
I know, cool huh? Oh, you want me to break that down for you? OK, think of it this way: today when you use Google to find answers to your questions you need to use keywords, in effect offering Google some hints as to what you are seeking. You cannot usually ask a question in a conversational way, but rather in a very clinical computery way.
Google wants to change that. They seek to allow us the ability to chat with Google in a very conversational way. In the future we should be able to say, “Hey Google, what time is my appointment with Scott tomorrow?” – and it will know. More than just helping you find information on the web, which is very powerful, Google wants to offer that same technology inside GMail and the Google Documents suite. I can’t wait.
That’s enough for now…
Matt Williamson
@mattwilliamson