So you think you understand optimization

James Hague suggests some elements of your application that might need to be optimized, putting aside questions of memory/storage footprint and execution speed. Three biggies of the new mobile age:

Number of disk sector writes (especially for solid-state drives).

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Number of bytes of network traffic.

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Number of taps/clicks it takes to accomplish a task.

Show your stuff

A good piece by Eilene Zimmerman about services for displaying an online portfolio. As she notes, the idea works just as well for professions not generally considered to be "creative," like accounting or law.

I've been using Visual CV for some time now as my online shop window. I've never gotten a lead from it, as far as I know, but it's nice to have it there as a place that is completely focused on my professional work. There's more flexibility with links (I'm looking at you, LinkedIn), and with a little tweaking, you can use it to display code samples.

Fermeture

Au revoir, Minitel. I'm sorry I never got the chance to know you. The service is being sunset today.

ᔥ Look High

Happy birthday, Alan

In honor of Alan Turing's centenary, Charles Severance visits Bletchley Park where Turing contributed to codebreaking in World War II, building on work by the Polish Cypher Bureau. Bletchley Park displays powered-up replicas of the hybrid electronic/electromechanical BOMBE and Colossus devices from that period.

Meanwhile, the editors of Nature evaluate Turing's legacy with a series of articles.

It's a conference, hon

Registration is open for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women Computing conference, to be held in Baltimore in October. Career fairs, workshops on leadership and personal networking skills, and over 600 speakers, including Hilary Mason, Chief Scientist at bit.ly.