Interesting Security Issue with Google Wave Robots
So I was playing around with my Wave Robot and I had an evil thought.
What if I hid a feature in it so that it would covertly store all of the waves it was participating in and I could then ask the Robot to print out the list of waves it was currently involved with from a separate wave. Then I could ask the Robot to join me as a full participant to any one of those waves the next time it was triggered by an event.
Example in a timeline:
WAVE 1, Participants: User 1, MyEvilRobot
1. MyEvilRobot is added and stores the waveID for WAVE 1.
WAVE 2, Participants: EvilUser, MyEvilRobot
1. EvilUser, hey robot what waves are you part of?
2. MyEvilRobot: WAVE 1.
3. EvilUser, hey add me to WAVE 1 will you?
WAVE 1, Participants: User 1, MyEvilRobot
1. User 1, Adds Blip.
2. MyEvilRobot is triggered by User 1 adding the blip and detects it should add EvilUser to WAVE 1 and creates a new participant of EvilUser.
3. Participants are now User 1, MyEvilRobot, EvilUser.
Do you find this a bit scary? I do. You could go further and just have EvilRobot add EvilUser to any waves it is added to. I wonder if it should be required that the participant who adds a robot approve any participants subsequently added by a Robot they added?
Ever been busted by Boolean.getBoolean(String)?
victim++;
http://toadbalancing.blogspot.com/2005/10/java-api-pitfalls-booleangetbooleanstr.html
Wow, I just wasted some serious time trying to figure out why a property for my google wave robot always ended up false.
Then I learned about the difference between Boolean.getBoolean(String) and Boolean.valueOf(String)….
Do you know the difference? Save yourself hours 
Ouch.
Google Chrome OS and Digital Photography
I have downloaded the Google Chrome OS virtual machine image and fired it up in Parallels on my Mac. While somewhat underwhelming perhaps that is its best feature. When I think of my mom as a use case this would be a perfect solution. She has already embraced gmail, google calendar, google docs and picasa.
All of her data is in the cloud today except her photos. What will be interesting to see is how google enables digital cameras and the cloud. Perhaps a diect upload to Picasa, with a new online photo editor? This will be something to watch.
For example if you fire up Chrome OS in a Virtual Machine you and you insert a camera card into the internal reader on the iMac the ChromeOS shows a new panel with the the mounted filesystem:
You can then reference this mounted filesystem in Gmail or Gtalk for example. I suspect we will see advanced tools where the web system auto detects the content on the flash card as a Photo Card and imports directly. Imagine a web version of Picasa for example.
Parallels Desktop 5 Ups the Ante and Beats Fusion
Amazing, just days after VMware ships their brand new version of Fusion which includes full support for Windows 7 Aero out of nowhere comes Parallels Desktop 5. At first I was skeptical. How can the company that owns the server virtualization crown with ESX sever possible be beat by upstart Parallels? Well, Parallels has one it. Speed, performance, memory usage, it is all better in Parallels Desktop 5.
Don’t believe me? Give them both a try in a head to head battle.
Parallels running Windows 7 with full Aero Glass.
The list of Parallels virtual machines.
Parallels settings. Notice the nice touches like Gestures and Apple remote settings.
Apple’s new EasyPay checkout shows the future of mobile scanners
A first look at the new case designed for the Apple Store to replace the aging symbol devices used as mobile point of sale units.
What I find really interesting is the application of this design to mobile warehouse, inventory and package scanning. It is still unknown who partnered with Apple to build the special case but I sure hope we see it marketed as an after market product. I can see all kinds of amazing possibilities at a much lower price point than current windows CE scanners.
Windows mobile first replaced Palm and MSDOS as the predominant handheld platforms. Next we will see OSX replace windows CE.
[From AppleInsider | Exclusive look at Apple's new iPod touch-based EasyPay checkout]
Vmware Fusion 3.0 (Full Aero Support with Windows 7)
Just grabbed the release of VMWare Fusion 3.0 which was released today at Midnight.
Full 64 Bit support under Snow Leopard, and full support for Aero Graphics with Windows 7.
NOTE: If you are wondering how to turn Aero on for an existing VM? Make sure you change the VM type to Windows 7 from Server 2008 or Vista. Install the new VMWare Tools to update the drivers. After a reboot make sure you go into the computer properties and update the windows experience rating. This will take a few seconds and when it is done you will have all the Aero goodness.
Ballmer misses huge chance to claim tablet win… news at 11.
Interesting that when asked Ballmer blew off any kind of opportunity to claim a thought share win on the tablet computing front…
When asked about the rumored Courier tablet book, Ballmer claims to have never seen the video and to only have heard details of the rumor. He does, however, hint at possible inside knowledge of the dual-screen, multi-touch device.
“I hope somebody does stuff like that,” he says.
[From Ballmer: Win Mobile 7 will bring Zune features | Electronista]
I suspect that when Ballmer says “somebody” everyone reads Apple… but that may just be me 
10 Years of Virtual Machine Performance (Semi) Demystified | Engine Yard Blog
First, a solid statement: virtualization has always levied a CPU “tax.” Early on, this was very high, recently not so much. Probably the most comprehensive recent non-vendor benchmark of performance vs. native is AnandTech’s, which recently showed anywhere from a 2% to a 7% CPU tax on a fully loaded system running mixed workload 4-CPU virtual machines on recent hardware.
This blog post from Engine Yard shows the evolution of x86 virtualization technology and tackles the CPU tax imposed by Virtualization technologies over time. A must read if you are implementing big virtualization projects.
Collaborative Business Process Design using Google Wave
Salesforce.com show how to connect Google Wave with Force.com’s Service Cloud
Think next generation chat services with any type of incident management or service request management system. Wave will create the types of hybrid solutions we could only dream of creating before by mashing up Instant Messaging and Email. Amazing!
About Me
Here are some of the things from around the net that interested me the most.
