Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on November 01, 2007 by CyberNet.

Have you ever wondered what software powers sites like YouTube, Flickr, and MySpace? Wonder no more because Pingdom has the scoop! The results are located in the table above, and as you can see Linux, Apache, and MySQL are among the most popular tools. In the end this is how the stats play out:

OS: Linux 7 – Windows 2
Web server: Apache 7 – IIS 2 – Lighttpd 2
Scripting: PHP 4 – Perl 4 – ASP.NET 2 – Python 1 – Java 1
Database: MySQL 7 – SQL Server 1

The stats were compiled from a site called High Scalability who has assembled several posts relating to the architecture of large sites. Wikimedia (the platform Wikipedia runs on) is among the most impressive profiles that they’ve done in my opinion. It said that they receive 30,000 HTTP requests per second, and have upwards of 350 servers being managed by just 6 people. I knew Wikipedia was big, but that’s pretty darn insane!

PlentyofFish was another interesting profile that they did. It receives 30+ million hits everyday, and it only needs 2 web servers and 3 database servers to run smoothly. What’s even more impressive is that everything they serve up is dynamic…yep, none of it is static. Who would have thought?

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This article was written on June 18, 2008 by CyberNet.

You’ve probably heard some buzz about reddit over the last few days with people speculating what it is they’re going to announce tonight when they meet with some of their fans at a bar in San Francisco. Yesterday they posted on their blog with an invite to their readers saying they had an announcement to make on the 18th of June and there’d be “plenty of beer, miniature hamburgers, and something else even more intoxicating and delicious…”

Once people saw the invite showing a penguin, everybody started speculating that it was either going to involve Linux, or open-source in one way or another. The party has yet to start (it’s tonight) but reddit has already announced that they are in fact going open source. We’re not sure if this means there’s something else they plan to announce tonight or if it’ll just be more of a celebration when they meet with their fans.

So about reddit going Open Source, they say this move will help them be even more transparent with their users and is a logical “next step.” They wanted to be able to give back to the community who has given them a lot, and so opening up is their way of saying thanks. A new site has been set-up where the public can go to download the code behind reddit and it’s found at http://code.reddit.com. There you’ll find everything you need to go to get started.

As Mashable points out, now that the code is available, there’s going to be a race to see who will be able to dissect it and determine how reddit works the way it does. And once that’s determined, it could mean people will try to game the system. Hopefully people will be appreciative of reddit’s decision to go open source and use the code to make the site even better.

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This article was written on April 14, 2011 by CyberNet.

We all use todo lists in different ways, and the great thing about them is that most of the time they can take whatever form we need them to. They can keep track of what needs to be done around the house, or help us remember the things we need to pack for a trip we’re about to take.

Thoughtboxes is an online todo manager that groups various lists into what they call trains of thought. You can create up to three of these groupings with their free account, and that is likely all that most people will need. From within a train of thought you can add an unlimited number of lists.

What’s cool is that the interface supports dragging-and-dropping of the lists for reordering them, and they can be color coded with one of six pre-defined colors. Plus you can share thoughts to make them viewable (not editable) by anyone.

This kind of service won’t be for everyone, but I’m sure some of you would like to have a simple todo-focused homepage like this.

Thoughtboxes Homepage

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on October 10, 2007 by CyberNet.

Skype has just launched a new beta version of their service which includes High Quality Video. That means you can have video calls with friends and family thousands of miles away, but it’ll be so clear that it will seem like they are right there with you. They’ve offered video calling for quite some time, but now the quality of the video calling has just gotten a lot better – no more fuzzy movements! Because it is high quality, there are some requirements that you’ll need to meet before you can use the service which will be explained below. 

The most notable features of the new high quality video calling are:

• Resolution up to 640×480
• Cross-platform: Works between Windows and Mac OS X

Because it is high quality, there are some requirements for using the service. Be sure you are able to meet all of the requirements before trying it, otherwise it will not work.  First you’ll need a webcam capable of taking high quality video (examples below) and obviously, both people will need a webcam.  Secondly, you must have a dual-core processor in your computer. The last requirement is that you need to have a good amount of bandwidth.  Skype recommends 380 KB and above.

Examples of what’s considered a “High Quality Video Webcam” are the Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 and the Logitech Quickcam Pro for Notebooks.  Skype sells both for $99.99, and they both feature high definition 2.0 MP video and 8 MP photos. You can buy these cameras from other places like Amazon for cheaper though. Amazon has the QuickCam Pro 9000 for $84.00 and the QuickCam Pro for Notebooks for $85.49.

Despite the recent talk that Skype wasn’t a great buy for eBay, they have come a long ways since they first launched. Originally they just offered “low quality” calls, then came the mediocre video calls, and now the high quality video calls. If you meet the requirements that we talked about earlier, feel free to download the latest beta version of Skype and give it a try!

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This article was written on August 16, 2007 by CyberNet.

Earlier this week there was a lot of chatter about how a portion of Facebook’s source code was leaked and then published on a newly created blog, Facebook Secrets. The leak was attributed to a bug on a “single server that was misconfigured and then fixed immediately.” It certainly wasn’t a good day for Facebook as the code quickly spread around the Internet, much like what we saw when the HD DVD crack code spread like a wild fire.

Facebook publicly stated that those who spread the code were violating the law, and asked people not distribute it further. Of course that alone wasn’t going to stop most people from spreading it around as much as possible, so they took matters into their own hands. 

The blog mentioned above, “Facebook Secrets” was created solely for the purpose of distributing the Facebook code. And because it was hosted by Blogger (owned by Google), Google received a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) take-down notice from Facebook. Google contacted the author of the blog asking that they remove the content, or they’d be forced to remove the content themselves. The author ignored the notice, and of course then the blog post was removed (although the page has been cached by search engines like Google).

While Google was just doing their job, it’s one of those situations where it doesn’t really even matter that the original post that contained the content is taken down. Just like the HD DVD crack, Facebook’s code has been spread around to so many sites that it will be nearly impossible for Facebook’s legal team to find them all, and send take-down notices. Now the author of the original Facebook Secrets blog has started another one, “Facebook Secrets Again” where he has posted the letters he received from the Blogger team.

Sounds to me like Facebook needs to spend some time making sure their servers aren’t misconfigured! I don’t know about you, but for me it’s hard to have sympathy for them right now. Afterall, they were the ones that leaked their own code!

Note: Some sites are reporting that the entire site has been taken down which is not the case. Only the article containing the code was removed, and now the blog is filled with ads.

Source: Marketing Pilgrim

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