Archive for July, 2010
Free Microsoft software (for Students)
by pompo500 on Jul.31, 2010, under General
If you’re a student, and your school participates in the Microsoft’s student authentication procedure that you find in Dreamspark.com, you may be eligible for totally free Microsoft software. Some use restrictions apply, such as using the software for business purposes.
It’s about giving students Microsoft professional tools at no charge.
Participating products:
- Visual Studio (various versions, including latest)
- Windows Server 2008 (various versions)
- Expression Studio 4
- SQL Server
- XNA Game Studio
- Robotics Developer Studio
- Virtual PC
- MultiPoint
- Windows Embedded CE 6.0
- Visual Basic express
- Visual C# express
- Visual Web Developer express
- Visual C++ express
It’s easy, just sign in from Dreamspark.com with your school’s user account. Enjoy!
Why I like to develop my own software for almost everything
by pompo500 on Jul.30, 2010, under Software
Usually I prefer not to use ready-made software because, well, if I code it myself I can control every aspect of the software I create.
Today I made an exception by installing this WordPress because frankly, I’m so busy right now I’ve been the entire year in process of developing self made Content Management System to power XS Labs’ site.
Why don’t I like ready-made software? (at least in websites I make myself)
1) Code bloat (see the “small and light” CodeIgniter‘s MVC framework for example, pictured above). Folder size? A whopping 3.60 MB. That couldn’t be right. Most of it has to be documentation? Sure, 2.5 MB but 1.1 MB still has left for the system folder containing the code.
I hate the fact that server and CPU power rises constantly, and that gives some people the excuse to make software bigger and bigger. Just take a look at PHP Nuke, perhaps the bloatest and sorriest excuse for a CMS there is. Don’t even let me started on PHP’s PEAR framework.
2) Security vulnerabilities. It’s almost every day that you hear about a bug in vBulletin or some other popular web gizmo that exposes thousands and thousands of sites to script kiddie’s mercy. I don’t want that shit happening on my server. I’d be arrogant to say that I make better code than the rest of the developers, but hey – my site’s never been hacked. Perhaps that’s due to security through obscurity, but at least I can sleep my nights safe knowing that no publicized vulnerabilities mean that I have to hurry to patch my servers.
About
by pompo500 on Jul.30, 2010, under Company
XS Labs is a software design firm from Finland established in 2003. Experience with web technologies comes from early 2000′s.
We are in the process of making our own website with self-written Content Management System, but things have been rather busy so we decided to temporarily power the content via WordPress. Stay tuned though, the CMS will be quite advanced and we are considering on releasing it as open source.
