In this episode we talk with Jeff McAffer about building platforms. We start with a brief discussion about what a platform is in contrast to a framework or an application. Drawing from his experiences working on the Eclipse platform for years, Jeff talks with us about how to develop platforms, why developing a platform is different from developing an application, what makes a good platform great, and why API design becomes so extremely important for platforms. He provides us with some insights on how the development process and the client collaboration for platform development could look like and what has and has not worked in the past.

In this episode Martin talks with Chris Grindstaff about the fundamentals of performance engineering. The episode discusses when and how to work on performance of client- and server-side systems, what you should take into account during development to avoid performance issues, typical situations that cause performance problems, and some common pitfalls when analysing performance.

Recording Venue: WebEx Guest: Ellen Gottensdiener and Mary Gorman Ellen Gottensdiener and Mary Gorman of EBG Consulting talk with Neil Maiden about agile projects, requirements practices and their new book entitled Discover to Deliver: Agile Product Planning and Analysis. The conversation begins with an exploration of how agile has changed requirements and project practices over the […]

Adrian Cockcroft discusses the challenges in creating a dynamic, flexible, cloud-based platform with SE Radio host Stefan Tilkov. After briefly discussing the definition of “cloud computing,” Adrian explains the history behind Netflix’s move to the cloud (which he led). After highlighting some of the differences that have developers and architects must face, Adrian talks about […]

Nathan Marz is the creator of Apache Storm, a real-time streaming application. Storm does for stream processing what Hadoop does for batch processing. The project began when Nathan was working on aggregating Twitter data using a queue-and-worker system he had designed. Many companies use Storm, including Spotify, Yelp, WebMD, and many others. Jeff and Nathan […]

Josh Long talks to Activiti cofounder Joram Barrez about the wide world of (open source) workflow engines, the Activiti BPMN2 engine, and what workflow implies when you’re building process-driven applications and services. Joram was originally a contributor to the jBPM project with jBPM founder Tom Baeyens at Red Hat. He cofounded Activiti in 2010 at […]

Senior performance architect and author of *Systems Performance* Brendan Gregg talks with Robert Blumen about systems performance: how the hardware and OS layers affect application behavior. The discussion covers the scope of systems performance, systems performance in the software life cycle, the role of performance analysis in architecture, methodologies for solving performance problems, dynamic tracing and tracing tools such as DTrace, the disk and file subsystems, the CPU and memory subsystems, and the challenges virtualization poses for performance analysts.

Charles Nutter from the JRuby project talks to Charles Anderson about JRuby and the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) as a platform for implementing programming languages. They begin by discussing the Java platform beyond just the Java language. As a case study in implementing a language other than Java on the JVM, they discuss JRuby - what it is and how it’s implemented on the JVM. They discuss recent additions to the Java platform like the invoke-dynamic byte code and lambdas in Java 8. The conversation concludes by discussing the future of the Java language, platform, and virtual machine.

James Turnbull joins Robert Blumen for a discussion of Terraform, an infrastructure-as-code tool, and a deep dive into how Terraform implements the declarative programming model.

Bryan Reinero talks with Gregor Hohpe about IT Transformation, the process by which organizations adapt and reorganize themselves in response to evolution and how the Enterprise Architect leads that transformation.

Kirk Pepperdine talks with Diomidis Spinellis about performance optimization. Topics include development practices, tools, as well as the role of software architecture, programming languages, algorithms, and hardware advances.

Jérôme Laban, CTO of Uno Platform, joined host Jeff Doolittle for a conversation about Cross-platform User Interfaces. The conversation addressed the unique challenges and possibilities related to applications designed to run on multiple platforms...

J.R. Storment and Mike Fuller discuss cloud financial operations (FinOps) with host Akshay Manchale. They consider the importance of a financial operations strategy for cloud-based infrastructure. J.R. and Mike discuss the differences between operating your own data center and running in the cloud, as well as the problems that doing so creates in understanding and forecasting cloud spend. Mike details the Cloud FinOps lifecycle by first attributing organizational cloud spend through showbacks and chargebacks to individual teams and products. JR describes the two levers available for optimization once an organization understands where they're spending their cloud budget. They discuss complexities that arise from virtualized infrastructure and techniques to attribute cloud usage to the correct owners, and close with some recommendations for engineering leaders who are getting started on cloud FinOps strategy.

Luca Galante, head of product at Humanitec, joins host Jeff Doolittle for a conversation about platform engineering. They begin by defining platform engineering and its relationship to, and distinction from, DevOps. Tracing platform engineering's history, Luca describes how internal developer platforms are fundamental, and then explores the goals of addressing complexity and reducing the cognitive load on developers by creating golden paths.

Casey Muratori caused some strong reactions with a blog post and an associated video in which he went through an example from the “Clean Code” book by Robert Martin to demonstrate the negative impact that clean code practices can have on performance. In this episode, he joins SE Radio’s Giovanni Asproni to talk about the potential trade-offs between performance and the qualities that make for maintainable code, these qualities being the main focus of Clean Code. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

Lukas Fittl of pganalyze discusses the performance of Postgres, one of the world’s most popular database systems. SE Radio host Philip Winston speaks with Fittl about database indexing, queries, maintenance, scaling, and stored procedures. They also discuss some features of pganalyze, such as the index and vacuum advisors.

Andreas Møller, founder of Toddle, a no-code tool for building scalable performant web applications, speaks with SE Radio's Brijesh Ammanath about no-code platforms. They discuss the role of developers in a no-code ecosystem and explore scalability and performance considerations, as well as enterprise adoption of no-code tools. Andreas also expands on why he built Toddle.dev and its unique features. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software.

The Philips Performance Wireless TAPH805BK are wireless headphones with battery life that will knock your socks off, but the sound quality has a lot of room for improvement.... [PCSTATS]

"Gamerstorm's Macube 310P mid-tower computer case offers great value for money with just a few issues here and there."... [PCSTATS]

If you export your WordPress blog, it is delivered to you as an RSS feed that holds all of the blog's entries, pages and comments. WordPress makes use of five namespaces and calls the format WordPress eXtended RSS (WXR). I'm working on a Java application that converts a WXR file into a set of static HTML pages.

This month marks the 20th anniversary of the effort that became the Atom feed format. It all began on June 16, 2003, with a blog post from Apache Software Foundation contributor Sam Ruby asking for feedback about what constitutes a well-formed blog entry.

The development of RSS 2.0 had been an unplanned hopscotch from a small group at Netscape to a smaller one at UserLand Software, but Atom was a barn raising. Hundreds of software developers, web publishers and technologists gathered for a discussion in the abstract that led to a concrete effort to build a well-specified syndication format and associated publishing API that could become Internet standards. Work was done on a project wiki that grew to over 1,500 pages. Everything was up for a vote, including a plebiscite on choosing a name that ballooned into a four-month-long bike shed discussion in which Pie, Echo, Wingnut, Feedcast, Phaistos and several dozen alternatives finally, mercifully, miraculously lost out to Atom.

The road map of the Atom wiki lists the people, companies and projects that jumped at the chance to create a new format for feeds. XML specification co-author Tim Bray wrote:

The time to write it all down and standardize it is not when you're first struggling to invent the technology. We now have aggregators and publishing systems and search engines and you-name-it, and I think the community collectively understands pretty well what you need, what you don't need, and what a good syntax looks like.

So, now's the time.

As someone whose only contribution to the project was voting on names, I think I was too quick to rule out Phaistos, a suggestion inspired by a clay disc produced by movable type before 1600 B.C. Comments on the wiki page proposing that monicker offer a sample of the name wars:

MikeBlumenthal: Does one of the great mysteries of antiquity, a document which, after almost 100 years of trying, is still a mystery not only as to its meaning but even as to its purpose, and which stands as a paragon of impenetrability, really fit as a name for an interoperability format?

Jayseae: Actually, the current state of RSS is pretty much a mystery -- why should this project be any different? I like the association with publishing -- though I'm not sure the pronunciation really flows. Perhaps it could be shortened somehow?

AsbjornUlsberg: Sorry, but I don't like it. We could just as gladly give the project any other Greek-sounding name, like Papadopolous.

Arising from all the chaos and debate, the Atom format became a beautifully specified IETF standard in 2005 edited by Mark Nottingham and Robert Sayre that's used today in millions of feeds. It is the most popular syndication format that's never argued about.

Everybody got that out of their system on the wiki.

A coalition of progressive groups, including labor organizers, are connecting the dots on climate and the economy in North Carolina GOTV efforts.

Creating a space where magic can unfold and meaningful change can occur requires intentionality, trust, and courage.

some useful tests and data that help to validate a lot of what we already do at craigslist

Things have been quiet in some areas of the site of late and we haven't added many new items.  Sadly, work has been squatting on our lives and eating into time normally spent updating the site.

For a power system to operate efficiently and securely, the importance of the correct and coordinated provision and control of reactive power cannot be overemphasised. It is necessary to examine reactive power requirements under both steady-state and dynamic conditions. Although... Read more

The post Parameters of generators, transformers, lines and cables for vars, voltage and loads control appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

I found a resource that I wanted to share with created by Helene Blowers and published in the article entitled, "Do Your Students Know How To Search?" (Holly Clark, Edudemic, October 16, 2013).

I think this article begins to address either the end of the Information Age or at least a progression toward a different stage within the Information Age and the question now becomes what do we do with the information that has been collected? I believe there will be a great need for those who can not only find relevant information, but for those who can analyze information.

According to the article:

There is a new digital divide on the horizon. It is not based around who has devices and who does not, but instead the new digital divide will be based around students who know how to effectively find and curate information and those who do not. Helene Blowers has come up with seven ideas about the new digital divide – four of them, the ones I felt related to searching, are listed below.

Clark continues the article by including some of the searching skills and vocabulary that she believes we should be teaching our students (and learning ourselves):

 

Some of these skills include:

• Quotation Marks
• Dashes
• Two Periods
• Site Search
• Country Codes
• Filter Bubbles
• Primary Sources

Please click HERE to find out more about these search tools and how to improve your internet searches.

Wizer is an educational platform that allows instructors to create quick, easy and fun digital worksheets, to share them with fellow instructors, and to keep track of student performance.

The "FAQ's" below will tell you question types, multimedia resources, login formation, and some of the technology requirements.

As you know, "free" and "time-saving" are important factors to me....

Wizer FAQ's:

Wizer is FREE for teachers. You may build, assign, share and use as many worksheets as you like for free.

As many as you want! The use of the Wizer digital worksheet builder is unlimited. Make as many as you’d like. Please click to ‘share on gallery’ so that other Wizer teachers can see what you’ve created and use it with their students. Your influence is growing!

Yes. Wizer is a community of innovative teachers who create and share their digital lessons. Any worksheet on the public gallery can be used by simply clicking ‘Use’ or ‘Use this worksheet’. This duplicates the worksheet and puts the copy in your account. You can use it as-is or make some adjustments to fine tune it for your students.

When teachers create a worksheet, they may chose to ‘publish on gallery’ to share it with other teachers. Any worksheet shared on the public gallery can be viewed by other teachers for inspiration or used with their students. To use a gallery worksheet, just click ‘Use’ or ‘Use this Worksheet.’

Yes! Wizer worksheets can be completed on any iPad or tablet.

Yes. Any 1-to-1 device that is connected to the internet and has a web browser can be used to create and complete Wizer worksheets. The best browsers are Chrome and Safari.

On the window that opens you can create an assignment for each class. Each gets its own link & pin code so you can later review their answers separately for each class.

Yes. Wizer is integrated with Google Classroom and Wizer worksheets can be assigned to students directly via the green Google Classroom link. The first time you assign a Wizer worksheet via Google Classroom you will be asked to confirm your connection with a few simple steps.

Yes. If your school uses Haiku digital learning platform you can create or use Wizer worksheets, then copy the worksheet link into your classroom pages.

Yes. If your school uses Moodle open source learning platform you can paste worksheet links directly into class assignments.

You can easily add video, audio and images to any Wizer worksheet. Images can be made interactive using the Fill on an Image question type.

Wizer question types: Open answer, multiple choice, matching, fill in the blank, fill on an image and tables.

Transformers are not perfect. Transients and noise (radio-frequency and low-level spikes) normally pass through transformers, not only by way of the magnetic lines of flux between the primary and the secondary windings but through resistive and capacitive paths between the... Read more

The post The magic that isolation transformer uses to suppress transients and noise appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

New Articles Entry: 'How to write informal IELTS letters' has just been added to the Articles area of UsingEnglish.com.

New Articles Entry: '9 IELTS Informal Letter Model Answers' has just been added to the Articles area of UsingEnglish.com.

New Lesson Plans Entry: 'Passive voice key word sentence transformations' has just been added to the Lesson Plans area of UsingEnglish.com.

New Articles Entry: 'How to write formal IELTS General Writing Task 1 letters' has just been added to the Articles area of UsingEnglish.com.

New Articles Entry: 'Analysis of official IELTS formal letter tasks' has just been added to the Articles area of UsingEnglish.com.

This technical article we will go through a number of existing applications for conducting a wide range of electrical studies. However, the practice says that studies involving load flow and fault analyses are the most commonly utilized programs in power transmission... Read more

The post Eleven most important calculations you can perform with power system analysis software appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

The majority of utilities are normally extremely well aware of the economic aspects and savings that can be obtained at all stages of the transformer’s life cycle. This is because the purchase of a transformer involves a very high capital... Read more

The post 11 factors that significantly influence the transformer price (Be careful when specifying) appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

This technical article discusses the essentials of transformer differential protection and restricted earth fault protection schemes, contrasting the two and elaborating on why the latter is necessary. Furthermore, it reveals the outcomes of stability tests performed on a 502 MVA... Read more

The post Mastering stability test of power transformer: Differential and Restricted Earth Fault (REF) protection appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

This technical article provides a collection of the common drawings that are sent by the manufacturer to the client for approval and reference. The goal of these drawings is to verify that the transformers that are going to be manufactured... Read more

The post Contract drawings for a power transformer – The checklist you should always follow appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

This technical article provides an overview of the various choices and assists electrical engineers in determining the criteria that should be included in the transformer specifications in order to meet the requirements of their particular application. A power plant often... Read more

The post Transformers in plant power distribution: The bigger picture appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Electrical systems normally use current and voltage transformers for protection and measurement purposes. They represent the power system’s eyes and ears, and it’s essential to fully understand how they work, how to make the correct specification and most importantly, the... Read more

The post What steps should be taken to avoid choosing the incorrect current and voltage transformers? appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

The audible sound radiated by transformers is generated by a combination of magnetostrictive deformation of the core and electromagnetic forces in the windings, tank walls and magnetic shields. Historically, the sound generated by the magnetic field inducing longitudinal vibrations in the... Read more

The post An Overview of IEC 60076-10 – Determination Of Sound Levels Of Power Transformers appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Severe weather is the single leading cause of power outages in the United States. Outages caused by severe weather such as thunderstorms, hurricanes and blizzards account for 58 percent of outages observed since 2002 and 87 percent of outages affecting... Read more

The post Billion Dollar Storms vs U.S. Electric Grid appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Just a short note from me today, the end of this crazy year. I’d like to wish you a normal and happy New Year on behalf of myself and everyone else at EEP. This year was like no other year... Read more

The post Hey engineers, wish you a happy and normal new year, 2021! appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Capacitive voltage transformers (CVTs) are used on higher voltage levels, starting from 66 kV and upwards. The type of the CVT is always a single-pole one, thus the connection is between phase and earth. The higher the voltage level is,... Read more

The post Capacitive Voltage Transformers (CVT) For HV Measurements appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

This article aims to provide a comprehensive guide to the standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the isolation, maintenance, and restoration of a 132kV GIS Transformer Bay and Line Bay. It will delve into detailed safety checks, specific steps to be... Read more

The post How to: Isolation, maintenance, and restoration of a 132kV GIS Transformer Bay and Line Bay appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

As you should already know, current transformers are used for metering and relay protection purposes. When we are talking about current transformers used for metering, their performance is of interest during normal loading conditions. Metering transformers may have very significant... Read more

The post Four special connections of current transformers in relay protection applications appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

First, let’s remind ourselves of the basics in a few sentences. That is something you must know. A current transformer (CT) is designed to produce a secondary current which is accurately proportional to the primary current. It consists of a... Read more

The post IEC and NEMA/IEEE ratings of current transformers (CTs) in medium voltage applications appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Let us remind ourselves of the basics of substation transformer parts, their operation principles, and do’s and don’ts for safety measures and precautions. For novice substation engineers it’s important to recognize every single detail of a transformer and later to... Read more

The post A quick reminder to substation transformer basics and safety precautions, dos and don’ts appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Transformers used in power substations or a power system could be a bank of three single-phase transformers connected in either star/delta or star/star etc., or could be a single three-phase transformer with a single core. Normally for large capacity transformers,... Read more

The post Transformer connections you are not allowed to forget appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.