Tim McNamara

What are startups doing with your data?

If you don’t record every action on your site and you don’t monitor it and analyse it, then you almost don’t have the right to exist.

— Nati Shalom, GigaSpaces CTO from his talk Realtime Analytics for Big Data: A Facebook Case Study

Perhaps why people are angry about software patents

Part of patenting is a being socially recognised as an inventor. We award patents. We want that award to mean something. Awarding patents that don’t meet a generally understood standard of inventiveness cheapens that award.

I know that a patent’s title is an extremely poor indication of its claims and therefore the scope of protection, but it is at least indicative of intent. What are some patents that could be cheapening the meaning of inventor? If you search for “e-commerce” within a patent database, you are likely to encounter some examples. Here is a very small sample:

• SOCIAL NETWORKING AND E-COMMERCE INTEGRATION, which relates to “…obtaining user inputted data (e.g., metadata or links) from a social networking environment, and providing the data to other users in an e-commerce environment, and vice versa.”
• E-COMMERCE ACTIVITY LOG, which “… tracks activities that would conventionally be lost from view, such as the removal of items from a list and the changing of the password.”
• E-COMMERCE VOLUME PRICING which seems to be exactly what it says

Hello World in NYAN

Your new favourite programming language? Check out NYANCODE.

#!./nyancode
NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN Nyan nyAN NYAN NYAN NYAN
NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN nyAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN nyAN
NYAN NYAN NYAN nyAN NYAN NYan NYan NYan NYan nyan nyaN nyAN NYAN NYAN NYaN nyAN
NYAN NYaN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYaN NYaN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYaN nyAN
NYAN NYAN NYaN NYan NYan NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN
NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYaN nyAN NYaN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYaN nyan nyan nyan nyan nyan
nyan NYaN nyan nyan nyan nyan nyan nyan nyan nyan NYaN nyAN NYAN NYaN nyAN NYaN

Tim McNamara

Anonymous asked: Hi Tim! How are you?

I’m great, thanks for asking.

Tim McNamara

Anonymous asked: Im sorry but was unable to get this code running i.e. extracting 6 lines of python code. Do we need to enter anything else apart from the code and the text.

You need to install NLTK too.

Dropbox, Wuala, Spideroak - Free online backup storage reviewed

This post, we’ll be comparing three online backup providers: Dropbox, Wuala & Spideroak. Dropbox has recently encountered security problems, so what else is there?

If you notice any inaccuracies, please send through any corrections and I’ll update the post.

Overview

(Question marks remain for Dropbox due to its latest security concerns)

Pricing

Notes about the graph:

• Dropbox only supports 100GB.
• Prices are per month for an annual subscription.
• Note that prices for Wuala can be substancially reduced, e.g. down to $0, if you share your own hard drive capacity.

About the products

Dropbox has been a clear leader in online storage. This is largely because of its simplicity. When asked about why it has been success a success, Michael Wolfe makes the point that the ideal backup solution would look like the following:

There would be a folder.
You’d put your stuff in it.
It would sync.

That’s about the limit of what Dropbox does. It focused on creating a simple, attractive interface with minimal, useful features. These include being able to create shared folders easily.

Wuala has a greater emphasis on sharing and security. In addition to being a pure backup solution, it enables you to share data securely with people you trust.

It encrypts your data, then uploads it into a global peer-to-peer network. In fact, rather than buying storage space, you are able to trade space on your own hard drive . This could be attractive where you have an external hard drive with free capacity. This peer-to-peer system creates instant, global redundancy for your data.

Spideroak also prides itself for its ability to keep your data secure. It uses central servers, like Dropbox to store your data, but maintains a ‘no knowledge’ approach. Your data is encrypted before it is sent to their machines and their staff don’t know your password to decrypt it.

Details

Cross portability All three providers support Linux, OS X & MS Windows.

Mobile All three providers support Android & iPhone. Dropbox goes further and supports Blackberry.

Web Wuala suffers ever so slightly in this space. In order to access your information, you need to have a web browser that supports Java applets. Yes, that’s every browser with an add-on. Wuala does this because the data is decrypted only by local machines. In their eyes, providing a pure web application would mean that they would need to be able to access your information.

Privacy & Security Wuala and Spideroak focus on security very heavily. For example, neither of them send your password to the companies’ servers. This means, it is impossible for them to ever look into files that you have stored in the cloud. Dropbox stores its data on the Amazon’s S3 service. This can make it susceptible to PATRIOT Act requests as well as illegal breaches.

Sharing All three providers allow you to share your information with others you know easily. This is usually achieved by clicking on an share option, then being given a URL to share with others.

One thing that’s unique to Wuala is globally shared folders. You can create folders which are public to everyone on Wuala. There are folders with Creative Commons music and videos, for example.

Ease of Use Dropbox is the easiest tool to use, which is why it’s so successful. A folder is created on your computer which you drag into.

Wuala is very similar. It gives you a drive though, rather than a single folder. Spideroak works by selecting folders in its interface. There is no drag and drop from your file manager.

Pricing All of the providers have simple pricing structures based on data stored. The most complex is Wuala, which also enables you to trade your own disk space in return for online storage.

Storing old versions All three providers store previous versions of files.

Installation Experience

I found Spideroak’s installation procedure a little confusing. It uses the term “Create a Device” when it means “Set up your computer”. When seeing “Creating a Device”, I thought that it wanted to partition a drive for its own use.