Brent's Bookmarks: February 2017

https://opensource.guide/
The good folks at GitHub have launched a guide to contributing to and growing open source. Good deal!

https://valerieaurora.org/hash.html
How long do hash functions last until one can generate collisions? A handy table:

https://opensource.com/business/16/11/open-source-dashboard-tools-visualizing-data
These open source data visualization tools are all new to me. Anybody have any experience with them?

https://medium.com/@blprnt/making-mapping-more-human-77a96e92ed49#.sx1vohrld
Fascinating look at the fusion of technology and humanity of map creation.

https://anders.com/blockchain/hash.html
Really excellent interactive demo of how a blockchain works.

http://www.polygon.com/2017/2/21/14683942/pewdiepie-controversy-youtube-drama
Why it's almost guaranteed that YouTubers will implode:

https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-print-server/
I have an old USB printer I need to do this to: Using a Raspberry PI as print server

https://joshtronic.com/2017/02/14/five-dollar-showdown-linode-vs-digitalocean-vs-lightsaild-vs-vultr/
Benchmarks of $5 VPS offerings. Linode was late to the party, but shows up well.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38928528
Company without a CEO. Would work for consultants like this one, but maybe not other industries.

https://www.atlassian.com/git/articles/ci-friendly-git-repos
Helpful hints for making CI-friendly git repos.

http://blog.templatetoaster.com/7-tips-improve-joomla-website-performance/
Mostly basic, in-app ways to speed up Joomla sites.

https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/pixar/storytelling
Pixar teams with Khan to give lessons on storytelling.

http://propeller.in/index.html#home
Propeller adds Google-style material design to Bootstrap.

https://qz.com/176136/what-if-the-purpose-of-love-is-to-get-us-out-of-relationships-not-into-them/
Is being broken-hearted the point? What if love is to get us out of relationships, not into them?

https://internetingishard.com/html-and-css/
Well-laid out course on modern HTML and CSS.

https://atom.io/
Interesting opensource cross-platform text editor. Notable for its plug-ins.

https://media.consensys.net/the-birth-of-enterprise-ethereum-in-2017-ebe7f7abed92#.klbkzahfz
The Ethereum folks say they're seeing large enterprise adoption. Addresses things like private vs public.

https://blog.cloudflare.com/a-relatively-easy-to-understand-primer-on-elliptic-curve-cryptography/
As gentle an introduction to public key and elliptic curve encryption as you're likely to find.

https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentralization-a0c92b76a274#.mx3yzrtip
Thoughtful piece about decentralization vs distributed as it applies to blockchains.

https://laravel-news.com/13-laravel-admin-panel-generators
Comparison of various graphical and CLI Laravel admin panel generators. Some look good.

https://medium.com/product-hunt/the-best-products-launched-in-2017-1498e7d02b41#.vat1pggdi
Best recent new products. Interesting how many have some machine learning element in them.

https://www.wired.com/2017/02/russians-engineer-brilliant-slot-machine-cheat-casinos-no-fix/
Computers are bad at picking random numbers, as some casinos have learned the hard way:

http://windowsitpro.com/cloud/enterprise-linuxs-big-three
Notes on the big 3 Linux distros used in the enterprise. SuSE's hanging in there, somehow.

https://medium.com/@tuurdemeester/my-6-takeaways-from-satoshi-roundtable-2e46680f0cf2#.wnky2w212
Report from the latest BitCoin roundtable. Still some division, but things are looking better.

https://websitelaunchchecklist.com/
A good checklist to go through before launching any new website.

http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/01/hot-pod-the-three-numbers-that-mark-the-state-of-podcasting-in-2017/
The latest numbers on podcast listeners and revenue growth show strong gains.

http://www.filerun.com/
Self-hosted Cloud Drive software. The license terms are a bit hazy.

https://medium.com/product-hunt/9-tools-that-will-help-you-become-a-better-writer-2feff4affd3a#.mwfvg1tx2
I'm a bit skeptical that tools make for a better writer, for power tools don't make for a better woodworker.

https://www.wired.com/2017/02/lady-gaga-halftime-show-drones/
The lowdown on the drone fleet used at the SuperBowl halftime. More and less than met the eye.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/02/aws-still-owns-the-cloud/
Analysis of the latest growth numbers on cloud computing. Others may be growing faster, but AWS is still the winner.

https://medium.com/ux-power-tools/i-didnt-know-sketch-could-do-that-182f2f2d811e#.3ixn7k3jj
Some fairly surprising things one can do with Sketch. I didn't know about its Slack integration.

https://medium.com/the-mission/how-to-get-people-to-like-you-in-5-seconds-or-less-67e64cb91155#.cd357dhu6
Kinda like the Dale Carnegie book on one page: how to get people to like you.

https://medium.freecodecamp.com/free-wifi-on-public-networks-daf716cebc80#.eo66hdrxa
Getting free wifi on busy public networks by MAC cloning.

https://medium.com/hi-my-name-is-jon/3-steps-to-a-suck-free-killer-3000-venture-f986b2c77294#.l8csp1ftb
Bootstrapping a business by selling services for multiple revenue streams.

https://xss-game.appspot.com/
Great interactive tutorial teaching the basics of XSS vulnerabilities.

https://medium.com/@lewisplushumphreys/how-were-using-component-based-design-5f9e3176babb#.d3eombi80
Good tutorial on designing websites from the smallest elements up through the largest. No good toolchains for it?

https://medium.freecodecamp.com/million-requests-per-second-with-python-95c137af319#.wypz9sib7
Interesting new Python library that blows Angular out of the water for speed. Still needs polish.

https://medium.com/mailchimp-for-agencies/15-ways-to-win-at-writing-email-af42903837c6#.7a7wrxk6x
Some more good hints at writing marketing emails from the CopyHackers folks via Mailchimp.

https://hackernoon.com/10-things-i-learned-making-the-fastest-site-in-the-world-18a0e1cdf4a7#.npi1vti6r
Case study in pulling out all the stops to try to make a website fast. Hint: static and small.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5r6va0/how_to_easily_trick_file_manager_users_to_execute/
Interesting way to trick Linux file managers into executing commands.

http://webdesignerwall.com/tutorials/level-css-skills-20-pro-css-tips
20 CSS tips. Some generally applicable, some more interesting or tutorial.

http://training.npr.org/audio/the-ear-training-guide-for-audio-producers/
Really nice stuff from NPR: ear-training for audio producers. Useful to podcasters as well.

https://www.klaviyo.com/
An email service provider (ESP) specifically for e-commerce site operators. Better be good for their price.

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Friday, February 24, 2017

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Monday, February 20, 2017

Sunday, February 19, 2017

Saturday, February 18, 2017

Friday, February 17, 2017

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Friday, February 10, 2017

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Monday, February 6, 2017

Sunday, February 5, 2017

Friday, February 3, 2017