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Posts published in November 2008

Installing a git client on a shared host with no compiler

We are using Git to manage our deployments, but have some clients that use shared hosting services that don’t have git installed (in particular Hostgator.com). Most of these shared hosting services do allow ssh shell access but don’t have compilers available on the shared hosting account. So I couldn’t just build git on the shared hosting account. Many hosting services…

The Commoditization of Massive Data Analysis

Today’s article in O’Reilly’s Radar by Joseph Hellerstein, is a concise synopsis of the state-of-the-art large scale data analysis. It compares the Enterprise IT dominant Relational Database paradigm to the emerging (with a bullet!) MapReduce / Hadoop technologies. Professor Hellerstein, from UC Berkeley lives this stuff as a leading researcher on databases and distributed systems.  He is also an advisor…

Posting from my iphone

Trying out a few different free iPhone blogging tools. This post is being done via the current WordPress client. It sounds like the 2.7 beta version is even better. This one was extremely easy to set up. And so far easy to use.

Trying Out LifeCast

Testing LifeCast as another blogging tool. It’s main feature seems to be to add geolocation and iphone photos so you can capture your day to day experiences. Geolocate this post. Posted with LifeCast

Great Story on Shorting the Financial Apocalypse

An amazing article about those who saw the financial apocalypse coming and actually shorted the whole thing. The End by Michael Lewis Nov 11 2008 The era that defined Wall Street is finally, officially over. Michael Lewis, who chronicled its excess in Liar’s Poker, returns to his old haunt to figure out what went wrong. Photoillustration by: Ji Lee -snip- On July…

Experimental drug may fight HIV and aging

From NewScientist Health November 2008 by Linda Geddes A drug extracted from a plant used in Chinese medicine has helped immune cells fight HIV and raises the possibility of slowing the ageing process in other parts of our bodies. The method hinges upon telomeres – caps of repetitive DNA found at the ends of chromosomes. These get shorter as cells age and…