Mark DuBois Weblog

Periodically, students in my networking classes ask about disabling the shutdown event tracker in Windows Server 2008. I thought this short video might be helpful. Note: this video is included as HTML5 (I have tested in IE 9, FireFox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera).

I was recently notified that a book review of mine has been published in the March, 2012 issue of CHOICE. Since many may not have direct access to my review, I thought I would include a copy in my weblog.

Mogensen, Torben Aegidius. Introduction to compiler design. Springer, 2011. 204p bibl index ISBN 9780857298287 pbk, $39.95

This book provides a solid foundation to those who need to understand a main underpinning of computer science–how to design a compiler for a new language. Readers should have a strong background in computer science fundamentals and math to follow the text. Mogensen (Univ. of Copenhagen, Denmark) presents the chapters in a logical sequence (including a preface explaining why it is important to learn about compiler design). The book begins with a review of lexical and syntax analysis. Additional chapters include “Scopes and Symbol Tables,” “Interpretation” (of code), “Type Checking,” “Intermediate-Code Generation,” “Machine-Code Generation,” “Register Allocation,” and “Functions.” Numerous figures throughout the nine chapters help explain concepts. An appendix titled “Set Notation and Concepts” concludes the text. A summary chapter pulling all the topics discussed together would have been helpful. Further, the inclusion of some concrete examples in a specific language to demonstrate concepts along with the theory presented would have been useful. A companion website (last updated on May 30, 2011) provides answers to selected problems, with emphasis on problems from the initial chapters of the book. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

I recently installed Microsoft’s Visual Studio 11 Professional Beta. My initial focus on this release is from a web development perspective. I installed this version in a Windows 7 64-bit virtual environment (and another copy in a Windows 8 Community Preview). Based on my initial comparisons, the product looks and behaves very similar in these environments. The only difference is that Internet Explorer 10 is the default browser in Windows 8.

The overall interface looks similar to Visual Studio 2010. I first decided to create a new web site. There are a number of choices. It appears that Razor is gaining traction. Razor is a view engine originally introduced in 2010. Read more »

Today, Adobe released a new technology on their labs site called Shadow. This tool should be of significant help for those developing web pages which will be viewed on mobile devices (a.k.a everyone). This technology allows one to synchronize a web page across multiple devices, examine the page on the device, and make changes to either the HTML or CSS and observe the effect immediately on the device. This tool relies on the Chrome web browser on your desktop and the weinre (pronounced “winery”) tool. Read more »