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Back on Linux (after one year of Apple and OS X)
About a month ago I moved to Stockholm, Sweden and started working at Spotify . A month before starting I was asked about my preferred setup for working. Having used OS X for year as the primary operating system at work the choice was clear, I wanted to go back to Linux, in this case to Debian to be exact.
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The little ssh that (sometimes) couldn't
Preface This is a technical article chronicling one of the most interesting bug hunts I’ve had the pleasure of chasing down. At AdGear Technologies Inc. where I work, ssh is king. We use it for management, monitoring, deployments, log file harvesting, even some event streaming. It’s solid, reliable, has all the…
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How Basecamp Next got to be so damn fast without using much client-side UI
When we started working on Basecamp Next last year, we had much internal debate about whether we should evolve the existing code base or rewrite it. I’ll dive more into that debate further in a later post, but one of the key arguments for a rewrite was that we wanted a dramatic leap forward i…
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How Mailinator compresses its email stream by 90%
Given the title of this article, the first thing that should pop into your mind is probably - "well, use a compression algorithm - right?". ...
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Scaling GitHub
Written pieces, talks, and other bits by Zach Holman.
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MySQL is bazillion times faster than MemSQL
I don’t like stupid benchmarks, as they waste my time. I don’t like stupid marketing, as it wastes my time too. Sometimes I succumb to those things, and now in return I want to waste yo…
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If you were involved in the OpenGL ES specification, you are an idiot
XScreenSaver 5.15 is out now. Along with the usual set of minor improvements, this version runs as an iOS application. As all of the 3D modules in XScreenSaver are written against the OpenGL 1.3 specification, and as the iPhone only supports OpenGL ES 1.1 and newer, this was something of a big deal. I accomplished…
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OS X Mountain Lion: Data Loss via 'Save As'
Update Dec 20, 2012 : Apple appears to have fixed this in a way by adding a “Keep changes in original document” checkbox in the save dialog. Bandaids are better than nothing. It is also possible to add a keyboard shortcut for Save As, which is partially hidden (option key).
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The Linux Graphics Stack
This is an introductory overview post for the Linux Graphics Stack, and how it currently all fits together. I initially wrote it for myself after having conversations with people like Owen Taylor, Ray Strode and Adam Jackson about this stack. I had to go back to them every month or so and learn the stuff from the…
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Android Performance Case Study
Measure frame time, allocations, overdraw, and repeated work before changing code; the useful optimization is the one a trace can prove.
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Postgres 9.2 will feature linear read scalability up to 64 cores
Remember when I blogged about linear read scalability out to 32 cores ? Well, the awesome Nate Boley provided me with access to his brand n...
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Linux 3.7 released
Summary of the changes and new features merged in the Linux kernel during the 3.7 development cycle
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How a computer boots up
The previous post described [motherboards and the memory map] memory-map in Intel computers to set the scene for the initial phases of boot. Booting is an involved, hacky, multi-stage affair - fun st
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This Is Why They Call It a Weakly-Ordered CPU
On this blog, I’ve been rambling on about lock-free programming subjects such as acquire and release semantics and weakly-ordered CPUs. I’ve tried to make these …