Need a quick pick me up for a slowing application?

If the application you are having problems with does a lot of reading and writing to files a quick fix might be to use a RAM based file system.  Yes that precious RAM we all love to have for our apps might be better spent creating a temporary file system.  If you then copy the often written to application files onto this RAM based file system you should see tremendous performance increases.  With systems running the Core i7 architecture the boost could be even higher because of the higher RAM speeds and lower latency between the CPU and the chips.  The only way to find out though is to give it a try.  To do that you will need a RAM Disk of some kind.  I found this how to over at Linux Mag that should be a good starting point.  While I haven't done these exact instructions, I have done this before and they seem to be correct.  As with anything though your mileage may very.  Test your solution thoroughly before implementing this in a production environment.  Remember you are dealing with RAM and if you have to reboot anything not saved off from that RAM Disk will be lost.

Are you an oprotunistic developer?

Jono Bacon, Community Manager at Ubuntu, has assembled a nice article about what one needs to write the quick and scratch your own itch applications Linux and FLOSS are known for without a lot of hassle.  The concept hearkens back to the good old days of Unix when apps were focused on doing one task and doing it well.  His article is a great getting started guide to help you easily find the parts you will need.  Check it out.

Is your company thinking about developing on Android?

While doing some research for a friend I came across this article about the gripes of an Android Developer.  The list, found here, doesn't have anything I would consider a show stopper but I don't expect everyone to agree with me.  Before you start or decide to start developing on Android this is a great list of warnings and things to think about.  

How do you do web development correctly?

I support web development for a living and here are my thoughts about what you need to do it right.  After almost 15 years of supporting pesky developers I have learned a few things.  In this article I try to help you understand what you should plan to have and do.  Check out and participate in our discussion about the proper setup of web development environments.  Let us know how whether or not you agree with our thoughts in this post.  The story is right here.