Welcome to Argalax

Hi

Hi, my name is Alexander and this is my website.

It describes my work, hobbies, various projects, intellectual pursuits, current interests, and whatever else seems important and/or interesting at the moment.

I live in Canada, just east of Toronto, and work as technical team leader in the IT industry.

In spare time I enjoy writing some code, developing web applications, working on my robot, and FreeBSD/Linux projects, reading sci-fi, finance and technical books, building my cabin in the wilderness and travel when I can.


Here are some technical news to read...

Technology

Facebook clickjacking legal row [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:04:55 GMT]
The social network and Washington State sue a marketing firm over claims that it deceived users by hiding 'Like' buttons. The firm denies the charge.
Top Euro MP quits in piracy row [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:24:09 GMT]
A European Parliament rapporteur stands down in protest as a controversial anti-piracy agreement is signed by several countries.
Botnet suspect denies involvement [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:55:03 GMT]
The Russian man accused by Microsoft of being behind the Kelihos botnet attack insists he is "absolutely not guilty".
FBI social network scraping app [Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:46:40 GMT]
The FBI asks contractors to suggest a system that can "scrape" information from social networks to build alert maps.
Twitter 'can censor by country' [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:44:05 GMT]
Twitter says it now has the technology to censor tweets on a country by country basis, a move which is criticised by freedom of information campaigners.
Intel buys RealNetworks patents [Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:37:21 GMT]
Intel is paying $120m (£76m) for RealNetwork's video patents. Experts say it undermines claims that a "patent bubble" has burst.
Fines threat for credit messages [Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:02:02 GMT]
Firms face raids and fines of up to £500,000 for sending unsolicited text messages about credit or compensation.
Call for illegal site demotion [Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:04:14 GMT]
Rights campaigners have criticised plans to ask search engines to demote illegal sites in order to fight piracy.
Web economy 'to double by 2016' [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:30:36 GMT]
With half the world online by 2016, the web economy in the G20 countries is set to nearly double in size to $4.2tn (£2.7tn), research suggests.
Samsung in year end sales boost [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:24:14 GMT]
South Korea's Samsung Electronics announces a 17% rise in profits in the last three months of 2011, as smartphone sales boosted earnings.

Science

'Microplastic' threat to shores [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:39:37 GMT]
Microscopic plastic debris from washing clothes is accumulating in the marine environment and could be entering the food chain, a study warns.
More uses for 'miracle material' [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:00:27 GMT]
Graphene, often described as a "miracle material", can be used to distil alcohol, according to a new study in the Science journal.
Sea lions 'shot' on US west coast [Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:00:46 GMT]
At least eight sea lions have been shot dead in the US state of Washington in the past few weeks, wildlife officials say.
Anti-matter set for gravity test [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:23:49 GMT]
Researchers prepare pairs of matter and anti-matter particles in a bid to finally resolve whether anti-matter repels normal matter in a kind of "anti-gravity".
Communities to 'appraise' nature [Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:59:40 GMT]
Communities could be encouraged to make their own assessments of the direct benefits they get from nature.
Planting push for jubilee woods [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:17:21 GMT]
Organisers of a prject to create a series of new woods to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee hope to plant one million trees in one month.
Babies' brains 'show autism risk' [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:01:45 GMT]
It may be possible to detect autism at a much earlier age than previously thought, say researchers.
Top spots for garden birdwatch [Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:24:52 GMT]
Some of the beautiful birds to look out for to help assess the status of the nation's feathered friends during this year's big garden birdwatch.
Pictures: Fantastic new images of Mars [Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:16:31 GMT]
New images of the Red Planet's diverse landscapes
'Invisibility cloak' breakthrough [Thu, 26 Jan 2012 03:25:50 GMT]
For the first time researchers achieve the "cloaking" of a three-dimensional object to make it invisible as viewed from any angle.

App Development

LibreOffice Stabilizes []
From the blogs: : Document Foundation proved this week that it's not just a fork in the road for OpenOffice - it's a new direction.
Couchbase Improves NoSQL Performance []
CouchDB open source NoSQL database get a major tech infusion geared around speed.
Mozilla Accelerates HTTP in Firefox 5 []
From the blogs: Being SPDY, isn't about embracing Google, sometimes it's just about being smart with HTTP.
ActiveState Expands Perl Cloud Tech []
Perl cloud vendor run by a 15 year old entrepreneur gets snapped up.
Varnish Cache 3.0 Gets Modular []
New release of popular open source caching technology adds modules and streaming support.

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