Stories by: Peter Wayner

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Android apps for business users, at a glance 03 February, 2010 07:59

Even though the market for Android apps is still emerging, there are a number of good programs for business users.
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Android apps for business users 02 February, 2010 22:08

The BlackBerry may be the most popular phone in businesses today, but the openness of the Google Android platform is attractive too. Most of the big-name apps from the iPhone world are now available for the Android.
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Android apps for developers and IT pros, at a glance 01 February, 2010 07:52

These eight apps allow you to open a shell, run a shell script, tap the Linux command line, or otherwise put your Android-based smartphone to productive use. Most are available in free editions, and none will set you back more than a few dollars.
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The best free open source software for Mac OS X 14 October, 2009 21:04

Most Mac lovers love the Mac for the carefully wrought user interfaces and the crisp design, and never pay attention to the open source at the heart of the operating system. But underneath this beautiful facade is a heart built upon the rich - if often chaotic - world of open source software.
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Palm Mojo SDK 1.1 17 August, 2009 16:50

When the Palm Pre appeared two months ago, the world took one look at the graceful curves and immediately decided there was finally a contender that might stand a chance of attracting some of the crowds clustered around the iPhone.
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Sun Cloud looks beyond Java 22 April, 2009 08:39

Sun Microystems, which announced Sun Cloud in March, is taking a different tack than the Java clouds from Google, Aptana, and Stax because it wants to be more than just a Java provider. The new cloud will create new clusters of machines from any disk image, including some of the most popular versions of Linux and Solaris. Java, of course, will be found in most of these images, but you don't need to use it if you want to, say, run some emulated version of Cobol on a version of Puppy Linux. Unless Sun Cloud is interrupted by Oracle's acquisition, it should be available in a few months.
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Open source and SaaS offerings rethink the DB 25 March, 2009 09:26

The world of low-rent key-value storage silos is exploding. Here's a list of some of the more prominent new projects:
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Why developers prefer Macs 18 November, 2008 09:34

When Terry Weaver wants to create .Net applications, he fires up Visual Studio and types away like any other .Net programmer. The setup gets a bit weird when he wants to test how the .Net application might appear to a Mac user visiting the Web site. Instead of starting up another machine, asking a colleague with a Mac, or simply ignoring those crazy followers of Steve Jobs, Weaver just pops over to the browser in another window. That's easy because Visual Studio is running on Windows inside a Parallels virtual machine, which, in turn, runs on his Mac. He has a PC, a Mac, and a Unix development box all in one.
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A Web-based app builder with a Microsoft twist 24 October, 2008 08:07

Now that the desktop revolution is largely over, most of the excitement lies in the counter-desktop revolution that is bringing all the flair developed by the desktop programmers back to the safe world of the server. Caspio is one of the most prominent players seeking to lure the desktop database builders away from Microsoft Access and back into the datacenter's fold. The company has been around since before the last bubble burst, and now it boasts a number of prominent companies as customers.
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Dynamic programming futures 14 October, 2008 08:47

What will the world of dynamic programming languages and Web applications look like in five years? This is one of those highly personal and deeply philosophical questions best saved for after dessert is served, the drinks are poured, and the sidearms are safely locked away.
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Coghead clicks for non-coders 23 September, 2008 08:33

The relentless drive to control every part of the world from a browser-based widget is now turning on itself. Not only are all of our desktop applications being replaced with HTML, but the act of creating a Web application itself has moved to the Web. The new platform from Coghead lets anyone build Web applications by pointing and clicking at another Web application. The only time you need to edit ASCII is when you're putting labels on columns and widgets.