Blogs@Intel

Intel Animation Sand-to-Silicon

2009-11-12T15:23:50Z

Intel releases a new animation film showcasing the innovation that goes into making an Intel microprocessor. This film demos in a simple way how Intel makes microprocessors from sand removing the complex components.

Click Here to view the animation

Enroll in Intel Software Partner Program today and learn how the program can help you deliver innovative solutions to meet your users' demands. Learn More

Visualize this! A talk with Son Kim - Project offset contest winner

2009-11-12T14:35:03Z

Hello and welcome to another episode of Visualize this! where we talk about topics relating to Visual Computing. I am Arti Gupta, community manager for Games Development on the Intel Software Network.

Today's show is a slightly different format. Steve Pitzel community manager for Artist/Animator and Media will talk with Son Kim, uber modeler and winner of Project Offset’s first User Created Content contest, Son Kim.

Download link to a high quality MP4 video file of the show (about 150MB)

Show notes:
• Where did you first learn about Project Offset?
• What got you get interested in building 3D CG characters?
• What tools do you like to use.
• Any tips and tricks that you want to share with our viewers.
• What are your future plans?

I am always looking for community feedback and questions. You can email them to visualizethis@intel.com

You can watch Visualize This! live alternate Tuesdays at noon Pacific on Intel Software Network TV, our new 24/7 interactive video channel. Come chat with us, or browse the On Demand section to see past episodes of our shows.

My Interest in Technology is Really a Recent Phenomenon

2009-11-12T12:53:43Z

This is a guest post from Intel Insider Erin Kane, one of the dynamic duos behind ManicMommies — follow them on Twitter. We first met at Intel’s Upgrade Your Life event earlier this year, and joined her this month for the annual Manic Mommies Escape gathering in Napa, CA.

I’ll admit, when Intel first approached me about being an Insider, I felt a little (OK, a lot) out of my league. My interest in technology is really a recent phenomenon, sparked by the success of “Manic Mommies,” the weekly podcast I produce and co-host with my geeky neighbor and good friend Kristin Brandt.

Kristin and I met several years ago in our neighborhood outside Boston. At the time, she was working in marketing and advertising and I was doing publicity for a public television series. We both had 2-year-old boys and instantly bonded over our work. As communications professionals, we knew that podcasts and blogs were the hot new thing and we decided that together we’d like to learn a little more about the new media universe. Kristin had been designing Web sites and knew HTML, but my computer skills were pretty much limited to Microsoft Office.

We talked a lot about doing “something for working moms” and finally, one Sunday morning in June of 2005, we reached out to working moms around the world with our first audio podcast. How’d we do it? We plopped a microphone on the sticky counter in Kristin’s kitchen (next to a full basket of unfolded laundry, naturally) and hit the record button. Kristin was on maternity leave at the time, having just given birth to her daughter Sophie, and I had just left my full-time job to launch a public relations consulting business out of my home. Together we had four kids under three, two husbands, two houses, two careers and too little time.

The first podcast covered the usual topics: breastfeeding at the office, managing the household, day care, and, of course, our relationships with our husbands. It was raw, it was honest, and when we uploaded the poor-quality audio file to Apple’s iTunes store, we had no idea if anyone would ever listen to it.

Then the e-mails started trickling in. Working moms praised us for our honesty. They told us about their struggles to do it all day in and day out. They said they had little time for nurturing friendships. They felt like bad moms because they worked. Or they felt like bad employees because they had kids. Maybe dad was the stay at home parent and mom was feeling a little jealous. Some moms who wrote said they tried to do it all and they just couldn’t. They left their lucrative careers to start their own businesses. Experienced moms wrote in to say, “I’ve been where you are and, trust me, it doesn’t get any easier when your kids get older. It just gets different.”

Suddenly, technology was opening up a whole new world to us! We were connecting with women across the U.S. and the world who were also struggling to manage the chaotic combination of work and family. As iPods became more ubiquitous, our listenership increased. We were featured in the iTunes store. And within months, Manic Mommies became more than just a weekly podcast. We launched and re-launched our blog several times. We opened up a private community using Big Tent. We landed our first corporate sponsor and started writing a tech blog for Real Simple Magazine’s Web site. Suddenly, our little baby podcast grew into a trademarked, incorporated new media company. Technology has literally changed our lives.

And we are not alone. Almost every day I receive a note from a listener who says listening to our podcast has helped her feel better about her work and home lives. Through interviews on our show and in posts on ManicMommies.com we try to provide working moms lots of support. We share recipes. We review helpful products and offer advice (some good, some questionable) on how to manage the chaos that is modern motherhood.

After all, we know what it feels like to fall short on a work project. To forget a kid at day care. To miss the school bus. To run out of diapers or wipes when baby needs them most. But we also know that what we do is so very important. Raising the next generation while contributing to the economy and the corporate bottom line is no small task. It’s no wonder we’re all so damn exhausted!

In the Mind of a Mobile Developer

2009-11-12T10:44:23Z

This is a guest post by Intel Insider Steve “Chippy” Paine, who was sponsored by Intel recently to attend the Intel Developer Forum and Mobile Dev Camp in Munich. He shares in mobile technology insights at UMPCPortal and MIDMoves.

Trying to work out how a mobile application developer thinks is becoming quite the hot topic these days. In the last 2 years the business of writing mobile applications from niche to normal and we’re at the stage now where not only the mobile platform is important; not only the operating system is important but a stage where the whole application ecosystem from developers to users could make or break a product. It’s no longer a ‘value-add’ to have a dynamic set of applications available for your mobile device but an expected part of the product.

I’ve been tracking mobile operating systems for a few years now and one of the questions I’m always asking is ‘how does a developer choose a platform.’

At the Mobile Dev Camp in Munich last week I had another chance to drill down into the mind of the mobile application developer. They’re a driven, intelligent bunch of people that, when in small teams, don’t worry too much about the programming language used to create apps. After all, if you’re intelligent enough to learn one language, you can learn another. I did it with CESIL, Basic, Assembler and C back in the 80’s and 90’s and if I can do it, so can most developers I’m sure, so what results is a very dynamic, forward-looking, creative mass of intelligence looking for a new idea. Obviously it helps if teams can position themselves around am existing skill-set and this is an important factor but Mobile Dev Camp Munich underpinned my belief that mobile developers are very light-footed.

Earlier this year I attended MDC in Amsterdam where I noted:

Developers are creative people that don’t enjoy being bound by rules so an API that allows or even stimulates creativeness by exposing hardware and features is a big advantage. New hardware with new or advanced features, stimulates developers.
Developers will balance the cost of development (ease of API, cost of developers, stability of platform) with perceived customer base / earning potential.
Developers want a platform (or are stimulated by a platform) that allows them to utilise existing or easily-available skillsets - Java for Android, Objective C for iPhone for example.

In Munich I encountered another sub-set of developers too. It’s a group of developers that are looking much further into the future than many others I’ve met. It’s a group of people that are watching the hardware and operating systems closely with one eye and with the other, they’re watching the browser. Advances in browser technology, web standards and, of course, platforms, means that there’s an interesting junction coming up. If the number of platforms increases and the operating systems splinter as a result, the browser becomes a way to side-step all that hassle. We’re talking about 4 years in the future here at a time when our handhelds are likely to be processing Javascript faster than on the laptops we’re using today and when HTML 5 allows video, audio and drawing operations to happen directly in the browser and the web standards allow more access to computer hardware but it’s certainly something to think about.

Improvements in browser and platform technology was at the core of the first talk I attended in Munich. Stefan Zaunseder and Christian Schilcher from GISCAD who have both spent a lot of time researching the best technologies to use to present detailed mapping information via SVG. Should they use a client application or should they use a browser?

From the statistics they presented it appears that we’re already reaching a crossover point where, on phone devices, in-browser performance is finally reaching levels that can satisfy an end user. In-browser applications have a long way to go however and more processing power and browser performance is needed in order to be able to do really cool stuff on a mobile device. There’s also the other issue. The application stores have made it nice and easy for developers to get paid for their apps. That needs to happen for browser applications too and could be a big hurdle.

Attending a mobile developer camp means you’re talking almost exclusively about smartphones but it was interesting to see the response from developers as I made my own presentation about device categorisation.

I tried to highlight the changing crossover point between devices on ARM and Intel ultra mobile platforms and to show how small the current X86 devices have become using a big set of devices I took with me. I also highlighted some applications that I think don’t really fit onto a smartphone very well. Media playback, ebook reading, navigation and high-end web browsing were my main examples. I also highlighted where Intel are moving to, the expected sizing of Moorestown devices and how the Moblin platform could cover hardware from smartphones to netbooks. When I highlighted the numbers involved I couldn’t help but notice a few people taking notes!

It’s certainly something to think about because as Moorestown and Medfield platforms feed-in with heaps of performance and Moblin develops into a mature OS you get an interesting hardware platform, a single unified OS that spans multiple device categories and of course, an application development program. Again, we’re not talking about tomorrow or even 2010 but as we look beyond and consider the roadmap and numbers, I’m sure some of those developers will be on the move again.

The Mind of a Mobile Developer is dynamic.

Thanks to Intel for sponsoring my visit to the Mobile Dev Camp in Munich under the Intel Insiders program.

Casual Gamers Want "Relax" Mode

2009-11-12T10:00:25Z

As the Atom processor makes its way into Netbooks, MIDs and handhelds next year, casual gaming is an opportunity for many software developers to explore developing new games on Intel Architecture. We should see games designed specifically for the hardware such as smaller screen sizes on Netbooks. However I think we may also see games designed specifically for the moods of people using a portable device, i.e. wanting to have a quick break while waiting in doctors office or taking mass transit.

Teresa Carrigan, a professor of Computer Science and game developer for Electrotank, authored an interesting article in Casual Connect’s recent 2009 Summer Magazine(PDF) titled. "Calm Down, Would You?" This article takes a look at how users would like to have options to play casual games in a relaxed mode.

I have to admit this topic resonates with me. If my day isn't already packed with meetings, clearing email, and social networks; rather than a welcome break, video games can often be a huge time suck or a crazy beat the clock stresser. Seriously, Modern Warfare 2 is sizing up to be a number of lost weekends. (arguably a good problem)

And casual games with countdown timers to beat, can be anything but relaxing. How many words can you get in Quordy on the iPhone in 60 seconds. I thought 30 was good until my wife told me she regularly gets 60. Remove the timer and I know I can beat her (well in my head anyway).

According to Teresa

Having to beat a timer can give some players a thrill. There’s that rush of adrenaline that comes with barely squeaking by in the last few seconds, and the joy of finally beating a difficult level after several attempts. This thrill appeals to many players, but by no means to all of them.

In her article Teresa reviewed feedback from casual gamers in online forums and found they are seeking more "relax" modes in their favorite games.

Many users are clamoring for options that allow them to tailor the games they purchase to suit their mood and style of play. Some of the most outspoken users are disabled and would be happy to buy twice as many games as they do now if only those games had a few easy-to-add options

Teresa believes developers can create alternative scoring methods to accommodate relax modes. Here is my shorthand on her tips:

Practice mode: Set a mode without a timer, or timer off.
Expert, Normal, Easy, Relaxed Mode: If the game doesn’t make sense with no timer, give it a large time limit such as four or eight times that of Expert.
Gold, Silver, Blue, Green: Let the player finish or play outside of a target time. Gold goes to those who finish within the target time etc
Counting Hints: Allow the gamer to take his time and gather as many hints or hidden objects as possible
Counting Unused Power-ups:
Counting Moves:
Counting Customers (Time Management Games): In time management games that have a goal of earning a target amount of money within a time limit, the relaxed mode might instead require that you earn that sum within a certain number of customers.

I think these make great sense and lend themselves to a casual portable gaming experience. Relaxed mode scoring could also involve social gaming, i.e. send your result to a friend, have them beat you and so on. No timer needed, just one ups-man-ship. That’s how my daughter and I play I SPY; I found 8, I found 10, and so on.

I can also imagine save points and check points in some of these scenarios as a way to reduce long game play, when you're trying to have a quick break.

Teresa concludes

There is a growing pool of potential customers for games that are not fast-paced. In as much as it is quite easy to implement some type of relaxed mode without affecting the basic gameplay, doing so promises increased sales and profits for minimal investment

I have to agree. As games are developed for the convenience and portability of Netbooks, MIDs and handhelds, you have to consider games modes that aid a simple break away from the day, similar to getting off a quick Tweet or checking your Facebook status. As Teresa notes, these can be "relax" modes you adopt for standard games.

And for me, relax modes mean I don’t up my blood pressure while killing time in a doctors waiting room.. seriously I can't figure how she averages 60 words in 60 seconds.

Relavant Links

How vPro proved it’s value even to me

2009-11-12T09:58:25Z

josh.hilliker@intel.com

Here’s the situation, I recently purchased an ATOM set top box for my TV. I purchased this ATOM based box so that I could play my movies, audio and have an internet device for the TV for the family to leverage (facebook, shopping, checking out sites as a family). I was updating the OS, patching, configuring and ended up rebooting it a few times and then of course throw in a few HARD boots in the middle of it all. I then went to boot it on and this popped up ..

Error:My first comment was Would I have paid for vPro in this box prior, Probably not, would I now pay extra for it, that would be a YES!. So now as I explore more devices in the home, I

Videochat: How developers benefit from the Intel Atom Developer Program

2009-11-12T08:47:38Z

Compared to last year Intel is talking during Microsoft Tech-Ed Europe 2009 not only about Parallel Programming, but also about a brand-new program which is called Intel Atom Developer Program. It's meant to address software developers who are going to write applications which target the netbook platform in particular. During mobiledevcamp Munich 2009 80 barcamper talked about that topic quite lively.

As we blogged already the IADP SDK is available as an alpha version since Tuesday. This will help to raise the developer program to a next level. We just wanted to get some more information regarding IADP and had a short video chat with Beatrice Fraedrich who works as an Outbound Marketeer for IADP EMEA at Intel. Beatrice talks about the advantages of IADP, how developers can make money out of it and which steps are necessary to register for the developer program. So, let's start the movie.

Macraigor Systems* usb2Demon Support for Intel® Atom™ processor system debugging

2009-11-12T08:19:48Z

With the Intel(R) Embedded Software Development Tool Suite 2.1.008 update release from early November Intel started supporting the Macraigor Systems* usb2Demon device (check out their website at http://www.macraigor.com/intel/). This low cost JTAG system debug device supporting the Intel(R) Atom(TM) processor z5xx and N2xx platforms for embedded and custom platform operating system and software stack bringup simplifies and streamlines development of embedded Intel(R) Atom(TM) processor based platforms.

Combining these capabilities with the Eclipse RCP based fully GUI driven Intel(R) JTAG Debugger and the whole Intel(R) Embedded Software Development Tool Suite available at http://www.intel.com/software/products/atomtools delivers a concise yet complete solution for Linux* hosted Intel(R) Atom(TM) processor targeted system development.

Please feel free to check it out :-)

Simon Crosby from Citrix Systems on Cloud Computing

2009-11-12T08:00:57Z

In this video from the Intel Developer Forum (IDF), Simon Crosby, CTO, Virtualization at Citrix Systems, talks about XenServer, private vs. public cloud solutions, optimization for Intel architectures, benefits of virtualization for IT, and other virtualization technologies.

You can watch more of our videos by visiting the open source multimedia page.

How Microsoft's CCR can help .NET developers to multithread apps

2009-11-12T07:02:42Z

The first session during Day Four at Microsoft Tech-Ed Europe 2009 was held by Ralf Westphal, a German software developer, speaker, expert, whatever. He is a real good guy who knows a lot about (parallel) programming topics. So it was no surprise that he talked about asynchronous parallel programming in a very lively and comprehensive manner. His main foucs was the Concurrency Coordination Runtime (CCR) which Microsoft implements since the launch of .NET framework 3.5. For all of you guys who are not so familiar with the CCR, Microsoft offers some good information on MSDN Online.

The first interesting statement Ralf made was related to the fact that software developers have to take care of multi-threading their apps themselves instead of letting the operating system do this job alone. Furthermore he talked about the well-known statement of Herb Sutter who said in 2005: "The free lunch is over". What this means can be summarized quite shortly:

As the processor frequencies won't increase any more but the numbers of available core per system will, software developers have to think about parallel programming in order to accelerate their apps in the future.

Believing in Ralf (and I do so) parallel programming stands for the following things:

Reduced latency, higher performance, hiding latency, higher responsivness and increased throughput.

Right after this list Ralf asked two rhetorical questions which you can answer quite easily within a few seconds:

Does firing up as many threads as cores are available help to accelerate apps? No, because this will cause threads waiting!

Does firing up as many threads as needed helps to accelerate apps? No, because it doesn’t scale!

Then he talked very detailed about the Concurrency Coordination Runtime and how you can compare it to task management via e-mail where you send somebody a task which he or she performs instantly or even later. That's what Ralf calls asynchronous multi-threading. Following statements fit perfectly to this:

Concurrency Coordination Runtime (CCR) helps to let data flow around and make thus asynchronous apps possible Parallel Computing is all about cooperative multitasking where you have to think about small processes and steps

Afterwards Ralf showed us a very comprehensive demonstration of the CCR in conjuction with several coding examples. Unfortunately this demo was far too long to show completely and that would not have been very helpful. But what I've heard, Microsoft will put all the sessions online. As soon as this happens I will link the related webcast to this blog post.

After his presentation we asked Ralf three questions which had to do with his tech sessions at Microsoft Tech-Ed and with the CCR and how it can help .NET developers to multi-thread their apps. Question number three was related to a real exciting news he talked about for the very first time in public. So please enjoy the show!

Intel AT Update

2009-11-12T06:09:32Z

mike.schulien@intel.com

Intel AT - that's Antitheft for most of us, the ability to "brick" or lock the PC at the hardware level - effectively turning it into a brick if it is lost or stolen. Intel AT has been available in the Lenovo ThinkPad line of laptops for just over a year:

Lenovo ThinkPad R400/500, T400/400s/500, and W400 along with the X200/200s/200 tablet and the X301.New Product SKU's available now include:Fujitsu Lifebook T5010 and the E6420Panasonic Toughbook series (not all models are AT capable)As we move into 2010 more OEM's will be bringing Intel AT support to their lineup as well; HP, Dell, Acer and ASUS will all have support for AT in early 2010.Intel AT requires a service in order to utilize the features in the antitheft engine (part of the AMT Management Engine); Absolute Software offers its Computrace application that takes full advantage of Intel AT and allows the IT department to set both the lock down and timer parameters.

Parallel Programming Talk #55 - Daniel Moth on Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

2009-11-11T16:42:44Z

Hello Parallel Programers! I'm Aaron Tersteeg. Welcome to Episode 55 of Parallel Programming Talk. Joining me again is Dr. Clay Breshears. On today's show we talked with Daniel Moth from Microsoft about Visual Studio 2010.

Download an mp3 of show.

First the News:

Intel(r) Parallel Studio Webinars
Live sessions are held at 9 a.m. PST/Noon EST.

Dec. 1: Bernard Laberge, Avid: A Quick and Easy Way to Parallelize a Legacy Codebase with Intel(r) Threading Building Blocks
Dec. 15: Matt Dunbar, SIMULIA: How to Use Intel(r) Parallel Studio to Streamline Code Development in a Multi-core Environment

Intel Threading Challenge PHASE 2

Problem 1 - "Strassen's Algorithm" winner was iArchitect Problem 2 - "Knights Tour" winner is "mdm100"
Problem 3 - "Graph Coloring" winner is "akki"
Problem 4 - "The Traveling Baseball Fans" winner is "akki"
PROBLEM 5: "3-D Convex Hull" closed on November 6th and is currently being judged.
PROBLEM 6: "Maximum Independent Set" The final problem for this years has been released and is due November 20th. Submit your solution TODAY!

PDC09 - Microsoft Professional Developers Conference
November 17 - 19, 2009 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, California

Be sure to attend the Parallelism talks at PDC09
Meet the Microsoft Parallel Computing Platform Team @ PDC'09
Get caught up on last year's managed parallel programming session from last year's PDC.

SC09 - The Super Computer Conference
November 14-20, 2009 in Portland, Oregon Michael Wrinn and Aaron Tersteeg will be broadcasting Live from the show floor on Tuesday at 8:00AM The Intel Software network team will be participating in panels and on the show floor for the whole event.

Microsoft will also be attending and presenting at SC09. Steve Teixeira, Microsoft Parallel Development Tools Product Unit Manager is giving talks at SC09. Also Daniel Moth would love to meet you at the Parallel Computing Platform exhibition booth.

The first Tuesday of the month is our Listener Questions show. December 8th is the next one.
If you have a question or idea about the show send it in to ParallelProgrammingTalk@Intel.com

On the Show today:

Daniel Moth from Microsoft on Visual Studio 2010

Aaron and Clay talked Parallel Programming in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 with Daniel Moth from the Parallel Computing team at Microsoft (and former MVP for Device Application Development). Read his blog to learn more about Daniel.

Daniel gave a great overview of the new features and debugging tools for parallel programming offered in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. "The Beta includes .NET Framework libraries such as the Task Parallel Library (TPL) and Parallel LINQ (PLINQ), as well as the Parallel Patterns Library (PPL) and Concurrency Runtime for developing native applications with C++, and parallel profiling and debugging tools for both Tasks and Threads." Learn more about parallel programming with Microsoft technologies.

Download Visual Studio 2010 Beta2

Watch an end-to-demo of our VS2010 parallel technologies

Check out Daniel's deep dive in the parallel debugging (the feature area he owns) and another video on parallel debugging.

Daniel Moth will be attending SC09 in Portland, Oregon from November 16-20.

If your interested in meeting Daniel to discuss Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 or Microsoft HPC technologies drop us a line at parallelprogrammingtalk@intel.com, we are happy to make the introduction.

Coming up Next Week on Parallel Programming Talk.

Michael Wrinn and Aaron Tersteeg will be broadcasting live from SC09 in Portland, Oregon with special guest Intel's James Reinders.

Lowering the Cost of Data. A Lot.

2009-11-11T14:18:10Z

aaron.dorlando@intel.com

When intelligent hardware meets smart software, something amazing happens. It helps you to lower the cost of data. And not just a little. A lot. It’s no secret that businesses can gain strategic advantages from turning data into insights faster than their...

Mobile and Netbook optimization blogs posted on the Atom Developer site

2009-11-11T14:09:34Z

A few weeks back I posted a few blogs to the Atom Developer site that contained useful information about optimizing for small mobile form factor devices. I wanted to give a brief mention of those blogs here so that the broader audience might know they are there and to also give a heads up for the Atom Developer focused site. (New blogs are auto posted as necessary now, but these were posted before that system was in place, thus this notice )

If you are doing Atom and Mobile focused work, check out the site and join us as a developer.

Here’s the 4 blogs you might find useful:

Connectivity concerns for Netbook applications

http://appdeveloper.intel.com/en-us/blog/2009/09/16/connectivity-concerns-netbook-applications

Developing for power and performance on a Netbook

http://appdeveloper.intel.com/en-us/blog/2009/09/16/developing-power-and-performance-netbook

Adapting your application to Netbook hardware

http://appdeveloper.intel.com/en-us/blog/2009/09/16/adapting-your-application-netbook-hardware

Creating a Netbook UI for your application

http://appdeveloper.intel.com/en-us/blog/2009/09/14/creating-netbook-ui-your-application

Finding AMT Objects in Active Directory

2009-11-11T13:03:38Z

pcgeek86@gmail.com

If you are using Out Of Band (OOB) Management in Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 SP1 (or greater) to manage your Intel vPro clients, you may have noticed that computer objects are created in your Active Directory domain during provisioning of the Intel vPro firmware. These computer objects are created by the amtproxymgr component of an OOB Service Point, and allow Intel vPro to communicate directory with Active Directory, regardless of the operating system state.

Since these vPro computer objects appear very similar to standard computer objects that are created when joining a Windows OS to an AD domain, it may be hard to distinguish which ones are vPro accounts, and which ones aren't. This situation can be worsened if you somehow have Windows computer accounts mixed into the same OU that contains your AMT objects.As you'll see below, it's very easy to locate these computers using some simple PowerShell code:$vprosearcher = [adsisearcher]"((objectclass=computer)(serviceprincipalname=*:16993*)(samaccounttype=805306368))"$vproaccounts = $vprosearcher.FindAll()These two lines of code simply create a System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher instance, with some LDAP search criteria to identify the accounts, and then assigns the results of this search to a PowerShell variable called $vproaccounts. The default search root is the top-level of your Active Directory domain, and the default search scope is already set to SubTree, so you don't have to specifically configure these settings on the DirectorySearcher. Once you're at this point, you can simply enumerate the accounts, or pipe the results into a PowerShell ForEach loop, and perform some operation against them (for example, givem them a Description attribute value).Because this code sample uses the "adsisearcher" type accelerator (aka. type shortcut), it will only work with PowerShell v2.0 (included as part of the Windows Management Framework), unless you modify PowerShell v1.0 to include it. There's almost no reason not to be using PowerShell 2.0, now that it has been officially released, however. I recommend using the free Quest PowerGUI tool to develop and debug PowerShell scripts.Cheers,Trevor Sullivan

Developer Ignite 2 brings "nerd" to Gilbert, AZ

2009-11-11T10:02:46Z

Ever wonder what would happen if you gathered your community's most wild & crazy (and influential!) developers together and let them present whatever they want for 5-minutes in front of a large audience? We'll be finding out on November 11 @ 6PM at the second Developer Ignite event in Gilbert, AZ! From Javascript to crowdsourcing, GPS to database refactoring, and agility to webhooks -- it's all loud, proud, and NERDY ... for 5-minutes at a time.

Developer Ignite is presented in the O'Reilly "Ignite" format, and if you're never watched an Ignite event before, it is quite entertaining. Each presenter gets 20 slides that change after 15 seconds; making each presentation last for exactly 5 minutes. You have to be quick and to the point with no frills! Presenters will tell you it's all about practice and choosing your words wisely to get your point across in 5 minutes, which is sometimes difficult with a topic as complicated as immutability!

If you're local in Arizona, definitely come down and watch the show on November 11th; find all the details at intel.com/software/ignite. And even if you're not in Arizona, don't worry - we've got you covered. Follow our Socialping live Twitter feed wall, view the photos on our Facebook fan page (click the Photos tab after the event), and view the event video on our webpage. You can also download some snazzy backgrounds for your viewing pleasure (at the top of our webpage)!

Developers, get ready to IGNITE!

Video chat: The future of parallel programming

2009-11-11T09:18:57Z

Now I know at least what "Birds-of-a-feather" discussion means: many interested people come together in a medium sized room, listening to a well-educated guy talking about his favorite topic. And right after the start of the session there is a lively discussion going on where you hear a lot of new and some known things. That's what happened during Microsoft Tech-Ed Europe 2009 where I attended a tech session called "Future of Parallel Programming" held by Tiberiu Covaci.

But I have to say that his session was more of a workshop than a presentation: No slides at all and a very interactive discussion regarding Intel, Microsoft and the multicore shift including .NET 4 and Visual Studio 2010. Want need some quotes?

TPL of .NET 4 delivers the right number of threads regarding the available number of cores

It takes about 200.000 instruction cycles to create a thread and 100.000 for releasing it again. As a developer you have to take this into account!

TPL delivers several parallel classes like Parallel.For() and Parallel.Invoke() which abstracts threads to tasks

Visual Studio 2010 will deliver the appropriate debugger tools for parallelized applications

What I was missing, though, was to hear about Tiberiu's vision of the future of parallel programming - the headline of the presentation. So we set up our video cam and asked Tiberiu some smart questions. These had to do with his presentation in general, with the discussion panel he attended on Monday, and by answering question number three he shared some insights how the future of parallel programming will look like.

Just as a short preview: Related to Tiberiu's words software developers have to start thinking about multi-threading NOW as the multicore era is already there. And the rest of his talk you'd better watch with the help of our video clip. So, push the button and start the show.

Presentation of information on the site viva64.com

2009-11-11T08:52:06Z

I am addressing the blog’s readers for a word of advice on how to lay out information on our site. With time, besides PVS-Studio code analysis program product we are developing and selling, www.viva64.com site has included articles and a blog for programmers, presentations/demonstrations/booklets about PVS-Studio code analyzer and solid information traditional for corporate sites.

As a result, on entering the site, one may simply not know what other materials it contains. And even if one is interested in these materials, he or she won’t be able to notice them.

We learned this from analyzing the Google Analytics’ statistics. As a solution we created several special pages called “guides on the site”. On these pages, we wrote in common text what our site contains and gave a lot of links. It seems to us that in this way it will be easier for our visitors to understand what we have on the site.

For example, here we have a guide on the site for 64-bit application developers. And the main page with other guides is here.

Tell us if you do understand what our site contains after reading the guides’ texts. Are there any other means to present navigation information on the site? What recommendations and notes can you give?

Are "64-bit errors" real?

2009-11-11T08:51:44Z

I often hear in various interpretations the phrase: "The given examples show not the code incorrect from the viewpoint of porting to x64 systems, but the code incorrect in itself". I would like to discuss and theorize a bit on this point in the blog. Please, take this note with a bit of humor.

First, let's begin with saying that any code written in C++ is incorrect by itself. Only that code will be correct which consists of the empty function main, yet I'm not sure about it. It is impossible to write an ideal correct program in C/C++. For you should consider that the program should work on a 12-, 16-, 32-, 64-, ...-bit system. The program, if possible, shouldn't allocate memory dynamically because somewhere it is missing. Also, it shouldn't use functions like scanf for you may need to place the program into a controller where there is no input device. The program mustn't use type conversions. Any type conversion is a potential error on some platform. And perhaps it is better to write the program with the help of trigraphs - you never know... :)

Well, I mean that there are no ideally correct programs in C/C++. You can seek to create such a program but you will never create it. In reality, when writing programs an admissible level of correctness and supposition about the execution environment is chosen and the program is written within the framework of this model.

So, any code is incorrect by itself from the viewpoint of an ideal programmer with golden hands living in vacuum. But we can suppose that a particular code be correct in some particular conditions. When the conditions (the environment) change the code may become incorrect. In what way it becomes incorrect depends on the external changes. Search of errors occurring when the execution environment changes can be arranged in a group and successfully diagnosed, while the approach "everything in the program is incorrect" is irrational.

Let's consider an example. We have a program to port into a controller which won't have a console. The program has some number of cout, cin, printf, scanf. We should find and "deactivate" these functions. Suppose that input be performed through the ports connected to some handle on the device's case. There is no sense in saying that the code is bad, the programmer who wrote it is bad only because he hadn't foreseen that there can be no console and one cannot disable all these sections by one pressure. It won't help us. And there is no sense in trying to perform an ideal refactoring to create an ideal program. We should only find and fix the necessary fragments. One can invent a static analyzer of "input-output issues in controllers"-diagnosis kind. And it will be helpful! But, honestly, all this is due to imperfect code of course :-)

The example above is exaggerated but I just want to show that when one is writing code one cannot foresee everything. One doesn't know that in five years this code will be placed into a controller, ported on a 64-bit system or adapted to a submarine. It is rather difficult to foresee some things.

Programmers have and maintain that code which they have. It can contain a lot of magic numbers, THOUSANDS of expressions where signed and unsigned types are used together, where many warnings may be disabled because one has to use LARGE old third-party libraries. And no one will bother to perform total refactoring of such projects to make them more beautiful, portable etc. And if one insists on this - this person should be fired. :) In reality, you should solve real tasks. You should add new functionality, organize maintenance on existing systems. If necessary, you should port the code on 64-bits. But when you port the code on a 64-bit system, it is this task that will be solved and not the task of how to make the code maximum portable. And here we face the practical task of detecting particular magic numbers (but not all of them), unsafe expressions with signed and unsigned types (but not all of them).

My position may seem wrong to many people as if I'm urging to write bad code and then use various crutches (which I sell myself) to fix it in some places. I am simply a practitioner. And also I call many things by their names. :)

Mostly, program code is BAD. And it works more or less well because it is lucky. Unfortunately, programmers are persistent in not admitting it. Any "code-shaking" (changing of the compiler, execution environment etc) reveals a layer of particular types of errors. I understand that there are no "64-bit" errors. There are just errors in code. They are always present in code. But some errors will occur on a 64-bit system. I tell developers about these errors and hope it will help them. And it is these errors that I call "64-bit errors".

Videochat: How .NET developers benefit from multicore platforms

2009-11-11T08:02:02Z

Day three of Microsoft Tech-Ed Europe 2009 started with Rami Radi's very informative and technical session where he talked about Windows 7, .NET 4 and the question how .NET developers can benefit from multicore platforms. Rami is working as a software engineer at Intel and helps ISVs optimizing their applications to run best on multicore sytems.

First of all I have to admit that there were a lot of people at Rami's tech session like the one of Steve Teixeira who took place yesterday. Interesting thing: hardly anybody of the attendees knew that Intel is not only manufacturing microprocessors. Nor did they know that there are a lot of developer tools from Intel which help to optimize their applications in terms of multithreading and multicore performance.

There were three main areas Rami was focussing on: Intel's current and future microarchtitectures, .NET 4 improvements regarding multithreading and different Intel tools like VTune Performance Analyzer which help software developers to test their apps in terms of correctness and robustness. That's why Rami said some remarkable things:

Moore’s law doesn’t help software developers anymore as frequencies aren’t going up anymore. The good news: the number of core does!

With Nehalem you get Non Uniform Memory Acess (NUMA) which connects every CPU and memory to each other which has huge advantages.

Come to Intel booth in hall 4.2 to see one of the first desktop PCs which is able to run 128 threads in parallel!

Multithreading is not equal parallelism!

Poor scaling .NET applications can be powered up with the help of Intel VTune Performance Analyzer and Visual Studio 2010 / .NET 4

.NET 4 provides the Background Garbage Collection which speeds up managed code significantly.

Worker stealing within .NET 4 will help to achieve better multithreaded balanced managed applications.

VTune profiles and samples .NET applications in order to find critical code sections where a lot of computing time is being wasted

Vtune also helps identifying false sharing problems. Means VTune will detect and solve cache line misses.

To eliminate false sharing problems helps to speed up your .NET apps on 8 core system by 70x!

One part of his presentation was related to a so called Maze Solver demo which was quite compelling. The main idea behind it is the detection of an optimal path within a two dimensional system as you can see it in logistics applications where you need to know the fastest way from A to G with B, C, D, and E in between. The algorithm which solves this problem needs a lot of computing power especially when you look at huge matrixes with 1000 by 1000 elements. In order to show the .NET 4 capabilities in conjunction with a multicore system Rami compared the Maze Solver with .NET 3.5 and .NET 4. Result: with .NET 4 the application was running two seconds faster without any code changes. And guess what: with multithreading ON it was fast as hell.

There were some quite thrilling information about VTune and .NET as well. Who thought that VTune is only suitable for native code is wrong as this profiling and sampling tool also supports .NET applications. So you can debug your serial or parallel coded apps in order to find hotspots and other buggy things. To achieve this, VTune is profiling the running programme and creates a huge number of samples which will be aggregated and assessed. As a result you can see all the possible hotspots quite quickly. A very useful tool.

And of course after his presentation we had our videocam up and running in order to ask Rami some deep dive questions like "What can developers expect when they move from .NET 3.5 to .NET 4?" and "How can VTune help software developers?" So, take a seat, grab some popcorn and enjoy the show!

TechEd09: Parallel Studio tech session and a netbook draw

2009-11-11T05:16:53Z

Exactely at 4:30 p.m. at Day One during Microsoft Tech-Ed Europe 2009 Ralph de Wargny from Intel entered the stage and told the audience in 15 minutes important facts about Intel Parallel Studio which helps native coder parallelizing and optimizing their multihreaded code. But what we learnt today: Parallel Studio is suitable for serial coded apps either if you want to find possible memory errors for example. Or how Ralph said:

With Parallel Inspector you find memory errors before they happen. Works on serial AND threaded code.

And he also named the interesting fact that

Intel Parallel Amplifier is a child of VTune Performance Analyzer, but easier and more intuitively to use. Profile you parallel code.

Right after his session Ralph drew the happy guy who received a cool Sony Vaio netbook which you could win at the Intel stand in hall 4.2. BTW: There are two more opportunities to win a new netbook. Just stop by and fill out the raffle card with the right answers. And guess what: The hallway was really crowded as everybody wanted to win this great price. And the guy who won the netbook was really happy.

As we know that seeing is believing we created a small video clip which shows Ralph's presentation and the netbook draw. Have fun watching it!

Texts, Tags & Tweets, Oh My!

2009-11-10T18:06:03Z

This weekend Intel's Kelly Feller (@Kellyrfeller) and I were part of a group of 150 moms from 28 states (plus Canada) who swarmed Napa as part of the Manic Mommies "Escape."

Manic Mommies Creators, Erin Kane and Kristin Brandt

Manic Mommies creators Erin and Kristin (@emkprgal and @kristinsb) are the epicenter of an online community of moms who come together (virtually) to talk, commiserate, get advice and share knowledge about juggling careers, children, husbands, and housework.

The key feature is their weekly podcast, which is seriously funny and entertaining, like you're having a conversation with a close friend. In their spare time (what's that?) they write the tech blog for RealSimple, and Erin is a member of the Intel Insider social media advisory panel.

This year for the third time they held their annual "Escape" conference for their community. Intel was lucky enough to participate and talk to these women about social media -- " TEXTS, TAGS & TWEETS, OH MY: DEMYSTIFYING ONLINE SOCIAL TOOLS FOR PROFESSIONAL & PERSONAL GAIN."

The power of online communities really came to life for me at this conference. You listen to some podcasts, make some comments, join the community. Pretty soon, you and "Sally" are exchanging emails. Then "Trish" asks you to be her friend on Facebook. Also of a sudden, you have a group of online friends who you've never met. The online relationship comes first and foremost before the opportunity to meet in person arises via "Escape."

Now this audience isn't a bunch of black clad, 20 something, San Francisco livin, social media "gurus." These are "Walmart" moms from all over the country. It shouldn't really surprise me that women would use technology to enhance their lives.

After all women love tech tools that make their lives simplier, easier and more fun. And what could be more fun than building friendships with a group of women with similar interests who just happen to live miles away but can seem so close through sites like Manic Mommies.

Webcast: Spend Smart, Do More & Be More Secure

2009-11-10T16:43:19Z

julie.a.whitcraft@intel.com

In today’s environment, the pressure to justify any investment is high and often, delaying your PC refresh cycle seems like an easy answer. Join me tomorrow for a webinar with Dave Bowers from Dell for a discussion on the financial reasons to renew, redeploy and refresh an aging PC fleet. We’ll cover key areas to consider that can impact the total cost of ownership for your PC fleet – such as energy savings, security, and productivity. We’ll also provide you with access to tools that you can use to develop your own analysis and assist you in your budgeting conversations for next year. Learn more about optimizing your PC refresh cycle and reducing your total costs.

Intel Initiative Aims For More IT Enabled Innovation

2009-11-10T12:21:33Z

christopher.p.peters@intel.com For the past couple months, I have been working to understand Intel IT's innovation model ... specifically, how do we create business value with IT investment. I have come across many approaches, opinions, projects, programs and more. One of

Creating hope, defeating challenges for the learning disabled

2009-11-10T07:02:48Z

I am so proud of the team that put the Intel® Reader together, and as someone who has difficulty reading standard print myself, I am very excited to see it entering the market. I filed the first patents on this technology a number of years ago and am thrilled to see the results of the hundreds of people who have worked so hard to make this Intel branded product possible. As the director of access technology in the Digital Health Group at Intel, I would like to tell you my personal thoughts on this introduction.

The Intel Reader is a mobile handheld device designed to increase independence for people who have learning disabilities such as dyslexia, or have low-vision, blindness or for anyone who struggles with reading standard print. It is going to be a great tool for people like me who have difficulty with text. I am dyslexic and was in special education throughout elementary school. When I was growing up, my 'reading technology' was my mom and my 'accommodation specialist' was my dad. I, like most students, was tested on my ability to learn to read, and I failed miserably.

It is important to remember that a central experience of a disability, and especially a learning disability, is loneliness. It was a lonely feeling to have to leave class in third grade, and head to a special room to sound out words while the other kids had reading groups. And adults feel lonely as they worry that people might find out they do not have any books at home and that they cannot read the text off a power point slide in a meeting.

There are an estimated 55 million people with specific learning disabilities and vision impairments in the United States. This population will grow as we all age and the Baby Boomers reach their senior years. The public policy impact of this is massive - the lost workers, the cost in daily time for parents and kids to help with reading and homework, the unnecessary increase to the dropout rate. The National Institutes of Health found in 2000 that a person with a learning disability like me was twice as likely to drop out of high school and 12 times less likely to get a four-year college degree. That is a huge loss for society and a frustrating personal experience for people living it.

I went to Stanford Law School and Business School and earned my JD/MBA. Ironically, this can lead people to question how dyslexic I really am. I like to tell the story of a college friend who came to visit me once. He walked into my living room and said "Wow! You really are dyslexic! You don't have any books here. No novels. No cook books. No travel books." And my response was "Nope. They are not useful to me. Why would I?" He got it and no longer doubted who I was.

Since using the Intel Reader, I have bought five books online - five more than I even bought for pleasure in my life. I have heard the same thing from low vision and blind folks. My favorite example is of Dorrie Rush, the access technology reviewer for the Lighthouse International--one of the many advocate groups that are supportive of this product. She worked for years in the fashion industry. Recently, she began loosing her vision to macular degeneration. She used to enjoy reading Vogue and seeing the latest trends. With the Intel Reader, she says she gets that back - she even told me about a pair of Prada shoes she read about with a ruffled velvet fringe! These small things are really important- being able to talk with a friend about a book, or to read a invitation to a wedding; and more people will be able to get this in their lives now with the Intel Reader.

Intel has done a great thing for the world. Some people with disabilities can do great things, and some people cannot. But we are trying to level the paying field so that people with disabilities can determine this for themselves. With the Intel Reader, we are a step closer to that goal.

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