celeb news and gossip: October 2012

Monday, October 8, 2012

5 Ways To Manage App Development On The Android Platform Without Going Nuts

The fractured state of the Android platform can make it difficult to manage app development.?Testing can be a bear but cloud-based services are providing new ways for developers to quickly see ?how their apps look on any type of device.

In its presentation at PIE Demo Day in Portland on Friday, AppThwack?s Trent Peterson said the remedy comes in automating the testing. Through its cloud-based platform, developers can get answers in minutes to how their apps behave on all the?various?devices and version of the Android OS that people use. AppThwack?runs a lab that tests every device that runs Android. They use that lab as the foundation for its service.

Here?s how it works:

Use the site?s drag-and-drop to securely upload it.
AppThwack runs your app on real phones and tablets, hits it with tests, and gathers statistics.
You can Vvew screen-shots, high-level results, logs, stack-traces, and trends in real time.

For more information, I?d recommend?Sarah Perez thorough review of the service that she wrote in July.

To get a picture of Android?s ecosystem, here?s a chart of its platform and the different versions running.

Since July, AppThwack has run?563,000 tests so these guys know what works and what does not. I asked Peterson what he would recommend to enterprise developers building apps for the Android platform. He gave me these five pieces of advice:

Developing tests as the code is written is important. This can be done using JUnit (Standard unit tests), Robotium (An open-source automation library that makes it easy to write JUnit tests that simulate user interactions), or tools like Gorilla Logic?s MonkeyTalk, which is especially powerful since it allows cross-platform tests (Android+iOS).
Since it?s impossible to catch every bug before sending it out into the wild, tools like BugSense and Crittercism provide a way to get bug reports automatically sent when an app crashes on an actual customer?s device.
Apptentive (currently in TechStars Seattle) provides a way to actually connect with your customers and find out what works and what doesn?t. They focus on making sure customers are leaving good reviews because they truly love your app.
ActionBarSherlock allows an app to gracefully degrade if the app is installed on older devices running older OS. This means on older devices functionality will either be simulated or replaced, but allows developers to skip the traditional in-code branching, which is very error-prone and becomes a nightmare as the market becomes more fragmented.

Enterprise developers would be wise to look at services that provide custom testing. Companies like AppThwack can recommend tools and strategies, or actually help in writing the test plan and scripting it. Testdroid?is another service to explore.

A service like AppThwack won?t solve all your problems but it certainly can make development a more streamlined task and keep your customers from throwing their smartphone in the river.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/07/5-ways-to-manage-app-development-on-the-android-platform-without-going-nuts/

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Single euro-zone budget gains momentum ahead of summit

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Debate about the idea of creating a separate budget for euro zone countries is intensifying in the run up to an EU summit later this month, with less opposition to the proposal than many officials first expected, diplomats say.

At a private dinner held last week among the EU ambassadors of several northern European countries, including Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland, those present were surprised to find a fair degree of consensus on the proposal.

"I wouldn't say that there was strong support for it, but there was certainly a feeling that this is an idea that should be explored in more detail," said one diplomat briefed on the discussion that took place at the gathering.

The single budget proposal was first sketched out by Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, in a paper circulated in September as part of an effort to stimulate debate about how Europe's monetary union should be improved.

In the paper, Van Rompuy said a "fully fledged fiscal union" among the 17 countries that share the euro could involve the creation of a single treasury office and "a central budget whose role and functions would need to be defined".

Those suggestions have since been refined into guidelines that will form the basis of discussion among EU leaders at the summit on October 18-19. The idea will also be explored among euro zone finance ministers at a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.

There is still no clear definition of what a single, central budget would entail, but Germany strongly supports the idea and France is on board too, which in terms of euro zone decision-making means it has substantial momentum.

Britain's support, underlined by Prime Minister David Cameron on Sunday, is also significant, even if it stems more from a desire to distance Britain from the problems of the euro zone than from any solidarity with the single currency club.

"There will come a time when you need to have two European budgets, one for the single currency, because they are going to have to support each other more, and perhaps a wider budget for everybody else," Cameron told the BBC on Sunday, the first day of his Conservative Party's annual conference.

"I don't think we will achieve that this time, but it is an indicator of the way that Europe is going," he said.

SINGLE EURO ZONE BUDGET

While conceptually it may make sense for the countries that share one currency to also create a single budget, it immediately raises thorny questions about sovereignty, budget discipline and long-term ambitions.

Germany's precise ideas about how a single budget would be financed, managed and employed are likely to be vastly different from Portugal's, Estonia's, Italy's or France's once leaders and finance ministers get into the nitty-gritty of the concept.

Yet there are already some broad proposals doing the rounds, including the idea -- backed by France -- that the budget could be financed by revenue from a financial transactions tax (FTT).

Germany and France are already driving an initiative to establish an FTT among nine euro zone, the minimum number permitted to do it alone. There is already support from eight countries and a ninth could come on board as soon as next week, giving added impetus to the plan.

But other euro zone countries that might like a single budget, such as Finland, are lukewarm on the idea of an FTT, underscoring just how complex negotiations could become.

There are also differences of opinion about why a single budget is desirable. Germany sees it as a means of building solidarity and tightening budget rules without moving to the more extreme suggestion of mutualizing all euro zone debt.

France sees a single budget more as a means of ironing out divergences in social and employment policy, arguing that it could be used to help underwrite unemployment benefits in a country suffering from much higher joblessness than the rest.

While many countries are voicing quiet support for the idea, it is also clear that most have a conflicting take on what it would involve if it were ever to become a reality.

Some have hinted that it could involve each country setting aside a fraction -- 0.3 or 0.5 percent of their GDP -- for a communal budget, others dismiss that suggestion out of hand.

"The modalities are completely unknown," said one EU official when asked how a single budget might work.

What's more, even if momentum is growing and it is likely to be a core part of discussions at the October 18-19 summit, it could be years before it becomes reality even if everyone supports it.

Such a fundamental change to how the euro zone is administered would more than likely require a change to the EU treaty, a long, complex and divisive process.

The treaty has already been tinkered with since the debt crisis began and there is a reluctance to open it up again.

Even if German Chancellor Angela Merkel were to support treaty change, it's unlikely she would want to do it until after Germany holds elections in September next year.

But there are also European Parliament elections in June 2014 and most analysts of euro zone politics do not expect it to be possible to drive through substantial treaty change until after that, meaning it may only happen in late 2014 or 2015.

(Additional reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Birmingham and Robin Emmott in Brussels, Writing by Luke Baker; editing by Ron Askew)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/single-euro-zone-budget-gains-momentum-ahead-summit-105343884.html

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Saturday, October 6, 2012

Best Budget AMD Gaming PC Build Under $800 [October 2012 ...

Mid-Range Performance at a Budget Pricetag

For those of you who regularly follow our featured gaming builds here on Custom PC Review, you?ll notice that we didn?t really have anything for the month of September. Now, you may be wondering why is that?

Well, for those interested in the high performance segment and are willing to spend up to $2,000, we put together the ?Best Gaming PC Build Under $2000? in August and for those willing to spend slightly over $1,000 at around $1,200 to $1,300, we put together the ?Best Ivy Bridge Gaming PC Build Under $1,200 or $1,300? in July. Since these builds are still viable today, we didn?t really see any need to update them at the moment.

That said, over the past few *months* we did receive a number of requests for something a little less expensive, and looking back, we haven?t done any PC build at this price range since January of this year! This article then is definitely way overdue ? after all, not everyone has the money to spend northwards of $1,200 or even $1,000 for that matter, so for our featured gaming build for the month of October, we?ll be putting together what we think is the best budget AMD gaming PC build under $800.

With this build, our goal was simple. We wanted to build a gaming system with mid to high end performance at a budget. Wanna see what we came up with? Continue on!

Gaming Computer Build Component Summary ? Budget: $800

Core Component Details

CPU -?AMD FX-4170 4.2GHz Quad-Core Socket AM3+

Normally our $1,000+ builds include either an Intel Core i5 3570K or an Intel Core i7 3770K, but because we?re limited to a budget of $800, we went with an AMD FX-4170.

While AMD CPUs aren?t known for having the highest performance out there, they are known for having excellent performance at the budget level, which is exactly what we?re looking for. Coming from the factory clocked at 4.2GHz, the FX-4170 packs a lot of single threaded performance, which will benefit gamers as most games on the market use either 1 or 2 threads at most.

That said, the AMD FX-4170 is still a quad core CPU, which means games that are capable of taking advantage of multiple threads in the future will be able to take advantage of the 4 cores as well. Given the fact that games are much more heavily GPU dependant than CPU dependent, it?s a much wiser decision to spend a greater majority of our budget on the GPU.

Memory ? 8GB Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz DDR3 Low Profile 1.5v

Why the Corsair Vengeance Low Profile? Similar reasons to the last couple of featured gaming builds. Excellent, high quality memory that doesn?t cost a boatload, but still delivers excellent performance. Additionally, these memory sticks are low profile, which means if you plan on adding a large CPU cooler in the future, these memory sticks will not interfere.

Motherboard -?Gigabyte?GA-990FXA-UD3

When we went out searching for a motherboard for this build, we wanted a high quality, rock solid motherboard that didn?t break the bank, yet had all the features that would be beneficial for those looking to upgrade in the future. The Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 delivers that.

With support for 6 x SATA 3 6Gb/s connections (Yes, 6!), 4x PCIe 2.0 x16 slots (Remember, graphics cards these days don?t yet saturate PCIe 2.0), USB 3.0, Ultra Durable 3, and 8+2 power phases, this board has all the features we need a bit more.

With a pricetag of only $133.99 and an additional $10 rebate at the moment, the GA-990FXA-UD3 is one board that fits the bill perfectly.

Case -?Antec One

Remember the case we used for the?July 2012 ?Best Ivy Bridge Gaming PC Build?? Well, for this months build, we?ve decided to once again go with the Antec One. It simply has everything we need such as front panel USB 3.0, compatibility for ATX motherboards, a tool-less design and more for only a mere $44.99. Outstanding!

GPU -?HIS 7850 IceQ X 2GB

For this build, we knew we had to sacrifice on the graphics card a bit, but we wanted to spend the largest chunk of money on it as well as this is a gaming PC and games require a lot of graphics processing power. This is why we went with the HIS 7850 IceQ X.

As this graphics card is based off AMD?s Radeon HD 7850, we?re going to see excellent gaming performance with the card being capable of playing most of today and more than likely tomorrow?s most graphically demanding games at medium to high settings at 1080p. For those who prefer older games or less graphically demanding games such as Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and many others, the HIS 7850 IceQ X won?t even break a sweat.

Speaking of breaking a sweat, the HIS 7850 IceQ X uses the custom IceQ X cooler from HIS, which is a very highly regarded cooler that can deliver excellent performance at a very low noise output level. Currently priced at $199.99, it?s an excellent choice, but what makes it better is that HIS is currently offering a $20 rebate making this graphics card only $179.99!

Storage -?Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200RPM

While a SSD (Solid State Drive) is preferred, this is a budget PC after all, so currently our hands are tied which is why we?re going with the Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200RPM drive. The Seagate Barracuda is an excellent hard drive that offers excellent performance and has enough capacity to hold most gamer?s Steam and Origin directories. Of course, those who need more disk space, feel free to grab a 1TB or 2TB drive.

Additionally, those who have a tad bit more budget, but don?t have enough extra cash to step up to the $1,200 tier featured gaming PC, we?d recommend picking up a 128GB or greater SSD as a boot/application drive only. (Store the Steam, Origin, or other game files on the larger capacity hard drive) SSDs are extremely fast and the difference will be very noticeable in general use. With prices on this relatively new storage technology constantly dropping, there?s no reason not pick one up. Those interested in picking up a SSD to serve as a boot drive, the Samsung 830 128GB SSD is a very fast, very reliable, top tier SSD currently being sold at bargain bin prices.

PSU -?Antec EarthWatts EA-650 Green

Again fitting into the maximum performance for the budget theme, we wanted a top quality power supply that could be used in the future in the event upgrades are needed. This is why we went with the Antec EA-650 power supply. While this is one of Antec?s lower end offerings, don?t mistake this as a bad power supply. On the contrary, it?s a very decent Delta platform based power supply that can deliver excellent performance for only a mere $70!

Final Pricing

Alright guys, so with everything out of the way, let?s wrap this up. The grand total of the entire system?s core components priced on Amazon is around?$795.39 (including Windows 7) as of the time of writing. Of course, pricing on computer components fluctuate constantly, so take this as a guideline figure only.

Optional Components

Since some people are interested in monitors, speakers, mice and keyboards, so we?re also including some recommendations for these items as well. I won?t be explaining the choices as?peripherals?are quite very much dependent on the person using the PC (For example, someone serious about audio may end up with $400 Audioengine 5+ speakers), but here are some suggestions that are a good fit for this build.

Remember, if you have any questions, need some help, or need to fit the build into your budget feel free to?visit the forums!?Myself, or the community here will be more than happy to help you out with your own custom build or answer any computer questions you may have. If this build doesn?t fit your needs, be sure to drop by our?Computer Builds?section to find more computer builds.

Also, be sure to join us on?Facebook,?Twitter,?Google Plus, or?YouTube. Be updated on the latest news, reviews, tutorials, custom computer builds, and more!

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About the Author

Sam Chen

Editor-in-Chief