Metro Apps

Metro apps are touch-screen-friendlyapps written especially for Microsoft'sSurface line of tablet computers.
Metro apps are available from the Windows store for use on any computer that runs Windows RT or Windows 8. The apps will work not only on tablet devices, but also on any desktop or notebook computer that uses a keyboard and mouse, provided that the correct OS(operating system) is installed. Microsoft plans to introduce Metro apps to support communications, scheduling, news, weather, sports, financial information, music, videos, books, travel, and other popular consumer activities. In addition, there will be an app for cloud storage.
The original designers of Metro apps based their approach on a perceived consumer demand for apps that are engaging, immersive, interactive, touch-based, and usable in multiple form factors. They are built for a tiled UI (user interface) with limited, intuitive, functional graphics. Metro apps are based on the Metro design language, originally conceived for mobile Internet devices (MID) and smartphones.

Sideloading

Sideloading is the installation of an application on a mobile device without using the device's official application-distribution method.

Sideloading works differently on different mobile platforms. To enable sideloading on an Android OS device, for example, the end user simply checks a box in the operating system settings. On an Apple iOS device, however, the end user must jailbreakthe device to enable sideloading. Once sideloading is enabled, the user can download and install applications from any website or third-party app store.

Sideloading offers mobile device users a way to access more applications than are available through commercial app stores such as Google Play or the Apple App Store, but it is important for the end user to understand there can be risks. Commercial app stores screen for malware and other threats and assume responsibility for digital rights management (DRM). Applications from other sources may not have been screened for malware and may be pirated.

Software-defined networking (SDN)

Software-defined networking (SDN) is an approach to networking in whichcontrol is decoupled from hardware and given to a software application.

When a packet arrives at a switch in a conventional network, rules built into the switch's proprietary firmware tell the switch where to forward the packet. The switch treats sends each packet going to the same destination along the same path, and each packet is treated the exact same way.

In an SDN, however, the network administrator uses third-party software to shape trafficfrom a centralized control console. The administrator can change the switch's rules when necessary -- prioritizing, de-prioritizing or even blocking specific types of packets with a very granular level of control. This is especially helpful in a cloud computing multi-tenantarchitecture because it allows the administrator to manage traffic loads in a flexible and more efficient manner.

SDN is sometimes referred to as the "Cisco killer" because it allows network engineers to support a switching fabric across multi-vendor hardware and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). Currently, the most popular specification for creating an SDN is an openstandard called OpenFlow.

Cloud Database




A cloud database is a database that has been optimized or built for a virtualized computing environment.


Optimizing an already existing database for the cloud provides benefits such as:


The ability to pay for storage capacity and bandwidth on a per-use model.
The ability to move the database from one location to another (cloud portability).
Scalability on demand.
High availability (HA).
Putting the database in the cloud can be an effective way to support and cloud-enable business applications as part of a wider software-as-a-service (SaaS) deployment by simplifying the processes required to make information available through Web-based connections.


Another benefit of moving a company's databases to the cloud is storage consolidation. Databases in multiple departments of a large company, for example, can be combined in the cloud into a single hosted (DBMS).

Electrical pollution


Electrical pollution is electromagnetic-field (or EM-field) energy emanating from electrical wiring. In most places, the majority of this energy exists at 60 Hz (hertz), resulting from the AC (alternating current) that constantly flows in the utility wiring outdoors, indoors, and inside common appliances.


Not all of the energy in utility electricity occurs at the standard AC frequency of 60 Hz (50 Hz in some locations). Emissions also take place at various other frequencies. These emissions, sometimes called dirty electricity, result from the use of appliances that generate irregular waveforms and transmit the resulting currents into the utility wiring. Vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, fluorescent lamps, and some consumer electronic devices produce this type of energy.


In recent years, controversy has arisen concerning alleged adverse health effects from electrical pollution. Some scientists believe that electrical pollution has been a major cause of human ailments ever since the very first use of AC utility electricity (around the year 1900). Others deny that any conclusive evidence exists for adverse health effects in humans.

NoOps

NoOps (no operations) is the concept that an IT environment can become so automated and abstracted from the underlying infrastructure that there is no need for a dedicated team to manage software in-house.

Traditionally in the enterprise, an application development team is in charge of gathering business requirements for a software program and writing code. The development team tests their program in an isolated development environment for quality assurance (QA) and -- if requirements are met -- releases the code to an operations team who deploys and maintains the program from that point on. In a NoOps scenario, maintenance and other tasks performed by the operations team would be automated.

Forrester coined the term NoOps, which they define as "the goal of completely automating the deployment, monitoring and management of applications and the infrastructure on which they run." According to Forrester Senior Analyst Glenn O'Donnell, who co-authored the report "Augment DevOps with NoOps," it is more likely that although some operations positions will become unnecessary, others will simply evolve from a technical orientation toward a more business-oriented focus.

The two main drivers behind NoOps are increasing IT automation and cloud computing. At its most extreme, a NoOps organization is one that has no operations employees at all, however various other systems can be referred to as "NoOps" as well. For example, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) vendors such as AppFog and Heroku describe their offerings as NoOps platforms.

NoOps can be contrasted with DevOps, a concept in which the line between development and operations teams is blurred and members of each group assume some of the responsibilities of the other team.

Noisy text 

Noisy text is an electronically-stored communication that cannot be categorized properly by a text miningsoftware program. In an electronic document, noisy text is characterized by a discrepancy between the letters and symbols in the HTML code and the author's intended meaning.

Noisy text does not comply with rules the program uses to identify and categorize words, phrases and clauses in a particular language. Idiomatic expressions, abbreviations, acronyms and business-specific lingo can all cause noisy text. It is particularly prevalent in the unstructured text found in blog posts, chat conversations, discussion threads and SMS text messages. Other potential causes include poor spelling and punctuation, typographical errors and poor translations from optical (OCR) and speech recognition programs.