Amazon Web Services Elastic Cloud Compute
I have now been using Amazon Web Services for more than a year, and I am thoroughly impressed by the potential that it has for achieving cost-effective, reliable, scalable and worry-free web-hosting, amongst other things.
I love Portal 2
Portal 2 is a fantastic game from Valve, which I am now more than half-way through playing. So far the setting has been rich and evocative, and the characterisation totally immersive. The gameplay is by turns puzzling, rewarding and predictably unpredictable.
Something about the combination of the GLaDOS's movement and the accompanied musical scoring seems to make her appear more subtly threatening when she appears in the flesh this time - the animation seems far subtler and gives her a serpent-like quality which integrates very closely with her dialogue, and her passive-aggressive personality disorder is back in full force (her having been "murdered" by our protagonist at the end of Portal), which is often hilarious.
stuffwhitepeoplelike.com
I like this website. There is so much on it that's so true. It takes the form of a multi-contributor blog, as it explores the preferences of wealthy caucasians of the USA, with special reference to the pretentious and the elitist. A few themes emerge, not least anything European and the institution of Themed Parties. Gratifyingly, this means that much of the comment transfers well across the Atlantic.
This Is One Of The Reasons I Love The Onion So Much
(Iso)toping is a new and worrying trend whereby US teens are facilitating nuclear arms proliferation to terrorists and rogue states. Only America's Finest News Source could have dreamt up something as brilliant and imaginative as this. One of the contributing factors is, of course, Rap Music.
Google Apps for Business
I love Google Apps for Business. As a robust, professional email solution, it is significantly less expensive than Exchange, at only $50/user/year. It comes with features such as two-factor authentication, forced SSL, and of course wonderful integration with Google's suite of cloud apps.
Recently, it also turns out that Google Apps is up to 46 times more reliable than Microsoft Exchange (hosted on-premises). Google currently guarantee 99.9% uptime, and spread their mail intrastructure across a multiude of machines on several continents.
For those with an enduring fondness for Outlook, there is a Google Apps Sync application that allows access to one's calender and notes through one's favourite mail client. Google has now enabled connectivity with the rest of Microsoft Office with Google Cloud Connect, for anyone who'd want to do that. Meanwhile, it has me wondering whether I'll ever buy another copy of Office.