Cody Taylor

angry tapir writes “Google and a group of partners have released a set of tools designed to help broadband customers and researchers measure performance of Internet connections. The set of tools, at MeasurementLab.net, includes a network diagnostic tool, a network path diagnostic tool and a tool to measure whether the user’s broadband provider is slowing BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P-to-P) traffic. Coming soon to the M-Lab applications is a tool to determine whether a broadband provider is giving some traffic a lower priority than other traffic, and a tool to determine whether a provider is degrading certain users or applications. ‘Transparency is our goal,’ said Vint Cerf, chief Internet evangelist at Google and a co-developer of TCP/IP. ‘Our intent is to make more [information] visible for all who are interested in the way the network is functioning at all layers.'”

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schneecrash writes “Submitting bug reports — and waiting for responses etc — seems to be SOP for developers and users alike, these days. Every project has some sort of bug-tracker — bugzilla, trac, mailing list, etc. E.g., we currently track 200+ external bugs across ~40 OSS projects. Half the bugs depend on something else getting fixed, first. Every bug has its own email thread, etc. Management asks ‘How we doin’ overall?,’ and suddenly everyone involved gets to work removing dried gum from the bottom of their shoe. What do Slashdotters use/recommend for centrally keeping track of all the bugs you track across all those different bugtrackers? In particular, managing communications and dependencies across bugs? So far, the best method I’ve managed to use is bunches of PostIt-notes stuck to the screen of an out-of-commission 32″ TV (glossy, non-matte screen, of course!).”

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javipas writes “Google developers have announced a new feature part of Gmail Labs that everybody was waiting to see realized. Offline Gmail will allow users to have a partial copy of its Gmail account on their PCs, and access their messages while being offline. The magic of Google Gears comes to the rescue, but the process will not be complete. The syncronization will update the online and offline copies, but Google will use an algorithm that will determine the messages downloaded on each sync (the first being the most important) based on several parameters that point out that message’s relevance. This measure will save the process from downloading pieces of information not quite valuable. US and UK english users can enjoy this feature through the Gmail Labs section.”

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