Category Archives: Three Devs and a Maybe

134: The Agile Approach to Bitcoin

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After a month ‘off the airwaves’, Mick and Edd are back to delve into several topics that have been keeping them interested. We start off by going down the Cryptocurrency rabbit-hole, highlighting the internal technologies that make up Bitcoin and its practical use-cases. Edd’s ramblings touch upon Satoshi, Cypherpunks, Merkle trees, Consensus algorithms, Hard forks, Segregated witness, Mining, Peta-hashes and much more… Once Edd (finally) lets Mick talk, we move on to chat about a book Mick is reading on Scrum, and question some different Agile practises. Finally, we ask the burning question ‘What is the Internet, Anyway?’.

133: RFC Showdown, Round 2 with Joe Watkins

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In this weeks episode we catch up with Joe Watkins discussing all things PHP. We start off the discussion with how his role as release-manager is going for PHP 7.1, highlighting how Security bugs are defined and handled within internals. Following this we chat about several RFC’s that are under-discussion (Retry Keyword, UUID) and accepted (Libsodium, Object Typehint) for the next release. Finally, we mention a recent small extension Joe has been working on to provide user verified types within the language.

132: Caching using Varnish with Mattias Geniar

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In this weeks episode we discuss the Varnish ‘HTTP accelerator’ with Mattias Geniar. We start off the show with the problem Varnish is trying to solve, how it decides to cache content and the power within its’ request/response life-cycle. We then move on to highlight testing strategies, tools to gain insight into your Varnish instance and cache invalidation options (Purging vs. Banning). Finally, we touch upon Edge Side Includes, Mattias’s own podcast and his new DNS Spy product.

131: Servers, Upgrades and a little Cryptocurrency

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In this weeks episode we start off by discussing Edd’s recent Server build, touching upon the hardware specifications, OS/ZFS-pool choices and monitoring configuration. We then move on to highlight the value in splitting up computational intensive tasks into queued jobs, defensive programming in JavaScript and handling querying ever increasing data-sets. Finally, we talk about keeping on-top of Software/Dependency upgrades, moving over to platforms such as AWS and Ethereum.

130: Cyber Security with Colin Hardy

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On this weeks show we are joined by Colin Hardy to discuss all things Cyber Security. We start off by explaining what got him interested in this branch of computing, highlight what Cyber Security is, and define some of the common terminology. From here, we move on to discuss how he analyses Malware samples (using Automated, Behavioural and Static means) and the diagnostic tooling present. Finally, we mention some high-profile attacks (Stuxnet, WannaCry), motives behind creating such Malware and how he stays current in this field.

129: The Applied Mathematics of Programming with Liam McLennan

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In this weeks episode we are lucky to have Liam McLennan on the show. We start off discussion with his Math background, how he got into programming and how it can be seen as Applied Mathematics. From here we move on to highlight his experiences whilst consulting, what it entailed, and the importance of ‘tact’. This leads us on to look into what drew him to Functional programming, F# and creating Pluralsight courses. Finally, we delve into the different areas of the Nokia Ringtone Composer Emulator from his F# Fundamentals course.

128: Catching up with Mr. Hart

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In this weeks episode we are joined by fellow co-host Fraser Hart. We start off by discussing what he has been upto since his last podcast appearance - ranging from completing an Ironman, to promotions at work. From here we highlight how he balances development with his new project managerial role, how his company has started to adopt React/Redux and moving over to Webpack 2. Finally, we delve into the different server stacks we are using, and how the KISS design-principle plays a key-role.

127: More Server Talk with Brian Moses

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In this weeks episode we are again lucky to be joined by Brian Moses, to continue our discussion on building your own home server. We start off by highlighting what ECC memory is and its’ value in a home server setup. Following this, we chat about looking into the second-hand market for hardware components - as an option to find a good deal. This leads us on to discuss overclocking hardware, threads vs. cores within a CPU and what Hyper-threading actually is. Finally, we mention some different NAS Operating System solutions and Brain’s foray into the world of Quadcopters.

126: 19th January 2038: The End of Time

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In this weeks episode we start off the podcast with discussion around Timezones, Daylight saving time and how the Year 2038 will be an interesting one. We then move on to highlight the results of our recent PHPStorm Twitter poll, End-to-end encryption and Hot Picks is back! (at least for one show). Finally, we highlight the differences between Software/Hardware video-decoding and some interesting PHP function aliases.

125: Building a Server with Brian Moses

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In this weeks episode we are joined by Brian Moses to discuss all things server development. We start off the show by highlighting how he got into computers and what drew him to blogging about DIY NAS builds. From here we touch upon the key areas of consideration when deciding on hardware (Motherboard, CPU, RAM, Storage) for a server. Finally, we discuss the concept of RAID, the FreeNAS operating system and how he performs burn-in testing on recently built systems.

Note: apologies for some of the audio quality during the show.