Friday, August 19, 2016

Top Windows, HTML 5, WYSIWYG HTML editors


Do you need a free web editor that supports HML5? I needed one and I really had to waste some time to review some. Here are the conclusions (and the conclusions only). NOTE: See the 2017 update at the end of the post!

BlueGriffon  
2015
Price:  Free or 70 euros: http://www.bluegriffon.org/#whatsinside
Comment: Seems robust and mature

Maqetta     
Discontinued may 2013, but still online
Price: free
Kit size: 86MB
Conclusion: Difficult to Install. Needs Java 6!

LibreOffice 
2015
Price: free

OpenOffice.org     2014
It only has a web page editor (not web site builder)

Dreamweaver 
2015
Conclusion: Nice but way too expensive!

Microsoft Expression 2012
(discontinued)

openElement  2014
Free
Kits size: 47MB
  
oXygenXML Editor 2015
Conclusion: not tested yet  

TOWeb  2013
Conclusion: not tested yet  

WebStorm IDE
2013
Conclusion: not tested yet 

Based on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_HTML_editors
______________

UPDATE 2017

Stormy Website Builder is the ultimate tool for building a web site (CMS). It has a beautiful WYSIWYG html editor. You can have a site up an running in only 4 minutes.
Stormy Website Builder wants to be a lightweight alternative for Joomla CMS.


Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Delphi is still in Top 20... barely

Delphi is still in Top 20... but barely. It is the last one. It may fall any time.
Too sad....


Saturday, August 6, 2016

Embarcadero finally decided to fix SOME bugs in Delphi


In the new road map, Embarcadero finally decided to fix SOME bugs in Delphi.

It seems good news but hold your horses:
1. They not always keep their promise related to the road map.
2. There are not so many bugs
3. They won't do all the fixes at once, but until 2018
4. Until 2018 another 500 new bugs (AT LEAST) will be introduced
5. We have to pay (not 59 bucks but HARD money) to get that non-buggy version of Delphi.

And in the end, what the fuck are we so happy that Embarcadero is fixing some bugs? Is not a present, a gift from heavens! Those bugs SHOULD NOT BE THERE anyway!

So, thank you Embarcadero for finally thinking to fix some bugs and FUCK YOU.

PS: In the next road map maybe you will introduce an item likes "free updates".

http://community.embarcadero.com/article/news/16418-product-roadmap-august-2016

Monday, August 1, 2016

Computer Virus that infects real-world DNA?



A computer code that is supposed to be able to infect DNA was found.
The corresponding article posted ~2.5 years, and some c++ codes.
Citation:
 The computer code, written in C++, hosts the DNA sequence of M.mycoides
 JCVI-syn1.0. At runtime it acts as follows:

 1) Preparing the DNA sequence of M.mycoides JCVI-syn1.0 in the memory,
    (with slightly modified watermarks).
 2) Encoding own file-content in base32. The base32 code is then encoded in
    JCVI's DNA-encoded alphabet.
 3) This representation of its digital form is then copied to a
    watermark of the bacteria's genome in memory. With this, a fully
    functional bacterial DNA sequence including the digital code is
    generated.
 4) Next it searches for FASTA-files on the computer, which are text-based
    representations of DNA sequences, commonly used by many DNA sequence
    libraries.
 5) For each FASTA-file, it replaces the original DNA with the bacterial
    DNA containing the digital form of the computer code.

 The code has a classical self-replication mechanism as well, to eventually
 end up on a computer in a microbiology-laboratory with the ability of
 creating DNA out of digital genomes (such as laboratories by the JCVI).
So could there really be a computer virus that infects DNA?
Virus code is here: http://pastebin.com/NiQc55rr

Answer:

It is NOT impossible for a computer virus to infect real DNA because 'artificial' life was already created from synthetic DNA by Craig Institute. Proof. That synthetic DNA coming from files that were generated in a computer. So, if the virus happens to be in the right computer, at the right time... But the chance is small.
However, in the next 10 years, that virus might be a real problem as every year it is more and more easy to create 'artificial' life.


IMPORTANT UPDATE!

I have found this comment in the C++ code:
// Encode own file into Craig Venter's DNA encoding language
It looks like this virus was designed expressly for Craig Venter! So the chances for this virus to work (affect real-world DNA) are even more realistic!!


Validity of the code

Less experienced people doubt the validity of the code. However, no proof was brought to demonstrate that the code might fail (and why). Though, I haven't spend hours to read the code line by line and thoroughly analyze it, I did pick a look at it and it seem sound and valid. The fact that the author of the code targets a very specific organization (that "happens" to generate DNA from computer files) tells us that he knows what he is doing.


Purpose

As somebody already brought to our attention, there is no purpose in creating this virus. But this is totally irrelevant to the original question. Even if the DNA virus will destroy the host cell and even if it won't be able to replicate in real world (and it won't) it is irrelevant. If in the right computer, the computer virus will pass from the virtual world to the real world, and this is OP's question (I think).


Conclusion

The question asked was: "can a computer virus could infect DNA"?. The question is ambiguous. If it refers to the DNA of some living cell the answer is no. HOWEVER, if the question refers to a human-created cell, the answer is YES. Craing Venter creates DNA from computer ('fasta') files. If one of those files happens to be modified or 'infected' by the computer virus then the computer virus will have effect in real world (the DNA synthesized by Venter will contain the code injected by the computer virus).