From emotional honeybees to particles flying faster than Einstein’s theory of relativity ought to allow, 2011 abounded in findings that posed new questions and expanded frontiers of possibility. Here are Wired Science’s favorites.

Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos Detected — or Not

In September, researchers from the OPERA collaboration in Italy provided fodder for a thousand articles when they announced the measurement of neutrinos flying faster than that killjoy Albert Einstein would permit. Most physicists dismissed the finding, suggesting some error in the measurement or analysis, but that didn’t stop millions of people from hoping that they’d witnessed the start of a new scientific revolution.

Image: Neutrino tracks. (CERN)

Intelligent Animals and Emotional Bees

Hardly a week goes by without new evidence of intelligence in animals: empathic rats, counting pigeons,cooperating elephants, tool-using fish, and on and on.

Rigorously tested and documented, the findings scientifically underscore the sheer richness of the life surrounding us — and perhaps none was more emblematic than observations that, by the standards devised to ensure that animal intelligence is measured by cold data rather than warm fuzzy feelings,honeybees have emotions. Specifically, they’re capable of a glass-half-empty pessimistic worldview, which in turn challenges a human worldview: What does it mean when insects meet a benchmark that only "higher" animals are supposed to attain?

Image: Jack Wolf/Flickr

A New Link Between Aging Cells and Aging People

Researchers have debated for decades whether aging at the organismal level was linked to aging at the cellular level. Did bodies and metabolisms malfunction as people grew older because, at a microscopic level, cells hit their replicative limits, broke down and clogged up the system?

In November, gerontologists showed that flushing old, broken-down cells from the bodies of mice indeed slowed their descent into infirmity. It was a powerful proof of principle: so-called cellular senescence did matter. And while the same trick can’t be performed for people as was performed in this one strain of genetically modified mice, the findings could seed a whole new generation of aging research.

Image: At left, two mice, one (top) treated to rid it of senescent cells, and the other untreated; at right, untreated bone marrow cells (top) and treated cells. (Baker et al./Nature)

Chimps Not Needed for Hepatitis C Research

After two decades of dwindling chimpanzee usefulness in infectious disease research, only one disease remained to justify experiments that in humans would be considered unconscionable: Hepatitis C, which kills 340,000 people every year and infects no non-human animal except chimps.

Hepatitis C thus became the main battleground for debates over the ethics and morality of invasive chimp testing, which is permitted nowhere but Gabon and the United States. At least scientifically, that battle now appears settled. In May, the FDA approved two new hepatitis C drugs, both far superior to the only existing treatment and both developed without chimp testing. In December, the Institute of Medicine formally declared chimps unnecessary for hepatitis C drug development, paving the way to treat the closest living relative to humans with humanity.

Image: Chimpanzee mother and child at the Singapore Zoo. (Shiny Things/Flickr)

Extinct Human Ancestors Survive in our Genes

For years, anthropologists suspected that Homo sapiens cross-bred with Neanderthals before our closest ancestor went extinct. That hypothesis proved officially true in 2010, with the first hard genetic evidence of Neanderthal DNA surviving in living humans, and in July further tests found even more evidence of cross-breeding. Moreover, it’s not just Neanderthals that live on in us, but long-extinct, recently discovered Neanderthal cousins called Denisovans.

The functional role of formerly non-human gene variants remains to be determined, but their importance to a human sense of self is clearer: Homo sapiens isn’t the product of some long, pure lineage, but a bit of a hominid mutt.

Image: Neanderthal sculpture by John Gurche, photographed by Chip Clark. (Smithsonian Institution)

Humanity Hits 7 Billion

In October, the human population reached 7 billion. This happened just 12 years after we hit 6 billion; in contrast, it took humanity about 72,000 years to reach its first billion. The number prompted a global moment of reflection: How do we, as a civilization, want to live? Do we want to share — with each other, and with the rest of life?

Image: NASA

Deregulation, Speculation and the Price of Food

In 2008 and again in 2011, global food prices spiked massively and weirdly. There was no obvious reason: Demand didn’t increase dramatically, nor did supplies fall. The price of meeting a basic human requirement no longer seemed connected to conventional economic logic.

Many explanations were proposed, from bad weather to increased market sensitivity to the conversion of former food crops into biofuels. But when researchers from the New England Complex Systems Instituteturned their mathematical models on global food markets, they found something else. Biofuel demand played a role in in nudging food prices up — but the spikes, the sudden and socially disrupting fluctuations, seemed to be caused by commodity speculators who entered food markets after the late-1990s wave of financial industry deregulation. The same forces that fueled the 2008 mortgage meltdown and subsequent near-collapse of the global economy have been turned loose on food.

Image: Cory Doctorow/Flickr

Bird Flu Nightmare Comes True — in the Lab

Ever since H5N1 avian influenza emerged in the late 1990s, infecting billions of birds around the world, flu scientists have warned of potential apocalypse. The disease isn’t highly contagious to people, but kills 60 percent of those who contract it. Should H5N1 ever become as infectious as seasonal flu strains, civilization could be headed for a Contagion-style meltdown.

In December, a federal U.S. security panel announced that two teams of researchers, one in the Netherlands and the other in Wisconsin, had engineered just such a virus. By understanding how avian influenza could jump into humans, hoped the researchers, we could better prevent that from happening, and design drugs and vaccines in preparation for that terrible day.

Some scientists supported the work. Others considered it an abomination, either because terrorists could hypothetically use the research to manufacture their own killer bug, or — less hypothetically — because ultra-high-security laboratories designed to prevent diseases from escaping have sometimes failed to do so.

Though formal publication is expected in 2012, the details have already been shared with hundreds of scientists. For good or for ill, this research has the potential to be the most important scientific discovery of 2011, and perhaps much more.

Image: Transmission electron microscope image of two H5N1 virions. (Center for Biologic Counterterrorism and Emerging Diseases)

A Possibly Habitable, Earth-Like Planet

Using NASA’s Kepler space telescope, astronomers spotted the closest planet yet to being considered a home away from home. The exoplanet, named Kepler 22-b, has a mass just 2.4 times greater than Earth’s and orbits its parent star within the so-called ‘habitable zone,’ potentially giving it a temperate climate and the right conditions for life.

Image: Artist’s rendition of Kepler-22b (NASA)

Hints of the Higgs Boson

The $10 billion Large Hadron Collider may have proven its worth in December when results from two experiments, ATLAS and CMS, showed a small data bump that might correspond to the long-sought Higgs boson. If future data corroborates the finding, finding the Higgs will likely be regarded as one of the 21st century’s great discoveries.

Image: Inside the Large Hadron Collider. (CERN)

Marketing technology company Fiksu tracked the impact of the iPhone 4S on iPhone app downloads and found that download volume of the top 200 free apps increased 15% from October’s previous record high of 4.91 million daily downloads. In November, the firm’s “App Store Competitive Index,” which measures this trend, peaked at 5.65 million downloads per day – the first time it has topped the 5 million mark. That’s an increase of 83% over November of last year.

That’s a remarkable number, when you think about it. And it shows how it’s very much still the early days for the mobile app ecosystem. As analytics firm Flurry recently reported, the addressable market for potential smartphone (iOS or Android) users in the U.S. alone is 91 million. In China, it’s 122 million. There are still a lot of untapped app downloads out there. And these Fiksu numbers are an example of what happens when those new smartphone users come on board: they download a whole bunch of new apps.

Fiksu calls this a “colossal expansion of mobile apps,” and yet that doesn’t even seem to be a strong enough word for what we’re seeing. It’s something beyond colossal, it’s downright transformative. It’s a new universe.

Meanwhile, app marketers, which the firm’s second index, the Fiksu Cost per Loyal User Index, addresses, are getting smarter about their ad spends. This index remained steady last month, only down four cents from October’s $1.47 to $1.43 in November. During the month, there was a steady demand for app downloads, unlike in October.

Says Fiksu CEO Micah Adler, “app marketers have become savvier about planning and executing their ad spends during seasonal periods to avoid paying premium prices for acquiring users. In fact, November presented them with a somewhat unique opportunity to add more users at costs that were actually below October’s.”

Data for the Fiksu Indexes was sourced from more than 7.6 billion mobile app actions including app launches, registrations and in-app purchases. There are more than 156 million downloads recorded by apps marketed via the Fiksu for Mobile Apps user acquisition platform.  More details are here.

Genel olarak yapmanız gereken:

• Tarayıcınızın User Agent özelliğini, hedeflediğiniz mobil cihaz ile eşlemek.
• Tarayıcınızın pencresini resize ederek, mobil cihaz boyutuna getirmek.
• Tarayıcınızın developer tools özelliğini mobil sitenizin debug ve testi için kullanmanız.

Web tarayıcıları:

Mozilla Firefox:

User Agent Switcher Add-on:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-switcher/

Tools / Default User Agent seçeneğinden bu özelliğe erişebilirsiniz.

Chrome:

User-Agent Switcher for Chrome Extension:

Safari:

Mac:

Safari menüsü / Prefrences / Advanced sekmesi / Show Develop menu in menu bar seçeneğini seçiniz.

Windows:

Keyboard Alt butonu / Edit menüsü / Prefrences / Advanced sekmesi / Show Develop menu in menu bar seçeneğini seçiniz.

Develop menüsünden User Agent seçeneğinde, hedeflediğiniz tarayıcıyı seçebilirsiniz.

Internet Explorer:

Tools / Developer Tools’ ı seçiniz. Açılan panel de Tools / Change user agent string.

Burada tarafsızca bu cihazların iPad karşısında avantaj ve dezavantajlarını paylaşmak istiyorum.

Avantajlar:

Bir uygulama geliştiricisi olarak, geliştirdiğim uygulamaların galaxy tab’ e atılmasını çok rahat yapabildim. Sonuçta üretilen apk’ yı cihaza kopyalamanız yeterli.

apk oluştuturken iOS de olduğu gibi, provissioning ve certification konuları o kadar çetrefilli olmuyor.

Yazdığınız uygulamaları cihaza atarken, iOS developer lisansınızın olması zorunlu, android de ise böyle bir gereksinim söz konusu değil.

Android uygulama geliştirme, iOS uygulama geliştirmeye göre çok daha basit sonuçta Java dilinde yazıyorsunuz. iOS için Objective-C dilinde yazmanız gerekiyor ki çok farklı bir syntax söz konusu.

Android market’ te iOS App Store a nazaren daha çok bedava uygulama var.

Açık olan uygulamaları tekil bir yerden kapatabilme özelliği pratik.

Sistem özelliklerine ana ekran footerdan erişebilmek güzel ve pratik.

Dezavantajlar:

Bu cihazların pil kullanım süreleri iPad’ in çok gerisinde.

Ana ekrandaki widgetler cihazı çok yavaşlatıyor. Bu widgetlerin hepsi internete bağlanmaya çalışıyor ve cihaz’ ın hızını düşürüyor.

eBook uygulaması, tamamen iBook uygulaması kopyası olmuş. Bu seviyede bir kopyalama bence utanç verici. Ayrıca bu uygulamayı çok başarısız buldum. bazı kitap sayfalarını çevirirken çok yavaş davranma ve hatta çevirememe durumları ile karşılaştım. Tablet cihazda en çok kullandığım pdf kitap okuma özelliğini çok benimsediğim için bu kadar kötü bir pdf reader kullanmak bana hiç cazip gelmedi.

iPad ve iPhone, standart usb kablosunu kullanmadıkları ve iTunes’ a bağlı oldukları için çok eleştirildiler ama Samsung Galaxy Tab de de ayrı bir durum sözkonusu değil. Samsung galaxy tab de usb kablosunu iPad den kopyalamış ve siyaha boyamış. Birde kies diye bir uygualamayı kurmadan bilgisayar cihazı tanımıyor.

Sistem özellik ve ayarlarını ana ekran footer dan gerçekleştirirken çok enteresan hatalar yaşadım. Örnek olarak, ekran parlaklığını çoğaltıp ve azaltırken slider garip bir şekilde ekran parlaklığına tesir ediyordu ama slider objesi değişmiyordu!

iTunes U gibi bir platformun bu cihazlarda olmaması çok büyük bir eksik.

Android işletim sistemli cihazların yeni verisyona upgrade edilmesi bazen mümkün olmuyor. Örnek olarak Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 android os 3′ e yükseltilmiyor (Official olarak).

Samsung hzılı bir şekilde bazı modellerin üretimini dudurabiliyor, üretimi durmuş bir cihazın fiyatı çok düşebiliyor halbüki iPad versiyon bir bile çok yüksek değerlere satılabiliyor ve çok değer kaybetmedi. Örnek vermek gerekirse, Samsung galaxy Tab 7 artık üretilmiyor ve şu anki piyasa değeri 600 tl civari. İlk çıktığında 1500 lira civarı bir fiyata sahip olduğunu hatırlıyorum. Bu kadar hızlıca bu kadar değer kaybetmesi satın alan kişiyi mutlu etmediği kesin.

Sonuç:

Android tabletlerin sunduğu bir çok özellik var fakat bu özellikleri bazen hatalı bazen düşük bir kullanıcı deneyimi olarak gerçekleştiriyorlar. iPad ise, vaad ettiği özelliği muhteşem bir seviyede gerçekleştiren bir cihaz ve kullanım deneyimi çok yüksek. Zaten dünya çapında tablet kullanımlarına bakıldığında iPad %60 ile ilk sırada ve Samsung Galaxy Tab %4-%6 civarında. iPad e en yakın rakip olarak ise, Amazon Kindle Fire gösteriliyor. Amazon Kindle Fire’ ın fiyatı çok uygun (199$) yanlız henüz 3G modeli yok. Kullanma fırsatım olursa deneyimlerimi buradan paylaşacağım.

Uygulamaları MacBook Pro da geliştiriyorum ve cihazın internet’ e bağlanabilmesi için avea jet modem kullanıyorum. avea çocuk filtresine geçmiş olmalı ki, itunes ve Xcode engelleniyordu.

Uzun bir süre uğraştıktan sonra problemin kaynağını bulabildim ve bir daha yasakçı ve sansürcü zihniyete lanet okudum.

iOS uygulamanızın App Store da yayınlanabilmesi için release build oluşturmanız lazım.

Bunu yapabilmek için dağıtım sertifikası (distribution certificate) ve provisioning profile oluşturmuş olmanız lazım. Bu işlemleri gerçekleştirdikten sonra aşağıdaki adımları izleyiniz:

1. Product Menüsünden Clean deyiniz.
2. Release için bir şema (Scheme) oluşturunuz. Xcode’ da Toolbar da Scheme’ dan Edit Scheme deyiniz. Daha sonra Scheme pencersinden, soldan Archive (Release) I seçiniz. Sağda Build Configuration combosundan Release’ I seçiniz ve bir Archive adı belirleyiniz. ve Reveal Archive in Organizer checkbox’ını işaretleyiniz.
3. Proje üzerinde tıklayın, sağda Project altından projenizi seçinizi. sağda Build Settings seçeneğini seçiniz.
   • Archietcture başlığı altında, Base SDK’ yi Latest iOS olarak ayarlayın ve Architectures seçeneği altında armv6 ve armv7.
   • Code Signing bölümünde distribution certificate’inizin doğru olduğundan emin olunuz.
   • Deployment bölümünde, Skip Install’I Yes olarak seçiniz. Ayrıca, iOS Deployment Target olarak desteklemek istediğiniz minimum versiyonu seçiniz.
4. Product menüsünden Archive’I çalıştırınız.
5. İşlemler bittikten sonra window dan organizer I seçiniz. Organizer da Archives sekmesinde yeni oluşturduğunuz archive in yer almasından emin olunuz.

Bu aşamada uygulamanız App Store’a gönderilmeye hazırdır.

Uygulamanın Hazırlanamsı:

1. Uygulamanızın geliştirmesi ve testini bitiriniz.
2. UygulamaAdı-info.plist dosyasını düzenleyiniz.
   • bundle identifier’ e uygulamanızın adını veriniz. boşluk ve türkçe karakterlerden kaçınınız.
   • Uygulamanızın iOS cihazlarda başka bir ad ile görünmesini istiyorsanız, Bundle display name’ I değiştiriniz.
   • bundle version’ ı güncelleyeniz.
   • icon’ları düzenleyiniz.
3. Uygulamanızı dağıtım için derleyiniz. (Build your app for distribution)
4. App store için uygulamanız hakkında açıklama hazırlayınız.
5. Uygulamanız için bir SKU seçiniz. Her uygulamanız için unique olmalıdır. Numerik tarih bilgisi oalbilir. örnek: 12122011.
6. Uygulamanızdan screetshotlar alınız. En azından bir screenshot’ a ihtiyaç vardır. Çözünürlükler:
   • 640*960 (iPhone Retina Display)
   • 1024*768 (iPad)
7. iTunes artwork’ unuzu hazırlayınız. iTunes artwork 512*512 pixel, 72 dpi jpeg bir dosya olmalıdır.

iTunes Connect Ayarlamaları:

Here you can find the results:

.net Magazine Awards 2011 Winners

They think it’s all over – it is now! The winners of the .net awards 2011, in association with BaseKit, have been announced and handed over during a special rock-themed ceremony at Madame JoJo’s in London’s Soho. And we can now exclusively reveal the results to the world!

It was back in August and September that readers of .net were first asked to vote for their favourites in each category.  That led to a record 125,000 votes – and decided the top three in each category. That shortlist of three was then scrutinised and debated by an independent panel of industry judges who picked tonight’s 17 winners.

At time of writing, the event is still in full swing and Conquest of Steel, featuring Opera’s very own god of metal, Chris Mills, are about to take the stage. But we’ve dragged ourselves away from the screaming axe solos and general debauchery to share with you the ultimate victors. So without further ado, the winners are …

In software engineering, a design pattern is a general reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem within a given context in software design. A design pattern is not a finished design that can be transformed directly into code. It is a description or template for how to solve a problem that can be used in many different situations. Object-oriented design patterns typically show relationships and interactions between classes or objects, without specifying the final application classes or objects that are involved. Many patterns imply object-orientation or more generally mutable state, and so may not be as applicable in functional programming languages, in which data is immutable or treated as such.

Design patterns reside in the domain of modules and interconnections. At a higher level there are architectural patterns that are larger in scope, usually describing an overall pattern followed by an entire system.

Tasarım desenleri veya tasarım örüntüleri, çok rastlanan, birbirine benzer sorunları çözmek için geliştirilmiş ve işlerliği kanıtlanmış genel çözüm önerileridir.

Yazılım tasarım örüntüleri, yazılım tasarımı sırasında sıkça karşılaşılan, birbirine benzer sorunları çözmek için geliştirilmiş ve işlerliği kanıtlanmış genel çözüm önerileridir. Genel olarak yazılım tasarım örüntüleri programlama dillerinden bağımsız olarak tanımlansalar da, nesneye yönelimli programlama dillerine uygun yazılım tasarım örüntüleri daha çok bilinir. Bu örüntüler, nesneler ve sınıflar arasındaki ilişkileri ve etkilişimleri gösterirler. Programcı bir tasarım örüntüsünü elindeki soruna bakarak özelleştirip kullanabilir.

Observer:

Allows objects to be notified when state changes.

Decorator:

Wraps an object to provide new behavior.

Factory Method:

Subclasses decide which concrete classes to create.

Sigleton:

Ensures one and only object is created.

Command:

Encapsulates a request as a n object.

Adapter:

Wraps an object and provides a different interface to it.

Facade:

Simplifies the interface of a set of classes.

Template Method:

Subclasses decide how to implement steps in an algorithm.

Iterator:

Provides a way to traverse a collection of objects without exposing its implementation.

Composite:

Clients treat collections of objects and individual objects uniformly.

State:

Encapsulates sate-based behaviors and uses delegation to switch between behaviors.

Proxy:

Wraps an object to control access to it.

Bridge:

Separates an object’s interface from its implementation

Builder:

Separates object construction from its representation

Chain of Responsibility:

A way of passing a request between a chain of objects

Flyweight:

A fine-grained instance used for efficient sharing

Interpreter:

A way to include language elements in a program

Mediator:

Defines simplified communication between classes

Memento:

Capture and restore an object’s internal state

Prototype:

A fully initialized instance to be copied or cloned

Visitor:

Defines a new operation to a class without change

References:

Head First Design Patterns

Head First Object Oriented Analysis & Design

Wikipedia

Design Patterns @ Sourcemaking.com

• AWT

• SWT

• Swing

• SwingX

Plain Old Java Objects (POJO)

Java Bean

Java Web Frameworks:

• Servlet

• Java Server Pages (JSP)

• Struts

• Spring

• Seam

• Java Server Faces (JSF)

• Wicket

Object Relational Mapping (ORM)

Java Persistence API (JPA)

Hibernate

Java Toolkit and Libraries:

• Apache POI

• Apache Commons

• Substance

• JFreeChart

• JESS

• SOLR

• SAX

• QUARTZ

• JUnit

• JNDI

• Lucene

• RichFaces

• IceFaces

• Google Web Toolkit (GWT)