Year: 2014

Popcorn Time comes to Android

Lifehacker reports some good news for movie loving owners of Android devices:

Movie streaming service Popcorn Time has had some trouble staying in business (for obvious reasons), but it’s back on Android with a free, open source app that streams movies directly to your device.P

The service works by downloading torrents in the background while you watch. As with any service like this, both legal films as well as illegal, copyrighted movies show up, so it’s up to you to decide how you use it. Unlike the web-based versions of the last couple months, though, it won’t be as easy to pull the plug on an open source app.

Here is the direct link to Popcorn Time on Google Play Store.

Akamai vs Incapsula – Comparison Review

Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs) are the current evolution of old school CDNs platforms tasked with responsibility not only for website’s performance, but also for its security and availability. By singlehandedly covering these mission crucial aspects of content and application delivery these technologies allow you to replace multiple appliances with one full service solution. With that, ADCs help eliminate many integration related issues, while also dramatically cutting down all setup, acquisition and maintenance costs.

In the world of ADCs, Incapsula is perhaps the most promising up-and-comer, a cloud-based service that seems to have the technology and the business sense needed to position itself at the same level as its legacy competitors.

It’s been almost two years since I last blogged about Incapsula. Now with recent announcement of its load balancing and failover features, I decided to update my review by pitching Incapsula against Akamai – a globally recognized CDN industry leader, who is also making a leap into the world of full service application delivery.

For this “head to head” comparison of Akamai vs Incapsula, I’ll be focusing on security, performance, availability and – of course – price of service.

You can find the full comparison here but for those of you who want to skip to the chase, here’s what I think about in a nutshell:

Akamai vs Incapsula: In a Nutshell

Incapsula simply offers more for less. You get all of the essentials you would expect, including a robust CDN, PCI compliant Web Application Firewall, DDoS protection and integrated high availability features (both load balancing and failover), all at very reasonable price point.

Not only that, but when compared with Akamai it looks like most of Incapsula features actually offer more, both in terms of their functionality and in term of their overall synergy. One great example is Incapsula’s Real Time view which complements its custom security rules engine and load balancing features by providing instant feedback on every action taken.

In fact, when looking at value for money, Akamai does not offer any tangible benefits – at least not for those who are looking beyond a CDN-only option.

Cyprus public sector employee worked a total 47 days in 2 years with full pay

Cyprus Updates reports:

an employee of Cyprus Press Information Office (P.I.O), managed to attend work for only 47 days during a 2 year period and get away with it.

The employee under investigation in 2010 showed up to her job for 37 days (followed with 116 days of medical leave) and for just 10 days in 2011. In September 2010 an officer was appointed to conduct a disciplinary investigation and on October 2011 the case was taken to the Attorney General who in April 2012 drafted an indictment which was submitted to the Chairman of the Public Service Commission. In June 2013 after the bureaucratic process finished and after the employee pleaded guilty of the 15 charges she was facing a penalty of 1500 euro was imposed. Finally the employee was to be let go after a decision of the Public Service Commission on 26th March 2014 but to their surprise the employee had already retired prematurely 4 months earlier and now enjoys all pension benefits she would have normally lost had she been fired.

And if all this was not enough, the case has not been closed but has been brought to the Supreme Court because the now ex-employee of P.I.O. is claiming additional 44 days of pay for 2010 which were not approved by the medical board as sick leave.