This Week I Learned - Week #124

This Week I Learned -

* Linux now (August 2015) drives about 25 percent of the activity on Azure - Wired

* Cloud computing was invented by Amazon in 2006.  Netflix built its TV and movie business atop the Amazon cloud. Dropbox erected its file-sharing operation there. Google and Microsoft released beta versions of similar cloud services in 2008 — Google App Engine and Windows Azure - Wired

* ..you should think of Docker as a shipping container for software. Just as shipping containers give us a standard pod we can transfer from boat to train to truck, Docker offers a standard means of moving software from machine to machine to machine. If an app needs more computing power—or some of the machines running it quit working—Docker provides a way of easily spreading to new machines - Wired

* Hyper-V requires a 64-bit processor that includes Hardware-assisted virtualization & Hardware-enforced Data Execution Prevention (DEP)

* The Hyper-V role is not supported on Windows Azure Virtual Machines. Microsoft supports only specific versions of Microsoft server software within the Azure virtual machine environment.

* If your application needs 1 quad core processor in a physical server, you can say that it will need 4 virtual processors as a virtual machine.

* The PDF eBook version of Skype for Business User Tips & Tricks for Anyone is free to download

* The System Information tool (Msinfo32.exe) available with Windows OS. On some older versions of Windows, it cannot be invoked by typing msinfo32.exe at the command line. In such cases, it can be located at this path - c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\msinfo

* Mark Russinovich, now Microsoft Technical Fellow, completed a computer engineering master’s degree from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York and a PhD at Carnegie Mellon, before doing a post-doc at the University of Oregon. He specialized in the design of computer operating systems.

* ...future patches are going to continue to say nothing more than "This update includes improvements to enhance the functionality of Windows 10."

* ServerWatch ranks Ubuntu as the best in its list of top 10 Linux server operating systems for 2015

* India-born, Britisher, Sir Ronald Ross received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902 for his work on malaria.  After two years of research failure, he discovered the presence of the malarial parasite inside the gut of mosquito in 1897 in Secunderabad. It is Italian physician and zoologist Giovanni Battista Grassi who demonstrated that human malarial parasites were transmitted only by female Anopheles. Ross's personal vendetta with G.B. Grassi became a legendary tale in science. Ross carefully saved virtually everything about himself: correspondence, telegrams, newspaper cuttings, drafts of published and unpublished material, and all manner of ephemera

* Archibald Campbell brought tea cultivation to Darjeeling

* Louis Pasteur created the first vaccines for rabies and anthrax.  He is best known for his invention of the technique of treating milk and wine to stop bacterial contamination, a process now called pasteurization.  Three of his five children died of typhoid before reaching adulthood. These personal tragedies were his motivations for curing infectious diseases. Historical reassessment of Pasteur's notebook revealed that he practiced deception to overcome his rivals.

* "In the field of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind" - Louis Pasteur

* JD Salinger ("The Catcher in the Rye"), Anna Sewell ("Black Beauty"),  Margaret Mitchell ("Gone With the Wind") are a few of the most celebrated authors who did not write a second novel

* Some tax experts recommend filing Income Tax returns even if you annual income is below the taxable limits so that you can claim a refund in the following cases -
- you have suffered losses from stock market transactions and you want to carry it forward to the next year then you must file refund
- your employer has cut Tax Deducted at Source (TDS)
- you earned some money through freelance work and the company deducted TDS at 10 per cent. Since your income is lower than the taxable limit, you are entitled for refund.
- you are earning rental income of more than Rs 1.8 lakh per year. In this case, the tenant has to deduct TDS. So, while you are entitled to refund, if you have no other source of income, you have to file return to claim the refund