Google Launches Managed Service For Running Docker-Based Applications On Its Cloud Platform

Google today announced the alpha launch of Google Container Engine, a new managed service for building and running Docker container-based applications on its cloud platform.

Docker is probably the hottest technology in developer circles these days — it’s almost impossible to have a discussion with a developer without it coming up — and Google’s Cloud Platform team has decided to go all in on this technology that makes it easier for developers to run distributed applications.

In essence, this new service is a “Cluster-as-a-Service” platform based on Google’s open source Kubernetes project. Kubernetes, which helps developers manage their container clusters, is based on Google’s own work with containers in its massive data centers. In this new service, Kubernetes dynamically manages the different Docker containers that make up an application for the user.

Google says the combination of “fast booting, efficient VM hosts and seamless virtualized network integration” will make its cloud computing service “the best place to run container-based applications.” The company’s competitors would likely argue with that, but none of them offer a similar service at this point.

Google initially launched support for Docker images in May as part of its new Managed VM service. These managed VMs are coming out of Google’s limited alpha — with the addition of auto-scaling support — and with that, developers can now use Docker containers on Google’s platform without having to jump through any hoops. Managed VMs will remain in beta for now, though, which in Google’s new language means there is no access control and that charges may be waived, but there is no SLA or technical support obligation either.

And remember, because this new service is officially in alpha, it isn’t feature-complete and the whole infrastructure could melt down at any minute.

How To Hide Text In Microsoft Word 2007, Reveal It & Protect It

Sometimes what we hide is more important than what we reveal. Especially, documents with sensitive information, some things are supposed to be ‘for some eyes only’. Such scenarios are quite common, even for the more un-secretive among us. You want to show someone a letter composed in MS Word, but want to keep some of the content private; or it’s an official letter with some part of it having critical data. As important as these two are, the most common use could involve a normal printing job. Many a time we have to print different versions of a document, one copy for one set of eyes and others for other sets. Rather than creating multiple copies and therefore multiple printing jobs, what if we could just do it from the same document? That too, without the hassle of repeated cut and paste. We can, with a simple feature in MS Word – it’s just called Hidden and let me show you how to use it to hide text in Microsoft Word 2007. It’s a simple single click process. Open the document

Clip & Convert Your Video Faster With Quicktime X & The New Handbrake 64-bit [Mac]

Recently a friend of mine asked for my help to find a video of a good presentation to be shown to one of his classes. He also requested for it to be iPod friendly as he would also distribute the video to his students. Three things came to my mind: Steve Jobs, Quicktime and Handbrake . Mr. Jobs is well known for his great presentations which are often used as references. I have several Apple Keynotes videos. For my friend, I decided to choose the one that introduced MacBook Air – the one that never fails to deliver the wow effect to the non-techie audience. It’s a part of January 2008 Macworld Keynote. First step: The Cutting To get only a specific part of the Keynote, I clipped the 1+ hour video into about 20 minutes using Quicktime X (which comes with Snow Leopard). I opened the movie using Quicktime X and chose Trim from the Edit menu ( Command + T ). Then I chose the start and end of my clip by moving both edges of the trimming bar to the desired position. To increase th

Ex-Skypers Launch Virtual Whiteboard Deekit

Although seriously long in the tooth and being disrupted by a plethora of startups, for many years Skype has existed as an almost ubiquitous app in any remote team’s toolkit. So it seems apt that a new startup founded by a team of ex-Skype employees is set to tackle another aspect of online collaboration. Deekit, which exits private beta today, is a virtual and collaborative whiteboard to help remote teams work smarter. The Tallinn, Estonia-based startup is headed up by founder and CEO, Kaili Kleemeier, who was previously a Head of Operations at Skype. She and three colleagues quit the Internet calling giant in 2012 and spent a year researching ideas in the remote team space. They ended up focusing on creating a new virtual whiteboard, born out of Kleemeier’s experience collaborating with technical teams remotely, specifically helping Skype deal with incident management. “Working with remote teams has been a challenge in many ways – cultural differences, language differences, a

Kiran Upadhyay

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