Ctrl blog
Ctrl blog is a “quite technical blog from Daniel Aleksandersen, a specialist in obscure details based in Oslo, Norway.” Daniel writes on a variety of subjects including Linux, digital privacy, cybersecurity, web publishing and monetization.
“Many of the articles are the result of my almost obsessive note-taking habit, while others I write because I believe they’ll be useful to people”, Daniel says on his blog. Ctrl blog has a big following and is regularly plagiarized in several languages.
“Daniel is very critical of the software and hardware he tests, and tries to get in touch with the developers if something doesn’t work – and writes about the whole process”, says @Luetage from Vivaldi’s forum community.
“That’s something I do appreciate. I don’t think anyone can be interested in every specialist topic he covers, and at times his writing can become technical and dry – but that’s how it should be, we’re not talking about a poetry blog here”.
Roy Solberg’s blog
Over the years developer, Roy Solberg has discovered many security holes and information leaks on the Internet. In the past, he would notify the parties involved and move on. However, earlier this year he decided it was time to go public with “responsible disclosures” and is now blogging regularly about security vulnerability.
“While preparing these posts, I’ve asked myself repeatedly if I should go public with my findings or not. I’m still not entirely sure what the right answer is. What I do know is that I want increased focus on web security and that I feel a social responsibility to do this”, Roy says on his blog.
Among other things, he wants to make people more aware of the fact that their personal information is already in the hands of someone who wants it. He wants computer security to be a natural part of any developer’s mindset, and for businesses to know that there might be consequences if they are sloppy with people’s data.
The Morning Paper
Every weekday morning, The Morning Paper brings you a summary of “an important, influential, topical or otherwise interesting paper in the field of computer science.” The stories are selected by Adrian Colyer who admits that he is “an expert in none of them”. Nevertheless, during the course of a year, Adrian manages to cover a broad range of computer science topics which he picks up from reading a lot of papers and from getting to see a lot of companies through his role as a Venture Partner in London.
“In terms of paper selection, my only real rule is that I find it interesting and that I believe it’s worth sharing. I’m naturally curious and love learning, so the set of things that I find interesting is pretty broad! To read, understand (to the best of my ability) and write-up each paper takes me a minimum of two hours, more often two-and-a-half to three hours and occasionally longer. My goal is to produce a piece that you can read and digest in around 10 minutes or less that gives you the essential ideas. I.e., something you can consume during a coffee (or tea!) break.”
Susan J. Fowler’s blog
Susan J. Fowler is an engineer who earlier this year blogged about being sexually harassed while working at Uber. This now infamous blog post gained her a big following and put her in the spotlight. Aside from this one blog, she usually writes about computer science, distributed systems architecture, math, physics, and sometimes philosophy. She is currently the editor in chief of a software engineering magazine launched by payments company Stripe. Thanks for the recommendation, @dominicw2.
Painstaking.ly
Another interesting blog – also recommended by @dominicw2 – is Painstaking.ly by Amy Pettigrew, CEO of encrypted storage startup Arkham Storage. Amy is a life-long chronic pain patient and her blog tells what it’s like to run a technology startup with a disability.
“Working your ass off despite ill health is easily transferable to working your ass off despite the overwhelming odds against you as a fledgling startup”, Amy says on her blog page.
If you read French
Naturally, there are many successful, non-English language blogs out there. The most read tech blogger in France, for example, is Korben who is quite a celebrity. His blog is for real tech geeks. People say that being featured by Korben brings more attention than being on TechCrunch.
@Pierre also recommended the Linuxtricks and Glazman blogs to those of you who can read French.
Any other individual tech bloggers who are interesting and fun to read? Let us know in the comments so that more of us can check them out.
