Amazon is the world's largest online retailer. But they are so much more. They sell cutting-edge consumer electronics like the Kindle and Echo lines, they provide services to ecommerce vendors, they provide consumer streaming services, they own physical stores, and most importantly for their bottom line, they run AWS, Amazon Web Services. In this episode we explain the importance of AWS to Amazon, look at the numbers from Amazon's most recent quarterly report, and discuss their historically low profit margins. Show Notes Episode 56: What is the Cloud? Episode 71: How Does Facebook Make Money? Amazon's Q3 2021 Quarterly Report Presentation Follow us on Twitter @KopecExplains. Theme “Place on Fire” Copyright 2019 Creo, CC BY 4.0 Find out more at http://kopec.live

Memory leaks occur when a program allocates memory and fails to free it when the memory is no longer being used. They can cause the memory use of a program to balloon over time, eventually leading to performance problems or a crash. They are a common programmer error, that has been alleviated, although not eliminated, by modern programming languages. Programming languages like C and C++ use manual memory management, which requires the programmer to do some book-keeping. The programmer must keep track of all of the memory they allocated and must remember to free it. Programming languages with garbage collectors automatically free unused memory. In this episode we explain memory leaks and look at a recent case of a major memory leak in macOS Monterey as an example. Show Notes Episode 76: What is Protected Memory? More memory leaks in Monterey 12.0.1 Follow us on Twitter @KopecExplains. Theme “Place on Fire” Copyright 2019 Creo, CC BY 4.0 Find out more at http://kopec.live

Memory protection is a mechanism for protecting one program from another program, which ultimately protects the user. It stops malicious programs from interfering with legitimate programs, and it stops programmer errors in one program from taking down another. Every time you've been able to force quit a non-responsive application and then go on using your system with the rest of it unaffected you've been benefitting from protected memory. But personal computing operating systems didn't always have memory protection. In this episdoe we'll explain what protected memory is, its history in personal computers, and why you don't need to restart after you force quit an app. Show Notes Episode 40: What is the Memory Hierarchy? Episode 2: What is an Operating System? Follow us on Twitter @KopecExplains. Theme “Place on Fire” Copyright 2019 Creo, CC BY 4.0 Find out more at http://kopec.live

The application process for a job in software development or software engineering typically involves what's known as a "technical interview." Technical interviews are notorious for being intimidating and exclusionary of otherwise good candidates. Technical interviews may involve whiteboarding, live coding, brain teasers, or even take-home projects. In this episode we'll explain what these different kinds of technical interviews are like and why they induce so much fear. We'll also discuss the bias inherent in these interviews, their pros and cons versus the alternatives, and how to best prepare for them. Show Notes Episode 62: What is an Algorithm? Episode 61: What is a Data Structure? Episode 57: Version Control Systems, Git, and GitHub HackerRank LeetCode Cracking the Coding Interview via Amazon Follow us on Twitter @KopecExplains. Theme “Place on Fire” Copyright 2019 Creo, CC BY 4.0 Find out more at http://kopec.live

Hackers is a cult classic 1995 movie about a group of teenage hackers and their counter culture. The plot revolves around an online battle between the teenagers and a nefarious corporate cyber security expert. In this episode we breakdown how technologically accurate the movie is. What was real, and what was pure fiction? We also review it. Show Notes Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick via Amazon Hackers via Amazon Prime Hackers via Wikipedia Follow us on Twitter @KopecExplains. Theme “Place on Fire” Copyright 2019 Creo, CC BY 4.0 Find out more at http://kopec.live

This podcast explores the history and uniqueness of the Swift programming language, its modern features and beginner-friendly syntax, updates and future prospects including asynchronous programming and concurrency, and the limited future it may have outside of Apple platforms compared to competitors like Rust and Kotlin.

Last week a journalist in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on a vulnerability they discovered in the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's website that exposed the social security numbers of individual educators. The social security numbers were being exposed in the public facing HTML of the site, making them easily accessible to anyone with a web browser. The journalist disclosed the vulnerability to the state government before publishing the story so it could be fixed. However, the Missouri governor claimed that the journalist had hacked the government and announced that the journalist would be investigated by state police. In this episode we discuss the incident, explain why it was far from hacking, and talk about how it's another example of technologically illiterate leadership. We then broaden the case to include leaders at all levels of government and propose a solution. Show Notes Missouri teachers’ Social Security numbers at risk on state agency’s website via St. Louis Post-Dispatch Episode 6: How does the Web work? Episode 44: Google v. Oracle Episode 59: What is HTML and CSS? Episode 17: What is Encryption? Follow us on Twitter @KopecExplains. Theme “Place on Fire” Copyright 2019 Creo, CC BY 4.0 Find out more at http://kopec.live

Facebook's been in the news again, and as usual it's not a positive story. In this episode we dive into some of Facebook's financial statistics from their most recent quarterly filing with the SEC. We then talk about their business model and how your use of Facebook plays into it. We discuss some of the inputs into Facebook's algorithm, and how the data points you generate for Facebook are used to target you with advertisements. Finally, we touch on the Facebook whistle-blower, whether Facebook should be regulated, and how Apple has hurt Facebook's revenue. Show Notes Episode 49: Apple vs Facebook on App Tracking Facebook's Q1 2021 Filing with the SEC Follow us on Twitter @KopecExplains. Theme “Place on Fire” Copyright 2019 Creo, CC BY 4.0 Find out more at http://kopec.live

Last week marked the tenth anniversary of the death of Steve Jobs. We discuss his legacy and how he inspired people in the tech industry. David also tells the personal story of his Steve Jobs fandom. Show Notes Episode 16: The Personal Computing Revolution Episode 29: Why was the Original Macintosh Significant? Books About Apple and Steve Jobs via David's Blog Becoming Steve Jobs by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli via Amazon Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson via Amazon The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs by Carmine Gallo via Amazon Follow us on Twitter @KopecExplains. Theme “Place on Fire” Copyright 2019 Creo, CC BY 4.0 Find out more at http://kopec.live

The podcast explores the history and adoption of Objective-C, comparing it to C++. It discusses the syntax and usage of Objective-C, highlighting its differences and foreign appearance. The importance of Objective-C in the Apple world is explored, along with its performance comparison to C/C++. The podcast ponders an alternative history where Objective-C could have rivaled C++.