Alex Hornung

Since May 2009 I'm a proud owner of a Logitech diNovo Edge keyboard. It's really a great keyboard if you are anything like me and can't be bothered with even more cables. What I also love about it is the fact that it doesn't have a numpad. Never in my...

Many people buy their multimeters on eBay or similar sites, usually because they are much cheaper there. It is understandable that someone doesn't want to spend over 100 EUR/GBP for a multimeter when there are 20 EUR/GBP multimeters and even cheaper on eBay with, supposedly, the same features. Many years ago...

In the previous post I discussed the basic ideas behind serialization and synchronization on multiprocessor systems and introduced critical sections as one possible per-CPU approach. In this post I'll present the first real multiprocessor serialization/synchronization mechanism: the spinlock. Spinlocks Spinlocks are in principle the simplest locking method. The concept behind...

Since multiprocessor systems became ubiquitous many years ago, software developers have found many solutions to take advantage of them without compromising stability, functionality, etc. The problem that arises with true multiprocessing is that several threads can execute at the same time, possibly accessing the same data structures at the same...

Too many software developers these days don't know enough about the underlying hardware to appreciate some of the design considerations that should be taken into account. It usually works out just fine because of some magic occurring at some lower level (i.e. virtual machine, compiler, OS, hardware, ...) but it...

Welcome to my new page and blog. I'm an Electronic Engineer but currently do more Software than Hardware. The blog is mainly intended to be a space where I can place all my thoughts and rumblings, as well as share my experience on certain, mostly technical subjects. As you can...