Craic Computing LLC is a computer consulting company based in Seattle. We provide custom software development and advanced data analysis services to the biotechnology industry.

	9 October 2008 Tutorial on the aws-sdb Ruby interface to Amazon's SimpleDB Service SimpleDB is a hosted, distributed database service, part of the Amazon Web Services Portfolio. aws-sdb is a Ruby interface to this service, written by Tim Dysinger.   This tutorial from Robert Jones at Craic explains how to use this service from within Ruby code.   We use a number of AWS services to handle massive datasets of sequence and text.
	19 March 2008 Assessment Criteria for Select Agent Sequences A discussion paper on the choice of Select Agent pathogen sequences for Sequence Screening by DNA synthesis companies.
	18 December 2007 Craic Computing announces the initial release of Ortho, a JavaScript library for creating diagram-style graphics on-the-fly in web browsers.   Ortho fills an important gap in browser graphics in that it seamlessly integrates text and graphics, unlike Canvas. Pages look the same on all browsers and in print, and it requires no third-party plugin, unlike Flash. Graphics are created using JavaScript and a simple API. Ortho is built on top of the Prototype framework and is easy to extend using the Scriptaculous library.   The Ortho project pages include documentation and a range of examples that show its capabilities.   Ortho is freely available under an MIT-style Open Source license.
	7 December 2007 Sequence Screening A major study on Synthetic Genomics: Risks and Benefits for Science and Society was conducted in 2005 through 2007 by policy experts from the J. Craig Venter Institute, MIT and the CSIS, funded by the Sloan Foundation. Dr. Robert Jones was asked to contribute to that study and prepare a background paper on the use of Sequence Screening as a way to detect misuse of this technology. The Final Report of this study was published recently, followed now by the release of supporting papers, including Sequence Screening (originally written in 2005).
	6 December 2007 Analysis of Abusive Usenet Postings Craic Computing has completed an independent investigation into the source of abusive messages, sent to Usenet groups, relating to members of the US Chess Federation. The primary technical conclusion is in agreement with that of a previous report from a USCF member.
	25 January 2007 Craic Computing Tech Tips is a collection of computer systems and programming tips that will be updated from time to time. We hope that other programmers will find it useful. Take a look.
	24 April 2006 Dynamic DNS and Location Tracking - Risks and Benefits A new Craic Technical Report details a potential risk to the privacy of mobile Internet users, such as business travellers, who use Dynamic DNS services.
	7 October 2005 Internet Forensics by Robert Jones was published by O'Reilly Media today. This book describes a wide range of techniques for tracking down the sites and servers behind phishing scams, spam and other forms of Internet fraud.

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