One of the most recent updates to the iPhone, and more specifically the operating system that is packaged with the iPhone, iOS, brought one of the most fantastic and phenomenal updates ever: an update to Maps. Maps has been used as an application that provides an easy way to find routes, and (obviously) maps about certain areas, businesses in the local vicinity, and also leaving pins on favorited locations, or pins where you have explored, and for many other reasons. However, although Maps has always been a great way to travel with, it has always been redundant to travel with, also. When you used Maps a while ago, you had to route your map, and then manually click each next button as you reached each turn or freeway exit, and the like. So, if you had to turn left on a certain street, you had to tell your phone you had done so, so it would give you the next directions. As a result, it could become very dangerous to always have your phone out, looking at it, while you are on a high-speed freeway. But, the newest update solved that, and brought a great amount of new features.

Using Maps GPS

Using Maps is as easy as it gets. Most of the time, when you are using Maps, you are using it to search for a location, and finding a way to get there. To start off, let’s search for the nearest mall, and routes to get there. Simply search a nearby mall you know about, or search the general word “mall” by tapping on the top text box, and typing in mall, and searching. Pins will drop down on the screen, and locating the mall by zooming into certain streets and locations will help you find the mall you want. Once you find the mall you desire to go to, click on the blue arrow, and scroll down, and tap on the button that says “Directions To Here.”

As a result of tapping on that particular button, a new window should show up asking where your starting location is. On default, this location is your current location; if it is anything else, simply type in the starting location into the top address bar, such as your house. Once you are ready to go, tap on route, and you should be ready to go. Well, not exactly. One of the best features that has been implemented in the new system is suggested routes, and alternative routes. If you don’t like to drive on certain streets, or roads, the system provides you with different methods to get to your destination, which may avoid a road you don’t feel like driving on that certain day, or time, or you simply don’t want to take the freeway. It’s all okay, as Maps provides you with many different routes to take. Once you find the route you want (by tapping on the certain route’s outline), click start, and you should be ready to go. Make sure you turn up your volume so you can hear the directions!

Maps for Alternative Transportation

In programming, memory leaks are a common issue, and it occurs when a computer uses memory but does not give it back to the operating system. Experienced programmers have the ability to diagnose a leak based on the symptoms. Some believe every undesired increase in memory usage is a memory leak, but this is not an accurate representation of a leak. Certain leaks only run for a short time and are virtually undetectable.

Memory Leak Consequences

Applications that suffer severe memory leaks will eventually exceed the memory resulting in a severe slowdown or a termination of the application.

How to Protect Code from Memory Leaks?

Preventing memory leaks in the first place is more convenient than trying to locate the leak later. To do this, you can use defensive programming techniques such as smart pointers for C++.  A smart pointer is safer than a raw pointer because it provides augmented behavior that raw pointers do not have. This includes garbage collection and checking for nulls.

If you are going to use a raw pointer, avoid operations that are dangerous for specific contexts. This means pointer arithmetic and pointer copying. Smart pointers use a reference count for the object being referred to. Once the reference count reaches zero, the excess goes into garbage collection. The most commonly used smart pointer is shared_ptr from the TR1 extensions of the C++ standard library.

Static Analysis

The second approach to memory leaks is referred to as static analysis and attempts to detect errors in your source-code. CodeSonar is one of the effective tools for detection. It provides checkers for the Power of Ten coding rules, and it is especially competent at procedural analysis. However, some might find it lagging for bigger code bases.

How to Handle a Memory Leak

For some memory leaks, the only solution is to read through the code to find and correct the error. Another one of the common approaches to C++ is to use RAII, which an acronym for Resource Acquisition Is Initialization. This approach means associating scoped objects using the acquired resources, which automatically releases the resources when the objects are no longer within scope. RAII has the advantage of knowing when objects exist and when they do not. This gives it a distinct advantage over garbage collection. Regardless, RAII is not always recommended because some situations require ordinary pointers to manage raw memory and increase performance. Use it with caution.

The Most Serious Leaks

Urgency of a leak depends on the situation, and where the leak has occurred in the operating system. Additionally, it becomes more urgent if the leak occurs where the memory is limited such as in embedded systems and portable devices.

To protect code from memory leaks, people have to stay vigilant and avoid codes that could result in a leak. Memory leaks continue until someone turns the system off, which makes the memory available again, but the slow process of a leak can eventually prejudice a machine that normally runs correctly.

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Due to the advancements in technology, teens and adults alike can now partake in virtual worlds thanks to video games. Video games are enjoyed as a hobby all over the globe, but some gamers have made it their career with help from the ever-growing e-sport community. This is an inside look at the professional level of gaming from an ex-MLG participant, and what I remember going through when starting to play video games at an elite level.

One of the premiere and most popular leagues within the United States happens to be Major League Gaming or MLG for short. This is a league that usually involves more of the most recent games out, and they create circuits for each major title and its subsequent releases. Two of the most major game circuits within the MLG league were the Halo series and the Call of Duty series, both which happened to be first person shooters (FPS). There were a potential hundred or so teams within each circuit, but much like other competitions, the circuits were ran with winner’s brackets and losers brackets. This means that out of all the teams that would show up to MLG events, about the top eight of each bracket would really be known as the "elite" players. I personally played in the Gears of War circuit at venues like MLG Raleigh and MLG Toronto, and we had very few teams compared to Call of Duty and Halo. The amount of participants at each event usually varies in each circuit based on the popularity of the game being played.

When you win tournaments, the payouts are split between the team members. This means that looking at playing in the MLG for a life career is an ill-advised move. The cost to get to events and buy team passes usually negates the prizes you win most of the time, considering by the time that the prize money is split you are left with about $800 in a popular circuit (Like Call of Duty). The payouts are usually only high in special and certain occasions, one for example being the million dollar showdown that Infinity Ward hosted for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 a couple years back. The way that players that make professional gaming their career get the big money now is by being sponsored by the big companies that back the league like Red Bull and Hot Pockets. MLG players like "Walshy" and "FeaR Moho" were sponsored early on in the league and were able to make a living off of the games they played. I would imagine them getting around $60K in a good year off of sponsors alone. I would go even as far as to say that if you do not have a sponsor in e-sports, you will not be financially successful in the career.

Being an MLG gamer requires passion and understanding for the games. If you just want to make money, then you are better off working at McDonalds.

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In Python, we can create three types of methods in a class:  instance or regular method, classmethod and staticmethod.  Instance methods are associated, as the name infers, with an instance or object of the class and take self as the first parameter.  Classmethods take a reference to the class, cls, as the first parameter of the class.  Staticmethods, for the most part, are convenience methods that could be declared as functions since they really do not have much to do with the class itself.  They were probably added at some time after the advent of Python in order to make the language more object oriented i.e. minimize the number of free floating functions. 

Refer the our article static, class and regular methods in Python for a detailed explanation on this subject.