Indoor enthusiast. Co-founder of Stack Overflow, Discourse, and staygold.us. Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about. Let's be kind to each other. Find me
programming languages
I had no idea this was happening, but it is fantastic news: according to this GamePC article, the latest 2005 version of Windows XP Media Center Edition will be released as a retail product within a few weeks: Windows XP Media Center Edition was originally launched roughly two years ago,
software development
I saw this really funny, if somewhat ancient, Dave Winer blog entry on Scoble’s blog and I just couldn’t resist: An old software slogan at Living Videotext: “We Make Shitty Software... With Bugs!” It makes me laugh! We never ran this slogan in an ad. People wouldn’t
software development
How many things would you classify yourself as “expert” at? I drive to and from work every day, but I hardly consider myself an expert driver. I brush my teeth at least twice every day, and I’m no expert on oral care; just ask my dentist. I use Visual
microsoft
Don’t be too quick to dismiss Microsoft’s effort to solve the double-click problem. Try it yourself. On any explorer window, select Tools, Options, General: I believe this feature was introduced with Windows 98; it’s an attempt to map everything to the single mouse click, using the
bug fixing
Recently, we had this strange problem with a particular smart client application at work. It happened when the user clicked the OK button on a specific form. Like all difficult bugs, it was impossible for us to replicate. We put a bunch of diagnostic scaffolding into the deployed executable; this
asp.net
I improved the ASP.NET CAPTCHA server control I mentioned yesterday: * Control respects all standard ASP.NET server control properties (font, border, accesskey, enabled, etcetera) * Hide ViewState property (it’s required!) * Added CaptchaLength property * Added CaptchaFontWarping property * Improve font sizing algorithm * Improve warping algorithm (more mild distortion, no more drawing
asp.net
A few days ago, I found a really cool CAPTCHA ASP.NET code sample. I converted it to VB.NET and repackaged it as a full blown ASP.NET server control: It’s as simple as I could make it: a total drag and drop, set the (three) properties and
programming languages
I was reading an interesting entry in Rocky Lhotka’s blog when something in the URL caught my eye: http://www.lhotka.net/WeBlog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=b28971dc-ac4b-4494-8a21-7a5105a39b07 I guess it’s a DasBlog thing, but good lord: a globally unique ID in a blog hyperlink?
programming languages
OK, the title is just, Why Your Code Sucks, but you know you were thinking it. The article may not be as grammatically (sp) correct as I would like, but it’s got some solid advice. My favorite is rejection of dogma: Your code sucks if it dogmatically conforms to
software development concepts
Of all the professional hubris I’ve observed in software developers, perhaps the greatest sin of all is that we consider ourselves typical users. We use the computer obsessively, we know a lot about how it works, we even give advice to friends and relatives. We are experts. Who could
java
I got into an interesting discussion today about that recently published report, Comparing Microsoft .NET and IBM WebSphere/J2EE. If you haven’t read it, there’s a summary at eWeek, but I definitely recommend downloading the full report for the details. If you’re too busy to do either
spam filtering
In my previous blog entry on some plan(s) for spam, I mentioned that I didn’t care for challenge/response “human-only” whitelists. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why I felt that way... until I happened upon this John Graham-Cumming PowerPoint presentation: I don’t