Indoor enthusiast. Co-founder of Stack Overflow and Discourse. Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about. Find me here:
It's as true in life as it is in client-server programming: the only secret that can't be compromised is the one you never revealed. But sometimes, it's unavoidable. If you must send a secret down to the client, you can encrypt it. The most
You've probably seen this old chestnut by now. Insert your own joke here. Google can't be wrong -- math is! But Google is hardly alone; this is just another example in a long and storied history of obscure little computer math errors that go way back,
Google's Chrome browser passes anything you type into the address bar that isn't an obvious URI on to the default search engine. While web browsers should have some built-in smarts, they can never match the collective intelligence of a worldwide search engine. For example: weather San
Although I'm a huge fan of Code Complete -- it is my single most recommended programming book for good reason -- there are chapters in it that I haven't been able to digest, even after 16 years. One of those chapters describes something called the Pseudocode
In my previous post I Just Logged In As You, I disclosed that someone was logging in as me -- specifically because they discovered my password. But how? If I wanted to discover someone's password, I can think of a few ways: 1. Educated guess. If you know
I received this anonymous email a few days ago: I found what one could call a security hole in Stackoverflow. I'm curious enough to go digging around for holes, but too ethical to actually do anything with them. However, I'm afraid that by pointing it out
If we geeks obsessively optimize what's on our keychain, we'd be remiss if we didn't also obsessively optimize that other item most geeks carry around – our wallet. My current Tumi wallet was almost 10 years old and starting to show its age. While I
On the eve of the Windows 7 release candidate, Microsoft announced that Windows 7 will include a fully licensed, virtualized copy of Windows XP: XP Mode consists of the Virtual PC-based virtual environment and a fully licensed copy of Windows XP. It will be made available, for free, to users
Is copying and pasting code dangerous? Should control-c and control-v be treated not as essential programming keyboard shortcuts, but registered weapons? (yes, I know that in OS X, the keyboard shortcut for cut and paste uses "crazy Prince symbol key" instead of control, like God intended. Any cognitive
Inside the Precision Hack is a great read. It's all about how the Time Magazine World's Most Influential People poll was gamed. But the actual hack itself is somewhat less impressive when you start digging into the details. Here's the voting UI for the
If you're waiting around for users to tell you about problems with your website or application, you're only seeing a tiny fraction of all the problems that are actually occurring. The proverbial tip of the iceberg. Also, if this is the case, I'm sorry
I'm a big advocate of learning on the battlefield. And that certainly includes what may be the most epic battle of them all: open source software. Contribute to an open-source project. There are thousands, so pick whatever strikes your fancy. But pick one and really dig in, become