Indoor enthusiast. Co-founder of Stack Overflow and Discourse. Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about. Find me:
server
One of the key differences between the original dot-com bubble and the Web 2.0 bubble we’re entering now is that our servers are a lot cheaper and a lot more powerful. Moore’s Law in action isn’t exactly news, but the new web is definitely powered by
usability
I was lucky enough to attend a week-long Human Factors International session on usability a few years ago.* As a developer with a long term interest in getting to the human root cause of so many programming problems, I loved it. One of the freebies from the course was this
cartoons
I recently found a link to a series of Larry Gonick’s mathematical cartoons that were originally published in Discover magazine: * Beauty and the Beasts (neural nets) * Prime Time (cryptography) * Proof Positive? (probabalistic proofs) * Lumps, with Mother Nature (chaotic mixing) * Speed (relativity) * The Solution (traveling salesman's problem) * Filler
security
Paul Thurrott’s scathing article Where Vista Fails highlights my biggest concern with Windows Vista: Modern operating systems like Linux and Mac OS X operate under a security model where even administrative users don’t get full access to certain features unless they provide an in-place logon before performing any
remote desktop
I’m with K. Scott Allen: the pervasiveness of Remote Desktop functionality in Windows has fundamentally changed the way I work. The fact that it shipped in the Windows XP box – and as a default component of all the server operating systems since Windows 2000 – has done wonders for its
painting
We’re currently undertaking some painting projects at home. Which means I’ll be following the instructions on the paint can. But what would happen if I didn’t follow the instructions on the paint can? Here’s a list of common interior painting mistakes: The single most common mistake
software development concepts
Rajesh Setty has some unusual advice for IT professionals — stop wasting time in the technology skill-set rat race, and start building your personal brand: Jack meets Janet and they start talking. Jack explains who he is and what he does for a living and Janet does the same. While Jack
software development
Very few software engineers use UML symbols to design software, but electrical engineers regularly use circuit symbols to design electronics: Circuit symbols are constructed into circuit diagrams – the the visual language of electricity: If circuit diagrams are a standard, universally understood way to talk about electronics, why doesn’t UML
tag1: wikipedia tag2: inclusionists tag3: deletionists tag4: social problems tag5: encyclopedic content
Jason Scott, of textfiles.com and BBS: The Documentary, presented a talk on the failure of Wikipedia at Notacon 3 this weekend. I highly recommend listening to his talk. It’s fascinating – full of insights into what makes Wikipedia work so well, but specifically highlighting some of the social problems
security
Virtual machine images typically don’t need much security, so the login prompt is more of a formality than anything else. Plus, if you’re planning to share the VM image with others, you need to communicate the login information along with the image. It’s a pain. I’ve
programming languages
I was struck by this quote from a New Yorker article on Muzak: “Our biggest competitor,” a member of Muzak’s marketing department told me, “is silence.” The problem with comparing something to nothing is that nothing is, well, nothing. James Bach elaborates: I was watching Dr. Stuart Reid talk
keyboard shortcuts
Everyone knows how to use the arrow keys to navigate within textboxes. But not many people know there are a slew of handy keyboard shortcuts for editing text in textboxes. And these keyboard shortcuts work everywhere, even in the most basic input areas – including vanilla HTML forms, such as the