Over time, I've become something of a desktop mimimalist. Sure, I'll change a few settings to my liking, but I no longer spend a lot of time customizing my desktop configuration. I've learned that if the defaults aren't reasonably close to correct
After being on both the giving and receiving end of plenty of presentations, I now realize there's one golden rule which applies to all of them: Entertain your audience. Every slide of your presentation should serve this fundamental vision statement. Is it entertaining? I don't mean
I have the distinct honor of speaking at this year's CUSEC, which runs from today until Saturday. [http://2008.cusec.net/en/index.php] So what, exactly, is CUSEC? [http://2008.cusec.net/en/cusecFAQ.php] > CUSEC is the Canadian University Software Engineering Conference, an annual conference
Over the christmas break, my wife and I visited New York City for the first time. One of the many highlights of our trip was the Museum of Modern Art, which is running a year-long special exhibit, 50 Years of Helvetica. It's a tiny exhibit tucked away in
Nobody has time to memorize a complete list of web browser keyboard shortcuts, and really, why should they? I only know a handful of web browser keyboard shortcuts, myself, and I probably use the same five shortcuts a hundred times a day. But not everyone knows about these five essential
Over the last few years, I've become mildly obsessive about the contents of my keychain. Here's what's on my keychain today: In internet parlance, this is known as EDC or every-day carry. There's an entire internet forum dedicated to the art and
Greg Wilson recently emailed me the following question: I'm teaching a software engineering class to third-year students at the University of Toronto starting in January, and would like to include at least one hour on deployment --- [deployment] never came up in any of my classes, and it&
I saw on reddit that today, January 10th, is Donald Knuth's seventieth birthday. Knuth is arguably the most famous living computer scientist, author of the seminal Art of Computer Programming series. Here's how serious Mr. Knuth is – his books are dedicated, not to his wife or
Bruce Eckel deftly identifies the root cause of all software development problems: We are in a young business. Primitive, really -- we don't know much about what works, and we keep thinking we've found the silver bullet that solves all problems. As a result, we go
What is user space? User space is the location in the filesystem where users put their personal files-- their "stuff". Here's the user space folder structure in the Windows XP operating system: Documents and SettingsUser Application Data Cookies Desktop Favorites Local Settings My Documents My Music
I've often thought that software developers were akin to Magpies, birds notorious for stealing shiny items to decorate their complex nests. Like Magpies, software developers are unusually smart and curious creatures, almost by definition. But we are too easily distracted by shiny new toys and playthings. I no
One advantage of being a geek is that our habits-- as such habits go-- are not terribly expensive. I've written before about my interest in auto racing. Instead of spending $100,000 on a sports car, I've built a nifty racing simulation rig that delivers many