database management
A little over a year ago, I wrote about the importance of version control for databases. When I ask development teams whether their database is under version control, I usually get blank stares. The database is a critical part of your application. If you deploy version 2.0 of your
user experience
Heidi Adkisson notes that features sell products, but the people buying those products often don’t use the very features they bought the product for in the first place. A few years ago I did an extensive in-home study observing use of a particular computer hardware peripheral. Most people
humor
You may think of Steve Martin as a stereotypical family friendly comedian today – the center of saccharine movies like Parenthood and Father of the Bride. But it wasn’t always this way. Steve hit his stride in the early 80s. At that time, I don’t think there were any
backups
Jamie Zawinski’s public service backup announcement starts off with a bang: Option 1: Learn not to care about your data. Don’t save any old email, use a film camera, and only listen to physical CDs and not MP3s. If you have no possessions, you have nothing to lose.
apple
I never quite made the transition from the Apple II series to the Mac. Instead, I migrated from my Apple II to a PC. I always thought the PC ecosystem, although deeply flawed, was more naturally analogous to the eclectic third party hardware and software hacker ecosystem that grew up
ruby
Joseph Cooney reminds us that, in January 2005, 37signals went live with a product they built in 579 lines of code: You read that right, not 60,000 or 600,000 but instead a commercial project written in less than 600 lines of Ruby code. When I first saw this
software development
The job market for software developers is hot. This is great news for programmers, but it makes the interview process challenging for potential employers. A reader recently wrote me expressing some concern about the interview process: You mention Vertigo requiring a code sample, then a phone screening, then a hands-
operating systems
Over time, I’ve become something of a desktop minimalist. 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 out of the box,
presentation skills
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 each slide
conference
I have the distinct honor of speaking at this year’s CUSEC, which runs from today until Saturday. So what, exactly, is CUSEC? CUSEC is the Canadian University Software Engineering Conference, an annual conference about the most interesting topics in software engineering organized for and by students from universities across
typography
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
keyboard shortcuts
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