Archive

privacy

Avoiding Walled Gardens on the Internet

I occasionally get requests to join private social networking sites, like LinkedIn or Facebook. I always politely decline. I understand the appeal of private social networking, and I mean no disrespect to the people who send invites. But it’s just not for me. I feel very strongly that we

ui design

The Three Faces of About Face

I bought my copy of Alan Cooper’s classic About Face in 1995. I remember poring over it, studying its excellent advice, reveling in its focus on the hot new UI paradigms standardized in Windows 95 – toolbars, menus with icons, tabbed dialogs, and so forth. Seems quaint now, if not

mobile devices

Why You Don’t Want an iPhone – Yet

Let me start by saying up front that I am a fan of the iPhone. The mobile phone market is a sad, pathetic wasteland in desperate need of improvement. I’m hoping iPhone will the collective kick in the pants the smartphone market needs to finally stop making user hostile

technology trends

Learning, or, Learning How To Learn

One of my most eye-opening early experiences was a tour of a local manufacturing plant during high school. One of our tour guides was a MIT trained engineer who accompanied us, explaining how everything worked. At the end of the tour, he gave each of us a picture of a

.net

Supporting Open Source Projects in the Microsoft Ecosystem

As part of my new advertising initiative, Microsoft and I are teaming up to donate $10,000 in support of open source .NET projects. Why am I focusing on .NET open source projects? In short, because open source projects are treated as second-class citizens in the Microsoft ecosystem. Many highly

legalese

Does Anyone Actually Read Software EULAs?

If you’ve used a computer for any length of time, you’ve probably clicked through hundreds of End User License Agreement (EULA) dialogs. And if you’re like me, you haven’t read a single word of any of them. Who can blame you? They’re mind-numbing legalese. As

programming practices

In Programming, One Is The Loneliest Number

Is software development an activity preferred by anti-social, misanthropic individuals who’d rather deal with computers than other people? If so, does it then follow that all software projects are best performed by a single person, working alone? The answer to the first question may be a reluctant yes, but

software development

Escaping From Gilligan’s Island

I find it helpful to revisit Steve McConnell’s list of classic development process mistakes, and the accompanying case study, at least once every year. Stop me if you've heard this one before: “Look, Mike,” Tomas said. “I can hand off my code today and call it ‘feature

security

How to Clean Up a Windows Spyware Infestation

I recently upgraded my dedicated racing simulation PC, so I was forced to re-install Windows XP SP2, along with all the games. As I was downloading the no-cd patches for the various racing sims I own, I was suddenly and inexplicably deluged with popups, icons, and unwanted software installations. I

user experience

Incremental Feature Search in Applications

I’m a big fan of incremental search. But incremental search isn’t just for navigating large text documents. As applications get larger and more complicated, incremental search is also useful for navigating the sea of features that modern applications offer. Office 2007’s design overhaul is arguably one of