In When Hardware is Free, Power is Expensive, I referenced a Google whitepaper (pdf) that explained why typical PC power supplies are not particularly efficient: Most likely, the computer you're using wastes 30-40% of the electrical power it consumes because it is using an inefficient power supply. It&
Today, bowing to customer demand [http://www.ideastorm.com/], Dell launched a new series of desktops [http://www.dell.com/ubuntu] featuring the free, open-source Ubuntu [http://www.ubuntu.com/] operating system. To my knowledge, this is the first time Dell has ever offered any non-Microsoft operating system on their
Bill Gates has often said that over time, the cost of computer hardware approaches zero. Here's one such example: Ten years out, in terms of actual hardware costs you can almost think of hardware as being free. History has proven him right. Computer hardware isn't literally
Mike Shaver, a founding member of the Mozilla team, has strong feelings about how the web became popular: If you choose a platform that needs tools, if you give up the viral soft collaboration of View Source and copy-and-paste mashups and being able to jam jQuery in the hole that
In C# and the Compilation Tax, several commenters noted that they have "fast dual-core computers", and yet background compilation performance was unsatisfactory for them on large projects. It's entirely possible that this is Visual Studio's fault. However, I'd like to point out
Tantek elik recently wrote a great entry on cognitive load in user interface, comparing instant messaging and email: To instant message (IM) someone, you merely: 1. switch to your IM client 2. double click their name 3. type your message 4. press return To email someone, you have to: 1.
The mouse wheel is so integral to my mousing experience now that it's difficult to imagine using a GUI without one. Although I clearly remember using mice without scroll wheels, I can't recall exactly when the transition occurred-- when mouse wheels became a standard, expected feature
Recently, Joseph Cooney [http://jcooney.net/] and a coworker both recommended the book Designing Interactions [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262134748/codihorr-20] to me at the same time. A strange confluence of events that's got to be some sort of sign. I immediately ordered the book.
It's hard to imagine now, but in the early days of Microsoft, Bill Gates was an actual programmer [https://blog.codinghorror.com/how-to-become-a-better-programmer-by-not-programming/]. One bit of hard evidence is the BASIC program DONKEY.BAS [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DONKEY.BAS] included with original IBM PCs running IBM
Over the last four years, I've basically given up on the idea that .NET is a multiple language runtime. * The so-called choice between the two most popular languages, C# and VB.NET, is no more meaningful than the choice between Coke and Pepsi. Yes, IronPython and IronRuby are
The Ghost In The Browser: Analysis of Web-based Malware (pdf) describes how Google is leveraging their overwhelming search dominance to combat browser malware installations. In a blog entry last summer, Matt Cutts said: Given how much I hate web pages that install malicious software or abuse browser security holes, I&
Asa Raskin, the son of the late Jef Raskin, recently gave a presentation at Google on the work his company, Humanized, is doing. It's largely a continuation of the work of his father. One of the most interesting aspects of Jef's work was zoomable user interfaces.