seo
There’s something about the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) industry that I find highly distasteful. I’ve never quite been able to put my finger on it, until I read Rich Skrenta’s pornographers vs. SEOs. It’s all clear to me now. SEOs are the new pornographers of the
firefox
Although I prefer IE7’s native speed and feel for day-to-day browsing chores, there’s no doubt that Firefox is my primary web development IDE. Whenever I need to troubleshoot HTML, CSS, or JavaScript, I immediately reach for Firefox. That’s primarily because of two incredibly powerful developer extensions for
software development concepts
I hate software licenses. When I read a software license, what I see is a bunch of officious, mind-numbing lawyerly doublespeak. Blah, blah, blah... kill me now. If I had my way, everything would be released under the WTFPL. Over time, I’ve begrudgingly come to the conclusion that, like
gaming mice
Despite my heavy computer use, I rarely experience hand or wrist pain. I consider myself fortunate. However, my mouse hand has been aching a bit lately. In light of my this, I decided it was time to change things up on the mouse front. I currently use the Logitech MX518
programming languages
If you accept the premise that software development is a cooperative game, then you might wonder: what kind of game is it? Alistair Cockburn believes the closest analog to a software project is the cooperative game of rock climbing: * Technical. The novice can only approach simple climbs. With practice, the
pets
Update 4/2/2007: In case it wasn’t clear, the topic of this post is part an April fool’s joke. Yes, those are our cats, and I love them to death, but I hope cat blogging is the last thing you’d expect from me. The other part
software development
Alistair Cockburn maintains that software development is a cooperative game: If software development was really a science, you could apply the scientific method to it. If it was really engineering, then you could apply known engineering techniques. If software development was a matter of producing models, then you could spend
programming languages
I occasionally get emails from people asking how to prepare for a career in software development. Some are students wondering what classes they should take; others have been bitten by the programming bug and are considering their next steps. I always answer with the same advice. There’s no substitute
keyboard shortcuts
One of the quickest ways to increase your productivity on the computer is to go commando: stop using the mouse. When you stop relying on the mouse for everything, you’re forced to learn the keyboard shortcuts. Jeremy Miller calls this the first step to coding faster. I agree. Keyboard
blog
Alex Papadimoulis originally invited me to be a guest editor at The Daily WTF nearly six months ago. I was honored and accepted immediately. Since then, The Daily WTF has been rechristened Worse Than Failure. I’m a big fan of Alex and WTF; his blog is fantastic, and WTF
cuda
A few recent articles have highlighted the disproportionate contribution PlayStation 3 consoles are making to the Folding@Home effort. The OS statistics page for Folding@Home tells the tale: TFLOPSActive CPUsTotal CPUsWindows152160,1731,626,609Mac/PPC78,77695,435Mac/Intel92,8647,400Linux4325,239216,067GPU437332,228PS365926,91129,843 There are a couple
programming languages
Presented, in no particular order, for your reading pleasure: my top 6 list of programming top 10 lists. To keep this entry concise, I’ve only quoted a brief summary of each item. If any of these sound interesting to you, I encourage you to click through and read the