image compression
It’s surprising that the venerable JPEG image compression standard, which dates back to 1986, is still the best we can do for photographic image compression. I can’t remember when I encountered my first JPEG image, but JPEG didn’t appear to enter practical use until the early 90’
software development concepts
I remember when Microsoft announced that Windows 4.0 would be known as Windows 95. At the time, it seemed like a radical, unnecessary change – naming software with years instead of version numbers? Inconceivable! How will users of Windows 3.1 possibly know what software version they should upgrade to?
origami
Robert J. Lang isn’t just a physicist and a software developer – he’s also one of the world’s foremost paper-folding artists: The laser cutter was growling away, scoring one of Lang’s Hanji sheets. He twiddled with his computer. On the screen was a lacy geometric pattern. Lang
code quality
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, you’ve probably heard about the game Katamari Damacy. The gameplay consists of little more than rolling stuff up into an ever-increasing ball of stuff. That’s literally all you do. You start by rolling up small
web applications
It’s the classic Achilles heel of web applications – without an internet connection, they’re useless. It’s why both Firefox and Internet Explorer still have Work Offline under the File menu, hanging there like a vestigial tail. But do you know anyone that actually uses work offline? Is there
power management
My home theater PC is set to automatically enter a low-power sleep mode after 25 minutes of inactivity. This works well with Vista’s Media Center, which wakes the machine up when it’s scheduled to record. This way I can avoid the additional electricity cost of a computer turned
macos
It’s common knowledge that Mac users prefer Safari to Firefox. It is the browser bundled with the OS – and we know how that generally works out. But it’s not just a monopoly play; there are legitimate reasons for Mac users to choose Safari: Mac users favor [Safari] for
software development
Scott Stanfield forwarded me a link to Roger Sessions’ A Better Path to Enterprise Architecture yesterday. Even though it’s got the snake-oil word “Enterprise” in the title, the article is surprisingly good. I particularly liked the unusual analogy Roger chose to illustrate the difference between iterative and recursive approaches
software development
Raymond Chen notes that, in his personal experience, users don’t read dialogs: How do I make this error message go away? It appears every time I start the computer. RC: What does this error message say? User: It says, ‘Updates are ready to install.’ I’ve just been clicking
security
I’m no fan of the classic login/password scheme. I can barely remember any of the zillion logins and passwords I have. More often than not, I end up using the “forgot password” link. Which means, in effect, that my email account is my global password. And if you’
.net
As far as I’m concerned, Windows Media Center is one of the best – if not the best – applications Microsoft has ever created. And it was written in .NET to boot. I’ve been a huge MCE enthusiast since the original version was released in 2003, so I was greatly
networking
One of the sadder recent news stories is the disappearance of Turing award-winning researcher Jim Gray. I’ve written about Jim’s research before; he has a knack for explaining fundamental truths of computer architecture in uniquely clear ways. For example, in this ACM interview, Jim illustrates how the unusual