barcode
I recently purchased a USB CueCat from eBay to play around with UPC barcodes, which I found out about from comments posted in a Scott Hanselman blog entry. It’s fun to run around the house scanning in UPCs from household items, although the low-powered LED reader in the CueCat
programming languages
In Maciej Ceglowski’s cutting counterpoint to Paul Graham’s Hackers and Painters, he cites a key difference between software development and painting: writing software doesn’t get you laid. There’s nothing whatsoever distinctive about the analogy to painters, except that Paul Graham likes to paint, and would like
software design
Rube Goldberg software design is the meme of the month, after being parodied by Rory Blyth and Scott Hanselman in this brilliant short video, and oddly enough, also currently appearing in Microsoft advertisements: Now compare that to an actual Rube Goldberg device: You can’t talk about Rube Goldberg these
parsing
I’ve blogged ad nauseam about how much I love Regular Expressions, but even the mighty regular expression has limits. As noted in Daniel Cazzulini’s blog: A full-blown programming language cannot be parsed with regular expressions. But given the limited number of programming languages (successful ones, let’s say)
usb drives
It’s a geek rite of passage: what’s on your keychain? Here’s mine: * 512mb Sandisk Cruzer USB 2.0 thumbdrive * Leatherman Squirt S4 * Arc AAA LED flashlight I carried a Leatherman Micra for years, but I forgot to ditch it prior to a business trip and it got
software development concepts
Although you eventually outgrow them, any developer worth his or her salt bears the scars of a thousand tiny religious wars. It’s an occupational hazard, as Steve McConnell notes in Thou Shalt Rend Software and Religion Asunder: Religion appears in software development in numerous incarnations– as dogmatic adherence to
ergonomics
As software developers, we worry a lot about improving and protecting our most important asset – our brains. But what about our second most important asset – our rear ends? As much time as we spend seated in front of a computer, it pays to think about investing in quality seating. I’
security
My personal turning point on the importance of managed code was in September 2001, when the NIMDA worm absolutely crushed our organization. It felt like a natural disaster without the “natural” part – the first notable port 80 IIS buffer overrun exploit. We got literally zero work done that day, and
text editor. tags: software development concepts
In revenge of Notepad, I recommended Florian Balmer’s truly excellent freeware Notepad replacement, Notepad2. And when I say replacement, I mean replacement: copy notepad2.exe c:windowsservicepackfilesi386notepad.exe copy notepad2.exe c:windowssystem32dllcachenotepad.exe copy notepad2.exe c:windowssystem32notepad.exe copy notepad2.exe c:windowsnotepad.exe What good is
programming languages
In Revenge of the Right Brain, Daniel Pink sees a future where being technologically savvy isn’t enough: Few issues today spark more controversy than outsourcing. Those squadrons of white-collar workers in India, the Philippines, and China are scaring the bejesus out of software jockeys across North America and Europe.
software development concepts
I’m currently building up my new Pentium M system for HTPC duties. This means doing a bench (open air) install, clean OS build and Prime95 torture test burn in. I also flash the BIOS to the latest revision from the manufacturer’s support page. Sometimes the motherboards are fairly
keyboard shortcuts
Like Scott Hanselman, I view the mouse as an optional computer accessory.* Manly coders love the smell of compilation in the morning and we know that speed = keyboard. A mouse? C’mon. That’s so teenage girls can pick emoticons in AOL Instant Messenger. And for flash “developers.” Us tough