technology trends

Because Everyone (Still) Needs a Router

routers

Because Everyone (Still) Needs a Router

About a year and a half ago, I researched the state of routers: about as unsexy as it gets but essential to the stability, reliability, and security of your Internet connection. My conclusion? This is boring old plain vanilla commodity router hardware, but when combined with an open source firmware,

By Jeff Atwood ·
Comments
How to Stop Sucking and Be Awesome Instead

software development

How to Stop Sucking and Be Awesome Instead

I’ve been fortunate to have some measure of success in my life, primarily through this very blog over the last eight years, and in creating Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange over the last four years. With the birth of our twin girls, I’ve had a few months to

By Jeff Atwood ·
Comments
Please Don’t Learn to Code

programming languages

Please Don’t Learn to Code

The whole “everyone should learn programming” meme has gotten so out of control that the mayor of New York City actually vowed to learn to code in 2012. A noble gesture to garner the NYC tech community vote, for sure, but if the mayor of New York City actually needs

By Jeff Atwood ·
Comments
Geekatoo, the Geek Bat-Signal

technology trends

Geekatoo, the Geek Bat-Signal

To understand this story, you need to understand that grandchildren are like crack cocaine to grandparents. I’m convinced that if our parents could somehow snort our children up their noses to get a bigger fix, they would. And when your parents live out of state, like ours do, access

By Jeff Atwood ·
Comments
Will Apps Kill Websites?

mobile apps

Will Apps Kill Websites?

I’ve been an eBay user since 1999, and I still frequent eBay as both buyer and seller. In that time, eBay has transformed from a place where geeks sell broken laser pointers to each other, into a global marketplace where businesses sell anything and everything to customers. If you’

By Jeff Atwood ·
Comments
Books: Bits vs. Atoms

software development

Books: Bits vs. Atoms

I adore words, but let’s face it: books suck. More specifically, so many beautiful ideas have been helplessly trapped in physical made-of-atoms books for the last few centuries. How do books suck? Let me count the ways: * They are heavy. * They take up too much space. * They have to

By Jeff Atwood ·
Comments
Welcome to the Post PC Era

software development concepts

Welcome to the Post PC Era

What was Microsoft’s original mission? In 1975, Gates and Allen form a partnership called Microsoft. Like most startups, Microsoft begins small, but has a huge vision – a computer on every desktop and in every home. The existential crisis facing Microsoft is that they achieved their mission years ago, at

By Jeff Atwood ·
Comments
Should All Web Traffic Be Encrypted?

security

Should All Web Traffic Be Encrypted?

The prevalence of free, open WiFi has made it rather easy for a WiFi eavesdropper to steal your identity cookie for the websites you visit while you’re connected to that WiFi access point. This is something I talked about in Breaking the Web’s Cookie Jar. It’s difficult

By Jeff Atwood ·
Comments
Farewell Stack Exchange

programming languages

Farewell Stack Exchange

I am no longer a part of Stack Exchange. I still have much literal and figurative stock in the success of Stack Exchange, of course, but as of March 1st I will no longer be part of the day to day operations of the company, or the Stack Exchange sites,

By Jeff Atwood ·
Comments
The One Button Mystique

design

The One Button Mystique

I enjoy my iPhone, but I can’t quite come to terms with one aspect of its design: Apple’s insistence that there can be only ever be one, and only one, button on the front of the device. I also own a completely buttonless Kindle Fire, and you’ll

By Jeff Atwood ·
Comments
Gifts for Geeks, 2011 Edition

programming languages

Gifts for Geeks, 2011 Edition

Between founding Stack Overflow (and later, running Stack Exchange) and having a child, I haven’t had much time to blog about the holidays for a few years now. The last Gifts for Geeks I did was in 2008. Those recommendations are still as valid as ever, but I just

By Jeff Atwood ·
Comments
The Gamification

programming languages

The Gamification

When Joel Spolsky and I set out to design the Stack Exchange Q&A engine in 2008 – then known as Stack Overflow – we borrowed liberally and unapologetically from any online system that we felt worked. Some of our notable influences included: * Reddit and Digg voting * Xbox 360 achievements * Wikipedia

By Jeff Atwood ·
Comments