software development concepts
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,
security
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&
programming languages
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,
design
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
programming languages
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
programming languages
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
technology trends
On my first visit to the Fog Creek Software offices in 2008, I was surprised to see programmers zooming around the office on scooters. I didn't realize that scooters were something geeks would be into, but it sure looked like fun, albeit borderline dangerous fun, on the 25th
web development
It's easy to forget just how crazy things got during the Web 1.0 bubble in 2000. That was over ten years ago. For context, Mark Zuckerberg [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg] was all of sixteen when the original web bubble popped. [http://finance.yahoo.com/
Let's look at where stackoverflow.com traffic came from for the year of 2010. When 88.2% of all traffic for your website comes from a single source, criticizing that single source feels … risky. And perhaps a bit churlish, like looking a gift horse in the mouth, or
programming languages
As a guy who spends most of his day typing words on a screen, it's hard for me to take touch computing seriously. I love my iPhone 4, and smartphones are the ultimate utility belt item, but attempting to compose any kind of text on the thing is
hardware
It's been almost a year since I covered The State of Solid State Hard Drives. Not a heck of a lot has changed, but the topic is still worth revisiting, because if you care at all about how your computer performs, solid state hard drives remain a life
programming languages
When it comes to running Stack Overflow, the company, I take all my business advice from one person, and one person alone: Curtis Armstrong. More specifically, Curtis Armstrong as Charles De Mar from the 1985 absurdist teen comedy classic, Better Off Dead. When asked for advice on how to ski