software development concepts
A few months ago we bought a new digital camera, all the better to take pictures of our new spawned process. My wife, who was in charge of this purchase, dutifully unboxed the camera, installed the batteries, and began testing it out for the first time. Like so many electronic
technology trends
The original iPhone was for suckers hard-core gadget enthusiasts only. But as I predicted, 12 months later, the iPhone 3G rectified all the shortcomings of the first version. And now, with the iPhone 3GS, we’ve reached the mythical third version: A computer industry adage is that Microsoft does not
security
In my previous post, Url Shorteners: Destroying the Web Since 2002, I mentioned that one of the “features” of the new generation of URL shortening services is to frame the target content. Digg is one of the most popular sites to implement this strategy. Here’s how it works. If
search engines
Google’s Chrome browser passes anything you type into the address bar that isn’t an obvious URI on to the default search engine. While web browsers should have some built-in smarts, they can never match the collective intelligence of a worldwide search engine. For example: weather San Francisco CSCO
user experience
When it comes to user interface design, I’m no guru, but I do have one golden rule that I always try to follow: Make the right thing easy to do and the wrong thing awkward to do. The things you want users to do should be straightforward and clear
software development
I haven’t had the opportunity to talk at all about Google’s new Chrome browser yet. Which is a shame, because it’s easily the best web browser I’ve ever used. If it wasn’t for the complete and utter lack of an add-in ecosystem, I’d switch
keyboard
My beloved Microsoft Natural Keyboard 4000 has succumbed to the relentless pounding of my fingers. A moment of silence, please. OK, it still works, technically, but certain keys have become... unreliable. In particular, the semicolon key is now infuriatingly difficult to use. I don’t know if this is God’
open source software
Have you ever used those self-service checkout machines at a grocery store or supermarket? What fascinates me about self-service checkout devices is that the store is making you do work they would normally pay their employees to do. Think about this for a minute. You’re playing the role of
programming languages
In my previous post, a commenter asked this question: So many of the best minds I have met in computing have a love for music. Is it something to do with being able to see beauty in complex numerical systems? I adore music. I have a vast music collection and
programming languages
Alan Kay is one of my computing heroes. All this stuff we do every day as programmers? Kay had a hand in inventing a huge swath of it: Computer scientist Kay was the leader of the group that invented object-oriented programming, the graphical user interface, 3D computer graphics, and ARPANET,
web development
From the dawn of the web – at least since Netscape Navigator 4.x – it has been possible to resize the text on a web page. This is typically done through the View menu. This was fine in the early, primitive days of the web, when page layouts were simple and
ui design
I saw a screenshot a few days ago that made me think Windows 7 Beta might actually be worth checking out. That’s right, Microsoft finally improved the calculator app! We’ve been complaining for years that Microsoft ships new operating systems with the same boring old default applets the