Back when I got my Palm Prē, I noticed that it wanted to store various of my information on Google’s servers. I thought I’d kept it from doing so; I sure wasn’t using Gmail on a regular basis. I configured the Prē’s email client to check my own account on mactane.org, and I thought everything […]
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Developers Are Not QA Testers
Friday, April 8th, 2011 – 8:18 am
When a company says “we can’t afford a QA department”, what they’re really saying is, “we accept that our software will be infested with bugs, and quality is not important to us.” When they compound this basic error by saying, “the developers will just have to do their own QA”, they prove that they have […]
About Amy Hoy
Thursday, March 24th, 2011 – 8:07 am
When I was moving beyond self-written AJAX calls and picking up the Prototype and Scriptaculous libraries, one of the best resources I could find was Amy Hoy’s Scriptaculous cheat sheet. It was hard not to find it — or her: Google searches on the things I was dealing with at the time just kept leading back […]
Easy Restarts Are a Security Feature
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011 – 7:09 pm
The more stuff you have open (or habitually leave open) in an application, the more it becomes part of your consciousness, an extension of your mind. For many of us, the question “What are you doing right now?” could best be answered by, “Here’s a list of the tabs I have open in my web browser.” […]
“Unplug From the Net to Connect With People”? Why Not Drive an SUV to Fight Global Warming?
Thursday, March 3rd, 2011 – 9:13 pm
Apparently tomorrow will be the “National Day of Unplugging”, when people who are ready to “take the unplug challenge” will obey the call to “put down your cell phone, sign out of email, stop your Facebook and Twitter updates”. But this isn’t just some kind of stunt or willpower exercise; there’s a point to it. […]
So, You’ve Just Gotten Your First Android Phone…
Sunday, February 13th, 2011 – 1:29 pm
Since two of my friends have bought new Android phones in the past two weeks, I think it’d be helpful if I wrote up a quick guide and some app recommendations for those entering the Android world. Quick Tips Android version numbers went: 1.5, 1.6, then 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3, and now the latest […]
Are You Sure You Want to Read This Blog Post? (y/n)
Wednesday, February 9th, 2011 – 7:22 pm
When should you ask a user “Are you sure you want to do that?” Bear in mind that asking this question when you don’t have to has more than one bad effect: Obviously, it wastes the user’s time and may even annoy them. It also contributes to the general problem of “too damned many dialog boxes […]
Ada Lovelace Day Is Not Enough
Monday, January 24th, 2011 – 8:04 am
In two months, the third international Ada Lovelace Day will take place, on March 24th. Bloggers around the world will devote posts to writing about the achievements of women in technology and science. This is wonderful, and I highly support it, but… What about the other 364 days of the year? Setting aside one day […]
Hummingbird Version 0.67 Released
Sunday, January 16th, 2011 – 2:13 pm
I’ve released a new version of Hummingbird. This is a bug-fix release, resolving some issues in automatic hyperlinking and in recognition of multiple hashtags in a single tweet. (Yes, this is why I did a couple of tweets hashtagged “#testing” a couple of days ago.) Downloads are available from the Hummingbird project page, or using […]
About WikiLeaks, DDoSes, Rape, and Justice
Monday, December 27th, 2010 – 2:44 pm
Why I’m In Favor of WikiLeaks’ Professed Ideals and Aims I am not a fan of government secrecy. Maybe some things should be kept secret, but by and large? Our government has overused that excuse to the point of absurdity. We can no longer trust the government to keep its citizens informed about what it’s […]