Don't Click on the Blue E!: Great title for a book. Great cover too. Good advice all around.

Published: April 7, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 1000

This link runs a slooow SQL query on the RIAA s server. Don t click it; that would be wrong. Found on reddit.com. I clicked it, just out of curiosity. It pulled a press-releases index page. I don t know how someone knows it s slow.

Published: January 20, 2008 Geek Popularity Factor: 980

I Don't Need a Community

One thing PC users can do that Mac users can't...: If you don't like to be offended, don't click here. But I still thought this was funny. The page sums up a lot of how I feel about Macs and their "community," in a really profane kind of way. If ...

Published: March 10, 2007 Geek Popularity Factor: 968

Your Visitors Don't Care About Your Site

Feature Richness and User Engagement: Nielsen makes a point which we all know is true: on balance, user s don t give a crap about your site, only about what it can do for them. They are not engaged enough with your site to learn how to use it, so higher level ...

Published: August 6, 2007 Geek Popularity Factor: 951

Don't Copy That Floppy

Don't Copy That Floppy: I remember this from years ago. Good to see someone got it out on the Net. Back in 1992, piracy was rampant. What could possibly stop it? An ad that you would swear was from the 80s? A horrible rap song?

Published: June 24, 2006 Geek Popularity Factor: 941

You Don't Know Jack Online

You Don't Know Jack: Remember this game? I remember it from like 1996, and it was one of the neatest things I had seen on a computer back then. Here's the official site where you can play quite bit of Jack, done via Flash. It's like it never left...

Published: March 10, 2007 Geek Popularity Factor: 932

Don Park Vents on Skype

Skype Gripe: Don Park rants about the same problems I have with Skype. I found Scoble and Deane easily enough but they were apparently not online. Later, I read somewhere that Skype online status is unreliable currently. Several friends left me a comment saying he couldn t find me. I couldn t ...

Published: September 17, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 922

The Well-Appointed Web Page

Web developers want one thing: control. HTML is such an imprecise language that building Web pages has continually been a struggle between what we want to do and what the language is capable of. As a result, the short history of the Web has been an exercise in perverting HTML ...

Published: August 19, 2002 Geek Popularity Factor: 921

Critics Release the Hounds on GMail

Consumer watchdogs tear into Google's new e-mail service: If you don't know why critics are having a problem with this service, see this post. I would just say, "If you don't like it, don't use it," but the system scans incoming email as well. So I have to say, "If ...

Published: April 10, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 908

"Don't Make Me Think"

If you've ever been impressed with your ability to make elaborate, content-rich Web sites, here's a good, solid kick in the teeth for you. Steve Krug's book, "Don't Make Me Think" is well-known in Web usability circles and in the sample chapter provided here How we really use the ...

Published: October 11, 2002 Geek Popularity Factor: 898

Joel Don't Like No Java

The Perils of JavaSchools: Spolsky goes ballistic on Java and the dumbing down of computer science instruction in colleges. If you don't deal with pointers and functional recurison, then don't even think about working at Fog Creek. As an employer, I've seen that the 100% Java schools have started churning ...

Published: December 29, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 898

Newsflash: Web Users Don't Take Their Time

Web users judge sites in the blink of an eye: Don't think design matters? This study shows that users take a grand total of 50 milliseconds to come to a judgement about your site. Lindgaard and her team presented volunteers with the briefest glimpses of web pages previously rated as ...

Published: January 16, 2006 Geek Popularity Factor: 897

Don Norman on Aesthetics

Emotion and Design: This is another essay from Don Norman that's very similar to the previous one we talked about a few months ago. This quote is interesting, and I wish I had it back when I had to defend my black-and-white Palm V from the PocketPC drones at my ...

Published: November 26, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 874

Apples Don't Fall Far From The Tree

On the heels of their Mac mini reliability survey, Macintouch today published the results of the PowerMac G5 reliability survey. While the numbers aren't as good as for the mini, they are still good; of the 6817 respondents to their unscientific web poll, only 10.17 percent reported having problems. Anyone ...

Published: June 28, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 867

Programmers Are Idiots

So I'm out here in Boston (home of the Free Speech Zone) at a seminar on distributed enterprise application development. The instructor is Pinku Surana, who certainly seems to know his stuff. I found this interesting article in his blog, where he argues that programmers are idiots, and I have ...

Published: August 2, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 867

Don't Slow Down

Jeep drives across water: This is a really fun video from Top Gear showing a couple verchiles running across water. The theory being that if your rotating gear has big enough lugs and you keep them rotating fast enough, you'll essentially skip across the water. Crazy thing is, it really ...

Published: October 22, 2006 Geek Popularity Factor: 861

Don't Slow Down

Jeep drives across water: This is a really fun video from Top Gear showing a couple (normally land-bound) vehicles running across water. The theory is that if your rotating gear has big enough lugs and you keep them spinning fast enough, you'll essentially skip across the water. Crazy thing is, ...

Published: October 22, 2006 Geek Popularity Factor: 858

I Don't Want the Flag THAT Bad

BRAND NEW VEEKER ML9 PAINTBALL MINI GUN: This paintball gun is for sale on eBay. It shoots 48 balls per second per barrel and weights more than 150 lbs. It's powered by a tank of compressed air carried in an attached backpack. The bid as I write this is 8,000 ...

Published: September 12, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 858

Paris Hilton Doesn't Like Me

Interesting exchange between Paris Hilton and an Associated Press journalist: Q: Do you read blogs? HILTON: What's that? Q: Um, they're these things on the Internet where people write about news and stuff. HILTON: No, I don't really read anything on the Internet except my AOL mail. I don't like ...

Published: May 5, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 855

Don't Get Ahead of Yourself

Here are two things that cut so many good ideas off at the knees. These two factors are the two biggest things that stop good ideas from getting implemented and make programmers pause when they should forge ahead. 1. The Urge to Generalize Say you come up with an idea ...

Published: March 12, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 854

Firefox: Only for the Geeks?

Why I don't recommend Firefox: Adam doesn't think that Firefox is ready to be unleashed on all users just yet. He makes some good points. Firefox right now is very good for an experienced net user, but is not at all ready for the average person. If you plan on ...

Published: September 6, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 854

Business to SCO: We Don't Care

SCO Linux lawsuit > Linux Users Standing Fast Despite SCO Legal Threats, InternetWeek Readers Say > July 8, 2003">Linux Users Standing Fast Despite SCO Legal Threats: SCO's threats are met with a collective yawn. "SCO's Linux lawsuit and threats seem to be having little affect on IT managers except ...

Published: July 9, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 853

Sites that Don't Like Firefox

Sites that make Firefox sad: Why would you want to make the Firefox sad? He s so cute. The following is a list of sites that actively block browsers other than Internet Explorer or have some serious problem that prevents the site from being usable in Firefox. Ignoring Firefox used to ...

Published: October 15, 2007 Geek Popularity Factor: 847

Menuing in Content Management: Implicit vs. Explicit

(Audio is also here. Sorry about the quality I was using a different mic this time, and the input levels were all hosed up.) Navigation is often a pain when it comes to content management. Now, don t confuse navigation with information architecture that grand plan of what ...

Published: April 5, 2008 Geek Popularity Factor: 841

The Danger of Hacking CSS

Keep CSS Simple: Are CSS hacks getting out of hand? I don't really use any, that I know of. I don't have any CSS on this site that panders to one browser over another. "The complexity monster has reappeared, right in the center of modern Web development. Nowadays it doesn’t ...

Published: November 10, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 839

The Joys of RSS

McGee's Musings: I can SO relate to this guy: "...I just checked, and I am currently subscribed to 236 news sources in Radio's aggregator. I rarely surf to these sites and don't particularly care what stories look like in context. I get annoyed with sites that don't provide a full ...

Published: June 24, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 839

Getting at Windows Passwords

20 Things They Don't Want You to Know: This is just one page in an excellent article from PC World (found via Slashdot) that has links to multiple resources for finding passwords that you've forgotten. Finding license keys for software you currently have installed Revealing saved passwords in IE that ...

Published: September 11, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 839

Don't Take SCO for Granted

SCO What have WE Forgotten?: Some real concern about the SCO problem. SCOP is five days away from having to fess up about its code. Start the countdown. The men and women who play the stock market on a regular basis are no fools and something unknown to Slashdot ...

Published: January 6, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 839

Don't Sell It, Destroy It

Wired News: BlackBerry Reveals Bank's Secrets: Never sell anything... "The eBay ad read 'BlackBerry RIM sold AS IS!' So Eugene Sacks (not his real name), a Seattle computer consultant who always wanted one of the pager-size devices to check his e-mail, sent in a bid. For just $15.50, he bought ...

Published: August 25, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 838

Programmer Competency Matrix

Programmer Competency Matrix: This page presents a matrix of programmer skills and what it requires to be at different levels, 1-4, from novice to master. For instance, for data structures, it outlines the following levels: Doesn t know the difference between Array and LinkedList Able to explain and use Arrays, LinkedLists, ...

Published: June 30, 2008 Geek Popularity Factor: 838

OmniFormat

Convert PDF, HTML, DOC, TIFF and more: So, your office needs to produce simple PDFs, but you don't want to pay $450 for a retail copy of Acrobat? First, of all, don't pay it because their are a number of alternatives like RoboPDF that are so much cheaper. They don't ...

Published: August 19, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 838

The Envelope Pattern of Content Management

A friend and I are looking at a bunch of different content management systems for a church Web site. We've been discussing the merits of the various approaches, and looking at some open source offerings like Mambo, Typo3, and eZ publish. During this, I've struck upon a concept that I ...

Published: August 4, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 837

Don't Dis Macs. Ever.

Mac users froth, while Linux users befriend: Here's a pretty funny story about a USA Today writer, Andrew Kantor, who penned a piece about the supercomputer at the University of Virgina that's made out of G5 Macs. We've talked about this computer several times. A Mac site took offense at ...

Published: October 17, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 833

Don't Mess with the Standard Icons

Here's another little usability rant -- The image here shows the file operations buttons from Zend Studio -- a PHP IDE. The button on the left is a folder with a green plus sign, then a folder with an arrow up, and then a folder with an arrow down. These ...

Published: August 10, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 832

Don't Write Numbers Out on the Web

Show Numbers as Numerals When Writing for Online Readers: Web writing is slowly developing its own official style. I know that we ve written differently for the Web for ages now, but Nielsen is throwing facts at the issue, and I wouldn t be surprised if we soon see a Chicago Manual ...

Published: May 14, 2007 Geek Popularity Factor: 823

They Don't Teach That in Business School

Stanford rejects hacker applicants: As near as I can tell, these people didn't do any "hacking," per se. They just put their ID numbers into a querystring argument. You'd have to be pretty loose with the term to call that "hacking." Admissions sites of at least six schools were accessed ...

Published: May 31, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 823

The Invisible Web

Seek and Ye Shall Find: This is an interesting article about "the invisible Web" -- large repositories of data that search engines don't pick up on. For instance, Web-enabled databases that use POST forms to search. Spiders don't do POST requests -- if there are no direct URLs to the ...

Published: October 3, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 822

Don't Talk To Me Like You Know Me

Social manners: Adam makes a good point about the social networking apps. I’ve been invited onto the friends lists on Orkut and LinkedIn by several people that I don’t really know...Part of me feels awkward when rejecting these invitations, but I think I should know you before I call you ...

Published: February 1, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 821

Don't Read this Book

IP Police Line Do Not Cross: This guy got a pre-press version of one of IBM s books ( Mining the Talk ), and was horrified to discover this in the preface. [ ] if you want to take our methods and create your own software solution to sell as a product, while ...

Published: February 2, 2008 Geek Popularity Factor: 821

Please Don't Crash this Car

Is one California family driving the car of the future?: A California family is testing a $1 million prototype fuel cell vehicle for Honda. A lot may be riding on the compact Honda being leased by the Spallino family of Redondo Beach, Calif., for $500 a month. The modest-looking car ...

Published: November 2, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 821

Surprise! We Don't Want to Give Out Our Email

Survey: Spam Fears Affect Loyalty Marketing: I can't say I'm terrifically shocked by this. I usually give them a fake address something at Mailinator. Fear of spam is stopping consumers from providing e-mail addresses for loyalty programs in which they wish to participate, making it difficult for marketers to ...

Published: November 18, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 818

Best Job Posting Ever

Macromedia - ColdFusion Support Forums - Cold Fusion/SQL Server programmer needed: I agree with just about everything here: Please DON'T respond [...] If we have a tense moment or we say that we don't like the way you did some work and that it's not absolutely perfect and you're not ...

Published: August 12, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 816

Content Access Models: The Four Major News Outlets

I got to thinking today that the four major news Web sites offer four graduated levels of content access: CNN: Anonymous access. Just about everything at CNN.com is free (with the exception of some streaming video). You don't have to register or answer any questions. No restrictions. USA Today: Anonymous ...

Published: June 5, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 811

Whither the Weatherman?

Is weather news and forecasting a commodity? Since the Internet has given us all easy access to the National Weather Service information, do we really need anything else? My wife simply has to watch the local news report for the weather. Everything around our house stops about about 10:10 p.m. ...

Published: July 10, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 811

Selling Academic Edition Software

I'm trying to find a good deal on Dreamweaver MX 2004, since I don't want to drop $400 on it (I'm cheap). I head over to eBay to see what I can find, and see lots of dealls for $200 - $300. However, every single one of these deals is ...

Published: July 15, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 810

Real Life at Google. Maybe.

Life at Google - The Microsoftie Perspective: Microsoft hired an ex-Google employee, pumped him for information, and is internally passing around this intel about how things really are at Google. The most depressing thing here is about Google s much-vaunted 20% Time which is the supposed 20% of your time you ...

Published: June 27, 2007 Geek Popularity Factor: 810

Jack Comes Back

'You don't know Jack' knows fun: I played the original version once and it was so funny I about peed my pants. "You Don't Know Jack," the PC trivia game franchise that became wildly popular in the mid '90s, is back with its first new title in four years.

Published: March 14, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 807

School of Thought

School-of-Thought: I m unsubscribing from this blog today, but not because I don t like it. I love it, in fact, but not for the content, which is the problem. This is a blog by Fred Deutsch, a school board member in Watertown, South Dakota. Corey turned me on to it, and ...

Published: June 2, 2008 Geek Popularity Factor: 806

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Computers!

Just when everybody was so excited about the so-called iPod killer, Zune, Apple comes out with something new that blows it out of the water. CEO Steve Jobs earlier this morning showed off the new Apple iPhone, and from the looks of it, there will be little reason left to ...

Published: January 9, 2007 Geek Popularity Factor: 805

Software Sharecropping

Don t Be a Sharecropper: An enlightening essay by Tim Bray on software development: Are You a Sharecropper? If you re developing software for the Windows platform, yes. Or for the Apple platform, or the Oracle platform, or the SAP platform, or, well, any platform that is owned and operated by a ...

Published: July 14, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 804

RUN/STOP at the Bus Terminal

A few guys from Analogik discovered that the Commodore 64 is still being used to serve up information at an Australian bus terminal. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess. I bet you want to play some Paradroid or some Last Ninja now, don't you? Via OSNews

Published: February 27, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 802

Anti-Terrorism Gizmos That Don't Work

U.S. to Spend Billions More to Alter Security Systems: Well, this is nice. After spending more than $4.5 billion on screening devices to monitor the nation's ports, borders, airports, mail and air, the federal government is moving to replace or alter much of the antiterrorism equipment, concluding that it is ...

Published: May 11, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 801

Kuroshin's Unfortunate Search Engine Placement

Chopped into timy peices: the "F_ck N_talee Holl_way" hate mail: Kuroshin published a story a few days ago entitled "F_ck N_talee H_lloway" (I'm cloaking those words because I don't want to get anywhere near this trainwreck). I read the story when it first hit my aggregator, and I think the ...

Published: July 9, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 801

Jakob Nielsen on Weblogs

Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes: My boy Jakob Nielsen takes on blogs in this version of the "10 Biggest Mistakes" list. He has some good advice. Here are the 10 and what we have done or plan to do about them: No Author Biographies I want to do ...

Published: October 17, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 800

Window Toilet Seats

Boeing 787 lavatories will have a 'view': We have truly reached the height of civilized society. The next time you use an airplane lavatory, don't be surprised if you get a window seat. Yes, that's right -- Boeing plans to offer "restrooms with a view as standard equipment" on its ...

Published: September 6, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 797

The Holiday Gadget Guide

I promise I don t have a cleaning fetish, but, still, my first two posts to FM s annual Holiday Gadget Guide have been about vacuums: The Dyson DCO7 My Roomba Even if you don t like house-cleaning, they re both pretty interesting. Disclaimer: FM sells the advertising on Gadgetopia, and Blend designed and ...

Published: November 8, 2007 Geek Popularity Factor: 797

TweakUI for Windows XP

WinBeta.Org - TweakUI 2.10 for Windows XP and Server 2003: This little app allows access to every single Windows setting you can think of. Don't like the size of the Alt-Tab box? Don't like the style of the little arrow sub-icon on shortcuts? Want to auto-login your system every time ...

Published: July 28, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 794

The RIAA Is Winning

Crackdown May Be Slowing Music Downloads: I know I don't download anymore. You know they're on the winning side when they don't make the news much anymore. The recording industry's legal onslaught against Internet song-swappers appears to be having its desired effect. The percentage of Americans who download music online ...

Published: January 6, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 790

MySQL Kicks Puppies And Steals From The Elderly

Chu Yeow rounds up a couple of sites that have a bone to pick with MySQL. They outline a couple of them that I didn t know about that sound like real scalability problems, like: Making changes to a table definition causes a temporary copy of the table to be created. ...

Published: September 6, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 788

Office 12 For Mac

Sounds like the long expected release of Office 12 for the Mac is well on it's way through the halls of Redmond's Mac Business Unit. The thing most potential customers are looking forward to is a version that will run natively on Intel Macs, but it will also have many ...

Published: September 18, 2006 Geek Popularity Factor: 788

Cheap Development Workstation

Building and Outfitting A Great Development Workstation for Windows with a Tight Budget: A good article on building a development workstation on a budget. "I don't believe in SCSI drives for developer workstations. Rarely will you be disk-bound in performance, especially with huge RAM and large disk caches. The dollar ...

Published: August 7, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 787

New Anti-Spam Approach: Remove the Demand

Australia's Internet Industry Association is launching a new campaign to educate consumers on the best way to eliminate spam: "Don't try - Don't buy - Don't reply". "'Spam is the unwelcome by-product of a largely free and open email system', says IIA chief executive, Peter Coroneos. 'Spammers are freeriding on ...

Published: September 26, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 787

The MSDE

One of our clients has started working with some software that uses the MSDE -- the Microsoft SQL Desktop Engine. This is a stripped down, black-box version of SQL Server for people that need a database server but don't want to pay for SQL Server nor need all its super-powers. ...

Published: December 22, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 787

MS to Thailand: Please don't go

Good article on CNET on how Microsoft is under pressure in the Asian market. Microsoft has always maintained a 'one-price' policy, meaning Windows costs the same no matter where you go, regardless of local currency or economic conditions. This makes Microsoft products very expensive in some nations. Now, with more ...

Published: February 9, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 786

What Makes a Good Computer?

Let's face a fact: computer manufacturers don't "make" anything. They assemble parts they purchased from somewhere else. This being the case, what makes a "good" computer? What's the differentiator between purchasing your computer from HP or Dell? Compaq or Gateway? I've come up with a short list, along with my ...

Published: October 20, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 785

The Original Balthaser Studios Site

* Balthaser Studios classic 1998 *: I found a link to the archived version of their site on one of their pages. It's not as cool as I remember, but for 1998, this was insane. This is what made me want to do high-end Web work. Sadly, they appear to ...

Published: February 24, 2006 Geek Popularity Factor: 785

The Next Threat: Employees

Companies step up monitoring of internal networks: Interesting article. If the hackers don't get you, your own employees will. Executives don't want a repeat of what happened at America Online, where a former employee was arrested in June for allegedly stealing 92 million screen names and selling them. Or at ...

Published: December 14, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 785

Give Me Your Screencap

I need a favor from anyone who is so inclined -- Based on our last discussion about screen resolutions, I want to start fiddling with the amount of width Gadgetopia takes on the screen. But to do this, I really need to see what you're seeing when you look at ...

Published: October 18, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 785

The Elite Social Networking Sites

Way Too Good for Facebook or MySpace?: I knew it was going to come to this at some point social networking sites are getting more exclusive. This article profiles aSmallWorld which is the apparent king of the elite social networking sites. Membership in these networks, not unlike the exclusive ...

Published: August 27, 2007 Geek Popularity Factor: 785

Future-Proofing Contact Information

How do you future-proof contact information? It strikes me that, through the years, I migrate from one messaging platform to another, but I'm generally contacting the same people. My Mom is going to be my Mom no matter what email client I'm using. Probably true for my wife, too. So, ...

Published: January 26, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 783

Nielsen Issues More Commandments

Ten Most Violated Homepage Design Guidelines: Love him or hate him, there is some good advice here. Still, I don't quite understand the emphasis on number eight: "Don't use a heading to label the search area; instead use a 'Search' button to the right of the box." That doesn't seem ...

Published: November 10, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 783

.Net the Future of Client Apps?

.NET Will Rock Your World: Don Park is a smart guy, and I tend to take his predictions seriously. "People will get the clue when .NET 2.0 is released and they will be rocked when .NET 3.0 is unleashed. People talk about IE standing still and emergence of rich clients ...

Published: July 17, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 783

lolcat

Cats Can Has Grammar: This is a great examination of one of the current Net memes -- annotating cat pictures -- and why it has ended up the way it has. If you spend any time at all observing net culture, then you'll have been unable to miss the recent ...

Published: April 27, 2007 Geek Popularity Factor: 783

Interview with Josh Clark

Admit it: whenever some group like 37 Signals or Six Apart comes out with a new software product, you secretly think, "I could of done that." How many of us developers thing we could build something just as good if we only put in the time? I do. Yes, I ...

Published: March 2, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 782

Do Yourself a Favor and Stop Learning

I'm about to admit something odd, and perhaps career-threatening: I'm sick of learning. There, I said it, and I feel better. It's true: learning about new technologies and new ways of doing things is something that plays on an addiction of mine and of many other geeks, I'm sure. We ...

Published: September 19, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 782

Drinking From a Fire Hose

Are there RSS feeds you can't keep up with? I have a few that I just can't stay on top of due to posting volume. A friend of mine called it "drinking from a fire hose." They are: DZone (yes, I know I love it, but I just can't keep ...

Published: November 21, 2006 Geek Popularity Factor: 782

Mouse Reversal Test

scenta: This is so much harder than it looks. You re presented with a little Flash maze, and you have have to maneuver a block through it but the movement of your mouse has been reversed. Now you move it up to go down, right to go left, etc. What ...

Published: September 24, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 782

Visual Spoofing

Visual Spoofing: Very interesting idea and demo. The power is in its simplicity. It won't fool everyone, but probably enough. The problem with visual spoofing is that it is difficult to fix with a simple patch. Yes there are ways to fix the problem partially, but I don't see a ...

Published: February 14, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 779

The Devil is in the Details

Here's something not that shocking: the same amount of time spent on different Web development activities can yield vastly different productive results. Put another way: you can spend two hours on Activity A or the same amount of time on Activity B. Does this mean they will both contribute equally ...

Published: August 4, 2006 Geek Popularity Factor: 778

Databases and Trust

Here's something I've learned over the years: when modeling data to build a database, be very careful what fields you decide to include. Don't throw in extraneous fields just because "someone might want to store that piece of information someday, and it's no big deal to include it..." It is ...

Published: May 18, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 777

Bindows

Bindows Home: If you like Convea or Oddpost, you'll love Bindows. It's a DHTML API that allows you to write Web-based apps that look and feel just like client-side installed apps. The samples page is amazing, but don't visit in anything but IE 6. "Bindows is a Graphical User Interface ...

Published: August 25, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 777

Crucial Microsoft Word Skills That Just Don't Get Taught

My church is building a huge new addition, and part of it is going to be a computer lab. This means that I'll finally have a nice spot to teach some free computer classes, which is something I've wanted to do for a long time. I got to thinking the ...

Published: July 22, 2006 Geek Popularity Factor: 777

Brainbench

Brainbench - Predicting Employee Success: Don't like the certifications Microsoft offers? How about this: Looking for the best way to measure, improve and promote your career skills? Brainbench provides the opportunity to earn certifications in over 600 of todays leading skills. While I can't vouch for this particular outfit (can ...

Published: March 2, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 776

Versioning Web Services

Versioning web services: This is a good article on how to change a Web API without breaking things. I have this same problem right now -- I have a REST API on a project, and I need to consider versioning. When I add a new feature to Tagyu's web service ...

Published: February 24, 2006 Geek Popularity Factor: 776

The Length of Power Cords

Is it too much to ask accessory manufacturers to put the length of the cord on the box? Is this too complicated or something? My wife is slowly coming to grips with our digital camera. She knows how to attach it to the computer, but she doesn't like that you ...

Published: December 27, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 774

Good Article About WinFS

Code Name WinFS: Revolutionary File Storage System Lets Users Search and Manage Files Based on Content: Here's a really in-depth article that peeks behind the curtain at the upcoming WinFS in Longhorn (It's so in-depth, I don't even know what to quote.) This is going to be very cool, essentially ...

Published: January 21, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 774

Joomla Struggles with GPL Issues

Note: After you read this, make sure you read the first few comments for a considerable expansion of what I ve written here. GPL compliance issues are tearing Joomla! apart: There are some problems in the Joomla! camp. After they forked from Mambo, they decided to let companies develop and sell ...

Published: June 30, 2007 Geek Popularity Factor: 771

Extreme Anti-Piracy Measures

Unsanity.org: Piracy Protection?!: Don't ever try to pirate this application. Additionally, don't mis-key the serial number. Fat fingers will cost you dearly. [...] it has come to my attention that some developer I will not name here has moved further on the road of fighting the piracy. Here's what the ...

Published: September 10, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 771

PHP: The Camaro of Programming Languages

Back in the 1980s, when I was in high school, the reigning Chevy performance cars were the Camaro and the Corvette. They were almost the same, but worlds apart at the same time. Back then, you could get the Corvette and Camaro with near identical powertrains -- the 350 cid ...

Published: November 1, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 771

What Will Become of Opera?

If you don't read the New York Times, you may not know that Firefox has a two-page ad in today's edition promoting itself. This got me thinking: with all the momentum behind Firefox, what is to become of Opera? If I was working for Opera, how would I feel about ...

Published: December 16, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 771

Unworkable

Perpetual motion. Square wheels. Welcome to The Museum of Unworkable Devices: This museum is a celebration of fascinating devices that don't work. It houses diverse examples of the perverse genius of inventors who refused to let their thinking be intimidated by the laws of nature, remaining optimistic in the face ...

Published: July 19, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 770

Caravel: LDAP as a CMS

Caravel Content Management: Caravel is a content management system with the somewhat odd implementation of storing everything in LDAP, rather than a traditional SQL database. I don't know of any other system that does this. This project was open-sourced from a system used to power 2,000 Mennonite churches. See the ...

Published: December 4, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 770

The Problem with Custom Fields

When it comes to content management, custom fields are good -- it's nice to have a place to put things that the developer didn't anticipate. You'd think it would bridge the gap between a "closed" CMS and an "open" CMS (see this post and this post), but it doesn't really. ...

Published: December 3, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 770

Simple Searches Work Best

No 'ifs,' 'ands' or 'buts': simple queries work best: A new study indicates that complicated, boolean-laden Google searches are no more effective than simple searches. "Our research shows that query operators, commonly thought to narrow searches, don't return more relevant results and don't reduce the number of non-relevant results," said ...

Published: December 1, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 768

Watch This...

Recently I was looking around for a sport watch to replace my $10 Wal-mart disposible model that had died and on which I spent $3 on a replacement battery that was unable to resurrect it. That's a post for another day. Anyway, I ran across the Ironman Triathlon Data Link ...

Published: February 28, 2006 Geek Popularity Factor: 768

We Suck. But Trust Us With Your Web Site Anyway.

I'm currently looking for a ColdFusion MX hosting provider (no, I haven't found another shiny object we inherited a bunch of sites from someone else). I thought I had found a good one that was recommended by someone I trust, but their new customer sign-up interface threw a fatal, ...

Published: March 17, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 766

Apple Doesn't Care About Your Giant Checkbox

It seems that there's always some consternation in the web design community regarding the styling of form elements. Usability studies and user observation has taught them that they shouldn't be applying styles to form controls; if you change the look of the control, it's less recognizable for novice users who ...

Published: September 29, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 764

"The Building of Basecamp" Review

I've been putting off posting about The Building of Basecamp because I was trying to get my hands on a picture. Neither Joe nor I thought to bring a camera, and the workshop was the first thing we did in Chicago, before Joe bought a disposable to shoot this ...

Published: June 29, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 764

How to Obscure URLs

How to Obscure Any URL: Great, great page on how spammers and scammers obscure URLs so most people don't know where they're going. These tricks are known to the spammers and scammers, and they're used freely in unsolicited mails. You'll also see them in ad-related URLs and occasionally on web ...

Published: April 19, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 764

The Quandary of the Web Development Sales Process

I often give thought to the really unfortunate sales process involved with Web development. There's so many variables involved with building a Web site, and so much of it is buried in the creative process, that it's hard to really paint a picture in a prospect's mind as to what ...

Published: January 19, 2006 Geek Popularity Factor: 764

My Interview on Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization: An Interview with Deane Barker: I work as Director of Marketing and IT for a commercial real estate firm, and we essentially own Google for our market. Tim over at Reach Customers Online interviewed me this week about our search engine optimization. "...good content is a matter ...

Published: September 3, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 764

Mac Users Can't Find Jobs

Need a job? Don't use a Mac: Couldn't resist this one. When it comes to some big-name companies, Macintosh users may have a tough time landing a job. It's not just that the business world is dominated by Windows-based computers. It's because, at a number of large companies, Mac users ...

Published: October 28, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 763

Yahoo! May Go Blogging

The Blog Herald: Yahoo! to buy Blog hosting company "....Yahoo! is set to launch into blogging based on the blog service it appears to be running in Korea (but no one is sure as its in Korean except the logo: Yahoo Korea Blog) ignores the recent history of Yahoo! and ...

Published: August 27, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 763

One Page Web Site

Puremedia Brisbane : Web Design, Development, New Marketing and Media: This is a very interesting Web site, and I maintain quite effective for the right kind of company. It s a Web site in one page. This probably isn t the type of website you were expecting to see for a Brisbane ...

Published: July 24, 2008 Geek Popularity Factor: 761

Movable Type 3.0 Controversy

MovableType Madness: Dean over at blogs4God presents a really good wrap-up of the furor over the new Movable Type release. Unbeknowst to me, Six Apart made a change over the weekend to say that mutiple Weblogs in MT used to create one site (for instance, if you have another blog ...

Published: May 17, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 761

The New Broadcast Flag

FCC Endorses Built-In Copy Controls: Why don't I think this has a prayer of working? "Tuesday's vote orders makers of hardware that can receive digital television signals to build in recognition of broadcast "flags" that copy-protect content. When the flag-compliant device, such as a PC or DVD recorder, detects content ...

Published: November 5, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 760

Thunderbird Annoyance

I use Thunderbird exclusively at home for mail and RSS feeds. It feels lightweight and it does everything I need it to (I don't schedule many meetings outside of work so I don't miss a calendar, for instance). But there are a few things about this application that really irk ...

Published: October 18, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 760

VersionTracker

VersionTracker: Windows Software: I don't understand the "VersionTracker" part, but lots of free- and shareware links here.

Published: July 21, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 759

Markdown Enabled for Comments

I finally gave in and have enabled Markdown for comments. We use it as the default text filter for entries, and it's just a dream to work with. Here's a quick tutorial on it, though I can tell you that the biggest thing you'll use it for in comments is ...

Published: July 11, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 758

Mac mini Test Drive

Apple Computer has a limited-time deal going on; order a new Mac mini from the Apple Store online before Halloween and you can try it out for 30 days. If you don't like it, call them up & ship it back on Apple's dime for a full refund. ...

Published: August 30, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 758

Combatting Referrer Spam

Referer Spam Redux: A nice little wrap-up of ways to combat referrer spam, which is wicked annoying. I think it's so annoying because they count on the nacissism of someone checking or displaying their referrer logs, and we usually live up to their expectations. Personally, I'm fed up with them. ...

Published: February 27, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 756

I don't think I could do this...

... to a brand new G5! At work we're looking at installing a new archive server that will run on a shiny new Mac G5 (woohoo!) Since the server closet is getting a little crowded I was thinking that it would work nicely to put the thing in a rack. ...

Published: July 14, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 756

Reasons Not to Use Access

Nine Reasons NOT To Use MS Access To Power A DB-Driven Website: This guy makes a lot of valid points, but he misses the biggest reason people are going to still use Access: it usually doesn't cost anything extra. For someone with a simple site, they're more interested in limiting ...

Published: November 27, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 755

Kill the Installers

I'd like to make an appeal to all the developers in the world for software that doesn't install. Just give me an executable. Bundle everything up into that, or perhaps have a handful of DLLs in the same folder as the program. I get the program, I stick it in ...

Published: September 30, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 754

Thoughts on Ubuntu

Well, I finally installed Ubuntu at home the other night. I had seen it and played with it before, but I figured it was time to live with it for a while, given all the hype. Here are some thoughts -- Installation was rock-simple. I burned the ISO to a ...

Published: October 3, 2006 Geek Popularity Factor: 754

Anna Nicole Smith Talks Cisco Routers

Anna Nicole Smith on the 1900 series switch: I just don't know what to make of this. [q]: Hi Anna, why don't you tell our readers how you became familiar with Cisco switches? [a]: Well, a friend of mine is a diamond salesman, actually he works at Van Cleef and ...

Published: March 9, 2006 Geek Popularity Factor: 753

The Razorback

Special Ops Paintball: Razorback Paintball Tank: Because if you don't have the machine gun, make sure you have the jeep.

Published: February 6, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 753

Hot RSS

Hot RSS [dive into mark]: Mark Pilgrim has a pretty funny post where he subtly and effectively slams CNet for creating a new RSS format, incompatible with any current newsreader. OK, now we're grooving. instead of , instead of ,

instead of . Praise Murphy, and pass ...

Published: April 18, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 752

Computer-switched juice

Instructables has a cool article on using your PC's screen saver to control the stuff on your desk. That is, once your screen saver flips on, your lamp, radio, and desk heater can all turn off automatically, and turn back on again when you're back from lunch. I tend to ...

Published: November 20, 2006 Geek Popularity Factor: 752

Society for HandHeld Hushing

Apparently I'm not the only one who gets annoyed with people yakking into cell phones in public places. The guys at Draplindustries Design Co. have come up with what might be a fun solution, of sorts. Introducing SHHH, the Society for HandHeld Hushing. That's right. We're tired of having to ...

Published: December 15, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 752

Data Over Power Lines

Microchip turns electric outlet into wireless link: I remember the stress I put myself under when I built my house to ensure I had data lines in every room. Between this and wifi, I don't know why I worried. Products are still being developed, but gadgets embedded with the chip ...

Published: September 29, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 751

Experts Exchange

How many of you use Experts Exchange (EE) for tech questions? It's like a big IT discussion board, with the important addition of a points system. When you create a free user account on EE, you get, like, 500 points. You have to "spend" these points to ask questions (they ...

Published: September 23, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 751

Demon Customers

Apparently Best Buy and a number of other retail outlets are using all the data they collect on you to determine how profitable you are for them. It's pretty fascinating how data mining is changing the way businesses interact with you. Every store has customers it doesn't like, he said. ...

Published: July 6, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 751

Referrer Spam Tool

Ever find referrers in your logs that make no sense? Sites that couldn't possibly have a link to your site? I found this product online, which is the first tool I've found to accomplish referrer spamming. No link or name because I don't want to promote it. [This app] is ...

Published: September 6, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 749

Viewable Area Test

I'm curious to the relationship between screen resolution and actual viewable browser area (see this post). I need your help. I wrote a quick page that will print out the two for you (it should work, anyway -- I wrote it in 30 seconds and tested it for about that ...

Published: October 3, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 748

The Death of the Web Site?

From the "Let's Jump To Conclusions" Department with my acquisition of Zempt, and my continued use of NewsGator, I can produce and consume content without ever using a browser. I get information in Outlook via NewsGator, and I can turn it around (or create it from scratch) in Zempt. ...

Published: July 2, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 748

Google Post Fixation

Mint has reminded me of the some of the weird terms in which I get "stuck" in Google. I don't know why this is -- for some reason, Google just fixates on certain posts. (On a related note, my five-day-old post on SpamStopsHere is now number three on Google for ...

Published: October 16, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 747

Why Email is Better Than the Telephone

I hate it when people call me on the phone. I d much rather they use email. I got to wondering why this was so the other day, and here goes: Email is quicker. I m at my computer anyway, so I don t have to turn away and pick up the phone, ...

Published: February 23, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 746

The Hidden Inefficiency of the Prius

Don t Buy That New Prius! Test-Drive a Used Car Instead: Wired Magazine argues that buying a used car is vastly more energy efficient than buying a new Prius. Making a Prius consumes 113 million BTUs, according to sustainability engineer Pablo Paster. A single gallon of gas contains about 113,000 Btus, ...

Published: May 20, 2008 Geek Popularity Factor: 746

Blogging Addiction

Technology > Circuits > For Some, the Blogging Never Stops" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/27/technology/circuits/27blog.html?pagewanted=print&position=">For Some, the Blogging Never Stops: Please don't let me become like this. Interesting story about blogging addiction. To celebrate four years of marriage, Richard Wiggins and his wife, Judy Matthews, recently spent a week in Key West, Fla. ...

Published: May 27, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 746

Wires? Feh.

Sun is doing some research to see if they can effectively create computer chips that don't connect to the board via wires. Instead, they are planning on creating chips that pass data wirelessly via induction. "It is not that on chip wires are evil. It is just that they are ...

Published: August 3, 2004 Geek Popularity Factor: 746

Darl McBride, King of Irony

Novell Registers Unix Copyrights: Apparently Novell has registered several copyrights recently to Unix code that SCO claims was transferred to it back in 1995. They did this quietly, with no fanfare. SCO's reaction is just priceless. "We see this as a fraudulent attempt by Novell to get something they don't ...

Published: December 23, 2003 Geek Popularity Factor: 746

Performancing for Firefox

HOW TO: Using Performancing for Firefox: Performancing is a great blog with a really terrible name.� I mean...performancing?� What does that mean? No matter -- it's a top-notch piece of work.� It's a blog about blogging, and they have great content. And now they happen to have the most insanely ...

Published: December 21, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 744

Spolsky on RFPs

The Road to FogBugz 4.0: Part I: Joel Spolsky is running a series of articles about the development of FogBugz 4.0. I haven't even read the first installment, but the fourth paragraph contains a hysterically damning description of the RFP process. RFP stands for "Request for Proposal." It's a request ...

Published: March 28, 2005 Geek Popularity Factor: 744

Storm

Gathering Storm Superworm Poses Grave Threat to PC Nets: Lemme tell you: if Bruce Schneier is even a little afraid, then I m curled up in a fetal position somewhere rocking back and forth. Worms like Storm are written by hackers looking for profit, and they re different. These worms spread more ...

Published: October 15, 2007 Geek Popularity Factor: 744