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Google chat adds web-based file transfer
I’d like to extend congratulations out to all my friends over on the Google chat team. They just announced a set of improvements to the web based chat clients in both iGoogle and Orkut. If you...
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Good April Fool’s Jokes
Nothing exciting here to report, but I thought I’d share pointers to some of the jokes I’ve stumbled upon that I like. UniXKCD command line console My favorite webcomic, Randall Monroe’s brilliant...
View ArticleiPad pre-launch security
Arrington managed to get his hands on an iPad for a test drive before launch day, presumably from a company that had been given one to build apps for it. His description of the security under which...
View ArticleOmnipotent Self-Aware Botnets
My buddy Scotto wrote a play titled “When I come to my senses, I’m alive!” which will be performed at Annex Theater on April 23 – May 22. I read an early draft of the script and am quite excited to...
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Space Weather
Recently some of my friends were discussing solar activity, and I learned that there’s a system for rating geomagnetic storms. This recent one was a G3, which is fairly common and not that serious....
View ArticleHow Apple Segments the Market
Apple has done a fabulous job in recent years of asserting itself as a major player in the computer industry. One of their tools for accomplishing this has been a fanatical commitment to high-quality...
View ArticleApple and Wal-Mart: Bargaining on your behalf for lower prices
Even though Apple products are expensive, there’s a surprising similarity between Apple and Wal-Mart: both companies push hard on other parts of the value chain to deliver lower prices for consumers....
View ArticleHow Social Media will change Marketing
A number of years ago, a bunch of my friends were reading Naomi Klein’s book No Logo and getting really riled up by it. The book is certainly written to make you angry, describing how brands and logos...
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Choosing a web framework: Python, Django vs. Ruby on Rails
One of my responsibilities in my new job is to lay the groundwork for development of the company’s technology. One decision that was pretty easy to make is that we’ll be building tools that you can...
View ArticleIs oil exploration getting safer?
Recently one of my friends asked whether or not there was a general trend towards improved safety in oil exploration. Coming from a mechanical engineering background, he noted that things like bridges...
View ArticleI’m speaking at django-seattle tomorrow
Tomorrow night I’m giving a presentation to the django-seattle group. If you’re interested in Django come join and meet like-minded folks. When: Tue, Dec 14th 6:00pm – 7:30pm (Meetings are on 2nd...
View ArticleIntroduction to South Migrations
Here’s the presentation I gave to the Django-Seattle group earlier this week. (Full link here.) It gives an introduction to South, which is the most popular database migration tool for Django. If...
View ArticleFighting buffer-bloat on DD-WRT
Recently, 20th century software pioneer Jim Gettys has been doing a bang-up job raising awareness about performance problems with the internet known as “buffer-bloat.” The details are technical and...
View ArticleReal-time Web Development in Python with Hookbox
Tonight I’m giving a guest lecture for a class on web development in Python. I’m talking about building real-time web sites using Hookbox. It draws on my experience building the software version of...
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The ironic challenge of nuclear power safety
In studying the history of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and the ongoing events at Fukushima, a subtle but important connection appears. The problems at Fukushima today share a fundamental similarity...
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Democratizing HTTPS
Dear Google, Please democratize SSL certificates. The ability to serve HTTPS:// pages without scaring users is currently controlled by a handful of “trusted authorities” whose business is to make it...
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Macbook Crashes, Kernel Panics and coping with an Apple “Genius”
So your Mac is crashing a lot, and after a trip to the “Genius Bar”, you’re starting to think maybe that “genius” you talked to is anything but. Is this where you are? If so, join the club, because...
View ArticleSorry for the downtime – we got hacked
My apologies that the blog has been down for the last few days. Some hackers got into my PHP and inserted some malware onto the blog. A helpful reader alerted me to the problem within hours of it...
View ArticleMaking software architecture choices analytically with CodeTrend
Modern software gets assembled from parts as much as it gets built from scratch. It used to be you just picked your operating system and programming language and went to it. Nowadays you need to pick...
View ArticleNet Neutrality does not make the Internet fair
A lot of people are concerned that the FCC will “destroy the Internet” (or something similarly hyperbolic) by loosening so-called net neutrality rules. But the fact is that today’s system is actually...
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