Why Emails Suck
7 Sep 2011
A JavaScript Phone: Microsoft's Night Terrors
24 Aug 2011
Today Mozilla announced their proposal for providing phone-like functionality to the browser in this hacks.mozilla.org article. Their goal is to provide "basic HTML5 phone experience within 3 to 6 months."
Specifically, they want to provide JavaScript APIs for accessing the phone dialer, address book, SMS, and more. We already have support on Android and iOS for getting geolocation data from GPS. There is also some support for taking photos using only JavaScript. And don't forget the FileReader and FileWriter APIs.
You Are Using SPDY and Don't Even Know It
9 Aug 2011
igvita.com explains what SPDY is, how it works and where it is used. As you may remember, Google proposed an add-on to HTTP that was faster because of multiplexing, server pushing and better compression including compression of headers and the use of a pre-defined dictionary.
Show Me Your Web Presence
4 Aug 2011
Your web-development resume should list web sites you've work on--your portfolio. Put links to sites and a description of what part you did yourself. Did you do the graphic design? Front end? Backend? Some specific feature?
Once you present a some good portfolio web sites, the next step is to show your general web presence. The following are great things to list on your resume:
Avoiding Resume Hell
10 May 2011
In the last year, I've been reviewing dozens of resumes for a PHP Programmer position. I only see the resumes of those who passed our technical recruiter's initial screening. It is appalling how many resumes are just BAD.
Here are some simple things that will tell me exactly what I want to know.
Ask Your Interviewer
13 Sep 2010
FOSS and Drug Dealing
25 Apr 2010
FOSS. Free and Open Source Software.
Many argue against FOSS saying that Developers should get paid for their work. First of all, "Free" does not mean zero dollars. And second of all, you are short sighted if you think selling code is the only way programmers are paid.
Laptop Keyboards Compared
12 Apr 2010
I have used a laptop for everyday web development most of my career. I am a keyboard snob. A huge keyboard snob.
My favorite keyboard of all time is the classic IBM keyboard:
But no laptop keyboards even come close. In fact, it has been a fad over the last few years to put a 10-key pad on the laptop! How mind-numbingly stupid! I decided to design my own "programmer" laptop. I found the following to be important.
Passwords From Hell
1 Apr 2010
Your email password is the most important password. It links to your bank and any other sensitive info using the forgot password feature.
After reading the recent Lifehacker article How I'd Hack Your Weak Passwords I wanted to share my thoughts. I disagree on some points.
Wake Up! Do You Know Encryption?
26 Mar 2010
I'm surprised by how many developers aren't familiar with encryption. Many say to me that encryption is md5 and sha1.
Applications often need one-way encryption and two-way encryption. There are also public/private key encryption schemes like pgp which are not as commonly used in web applications.