jwz of mozilla fame

So I just read the entire contents of http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/ ... I kind of can't believe I'm admitting to this. Anyway it was a total time-sink, I'ts like I just eat too many cakes and I'm regretting it and feeling sick!

Information Overload

The email server is refusing to get out of bed today, it's having a 'duvet' day :) Personally I won't be complaining about that. In modern times I often feel there are too many ways to demand my attention. Email, SMS Text, IM ...

Once upon a time you had to husband cattle and fish for squid before you could contact anybody with the written word. (Before paper, calf skin was used.) So nobody tried to get hold of you unless it was *really* important.

The Trouble With Programming

Just random though really.

The trouble with programming is, it's a real pain in the ass! You can't escape this constant feeling that there's a better/fatser/smarter way to do the same things and never quite finding it, but always feeling: "I'm that close...."



Grrrr....

Stackoverflow will it be buzz or horror?

There's something going down in webland and it's called stackoverflow.com. It's a collaboration between a couple of the interwebs' better programming bloggers: Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror fame; and Joel Spolksey of Fogcreek Software. There's already a little landing page (Jeff must be busy because it's pretty lame at the moment it must be said) and a first podcast can be downloaded from there. I have been following the news on this and I really hope it is going to be something new. I have no idea how Jeff and Joel are going to make this a different experience from the likes of Code Project or the infamous Experts Exchange but I really hope they pull it off. What struck me most about the podcast was that Joel didn't sound at all like I imagined he would. The joyous wit so abundant in his blog articles lead me to expect something very different. Anyway what I liked the most was just listening to these two great names talking shop just like thousands of ordinary hackers passionate about their world. So good luck J and J we are all waiting with baited breath.

Taking better vacation photos

Taking pleasing photographs is not actually that difficult once you have memorised just a few basic techniques. Modern digital cameras allow you to see instant results, and you can instantly erase and take the shot again if your not happy. This has got to be the single biggest advantage of digital photo technology...

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Password storage

With all the hype about the amount of personal information people are allowing to be seen in there Social bookmarking profiles, It got me thinking about password storage. Particularly as I've been brushing up on secure password storage for a new project. At a minimum in your web application you should be hashing the users password and adding a salt before storing it in the database. When creating the 'Forgot your password' function I suddenly realised something. All those sites that email you your password when you forget it - instead of issuing a new one. Are almost certainly not hashing your password very securely, if at all !! you might want to think about that for a moment :)

Bounds Testing

Who says testing can't be fun ?

A treeview control, the nodes are user configurable but they mustn't be allowed more than nine nodes. :)