Moving On...
Thanks for everything, Cirrus. →
November 2003
Just Set the Halt
"Train yourself to think about where to put the halt, not to think about what the problem is. Of course it’s a great feeling when you can reason to the problem. But we’re not here to make our brains feel good, we’re here to get the code working as quickly as possible." →
Ethereal Memory
One of the biggest problems these days is information overload: there's just so much information out there that needs to be digested and kept on hand. Using the Internet as my swap-space leaves much more room in my head for the important things →
Google, Microsoft and Tall Poppies.
And Bill still believes that what is best for us is what is best for him: Microsoft dominating every market they play their hand in, until all competitors are ashes. →
Targetted Advertising
It's not spam, it's targetted advertising! →
Jar File Hell
And you (OK, I) end up in situations where B is throwing a NullPointerException where it's being called from A (via the helpfully provided A->B plugin). Is it a bug in A? Is it a bug in B? Is it really a bug in C, the invisible piece of infrastructure that introduced A to B? →
Stand-up Meeting Antipatterns
I've had my own bad experience with stand-up meetings, but I've also had good ones. I think, however, that I've been able to observe _what_ makes the meetings good or bad. So here's a couple of stand-up meeting antipatterns that I have observed, and refactored solutions that I have seen work. →
Approaching Menus in Cocoa
Cocoa is one of those frameworks that makes the simple things simple, and the difficult things possible. →
Cool Things About Blogging
It's a whole bunch of people saying interesting stuff, but the stuff hangs around indefinitely. It's very easy to dredge up a reference from a vague memory. →
Quintessentially Aussie
[Jones] went out to bat during the famous tied Test of 1986 at Chidambaran Stadium, Madras, despite suffering from a combination of dysentery, vomiting and feeling faint.... →
[AHOV 2] SQL Injection
A user is able to craft some input to the program that modifies an SQL query into doing something that it shouldn't. →
Australian Idol: A Licence to Print Money (Unless you win it)
Between broadcaster Channel 10, producers FremantleMedia/Grundy, record label BMG Australia and concept licensors 19, there must be a lot of people wringing their hands with glee. There's a lot of money to be made here, and with any luck, a bare minimum is going to be wasted on the "talent" →
[AHOV 1] Directory Traversal
A user is able to specify a filename to a program that allows them to access files in areas of the filesystem that should be unavailable. →
A Handful of Vulnerabilities: Introduction
A series of articles detailing common security flaws found in software: stuff that gets reported to Bugtraq every day. If you're a developer, it's your job to know what these are, and how to avoid them. →
There Is No Magic Security Bullet
The enemies of security are complexity and inattention to detail. Using a "managed language" is one way to reduce complexity, but more than enough remains to make our lives very difficult. We just have to keep paying very close attention. →
You Can't Stop the Music!
I will play through the 3362 songs on my iPod in alphabetical (well, ASCII) order by song-name, starting with Regurgitator's "! (The Song Formerly Known As)", and finishing with Faith No More's "Zombie Eaters". →
Alan Smithee
Sometimes, though, a director can go to the Guild and complain that the movie was taken out of their control. The studio pressured them to stray from their vision. It was cut against their wishes. Then, the Guild will have the movie credited to Alan Smithee. →
The Parable of the Shell Folders Key
A disconnected ramble about software, backwards compatibility, the death of shareware and inflatable penguins. →
Short Presentation on Blogging
Inspired by Diego's excellent two articles on blogging, here's the slides from a presentation I did for work a little while back on the subject. Geared heavily towards Java programmers. →
An XSLT Anecdote
I was thinking of writing a quick program that would process my iTunes XML-exported playlists into HTML. After some thought on what would be the simplest way, I decided it might be time to overcome my distaste for XSLT. →
Knights of the Old Republic
It's 1am and I just turned off Knights of the Old Republic. While it's shaping up to be a pretty good CRPG (and, the prequel movies aside, I'm a sucker for all things Star Wars), here's the things I have found annoying so far: →