As a long time computer geek, I often think about where computing is headed in the future, both near and far. Since a large part of my day job is adapting technology for the average person’s needs, I’m also acutely aware of the issues that hold it back. It’s one of the reasons [...]

We knew it had to happen sooner or later, although many people probably already thought it had happened. Netscape, the browser that helped launch the web as we know it, will be retired.
While internal groups within AOL have invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator, these efforts [...]

It’s not often that I talk about work. Frankly, I talk enough about work… at work. Besides, I know that most of you don’t want to hear the geeky details of my daily work life anyways.
Today, however, I launched something that’s as close to cutting edge as we get at Praxair - [...]

Today marks the day that Microsoft launches Internet Explorer 7 - their first major browswer update in five years. You would think that since they’ve spent so much time working on it, it would be pretty damn outstanding, right? My experience so far says no.
I ran the update this morning, which I have [...]

As a web applications developer, I often read Jakob Nielsen’s articles on usability. His most recent article deals with something of interest to the blogging world - participation inequality, or as we might say, lurkers vs. commentors.
In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, [...]

Allow me to geek out for a moment and share this bit o’ funny that a coworker sent to me.

I have to admit, it was a bit weird going to a picnic and having the Buffalo News show up to cover it. You’re trying to act like they’re not there so they can get “candid” photos, while at the same time trying not to look like a complete idiot trying to set up [...]

Phigment turned me on to a new site - CodingHorror.com. I especially like this post on Egoless Programming:

1. Understand and accept that you will make mistakes.
2. You are not your code.
3. No matter how much “karate” you know, someone else will always know more.
[...]

Below is a letter that the Anti-Flipping Task Force sent to eBay:
(from Buffalo Issue Alerts)
April 13, 2006
Michelle Mallory Peacock
Deputy Director, State Governmental Regulations
eBay, Inc.
2145 Hamilton Ave.
San Jose, CA 95125
Dear Ms. Peacock:
We appreciate that eBay is taking our concerns seriously, as stated in
your letter dated February 21, 2006, as well as your stated commitment
to work diligently [...]

So far, this week at work has been mostly about this little gem. Microsoft lost a patent lawsuit with Eolas, a company with yet another stupid technology patent for embedding a plugin in a webpage, using something simple and logical like an <embed> tag. Since Microsoft lost this lawsuit, they’re changing IE so [...]