June 15th 2010
I think this comment is very good at explaining why some technologies have no place in the web:
It breaks the ‘webexperience’. Of course, people will still use it :-( I hope steaming video will quickly move to HTML 5…..
May 26th 2009
This is a funny article, that about ridiculous software bug workarounds: things you might do to get around a certain bug.
One of the nice examples in all the comments:
but it was back in the days of Windows 95. I was working in software Localisation for a Lotus Notes product. We had several machines working in the test lab based on ghost images, so they were all pretty much identical.
One of the machines kept dying on us during the test phase, but none of the others did. Very confusing, for about a day. Until we realised that the machine which was crashing had an audio CD in the drive. (Not playing, not in Explorer. Just present in the drive.)
We verified it by swapping the audio cd into other machines, and running the same tests. Invariably, the machine with the CD in, crashed when we tried to perform task “x” in Lotus Notes.
It was escalated up, as I recall. And we eventually got a note back saying “Don’t put CD’s in the CD-Rom drives.”
I still remember it (as a recent graduate) as my first exposure to management-style thinking.
Another great one:
After upgrading a server, we watched a client verify the server through his daily application. The client entered data and clicked on submit, the next screen appeared instantly. “This is not possible” said the client “it takes about two seconds to submit data to the database”!
“But the new server is much faster!” we said. It didn’t matter, the client refused to believe the data was really submitted.
We held a meeting about this ‘problem’. One developer suggested to add a two second ‘do nothing’ loop to the submit button.
So we patched the server and asked the client to verify again. He entered data, clicked ’submit’ and was very happy to have his two second delay back! “Now it works…” he said “…now the data is entering the database!”.
We admitted our fault (knowing very well that all we added was a two second delay).
cheers
It happens… all the time :-)
April 9th 2009
This is very surprising…
Apparently there are quite a lot of people that download Firefox, but do not install it. The question of course is.. why?
Luckily, FireFox’s share keeps rising: FireFox hits 35% market share in Europe, 22% globally
Keep on evangelizing! :-)
March 10th 2009
I hate lists like that… :-)
And I think most things on this list suck – badly, at that… But one thing caught my attention: people love eyecandy. It might seem a open door to some people, but this keep getting me off-guard. Personally, I don’t give a damn how my computerscreen looks. I must be able to read it – and without squinting, please. (So there are a lot of apps out there that I think are badly designed, no matter how they look!). But people love it… I see it with my daughters, who don’t care they can hardly read the facebook pages they look at – as long as the background is cool. People don’t even care if this costs a lot of CPU-power. Strange….
March 3rd 2009
I’m still thinking about switching to JAVA… I like that language – and even more, now I see this graph… :-)
I don’t see any decrease in demand for neither PHP or Lotus Notes in my surroundings. I don’t mind, of course, but it is a bit puzzling, I have to admit. You would expect a slump – but I don’t experience it!
March 3rd 2009
Lessons for software engineers to be learned from the disaster with the Challenger Space Shuttle…
Well…most software I use is not made/tested this way…. :-)
February 9th 2009
I always love these type of studies… they can give great insight into the way users use a webpage…
Read it, and learn….!
December 30th 2008
That would be a bold move…
I don’t see it happening – I think they still make a lot of money on it….
December 2nd 2008
A new botnet is building fast on a (known) windows security hole. The hole has been patched by M$, but a lot of people have not applied the patch. This is being discussed on a number of sites, slashdot being of course one of them. This is bound to lead to some comments….
Auto-update is really annoying, especially if you don’t have a very good connection. Its one of the first things I disable when I do a fresh install of XP.
Here, let me turn it back on for you. There. Don’t bother thanking me, I’ve already debited your bank account for my time.
Of course, this is still a serious issues. This net will be used for a lot of criminal activity…. :-(
September 19th 2008
Nice one! A full-featured Photoshop file with (nearly) all of the iPhone GUI-goodness as editable elements.
Translation: with this photoshop-file you can draw your own screens like those on the iPhone – with all the shiny buttons and stuff…