Couldn't agree more, Rafe on Labels versus folders, labels win. I have fallen in love with del.icio.us labels and started experimenting with them in Thunderbird, dumbing everything into one folder with lots of labeling.
Now if I could just do the same with my home direcory or My Documents. And if MovableType made it easier to label/categorize. Well Thunderbird needs more than 5 label options.
Results tagged “Development” from fozbaca.org
Nick Bradbury, developer of TopStyle, HomeSite and FeedDemon, did a test to see how many were using warez'd versions of TopStyle or more acurately how many ran TopStyle once. Now the one big mosterously gigantic hole in his logic, how many first runers would have been actual purchasers? I'm sure that small developer software sales are lost, but I'm betting that the amount is actually much smaller than anyone would expect.
The same situation applies to movies and music online. Sure there is rampent downloading. But how many would have been a purchase absent of the downloading option? Again I'm betting much smaller than anyone would expect.
Eventually that situation will change. Sometime around when the current highschoolers are running things. Just like the American Factory Worker, digital content creators are going to lose those nice fat cushy margins. So you have a choice come up with a new buisness model for getting money into the hands of digital creators. Digital rights management and laws that don't mirror the reality of the users wishes just don't cut it.
Sun's latest 3D Desktop looks potentially intresting. Hope it isn't end like other Sun desktop offerings like say NeWS.
Why patents cripple software development. Unless they are ignored.
Russell has a good User Interface Hierarchies Rant. I too have to admit
think in hierarchies and outlines. But given that I have a 60+ gig mp3 collection wonder if the iPod navigation would work well with so many entries. I expect the iPod navagation to be kinda like what Churchill had to say about Democracy,
Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.
- Microsoft: Official Guidelines for User Interface Developers and Designers
- Apple: Aqua Human Interface Guidelines
- GNOME Human Interface Guidelines 1.0
- Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines
Tim Bray's ongoing · Software Patents from the Inside gives a pretty good view, but the conclusion is the best part.
A cynic would say it’s a self-perpetuating system whose costs greatly outweigh its benefits, and that we’re hopelessly stuck in it. But then, I’m a cynic.
Cringely rants on state of tech companies and real ethics in the buisness world. He closes with a sad comment,
My readers, who are the best and the brightest, are many of them still debating in their minds whether software can even be patented. Whether it can be patented or not, in the U.S., it IS patented, and expecting that some contrary decision will be shortly made and the planets rearranged in space is just folly. This is the difference between cynicism and realism.Too true, it is the reality that we have to deal with.
From the depatment of "wooo", handheld webserver pluse lots of other cool tech bits.
A bunch of FreeTechBookss.
Bruce Eckel, of Think about Java fame, has a somewhat misnamed The Ideal Programmer covering lots of thoughts about programing and some relations to the outside world. Worth reading in the stiring the thinking process sense.
Zempt This is a bookmarklet to post via Zempt. My only problem is editing the example to pre-populate the category.
Via Simon Willison via Martin Spernau, there is The Craft of Text and Writing a Simple Word Processor (PDF). WordProcessors are a minor fascination of mine, mostly from a general dissatisfaction with what is out there.
Bunck of links to Free Online Computer Science Books.
Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years, lots of good ideas in one page.
The book, Almost Perfect, was originally published by Prima Publishing in 1994. It is the story of the rise and fall of WordPerfect Corporation from my point of view.It is already providing facinating reading. Hearing about the recession of the early 80's and comparing it to the current one is rather theraputic.
Although I did not know it at the time, that $5 an hour part-time job would turn into a great opportunity. Somehow I had arrived at exactly the right place at exactly the right time. ... Like some rare astrological phenomenon when all the planets are perfectly aligned, all the necessary events came together at just the right time, and a new and soon to be successful company was born.It amazes me how much computers have changed in 20 years and how little the whole buisness aspect of computers and software has changed in 20 years.
Little Nybbles of Development Wisdom
In this document, I have tried to remember and distill my hard-fought 3-year experience as I evolved into a programmer capable of building a commercial product, http://www.jguru.com . Naturally this is a not complete list of programming advice, but rather what I learned on this project.Lots of good stuff in there, keep it simple, don't trust anyone else and test to name a few.
