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  Why Software Is Eating The World

This week, Hewlett-Packard (where I am on the board) announced that it is exploring jettisoning its struggling PC business in favor of investing more heavily in software, where it sees better potential for growth. Meanwhile, Google plans to buy up the cellphone handset maker Motorola Mobility. Both moves surprised the tech world. But both moves are also in line with a trend I've observed, one that makes me optimistic about the future growth of the American and world economies, despite the...

   software,quota,internet world,eat up     2011-08-22 12:06:40

  Diving Deeper into HTML5 Offline Browsing

Recently, I published an article on one of the new features in HTML 5 called Offline Browsing  in HTML5 with ApplicationCache.The response to that article was good, and I was asked to expand on some further points including:how to decide on what files to cachethe implications of caching those filesdebugging the ApplicationCacheSo, that’s where this article will start: where the last one finished.  If you haven’t, you should probably read the previous article before this o...

   HTML5,Offline browsing,New breakthrough,Feature     2011-12-20 08:46:06

  Automate Everything

Performing manual, repetitive tasks enrages me. I used to think this was a corollary of being a programmer, but I’ve come to suspect (or hope) that this behaviour is inherent in being human. But being able to hack together scripts simply makes it much easier to go from a state of rage to a basic solution in a very small amount of time. As a side point, this is one of the reasons that teaching the basics of programming in schools is so important. It’s hard to think of any j...

   Automate,Email,Repeative     2012-02-07 06:21:19

  The Death Of The Spec

Earlier today, my colleague Matt Burns wrote a post noting that most tablet makers may be largely failing because they’ve sold their soul to Android and are now just in the middle of a spec war, which no one can win. I’m gonna go one step further in that line of thinking: the spec is dead.There have been a few key stories from the past couple of weeks that highlight this new reality. Barnes & Noble unveiled the new Nook Tablet. Consumer Reports looked at the...

   Specification,Android,Platform,Software design     2011-11-15 08:20:22

  Difference Engine: Luddite legacy

AN APOCRYPHAL tale is told about Henry Ford II showing Walter Reuther, the veteran leader of the United Automobile Workers, around a newly automated car plant. “Walter, how are you going to get those robots to pay your union dues,” gibed the boss of Ford Motor Company. Without skipping a beat, Reuther replied, “Henry, how are you going to get them to buy your cars?”Whether the exchange was true or not is irrelevant. The point was that any increase in productivity required...

   Artificial intelligence,Engine,Difference,Human,Computer     2011-11-07 08:33:16

  Have you used these JavaScript libraries before?

Are you a vanilla JavaScript developer or a JavaScript library lover?  If you are a vanilla JavaScript developer, please feel free to step away silently because you may not get what you want, but if you are a library or framework lover, please bookmark this page as what we list below are what you may use in the future. There are tons of JavaScript libraries created to ease the headache of developers who have to deal with different browsers on different devices. You may use some of them befo...

   JavaScript,Framework,Library     2014-09-27 22:06:55

  Don't Give Your Users Shit Work

The problem with shit work is that no one likes doing it, but an awful lot of people say they do.Shit workTake a look at Twitter Lists. The idea behind Twitter Lists was that users would carefully cultivate lists on Twitter of different accounts they’re following (or not following). These could be divided into lists like Family, Friends, Coworkers, People I Find Mildly Attractive, People To Murder, People I Find Mildly Attractive And Want To Murder, and so on.The problem is that, anecdota...

   Design,Facebook,Twitter,User oriented     2011-11-03 13:28:59

  PHP Sucks! But I Like It!

I read a rather interesting post yesterday called PHP: a fractal of bad design. It's been getting a lot of traffic among the PHP community lately because it's rather inflammatory. But to be honest, it does make a lot of really good points. It also makes a lot of mistakes and misses a bigger picture. A Few Mistakes The post makes quite a few mistakes and odd apples to oranges comparisons. Let me point out the major ones that I saw. No Debugger - PHP has xdebug which works quite...

   PHP,Bad design,Like     2012-04-12 06:15:42

  7 ways to start learning how to code right now for free

Learning to code is one of the most powerful and satisfying things you can ever do. If you’re a designer, learning to code can help you understand what you’re creating for, and if you’re looking to build a startup from scratch, being a technical founder can make things exponentially easier for you. No matter why you want learn, the only thing you really need is curiosity. But if you’re just starting out as a novice and don’t know where to begin,...

   Learn programming,Efficient way,Experiment,iPad     2012-02-03 08:11:21

  How Speeding The "Most Important Algorithm Of Our Lifetime" Could Change This Modern World

Math breakthroughs don't often capture the headlines--but MIT researchers have just made one that could lead to all sorts of amazing technological breakthroughs that in just a few years will touch every hour of your life. Last week at the Association for Computing Machinery's Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA) a new way of calculating Fast Fourier Transforms was presented by a group of MIT researchers. It's possible that under cert...

   FFT,Speed-up,Fast fourier transform     2012-03-20 07:47:04

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