Halfbaked Ideas

I’ve used a number of domain name registars, including GoDaddy, Network Solutions, Yahoo, and the dreadful and defunct Registerfly. After kissing too many toads, I’ve finally found a princess, gandi.net.
Their prices are fair, their site is well designed and easy to use, and they don’t try to cross sell, up sell, or otherwise try [...]

Many email clients share a user interface mis-feature. The user starts to compose an email, and the first thing the client does is put the user in the input area for the to: field. The user dutifully fills in the addressee, and most of the time things work out fine. Once in a while, the [...]

I want to pass along a nice tip. It seems that Google has introduced a free 411 information service. Considering that my carrier charges a dollar or thereabouts for directory assistance, I think this is excellent news. The number to call is 800 GOOG 411 (800 4664 411).

If you are into crypto and/or computer security, then you will likely find the Bruce Schneier Facts site hilarious.

The more I work with computers, the more I appreciate working entirely in text. You know, in that old dinosaur, the shell, the terminal, the console, the command line. Every console fan already knows about GNU Screen. I just tried another great tool, dvtm, and am totally impressed. What is dvtm? Here is [...]

As I write this my hosting company, NearlyFreeSpeech.net, is down. They are experiencing some severe problems, and working to fix them.
Things sometimes go wrong, and I have no doubt NSF.net will fix the problems. What they are doing right is keeping users informed, via a status site which runs on separate hardware. I know it [...]

Good article on operations as a competitive advantage. Here’s a quote:

The example above is the tale of two Web 2.0 startups scaling to 20 systems during their first three months. The first team starts writing software and installing systems as they go, waiting to deal with the “ops stuff” until they have an [...]

A couple of years ago I spent some time playing with Haskell. Not enough to get good with it, but enough to get an idea what it is about. After I satisfied my curiosity, I let it drop because I saw no real opportunity to use the language in earnest. The hardest thing about [...]

I like to listen to tech podcasts, and one of my favorites is Mac Break Weekly. It is well produced, informative, and funny. Over the years, I feel like I have come to know Leo, Merlin, Scott, Alex, Andy, and the rest of the MBW gang. I am sorry to say that the last two [...]