November 30, 2003
Misc
Three minute angels, viral marketing, bridge-climbing and semi-naked beach bunnies!read... (674 words. Posted to personal at 08:43 PM. Trackbacks: 0 Comments: 1)
November 28, 2003
Ethereal Memory
One of the biggest problems these days is information overload: there's just so much information out there that needs to be digested and kept on hand. Using the Internet as my swap-space leaves much more room in my head for the important thingsread... (549 words. Posted to personal at 02:03 PM. Trackbacks: 3 Comments: 3)
November 25, 2003
Google, Microsoft and Tall Poppies.
And Bill still believes that what is best for us is what is best for him: Microsoft dominating every market they play their hand in, until all competitors are ashes.read... (1193 words. Posted to nerd, stories at 07:22 PM. Trackbacks: 2 Comments: 8)
November 24, 2003
Targetted Advertising
It's not spam, it's targetted advertising!read... (36 words. Posted to personal at 06:14 PM. Trackbacks: 0 Comments: 5)
Jar File Hell
And you (OK, I) end up in situations where B is throwing a NullPointerException where it's being called from A (via the helpfully provided A->B plugin). Is it a bug in A? Is it a bug in B? Is it really a bug in C, the invisible piece of infrastructure that introduced A to B?read... (376 words. Posted to nerd at 08:09 AM. Trackbacks: 0 Comments: 3)
November 19, 2003
Stand-up Meeting Antipatterns
I've had my own bad experience with stand-up meetings, but I've also had good ones. I think, however, that I've been able to observe _what_ makes the meetings good or bad. So here's a couple of stand-up meeting antipatterns that I have observed, and refactored solutions that I have seen work.read... (1692 words. Posted to agile development, nerd, stories at 01:35 PM. Trackbacks: 1 Comments: 6)
November 18, 2003
Misc.
Six random things.read... (505 words. Posted to personal at 10:58 AM. Trackbacks: 0 Comments: 0)
The Best Laid Plans...
So now it's 1:45am, and while I've restored all my personal files, checked my mail, and put all the music back on the iPod so I have some tunes to take to work tomorrow, I've totally failed to achieve what I set out to do this evening.read... (269 words. Posted to nerd at 01:51 AM. Trackbacks: 1 Comments: 3)
November 14, 2003
Approaching Menus in Cocoa
Cocoa is one of those frameworks that makes the simple things simple, and the difficult things possible.read... (466 words. Posted to apple, java, nerd at 08:16 PM. Trackbacks: 1 Comments: 3)
November 13, 2003
Cool Things About Blogging
It's a whole bunch of people saying interesting stuff, but the stuff hangs around indefinitely. It's very easy to dredge up a reference from a vague memory.read... (334 words. Posted to nerd at 04:01 PM. Trackbacks: 0 Comments: 4)
Quintessentially Aussie
[Jones] went out to bat during the famous tied Test of 1986 at Chidambaran Stadium, Madras, despite suffering from a combination of dysentery, vomiting and feeling faint....read... (254 words. Posted to personal at 11:06 AM. Trackbacks: 0 Comments: 3)
November 10, 2003
[AHOV 2] SQL Injection
A user is able to craft some input to the program that modifies an SQL query into doing something that it shouldn't.read... (598 words. Posted to java, nerd, security at 08:11 AM. Trackbacks: 1 Comments: 2)
November 09, 2003
Australian Idol: A Licence to Print Money (Unless you win it)
Between broadcaster Channel 10, producers FremantleMedia/Grundy, record label BMG Australia and concept licensors 19, there must be a lot of people wringing their hands with glee. There's a lot of money to be made here, and with any luck, a bare minimum is going to be wasted on the "talent"read... (746 words. Posted to personal, stories at 10:32 PM. Trackbacks: 1 Comments: 61)
[AHOV 1] Directory Traversal
A user is able to specify a filename to a program that allows them to access files in areas of the filesystem that should be unavailable.read... (459 words. Posted to java, nerd, security at 07:15 PM. Trackbacks: 0 Comments: 0)
A Handful of Vulnerabilities: Introduction
A series of articles detailing common security flaws found in software: stuff that gets reported to Bugtraq every day. If you're a developer, it's your job to know what these are, and how to avoid them.read... (501 words. Posted to java, nerd, security, stories at 06:58 PM. Trackbacks: 5 Comments: 0)
Usage of the Word Fuck
mp3s I own containing the word "fuck" in their title.read... (257 words. Posted to personal at 05:06 PM. Trackbacks: 0 Comments: 2)
November 08, 2003
Review: Matrix Revolutions
Having read many reviews and blog posts telling me that this Matrix: Revolutions was a horrendous let-down, I sat through most of the film waiting for the bit where it would disappoint me. I waited for that moment, and waited some more. Then the movie was over.read... (680 words. Posted to personal at 06:23 PM. Trackbacks: 0 Comments: 36)
There Is No Magic Security Bullet
The enemies of security are complexity and inattention to detail. Using a "managed language" is one way to reduce complexity, but more than enough remains to make our lives very difficult. We just have to keep paying very close attention.read... (484 words. Posted to nerd, security, stories at 12:04 AM. Trackbacks: 0 Comments: 0)
November 05, 2003
You Can't Stop the Music!
I will play through the 3362 songs on my iPod in alphabetical (well, ASCII) order by song-name, starting with Regurgitator's "! (The Song Formerly Known As)", and finishing with Faith No More's "Zombie Eaters".read... (320 words. Posted to personal at 11:35 AM. Trackbacks: 0 Comments: 6)
November 04, 2003
Alan Smithee
Sometimes, though, a director can go to the Guild and complain that the movie was taken out of their control. The studio pressured them to stray from their vision. It was cut against their wishes. Then, the Guild will have the movie credited to Alan Smithee.read... (177 words. Posted to nerd at 09:56 PM. Trackbacks: 0 Comments: 3)
The Parable of the Shell Folders Key
A disconnected ramble about software, backwards compatibility, the death of shareware and inflatable penguins.read... (295 words. Posted to nerd at 08:26 AM. Trackbacks: 0 Comments: 1)
November 03, 2003
Short Presentation on Blogging
Inspired by Diego's excellent two articles on blogging, here's the slides from a presentation I did for work a little while back on the subject. Geared heavily towards Java programmers.read... (59 words. Posted to blogging, nerd at 08:28 AM. Trackbacks: 6 Comments: 0)
November 02, 2003
An XSLT Anecdote
I was thinking of writing a quick program that would process my iTunes XML-exported playlists into HTML. After some thought on what would be the simplest way, I decided it might be time to overcome my distaste for XSLT.read... (354 words. Posted to nerd at 06:12 PM. Trackbacks: 0 Comments: 8)
Knights of the Old Republic
It's 1am and I just turned off Knights of the Old Republic. While it's shaping up to be a pretty good CRPG (and, the prequel movies aside, I'm a sucker for all things Star Wars), here's the things I have found annoying so far:read... (372 words. Posted to personal at 01:44 AM. Trackbacks: 0 Comments: 0)