March 14, 2010
Once again, it’s time for every clock in America to be messed with. According to the most optimistic estimates from the Department of Energy, this will provide a savings of 0.03% on the country’s annual electricity consumption. According to actual measurements from a study in Australia, it’ll achieve nothing. According to an NBER study of [...]
Filed under: System administration | Comments (0)
March 2, 2010
As I’ve written before, date and time calculations are surprisingly difficult. What’s more, even the bits that aren’t difficult often get messed up. Sony have just demonstrated this.
Apparently, a firmware bug in the real time clock in some models of PS3 lead the RTC to think that 2010 is a leap year. This confused the [...]
Filed under: Business, Programming | Comments (0)
February 13, 2010
Reflections on the Google Buzz fiasco, a few days on.
Filed under: Business | Comments (0)
February 11, 2010
The sad thing about Google Buzz is that it marks a complete failure of user-centered design.
Logically, the added Buzz functionality belongs in Google Reader. That’s where I read blogs, subscribe to friend feeds, comment on posted links, and share items.
However, Google added Buzz to Gmail–not because it belongs there, but because Gmail has more users [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments (2)
January 31, 2010
In October of last year, someone built a new RubyGems hosting site called Gemcutter. Everyone liked it so much that GitHub decided to stop offering RubyGem hosting, and point people at Gemcutter instead.
Then the maintainer of RubyGems decided to make Gemcutter the default repository for gems when you install RubyGems.
Then RubyForge decided to get rid [...]
Filed under: Programming, Ruby | Comments (0)
December 23, 2009
2004: 7-Eleven decides to switch its in-store computer systems to Microsoft Windows and SQL server.
2008: Russian hackers use SQL injection flaw to breach 7-Eleven’s in-store computer systems, and then use them to carry out a massive ATM fraud.
Filed under: Microsoft | Comments (0)
December 1, 2009
A post about the three types of null value in LotusScript, and how they differ.
Filed under: Domino, Java, Linux | Comments (0)
November 20, 2009
The worst thing about commercial Linux is RPM. I can never remember the command line incantations required for even fairly simple tasks.
While yum eventually takes away the pain of applying software updates–so long as you’re not in a hurry–there are all kinds of other tasks it doesn’t handle. I therefore rely on an RPM [...]
Filed under: Linux, System administration | Comments (0)
November 5, 2009
How to get agnclient working with the latest Ubuntu.
Filed under: Linux | Comments (3)
October 11, 2009
February 2008: Microsoft aquires Danger Inc, makers of the T-Mobile Sidekick phone. The phone is based on a NetBSD kernel with Java VM and APIs.
May 2009: Microsoft lays off most of the ex-Danger employees.
October 2009: Leaks indicate that the Danger OS is dying, with the Danger-based Project Pink phone to be replaced by Windows Mobile [...]
Filed under: Microsoft | Comments (0)