posted by steve | Category: Random Rants

This post is somewhat difficult to write. I’ve been involved in a few book revision projects over the past 10 years where I’ve picked up another author’s book and had to revise it for a new version of $widget or just to update it. When doing so, I notice that my writing approach is different than some authors. I can’t or won’t claim that my writing approach is better, in fact it may be worse, [...Read more...]

posted by steve | Category: Random Rants

I read some articles, which I won’t cite for lack of wanting to start a small war, that refer to HTML5 as a collection of technologies that describe how the new web works, in much the same way that the term Web 2.0 was used for years to describe a collection of technologies including AJAX to provide higher interactivity to web pages. In these specific articles, HTML5 was referred to as including HTML, CSS, and [...Read more...]

posted by steve | Category: Useful Sites That Everyone Already Knows

Just started http://www.sitereportr.com for checking site status.  You can check to see if a site is up or down or unknown.  Get the IOS app for your iphone or ipod touch too!

posted by steve | Category: Random Rants | 1 Comment »

I’m struck by the number of times that people make the wrong decisions when it comes to application development as it relates to the ultimate goal.  The ultimate goal of application development is to support the business, so that the business can leverage that application to streamline processes, beat a competitor, or whatever the business need.  To that end, it seems worthwhile to deliver the best application possible. A competing approach says that the application [...Read more...]

posted by steve | Category: Random Rants

After participating in a Slashdot thread about Mozila End-of-Lifing Firefox 4 already (just a few months after it came out), and then thinking about a discussion a few months back about WHATWG ditching version numbers for the HTML specification, I got to thinking more about version numbers and why they matter. Version numbers (or even names), such as HTML5, Firefox 3.6, Windows 7, Mac OS X Lion, and iOS 5, matter.  They indicate a point [...Read more...]

posted by steve | Category: Useful Items That I Forget | 15 Comments »

Virtualbox (or its Guest Additions) have this annoying habit of automatically keeping the clock in sync with the host, regardless of the settings that one tries to implement within the guest itself.  For example, in a Windows 7 guest that I’m trying to use for consistent screenshots I need to set the clock to specific dates.  However, as soon as I set it, Virtualbox changes it back. Here’s how to change it: vboxmanage setextradata “<vmname>” [...Read more...]