I've been a multiple monitor enthusiast since the dark days of Windows Millennium Edition. I've written about the manifold joys of many-monitor computing a number of times over the last four years:

• Multiple Monitors and Productivity
• Multiple LCDs
• Joining the Prestigious Three Monitor Club
  Read more »

In Where the Heck is My Focus, I wondered why web developers don't pay attention to basic keyboard accessibility issues. I don't want to navigate the entire web with my keyboard. That's unrealistic. I was specifically referring to login pages, which tend to be quite spartan and minimal. On a simple login web page, the standard keyboard tab, enter, focus order navigation scheme is quite useful and much more efficient than using the mouse.

David Heinemeier Hansson has a problem with Windows as a programming platform.

While I can certainly understand the reasons why some people go with Linux, I have run all but dry of understanding for programmers that willfully pick Windows as their platform of choice. I know a few that are still stuck in the rut for various reasons -- none of them desire.

Jamie Zawinski's public service backup announcement starts off with a bang:

Option 1: Learn not to care about your data. Don't save any old email, use a film camera, and only listen to physical CDs and not MP3s. If you have no possessions, you have nothing to lose.

One of the early technology decisions we made on Stack Overflow was to go with a fairly JavaScript intensive site. Like many programmers, I've been historically ambivalent about JavaScript:

• The Power of "View Source"
• The Day Performance Didn't Matter Any More
  Read more »

One of the most impressive hacks I've ever read about has to be the Black Sunday kill. Since the original 2001 Slashdot article I read on this is 99.9% quote, I'm going to do the same. I can see why they quoted so extensively; it'd be difficult to improve on the unusually succinct, well written summary provided by Pat from Belch:

Robert Miesen sent in this story of a project pathology:

Using XMPP4R--Simple these Ruby code snippets show a user's status change and any messages they may have sent you since the last time.

# user1 changes their status to away
jabber.presence_updates do |friend, old_presence, new_presence|
puts "Received presence update from #{friend.to_s}: #{new_presence}"
end

# user1 sends the message "do you like Tofu?"
jabber.received_messages do |message|
puts "Received message from #{message.from}: #{message.body}"
end

Bruce Schneier is something of a legend in the computer security community. He's the author of the classic, oft-cited 1994 book Applied Cryptography, as well as several well-known cryptography algorithms.

Lately I've been delving into the WordPress ecosystem, as it seems to be the most popular blogging platform around at the moment. I've set up two blogs with it so far. In the process, I've gotten quite comfortable with the setup, interface, and overall operation of WordPress.

1. blog.stackoverflow.com
2. www.fakeplasticrock.com