My first backup solution was a stack of 3.5 floppy disks. They contained every single Wordstar document I’d ever written, a copy of my bulletin board system, and small set of utilities that I’d knew I need if my feeble PC-AT decided to explode. Those disk are still around here somewhere. Every embarrassing word of… more
That Fez article. Oy. It took four times longer than expected to write, but I’m happy with the result even though I feel once I pass the fourth page of writing that I’m violating some weblog brevity rule. As I endlessly rewrote the article, I realized that I’ve fully embraced the ALL CAPS STANDARD as… more
I’m down to one unopened Christmas present. It’s a sealed copy of Galaxy Quest. Thanks Mom. The second to last unopened present was Peter Seller’s Being There. A Rands Top 5 movie. I’ve seen it ten times. I’ll see it ten times more, but I won’t actually see it. I’ll glance at it… infrequently… because… more
Connery asks: I’ve got a question regarding putting together time estimates… I’ve got a boss who is asking for time estimates for a project. She does want any technical specifications done because he’s in a hurry for the answer and she believes specs “take a lot of time”. Incidentally, she is not and has never… more
It’s almost 2005 and I can tell you, right this second, most of the keystrokes to format a document in Wordstar. I could also navigate a DOS-based version of XTree in my sleep. Additionally, I could explain to you the color scheme I chose for Xtree and weigh the pros’n’cons of said color scheme against… more
Yeah yeah yeah, I’m supposed to be telling you How to Lose Your Job, Pt. 2… but that column is turning into an opus and while it will rock, I’m also doing other stuff. Like… say… playing Halo 2? I’m new to the Xbox platform, so I’m certain the following rant has already been heard… more
Fez. Fez is a senior engineer who works for me. He’s fictional, but you know Fez. He’s the guy who wrote that piece of code nine million years ago that everyone is dependent on, but no one knows what exactly it does because Fez didn’t bother to comment a single line… oh yeah and he… more
The original headline for this article hit me last week in a post-Turkey haze… laying on the couch… staring at the ceiling in the living room — “Why Del.icio.us is more important than Google“. Let’s hear it for SENSATIONALISM! Woo-hoo! It’s hard to compare the two… one is a web service and the other is… more
I can remember the exact moment when I knew Netscape was Screwed. It was an email from an engineer who attended a technology preview of Internet Explorer 3 and the bevy of other Internet technologies Microsoft had rallied behind following Bill Gates’ famous “Internet Wave” email. I don’t remember the specifics of the email, but… more
I have never paid a cent to Google. “Google is doing just fine without your money, Rands.” Someone is paying the bills… who are they? “Online advertising is the revenue stream at Google. This means that advertisers believe that ads on Google translate into sales of their product and they wouldn’t pay if this wasn’t… more