Less templates, more user experience.  One of the things that needs to change in 2006 (which will undoubtedly be the year of the web-application) is the care for user experience and usability. Many managers and business-people need to change their perspective and hire the right people to take their web-businesses to a new level. We… Continue reading Less templates, more user experience

A conversation with Windows Vista Kernel Team. This is Channel 9’s Christmas Present to geeks everywhere. A candid conversation with the team that’s building Windows Vista’s kernel. I even ask if they wish the registry had never been invented. But, Charles Torre did most of the interviewing. Being in a room with these guys for… Continue reading A conversation with Windows Vista Kernel Team

Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report. The volume of information harvested, without court warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged. By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN. [NYT > Home Page]

Heating aid slashed; N.E. faces burden. WASHINGTON — The federal program to help poor families heat their homes got cut to less than half the amount originally promised by Congress, because of a flurry of late-night maneuvers on Wednesday that could leave tens of thousands of New England families struggling with skyrocketing heating bills this… Continue reading Heating aid slashed; N.E. faces burden

New 37signals targets for Rails extraction. 37signals has announced two upcoming products: Campfire and Sunrise. This is significant for Rails development because all 37signals applications has historically been the main source for new features in Rails. Sunrise has already spawned a good number of features for 1.1. There are the polymorphic associations and join model… Continue reading New 37signals targets for Rails extraction

Freezing your Rails when you deploy shared. If you’re running a Ruby on Rails application on a shared host, it’s super-double-plus recommended to freeze your Rails. Freezing your Rails means putting the framework into vendor/rails instead of floating with whatever gems that are installed on the host. Because if you do so, you’ll automatically be… Continue reading Freezing your Rails when you deploy shared

Sunrise: 37signals' CRM tool for small business is coming soon. Hot on the heels of the ambiguous Campfire announcement, we want to be a little more specific about the other application we’re working on right now. Great progress is being made and we expect to show the product at the Getting Real Workshop in January.… Continue reading Sunrise: 37signals' CRM tool for small business is coming soon

Dividing with 'such careless honesty'. Slashdot is an awesome view into the minds of a very varied population of programmers. Granted, such a sight is often befuddled, obscure, or, well, downright stupid. But its real and there's a lot of insight to be had when watching from a sober distance. Take the announcement of Rails… Continue reading Dividing with 'such careless honesty'

I had a great time at A Christmas Carol at the North Shore Music Theatre tonight.

Infinite dictatorial power. Since I pointed yesterday to Bruce Schneier's piece on Bush's use of the NSA for domestic spying, I'd be remiss if I didn't also send you his way to read today's piece on what the spying means for privacy rights, and for the idea of Presidential power. It feels to me like… Continue reading Infinite dictatorial power