Monthly Archives: September 2010

Your Software is Crap, Get Used To It

September 30, 2010
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I’ve rather grown tired of some software developers and companies who don’t seem to comprehend the simple fact that all software is crapola. And that the definition of a good programmer is one who knows his software is crap. By definition, a good programmer will immediately know a better way to do something right after he or she has written the code. If someone is super happy with the code and figures it to be perfect they either wrote a trivial piece of code, are someone of the ilk of Knuth, or are self-delusional. And to see that most software is crap one needs only use it. If software was well done as so many practitioners tend to think we’d have no bugs, software would work efficiently and be easy to maintain, and it would never require anyone to revisit it. But I’ve never found a piece of code like that. Sure, I’ve found elegant pieces of code. But that’s the whole point, elegant pieces. Sometimes you even find an old program that, even when substantial time has passed, the code remains elegant. But inevitably it’s a few thousand lines of finely honed software and not hundreds of thousands or

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Blackpad … Playbook

September 28, 2010
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I saw the demo of the new Playbook by RIM powered by QNX. It looks impressive. Which, to be honest, is exactly what I’d expect from the crew from QNX. They are truly an impressive bunch of techies who comprehend their market and whose software is superb. I’ve had the pleasure of working with QNX in the past and it was a most pleasurable experience. I’ll definitely be checking out the Playbook when it comes out, which will be a surprise to many of my friends who know I have no use for Blackberries. But this is different. If it’s priced right it might become a great competitor to the iPad, which is a great media consumption device. As to the complaints from some that the Playbook doesn’t as yet have any business software I’d just point at the iPad and its lack of business software. It hasn’t hurt the iPad’s sales any. Besides, with a bit of thought anyone should quickly realize the niches at the moment not filled will be filled by QNX-aware developers. What they’ve been handed is virgin territory and that must be really exciting for a lot of developers. I’m also happy for QNX in

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Asylum Seekers

September 26, 2010
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Asylum Seekers

One book I constantly reference is Alan Cooper’s The Inmates Are Running the Asylum. It is an excellent book explaining the difference between what a techie sees are how software should function versus what a normal person sees and wishes software would do. It all boils down to the difference of putting the onus on the developer to make the software as easy and intuitive as possible versus making the poor end-user jump through hoops to get anything accomplished. It’s the notion that whatever is done should be as easy as possible for the programmer to code as opposed to making sure the end-product is something that doesn’t aggravate, confuse, or otherwise enrage the end-user. Cooper further states that software should just be “good enough”. This is a common refrain today, but a few years ago was rather heady stuff. I’ve long believed “good enough” would solve a lot of our troubles but most people in high-tech are perfectionists who spend an infinite amount of time honing their craft and their software to such an extent that it either never gets out or when it does get out is rather useless. In this way Cooper is also proclaiming that Agile

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Music, Computers, and Convenience

September 25, 2010
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To anyone even remotely following the digital music scene it’s quite obvious that Steve Jobs’  ambition has been and remains the revitalization and revolution of media, with music being first in his sites. It’s something I’ve been waiting for for a long time, and so have many others. I’ve felt that the main reason Napster and its kin — Kazaa, Grokster, etc. — were/are so popular is simple: it provides a nice, clean, convenient way of allowing consumers to sample huge quantities of music they would otherwise not be able to. Furthermore, consumers have gotten tired of purchasing the same music but on new media — something the music industry seems to ignore as an issue for consumers. Case in point, I’m a huge U2 fan. I have all of their albums on a variety of formats. I have their earlier work up to the early 90s on vinyl. I then purchased the CD versions. I have special remixes, singles, UK imports, the Best Of CDs, and a few DVDs. And then there’s the cassettes I had for my car. I have literally paid for most of U2′s music multiple times. The music is fantastic but why am I paying

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Moths at Large

September 22, 2010
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Moths at Large

A good friend of mine, Jim des Rivieres, is having an exhibit of moth photographs at the Museum of Nature. Before I met Jim I had no idea moths were so beautiful. But the scans that he produces into photographs is utterly amazing. If you click on the picture of the moth it’ll take you to Jim’s site. You can even order prints of various moths.Or just stare at the ones he’s photographed and stare in amazement. Browsing through the gallery never ceases to amaze me. The coolest thing is that these are all local Ottawa area moths. The colours are utterly amazing. I guess because we see them at night we don’t realize how colourful they truly are. This is Jim’s hobby — he’s a computer scientist by training, and easily one of the best I’ve ever known. I just wish I had a hobby that engaged me so and was as cool in terms of output. For those interested, the exhibit at the Museum of Nature runs from October 8th, 2010 to January 9, 2011. I’ll definitely be checking it out!

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Bemoaning the State of Information Security

September 22, 2010
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I’ve been in the field of computer security for nearly 25 years and the same old stuff still bugs me. The constant desire to foist security requirements on the end-user is unbelievable, and unwarranted. Security is, at best, an esoteric field and one that most end-users are not sufficiently well versed in to be able to make logical decisions. Add to that the constant drone by security “experts” that much of the problems lie in lack of process and procedures, or user unwillingness to follow these same processes and procedures, is simply more proof that the problem lies elsewhere. The problem with security is that it’s a pain in the ass. My security pedigree allows me to state that. I wrote the Canadian Criteria (CTCPEC). I was one of six authors, and the only non-US author, on the US Federal Criteria which was to replace the Orange Book and Rainbow Series. I co-authored the Common Criteria, and was one of the lone voices of dissent when it took on the form everyone is currently familiar with. As a senior IT security researcher with the Canadian government I set up the first virus centre to study the propagation of malware and

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Idiots confound me

September 20, 2010
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I read this article re: Warner Bros. bemoaning the $0.99 rental price Apple wants to charge customers per episode. Perhaps I’m dense, but at 24 episodes per season that works out to approximately $24 to simply rent it. Not own it. Rent it! For a few extra bucks you can actually buy it on DVD. If anything, $0.99 is too expensive. It should be $0.25 or something similar. The only way $0.99 would make sense is if you could watch it forever on an on-demand type of system. But to only be able to rent it for 24 hours at $0.99 is stupid. And, yeah, I know you can keep on disk for 30 days before you watch it, but once you decide to watch it you have 24 hours within which to watch the episode. Ugh. It’s one reason I will continue to not rent from these types of services and instead just by my DVDs from Chapters or Amazon. Often times if I wait a year I can get the whole season for $25 – 30, which is effectively the cost of renting the episodes. The goal of the media firms should be to push convenience. The only

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Riding the Rollercoaster

September 19, 2010
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Riding the Rollercoaster

In 1998 I graduated with another degree in Computer Science, this time a Master’s degree. If nothing else it proved I had enough perseverance to get to the end game. Even so it was only the start of my intentions. My wife and I wanted to take the technology I had developed and take it mainstream — we wanted to start a company. That spring we had spoken with a slew of investment bankers. We finally settled on a group of four dynamic individuals at Thorington, a boutique investment banking firm. We finalized the paper work through the spring of 1998 and began hunting for cash in earnest shortly after graduation. It would be an interesting period in my life. Working with Bob, John, Kevin, and Rick would be an event in and of itself as we created the business plan, the presentations, and got onto the lists for presentations with various VCs and other investors. We started in May and ended up working together for nearly a year. It was a giddy time. It was all on Internet time. Damn it was fun. I had no idea what to expect when the real work of getting funding began but

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Why’d It Take So Long???

September 19, 2010
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First off I should let anyone who cares know that I’m a UNIX guy from way back. I started using System III and subsequently System V from AT&T in 1983. I used BSD on Vaxen in the 80s as well, where I found Rogue and spent way too much free time battling characters (literally ) to get the Amulet of Yendor. Simpler days. In the past I’ve had FreeBSD running on an old 200Mhz Pentium. I had an old box running BeOS, and quite quickly too. BeOS was great. Fast and elegant. But too different. And that led to its demise. I don’t run Linux anymore. I’m tempted now and again, but I haven’t succumbed. Why? Mostly because Linux offers me nothing I want or need. I’d like it to, but it doesn’t. Maybe twenty years ago I’d have loved it, but now it’s an anachronism to me. I want the OS to get out of my way, I want to get real work done. I don’t want to compile kernels or drivers. I don’t want to look at code. I just want to focus on my work as a computer scientist,a s a researcher. It’s really too bad. I

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The Fattening of America

September 18, 2010
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The Fattening of America

I recently finished The End of Overeating by Dr. David Kessler, former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration. It was primarily of interest to me because, like many people, I’ve struggled with weight gain. And following the so-called “Food Pyramid” has only exacerbated the condition. So it was eye opening to read Dr. Kessler’s book on the food industry and why sometimes the food we eat is particularly bad for us. Furthermore, it readily explains much, perhaps all, of the fattening of America that has occurred during the last 50 years or so. The basic question behind the book is simple: What’s causing the so-called “Obesity Epidemic”. Whether you believe in the epidemic or not is immaterial. We all know that way too many people are struggling with huge weight issues. And the usual methods of staying slim don’t seem to work — more on that when I finish Good Calories, Bad Calories. In the book Dr. Kessler examines what we’d consider “normal” food — i.e., the stuff nature produces — vs. the food we often consume from restaurants, processed food sections of supermarkets, etc. He determines that it isn’t fat that makes us fat. And that’s something

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Musings

A blog of my musings. Some folks find it interesting and so I continue. Hopefully it will remain fairly interesting. At worst, it'll keep me writing orthogonally to my day job.

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