News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
Bill Snyder of InfoWorld has written a scathing article about Dell and its decline from once being the gold standard of customer service. Knowingly selling defective computers is not the best way to retain a loyal customer base, but that’s only a symptom of systematic changes in how the company does business.
Link: http://infoworld.com/…
(via Slashdot)
Apple has donated the MacPaint source code to the Computer History Museum. As with so many other components of the original Macintosh, MacPaint was an innovative and groundbreaking piece of software. The source code has even been studied by software engineers as an example of how to properly write code. I also find it interesting is that it’s so small—a mere 5822 lines of Pascal and 3583 lines of assembler. For modern programmers, that’s just a drop in the bucket.
Link: http://www.businessweek.com/…
(via TechRepublic)
TechRepublic has posted a list of 75 must-read books for geeks. I’ve read slightly more than half (43 total) and 7 out of the top 10. There are a few I completely disagree with, including Steve Wozniak’s iWoz (long-winded and boring) and Neal Stephenson’s Anathem (overcomplicated and boring). I started both of these books but eventually gave up reading them.
Nearly had me ROTFL. So true, especially for Facebook.
There’s a new security vulnerability in Windows, where your machine can be taken over by simply viewing a shortcut icon. So be very careful about untrusted USB drives, shared files, and anything you’re asked to download (files with “.lnk” and “.pif” extensions are highly suspect). Microsoft has a temporary workaround which changes all the icon images to be identical, but this may be a cure that’s worse than the problem.
Link: http://www.computerworld.com/…
(via Kim Komando)
The news is not that ThinkGeek is selling a parody product called Canned Unicorn Meat. Nope, the news is that the National Pork Board, owner of “the other white meat” slogan, took it seriously enough to send a cease and desist letter over the phrase, “the new white meat.”
I can’t think of anything that would keep me in an enclosed room at 261° Fahrenheit for 12½ minutes. That’s well above the boiling point of water! Yet Timo Kaukonen did exactly that in order to win the 2007 Sauna World Championship in Finland.
Link: http://sports.espn.go.com/…
(via Neatorama)
I have no idea how this is possible, and the math is beyond me, but an IBM employee named Craig Gentry has found a way to add and multiply encrypted data without first decrypting it. It’s called “fully homomorphic encryption.”
Link: http://www.technologyreview.com/…
(via Slashdot)
As any web designer will tell you, the current state of web fonts is deplorable. Google is coming to the rescue, however, with 18 free fonts and an API to make them work correctly.
Link: http://arstechnica.com/…
TechRepublic recommends 10 interview questions to help assess the true geekiness of a job applicant. For me, the answer to question #8 is that real programmers write self-modifying code.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had a third partner when they first started Apple Computer. His name is Ron Wayne. And like the fifth Beatle, he left too early to get any of the benefits. The linked article gives specifics.
Link: http://www.mercurynews.com/…
(via Kim Komando)
Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets, did some training and internal promotional films for IBM in the 1960s. These are great!
Link: http://technologizer.com/…
(via Slashdot)
