It’s been while since I’ve updated this site (almost a month), but not because of a lack of interest. I recently moved out of my parents’ house into a new apartment to begin work, in the real world. Yes, I’m no longer a student, and while I will never regret my university years, there comes a time to move on. (I have yet to update the about page, but will get around to it) I started work on the 4th of September and have been diving my time between getting adjusted to the job and getting settled into my new place and surroundings.

So, how have things went since then? It’s been a mix of good and not-so-good, but thankfully things are getting better now that I have most of my stuff setup. I actually moved into my new place about one week before starting work, knowing that it would take some time to get things setup. Getting unpacked and setup however, took more effort than expected. Having to basically buy everything I needed was a task itself, but not having a car and having to bus-it or take a taxi everywhere was hard.

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It’s been almost seven months since Windows Vista was released to retail customers, and so far, sales figures haven’t been that good, with an estimate of two years before Visa sales overtake those of XP.

Why all the trouble? With Vista being Microsoft’s first major OS release since XP debuted over five years ago, one would expect that people would be desperate for a change. Turns out, however, Vista doesn’t really offer much more in the way of practicality over XP. Furthermore, performance issues are perhaps the biggest flaw in Vista that is preventing its widespread adoption, despite other claimed reasons. For the average person, upgrading to Vista just isn’t worth it – and with the recent problems with WGA servers, people may end up having more than just resentment for Vista.

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Share This is an excellent WordPress plugin written by Alex King. The plugin provides a neat and customizable pop-up menu for allowing readers to easily share one of your blog posts using many of the social bookmarking or social websites out there. It’s an intelligent solution to the problem of having too many sharing icons that may potentially distract or irritate readers.

Since launching, Share This has become very popular, with many blogs using it. I recently began using the plugin for a site of mine, and was impressed by its usefulness. (And the icon project it launched) However, I had also decided to use the jQuery JavaScript framework (and its plugins) for this site, and since Share This uses Prototype for its JavaScript functionality, there were some conflicts.

So, I decided to do a minor re-write of Share This, altering only the JavaScript portion to use jQuery instead of Prototype.

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… were really hares. My neighbourhood (and Edmonton in general) seems to be well-populated with these creatures, and today I was able to snap a picture of one in my backyard through a window without scaring it off. A bit of research on Wikipedia revealed it to be a common type of hare known as the White-tailed jackrabbit, prevalent in North America, especially in the western regions such as Alberta.

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I was briefly awoken this morning by the sounds of fire engines sometime before 6 AM, but quickly fell back asleep. When I woke up for real, I found out that many residents in a neighbourhood adjacent to mine did not have that luxury, as their homes were consumed or damaged in Edmonton’s largest residential fire. The huge fire destroyed nine duplex (twin-family) houses and damaged a further 76, mostly from one condo complex, and left hundreds without a home. Continued

I recently watched Michael Moore‘s Sicko and was very impressed by the effort put into the documentary. I wasn’t a fan of Moore’s previous work in Fahrenheit 9/11 or Bowling for Columbine, but Sicko does a great job of presenting the case for change in the US health care industry. Moore uses his skill very effectively to showcase the hardships caused by the current system on normal, everyday Americans, and in the end one is left almost with a feeling of shame at what has been donein the name of the almighty dollar. The film accomplishes its goal of making people aware of the need for change.
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I finally gave into my inhibitions and bought a Nintendo Wii this past Tuesday. Just as with the Nintendo DS Lite, which I got late last year, I was attracted to its unique and innovative features, which allow it to offer an experience that other consoles just can’t. This has allowed both of these systems to attract more than just hardcore gamers, and have served to increase Nintendo’s customer base out to a more general audience. It’s no small wonder then, that the Wii is still in short supply, and may continue to be so even into this year’s holiday season.

Perhaps that played a small part in my decision to pick one off the shelves at Wal-mart this week. Or, perhaps I was just tired of debating on whether or not I should get one. Thankfully, however, by buying during this summer season, I avoided the craziness during the Wii launch.
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It’s been a while since Facebook introduced the concept of “applications” to their API, providing developers a very flexible set of tools to create and add features to Facebook itself. Applications on Facebook are best described as “widgets”, since they offer functionality that’s often provided by widgets on other sites, so why Facebook chose a different name is somewhat peculiar.

I’m not going to debate the merits of these applications, or whether they’re leading Facebook down the road to a MySpace-hell dominated by personalized profiles that are an eyesore (there’s already enough discourse on that subject, both on Facebook and outside of it), but rather I’ll take a look at this from a developer’s point of view. What is the potential for developing an application for Facebook, and at the same time, what are the pitfalls?
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In general, security and usability often come into conflict with one another. After all, security is designed to make things tougher for the bad guys and usually some of this spills over onto regular, non-malicious users, making their experience often less easy than it should be.

One good example of this is with authentication. Authentication is perhaps the cornerstone of most computer security systems and is a crossroads where security, usability and other important matters meet. Designing a good authentication system requires consideration of all these points if it is to be effective at keeping bad guys out while still allowing normal users access. However, a few simple steps can be taken to alleviate the burden that such systems place on users. As an example, I’ll look at online credit card payment.
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I recently ran across a Digg news item about an article over at the Mozilla Labs where UI designer Alex Faaborg discussed hypothetical “Graphical Keyboard User Interfaces” in Firefox, and how they might be implemented. Interfaces like this, such as Quicksilver (for Mac), offer a hybrid of features found in CLIs (Command Line Interfaces) and GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces), and thus can have the best of both worlds.

Basically, a graphical command line is a command line that pops up on screen when you activate a keyboard shortcut/combo. This command line allows you to easily launch any program, file or action by easily typing its name. This offers you the advantage that good CLIs offer – such as auto-complete and speed-of-use, while retaining the advantages of the GUI. I recently learned of a Launchy, a nice program for Windows that offers these features. (Sort of like Quicksilver for Windows)
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