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Just a quickie for the geeks. Microsoft has a handy whitepaper outlining the syntax differences between C# and VB.NET should you need to convert. There are apparently automated tools out there for translating code from one to the other, but if you’re accustomed to one language and need to switch your brain over to developing for the other, this is way more helpful.
If you’ve ever played with “Keyhole”, you know how unbelievably cool it is. If you haven’t, imagine being able to fluidly zoom in an out of, and traverse a photo-realstic image of the entire earth. It’s unbelievably cool. And now, renamed “Google Earth“, it’s free for download. Sorry Mac-heads, Windows only.
Creating Passionate Users is a great blog I just found. It’s by the authors of the equally excellent O’Reilly “Head First” book series.
It’s a wide ranging blog about, you know, making stuff that users will feel passionate about. It’s exactly at the intersection of marketing and software design where I like to spend my spare mental cycles.
Someone has created an entire gallery dedicated to a usability flaw that has baffled me for ages. It’s the “No Spaces or Dashes” requirement often found on sites where you need to enter your credit card, phone number, or other type of numeric data generally broken into groups of digits for readability.
There is absolutely no reason any web form should ever have this requirement. Ever. In any remotely modern computer language, removing spaces and dashes from a string requires no more than two lines of code. In perl, it can be done in less than 20 characters. I challenge anyone to propose a legitimate reason for requiring a human to enter data in a no-spaces-no-dashes format. There is none whatsoever, aside from extraordinarily lazy programming.
I just noticed that we (the Microsoft division formerly known as Groove Networks) are hiring for a number of development and QA positions. If you’re a software engineer who always wanted to work for Microsoft but wanted to stay in Massachusetts, we’re pretty much the only hope you’ve got ;). So, come on over!
This looks like one sweet little computer mouse for your laptop. Some cool features:
I like it! I’m surprised Logitech beat Apple to the idea of using a trackpad instead of a scroll wheel. I could see Apple embracing this as a way to add scrolling functionality to their mouse without adding any ugly moving parts. Just add a faint etched outline around the scrolling area and there you go.
Just a handy thing I’ve often wished I had - a geographical map of the MBTA Commuter Rail layout (.PDF). Handy if you find yourself near the terra incognita around Rte. 495 and don’t feel like driving into town.
If you suffer from the delusion that companies couldn’t possibly stay in business these days without a high quality, professional web site, try searching the web for a limousine rental, perhaps in New York City. The busted design and functionality allowed to run rampant on these sites is pretty horrifying.
Here’s a page from the company I’m actually planning on hiring. Not only does the contact form simply not work (par for the course, really), the logo is backward. How does that happen?
I just got back from a fairly short, but quite enjoyable, trip to California. Stacey and I were there for a friend’s wedding in the San Luis Obispo area, but our travels took us all over the stretch of Highway 101 from there to San Francisco. Highlights included an excellent wine tasting junket and a quick trip for snapshots at Apple headquarters, just for yucks. Here are some pictures from the trip. A link to pictures from the wedding is available to friends of the couple upon request. Just drop me a line at jeff at chausse dot org.
You are currently browsing the Chausse.org archives
for June, 2005. Please visit the home page for the latest posts.