For some of us, the loves of our life include the computers that much of the rest of our life revolves around. They provided us entertainment and helped satisfy our urges for knowledge and power. We may speak of our old computers as others may speak of past lovers. These are mine. My grandfather’s 8086… Continue reading The Computers of My Life
Security Questions
Security questions are evil. I am not even convinced that they are a necessary evil. In my younger days I would answer each security question with some variation of “F*** YOU” and then diligently record each security question and answer in the Excel file I kept for recording my passwords. Now I use a password… Continue reading Security Questions
Lego Organization and Databases
While driving my kids to school this morning, my oldest was lamenting a project he had to do in computer class. They had a big box of Legos and have to physically construct them to match pixel art. He had the usual questions of “What is the point of this?” and “How is this going… Continue reading Lego Organization and Databases
Your Next Five Moves
I have long held the belief that business content (conference talks, books, podcasts, blog posts) fall on a spectrum between inspirational and actionable. The very best content is both–it not only makes you want to conquer the world but tells you exactly how to do it. Often, content falls at one of the extremes. Purely… Continue reading Your Next Five Moves
Upgrading to Rails7 cssbunding, jsbundling, and turbo-rails
I had a legacy Rails app that uses Javascript, Turbolinks, Tailwind, Webpacker to glue it all together, and Docker for deployment. It all felt a bit rickety to where a light breeze or a yarn or gem update could bring it all down. Having just upgraded from Rails 6 to 7, I felt like it… Continue reading Upgrading to Rails7 cssbunding, jsbundling, and turbo-rails
Enterprise Knowledge Base (and Microsoft’s Lack Thereof)
Once businesses reach a certain size (usually when they have two or more people filling the same role–e.g. two client support people or two devops people) they realize they need a repository where they can store knowledge to be shared internally across the organization. That first knowledge base probably consists of some .doc files in… Continue reading Enterprise Knowledge Base (and Microsoft’s Lack Thereof)
Musings on the Metaverse
The idea of a metaverse captured the imagination of many a young geek after reading the early works of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. IRC allowed us to chat with fellow computer enthusiasts around the globe in real-time. The web came along and added graphics to the stream of information entering our homes via crackles… Continue reading Musings on the Metaverse
Three tactics for being productive when feeling overwhelmed
In our quest to be as productive as we possibly can we often end up taking on more than we can possibly do. These tasks and commitments can come at us from friends, family, and colleagues but a lot of what fills up our inbox, calendar, and to-do list is self-inflicted. Prolonged anxiousness or feeling… Continue reading Three tactics for being productive when feeling overwhelmed
A Digital Afterlife
I read three novels in the past year and a half that explored the concept of a digital afterlife. I had been aware it was a plot point in Neal Stephenson’s Fall: or, Dodge in Hell but was surprised to see it come up in the other books as their descriptions did not indicate that… Continue reading A Digital Afterlife
True tales of hackers, crackers, and the Feds playing both sides
I grew up as a computer nerd catching the end of the BBS era and the dawn of the World Wide Web right about the time I started high school. Much time was spent using Qmodem to access local BBSs, play Legend of the Red Dragon, download shareware, and eventually browse Usenet. I idolized hackers… Continue reading True tales of hackers, crackers, and the Feds playing both sides