smackfoo.com | I find your lack of faith disturbing.

In five days, this blog will be 3 years old.
Normally, after a few years of *something* existing it’s time to party. Perhaps a re-design, re-purpose or simple “thank you” to all those who have followed the ups and downs and still continue to tag along for the ride.
If there is one universal constant, it is […]

“We know what we are doing.” — a phrase oft spoken, or written that simultaneously proves neither is true. The statement itself is an example in foolishness, indeed how can one intuitively “know” everything? Worse, how can trust of any sort be placed in such a statement? This is an ode to that phrase and […]

I’ve been working on something. It’ll be live soon and it’s a whole new direction. More soon.
On a side-note — filed under the special-things-that-turn-one-homicidal category — something was slightly h0rked after a recent hosting upgrade. I think I’ve nailed it now. Mostly.
“Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh… everything’s perfectly all right now. […]

There is a lot to be said for power-cycling a misbehaving system.
Remove the juice, wait, add juice and many-a-system-issue will disappear in a puff of imaginary smoke. Then there is the human body and mind. Which in many ways responds in the same manner. Swap juice with stress and effort, and the same results can […]

Cue dark-ages Britain. And.. action.

The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Here’s one.
The Dead Collector: That’ll be ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There’s your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m not dead.
The Dead Collector: ‘Ere, he […]

Jeff Atwood fires a shot across-the-bow of the online content distribution model, via his take on
The Sad State of Digital Software Distribution:
“Instead, I find that download options for commercial software are quite rare. Even when the download option is available, you end up paying the same price as retail or even more.”
This is a point-of […]

Jeff Atwood has recently written a little on how your
desktop is not a destination:
“The desktop background, as I see it, is completely superfluous. My desktop “background” right now is plain black. And that doesn’t bother me in the least, because none of it is visible.”
I agree with Jeff on this point. The background shouldn’t […]

Joyent's David Young has a conviction that the days of the operating system are numbered, as part of his
Joyent Manifesto - Quo vadis, Computing he writes:
“The operating system is dead. Long live the operating system. If the future is network applications, the past is the operating system.”
I think David has oversimplified the concept of […]

Mr Hunt’s comment on my pet hate, the
cross platform user interface:
“I'm not against cross-platform libraries, or cross-platform applications. But giving the same UI to every OS isn't a good solution.”
It isn't a good solution, but one often mooted as the 'best' compromise. The downside of that middle ground choice is that it will offset […]

I note there seems to be yet another reason for part of the Apple community to complain first and ask questions later. This time, rather than consumer cries of
unfair practices, it’s Java developers that are
raging against the machine.
It does appear some cooler heads have surfaced with a little voice of reason regarding the […]

There has been some recent activity around a re-born Mozilla application, previously named
WebRunner, now called named
Prism1.

There is some
good coverage of Prism, particularly via
dailyapps, as well as
developer notes, which all do a damn fine job of describing it’s purpose.
If you want to skip the detailed view, it can be most succinctly […]