OpenOffice Writer UX Warts
The more I play with OpenOffice.org’s Writer, the more confused I am by some of the odd UI/UX warts in it. Here are the ones that are on my mind this morning: When I press F11 to bring up the Style...
View ArticleThe Evolution of WordPress
For backward-compatibility testing, I’ve just installed a few versions of WordPress ranging back to version 2.0. It’s kind of fascinating to see a sort of fast-rewind retrospective of the software....
View ArticleAlert: SpamAssassin’s Year 2010 Bug
If you haven’t been getting as much email as usual this past week, the culprit may be SpamAssassin. It turns out that SpamAssassin 3.2.5 (the current version, released in June of 2008) has a Year 2010...
View ArticleAnnouncing Hummingbird Version 0.65
I see that I never bothered announcing the v0.61 release. That was a minor bug-fix, resolving an issue where Hummingbird would fail if the XML cache file was empty. The latest release is one that...
View ArticleHummingbird Version 0.66 Released
This is largely a bug-fix release. Tom Clift, of PaperCut print management software, kindly informed me of a few installation issues that my own tests didn’t find. The profusion of configuration...
View ArticleHummingbird Version 0.67 Released
I’ve released a new version of Hummingbird. This is a bug-fix release, resolving some issues in automatic hyperlinking and in recognition of multiple hashtags in a single tweet. (Yes, this is why I did...
View ArticleAre You Sure You Want to Read This Blog Post? (y/n)
When should you ask a user “Are you sure you want to do that?” Bear in mind that asking this question when you don’t have to has more than one bad effect: Obviously, it wastes the user’s time and may...
View ArticleEasy Restarts Are a Security Feature
The more stuff you have open (or habitually leave open) in an application, the more it becomes part of your consciousness, an extension of your mind. For many of us, the question “What are you doing...
View ArticleMy Favorite Firefox Extensions That You Haven’t Heard About
Before you comment or email me asking how I could have left out AdBlock Plus, FlashBlock, NoScript, Firebug, or Chris Pederick’s Web Developer Toolbar: Please re-read the last five words of this post’s...
View ArticleWhy I Just Uninstalled Ad-Aware
I recently uninstalled Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware Antivirus. As part of the uninstall process, it suddenly took me to a page on Lavasoft’s web site asking me about what made me uninstall their product. I...
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