Although this may be somewhat morbid subject matter, it is an important issue relating to todays socially networked and internet centric culture in highly developed countries.
To begin with you might think that the fact that your online presence is likely to outlive you is a somewhat comforting one – after all most people would like [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Opinions and Observations category.
Is leaving an online legacy a good thing?
Staying on the ball at work… keeping your mind fresh
It’s important to be aware of your productivity at work and the factors that can affect it. I thought I’d share some tips I find particularly useful as a software developer to be aware of, although these can apply to countless other jobs.
Any work can be potentially mentally taxing, but software development can be a [...]
Hacking spam bots and web crawlers
Unless you’re someone that actually writes and benefits from these things, you could look at the vast quantity of unsolicited rogue bots and web crawlers as a huge nuisance. However even if you are on the receiving end of such unrelenting software, you could also view it as an opportunity to turn the situation on [...]
EU plan to make technology more ‘open’… Is legislating on technology realistic?
http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/07/01/160239/EU-Plans-To-Make-Apple-Adobe-and-Others-Open-Up
It seems the EU are interested in introducing legislation to make big tech companies open up their technologies by using standard formats and interoperable interfaces. On one hand this vision of the future seems like a bright one, but on the other there is a big question as to whether it is really realistic to [...]
Virtual Machines – the open source way
Today I spent a few minutes checking out VirtualBox which is Sun/Oracle’s open source Virtual Machine (VM) system which is free for home use. Once downloaded you can visit http://virtualboxes.org for a large number of OS disk images which are relatively easily installed. I did have to edit the XML file it puts into your [...]
Mobile Devices – niche products versus. the features checklist
By now really, much as I have a dislike for gimmicks, I cannot deny that mobile devices are a ubiquitous part of everyday life. Nearly everyone in the UK has a computer on their person, and that computer is likely to have a powerful processor, an updatable Operating System, numerous pieces of software, several databases, [...]
The importance of communication
The last few days has provided an interesting lesson in the importance of communication when designing systems and developing business ideas. By now I’ve had chance to discuss some of my own ideas with a variety of people and its proved very useful both from my point of view clarifying what I’m attempting to achieve [...]
Google you’ve changed!
Interestingly Google have not only altered their look recently, they’ve changed some aspects of the core functionality too.
Unfortunately for me this means some of my web-sites don’t seem to get listed as highly as they used to and my inevitable bias is telling me that this change is bad!
In fact, I can’t help but point [...]
Apple really love a lock-in
Picture the scene – you’re at your favorite bar or pub, everyone’s cheery and the drinks they serve are superb. Last orders has been called and you don’t want the night to end: along comes the manager and guess what – he’s declaring a lock-in, fantastic!
But then consider this rather different scenario – you’re in a dingy [...]
OZ – the vastly different programming language
I finally took some time recently to inspect a language I’d been intrigued by for a while. That language is OZ, the implementation of which is called the Mozart Programming System. It is a self described multi-paradigm programming language. This concept both arouses curiosity and suspicion in me. My curiosity being that there is a possibility that [...]
Relationship between the government and the software industry
So a general election has been called in the UK and party political campaigns are well underway, which has made me think about many issues related to how I will use my own vote.
In the back of my mind though there is a subset of these issues that is entirely related to my line of [...]
Gap between industry and academia in computing
While it’s a subject that follows on from my previous post and could be debated at great length, I just thought I’d comment on a perfect little example.
Firstly I must start by saying the computing industry and computing research are inevitably inextricably linked and in many areas research leads to breakthroughs used in industry, so [...]
Bad programming practice inherent in student assignments?
I’ve been contemplating with some disillusionment the practice of ignoring poor quality program design inherent in the assignments of many computing courses. When we are asked to focus on one particular skill just to ‘get the job done’, it seems that we’re losing something in ignoring the bigger picture, especially when you consider that there [...]
Appropriate web marketing and ‘the flashy web’
My recent launch of a new web site has led my mind down the path of considering marketing approaches on the web, particularly for ‘high-tech’ businesses. There is a current trend amongst professional business web sites in that many fall either side of the style / function dichotomy. The biggest and best organisations tend to [...]
Why I have warmed to Prolog
I’ll be honest in that I used to find programming languages which involved a very compact looking syntax somewhat scary to think about. It is hard to interpret shorthand-style languages. However having got to know the syntax and general mindset required to program in Prolog I now find it quite straightforward, and dare I say [...]
Making AI accessible
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about AI and how it can be applied in different spheres of computing. Surprisingly despite the usefulness of logic and AI techniques, languages like Prolog are often neglected by developers.
Interestingly SWI-Prolog has many libraries making it pretty much ready for use in a distributed environment, and it wouldn’t seem [...]
Prolog and artificial intelligence
Time I think for a bit of variety. I’ve recently started lectures on the subject of artificial intelligence and AI programming, and I have to say I find the whole subject thoroughly interesting if somewhat mind-melting if you think about it too much. There are applications for intelligent systems in the spheres of business and [...]
Deliberating as to whether AJAX is actually a future-proof term
After thinking about my previous post for a second I realised that it is questionable as to whether it is really appropriate to use the term AJAX for many of the new ‘Rich Internet Application’ (RIA) platforms. All this jargon is harmful to the general perception of such technologies due to their inaccessibility to the [...]
ThinWire for AJAX development
ThinWire is an AJAX platform I’ve only fairly recently discovered, and feel unlike many others, worth a mention. The trouble with many AJAX platforms is that they tend to not offer a full package in terms of customisation and extensibility. My current favorite is GWT-Ext for its sheer versatility due to the server side code being pure [...]
Petition to save MySQL or damage Oracle-Sun merger?
A very quick post as a response to this petition hailed elsewhere as a righteous thing for open-source database MySQL:
http://www.helpmysql.org/en/petition
My take – brilliant; put yet another spanner in the works delaying Oracle’s acquisition of Sun and therefore jeopardise all of Sun’s products including Java which put simply seems to me much more important than [...]
