Here is a very interesting dissection of a series of posts about why programmers act the way they do under stressful situations. The basic gist is that stress can be a good thing and a motivator if it is not overdone.

The problems arise with chronic stress. From the series linked from the blog post above: "Fear becomes conditioned and habitual." When you enter this mode it is VERY hard to break out of it. You begin to worry about every imaginable boogeyman and you'll have no luck getting into a focused state, which is necessary to write any type of good code.

As much as it would be a wonderful asset, I do not perform my best work while under loads of stress. When I'm programming, I generally need time to think through a problem to come up with a good long term solution. When the stress of a very close deadline looms I tend to throw out whatever code will suffice just to meet the deadline and end the stressful situation. I had a bad project a couple of years ago where the deadlines were already extremely tight and the client was allowed to add all sorts of change requests to those deadlines. This resulted in LOTS of long hours and poorly implemented ideas.

Overall, the biggest overlooked problem facing software developers is "the interruption." It comes in many shapes and sizes and is extremely unpredictable. It seems to be a bigger issue in what is considered to be an "open working environment," where everyone is visible merely sitting at their desk working. This is an invitation for anyone to walk up to you and break your concentration at any time. The only method of fighting this seems to be wearing headphones, even if they are turned off...and even that is only moderately effective.

For the best productivity from developers, try out what is going on at Fog Creek Software. For most businesses this is a pipe dream, but I believe it would make a BIG difference in the ability of developers to deliver quality products. The best quote from the page above: "A programmer is most productive with a quiet private office, a great computer, unlimited beverages, an ambient temperature between 68 and 72 degrees (F), no glare on the screen, a chair that’s so comfortable you don’t feel it..." Many developers instead must try to focus through various project status meetings in their sitting area, conference calls right by their desks, and project management people who need updates multiple times per hour.

Imagine if we had the ability to focus on a problem and actually figure it out.

Update: I've written more on this topic in my post "On Your Working Environment".

Continue reading...

If you have young kids and you would like them to begin working with computers, this will interest you. Qimo is based on Ubuntu Linux and is made specifically for children aged 3+. According to the site there are very few menus to use and the OS is designed to be very intuitive to youngsters.

I'll be attempting to install this on a laptop well below the recommended specs for my daughter. I'll post an update in the next few days to let everyone know of my success or failure.

Continue reading...

If you have fastidiously been avoiding IE8 for one reason or another, it's time to listen up. You will be upgraded by automatic updates...at least if you run XP or newer.

I'm kind of torn on this. If this were the process all for newer versions of Windows software, perhaps the malware/virus situation would be far better than it currently is. Changing things this late in the game, however, could cause some issues. I know of some applications still in production environments that are still only compatible with IE6/7, and they will need to be updated prior to this roll-out.

Overall this should be a good change and a worthwhile upgrade. IE8 should be quite a bit more secure than 6 or 7. Once users get used to this type of upgrade path, development for the latest and greatest platforms could be quite a bit easier. No more specific code for out of date browsers!

Continue reading...

This should be a very high profile alert if you currently use VMWare for your virtualization needs. Evidently someone figured out a way to execute code against the host machine from inside the virtual machine. I believe we all thought that this was inevitable, but it is still quite unnerving to hear about.

The Software Developer Times has more info. Who knows how long this has been going on? I do know of numerous companies who use VMWare to run production services, and this will likely have a HUGE impact on them.

How often do you think of patching virtualization software anyway? It's one of those "set it and forget it" software installations, at least in my experience. I guess it's a good thing I'm a developer and not a part of an infrastructure team!

Continue reading...

It's hard to believe how much the British seem intent on driving their civilization directly toward 1984. Consider their new use for Smart cars here. This is just creepy.

Using these vehicles to monitor traffic and sending you tickets for being distracted? What if you've lent your car to someone, or someone stole your vehicle? That would be a nice gift to receive...someone steals your car and talks on their phone while joyriding around town and then YOU receive the ticket.

This is a great example of technology being used the WRONG way. Why do people not stand up and stop this type of abuse? Besides, isn't the purpose of police patrols to curb bad behavior? How does hiding behind a camera push anyone to follow the law?

Continue reading...

April fools day came and went with no real activity, but now it looks like things are beginning to roll. The p2p capability of the worm was activated and some new capabilities have apparently been downloaded by at least some clients. One thing has become clear: the motivation behind the worm appears to be money.

Interestingly enough, apparently a fake antivirus application could be downloaded and installed to infected machines. More information can be found at the trendmicro blog (look toward the bottom of the post). From the screenshot, the fake app looks pretty realistic...and offers to clean up your PC for the modest price of $49.95.

To test if you have the worm and for removal instructions, see my post from April 3.

Continue reading...

Get your gear! We now have a store at Cafe Press! If you have any specific requests for items please leave them in the comments and we'll see what we can do for you.

Continue reading...

Well, we certainly can't say we didn't see it coming.  This relates pretty directly to my earlier post on the Cybersecurity act currently making the rounds in Congress.  The WSJ article on the electrical grid hacks connects these as well.  While I have no doubt that hackers would certainly like to target our infrastructure, this is strange timing.

The most interesting piece of the article in my mind is that the current network in the U.S. is actually 3 in 1, the East, the West, and Texas.  Looks like a great idea Texas has there, the grid should probably be divided into even more segments.  I wonder which portion of the grid appears to be the most vulnerable?

Another question I have about this...why in the world are these systems even connected directly to the internet?  What good could possibly come from that?  If something doesn't need full network access it should NOT receive it.

Continue reading...

Here is an interesting concept for a search engine - SearchPDF. It seems to be very effective, if a bit slow. There's not a lot of information about how it works, but the homepage displays "Powered by Google" at the bottom. I would assume you could get the same results by using the correct Advanced Search on Google, but this site makes it VERY easy.

Besides, how could you turn down free eBooks!

Continue reading...

This may be the ugliest vehicle I've ever seen.  If there was any wonder why GM is on the brink of bankruptcy, here may be part of the answer.  Aside from the ungainly aesthetics, the size appears to be just "wrong" on a number of fronts.  Too big for the sidewalk while being small enough to be a death trap on the road, and no storage space for your stuff.  Sign me up!

Here's the part where I would normally say "Surely this would be useful in some places!" and yes, there is one I can think of...a daily rental vehicle for people just visiting an area.  However, there are already cheaper small-scale transportation alternatives to this PUMA (is this the acronym for EVERYTHING now?) thing, and most of them include you not looking like a complete tool.  You could:

• walk
• run
• take a cab
• ride a bicycle
• ride a moped
• ride a scooter
• ride a motorcycle
• ride a skateboard
• ride a REAL Segway
• get a full-on used car for less $

I guess I just don't see a big market for this thing even if it weren't hideous.  Am I missing something here?  Is GM overcompensating for the fact that nobody want's SUV's anymore and they've gone off the deep end in the other direction?

Continue reading...