What I desire from Wikipedia
For many years, I have valued Wikipedia as a source of interesting and useful information on a staggeringly wide variety of topics. I wonder how long that will remain the case, though, given that Wikipedia is changing in ways some of us find unhelpful. Thinking and reading about Wikipedia’s dominant editing culture has helped me clarify what I like to get out out of Wikipedia, what its controlling forces want, and the difference between the two. At one point, Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia’s cofounder) presented a vision that greatly appeals to me: “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing. “ Unfortunately, one aspect of this vision...
Why I prefer desktop computers over laptops
I have owned many personal computers over the past 30 years… but never a laptop. I’ve used others’ laptops from time to time, but only for short periods of time. Laptops are wonderful, but almost any time I have a choice, I prefer to use a desktop. I thought it might be interesting for others to read about this one user’s rare preference for desktops, particularly from the user experience point of view. Basic ergonomics Since most laptops’ screens are attached to the keyboard, I need to choose between either of two uncomfortable positions. If I place the laptop at elbow level, for comfortable typing, I need to bend my neck down to look at the screen. If I place the laptop on a stand for a comfortable viewing angle, I need to raise my arms to type. Barring...
Dopey, the Folder-Selection Annoyance
Just about every Windows program prompts a user to select a file for some purpose, such as through the Open File dialog window: I’ll call this kind of window “Opie” for the rest of this article. Occasionally, a program will prompt a user not for a file, but for a folder. In such cases programs will typically bring up the Folder Selection dialog window, which I’ll call “Dopey“: Had I never known Opie, I might not dislike Dopey. Since I do, however, I find Dopey to be a vastly inferior and annoying UI element, for several reasons: 1. Dopey can’t get to a folder directly. Most of my files are nested four or five levels down from My Documents. When I’m working on a project, I’ll typically have...
Can bcrypt’s computational expense be reduced on the server side?
(Caution: Amateur security research ahead. Using it in a live system is not recommendable.) I recently read “How to Safely Store a Password”, an article by Coda Hale. For years I’ve thought that salting and hashing passwords with MD5 or SHA-1 prior to storage was sufficient to thwart password-cracking efforts (in cases where the user-account database table is stolen or publicly divulged). Apparently, this approach is not much better than simply storing plaintext passwords (a practice widely scoffed at). It was fascinating to find out about a better approach, that of using bcrypt instead of ordinary hash functions. Unfortunately, it seems to me that bcrypt creates a new problem even as it solves an old one… The New Problem The use of bcrypt turns...
Facebook, the Island of the Lotus-Eaters
Last night I watched Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief on TV. (Beware, spoilers ahead.) This moderately-entertaining movie cleverly incorporates a number of elements from Greek mythology. One of them is the island of the lotus-eaters, reimagined as a casino. Percy Jackson and his two sidekicks need to visit this casino to look for a special, hidden jewel. At the casino, they are persistently offered and keep consuming some unusual, mind-altering appetizers. The addictive hors d’oeuvres make them forget why they were there and what their mission was. After a long time they manage break out of their stupor, retrieve the jewel, and resume their quest. Sometime after watching this scene, I was struck by the realization that Facebook is...
An immediate hiatus
As is evident to anyone checking in, I’ve so far failed to keep up with my initial, modest goal of writing once a month. Last year was a demanding year… We’ll see about this one. As happened with my inaugural article, strong sentiments drew out an article from me, this very night. I’ll post it very soon. Perhaps others will follow...
Collide world!
Hello, world! My name is Andrés Cabezas Ulate. Yesterday, as I was reading one of my favorite blogs, I came across the straw that broke the writer’s block. Long have I waited to share various ideas with the world. I’ve been inching along with my methodical publication plans. Today, though, I decided to go for broke, and jump-start one of the blogs I had envisioned. A quick WordPress installation here, some minor customization there, and here we go! Oh, and we musn’t forget the choice of a clever-but-hokey name for my blog, of course. (Don’t worry, little blog. You can change your name when you turn 18.) As a nascent, independent, software entrepreneur, I’d like to share various ideas pertaining to software development. My...