Updated 03-Aug-2025 I've heard the accusations, that Apple is into anorexic design and that the 2015 Macbook is as powerful as a 2011 Macbook Air (though that is an i7 Macbook Air). Since I actually use every day a 2011 Macbook Air (4gb ram, i5, 256gb SSD), I want to comment on this. Performance and ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Buddhism is not some religion of quietism, although it is that as well. But rather, Buddhism as a lived practice (specifically situated, as I am, in mainland Southeast Asia) could potentially inform economic development in the same locale. Let's find out... The Language of Business As an aside, it is important to criticize ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 So, Etherpad is a thing (actually, Etherpad Lite, which is a NodeJS thing). That is, a real-time collaborative editing tool. Essentially the answer collaborative web-based text editors, free and open source. Last year a WebRTC hook and plugin was made available for Etherpad (!!). WebRTC WebRTC is real-time communication for the web. Firefox ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 fuser and lsof are two important tools showing which processes are using what files and/or sockets. Fuser is the simpler one focused on finding out what processes are using a given file (or port), while lsof can list processes without specifying, such as all open sockets Fuser fuser stands for file user and ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 A development server recently became compromised, and while this isn't necessarily a good thing, it does raise awareness and provides impetus to strengthen security measures. Access Control A few axioms: Access control is better through certificates (what you have) than passwords (what you know) Two-factor authentication is better than both (what you have ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 HTTPS Everywhere is a wonderful concept, but of course we need functionality first, which means dealing with the whole PKI issue. So, when stuff is located in countries with limited IPv4 addresses, how can this be accomplished? - Simply put SNI allows for any number of certificates to work on a single IP ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 When I was in a PhD program, and before that an MS, the academic researchers and the administration all talked about how important advances in science and scholarship will come from interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research. Disciplinary boundaries had been mined through the decades and ages, and it is cross-disciplinary research where the findings ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 I received an email about Paymo v.3 which was recently released. Paymo is a time-tracking, project management and invoicing cloud-based app (with native applications for desktop and mobile). Paymo has been around a while (hence being on their mailing list), and they have an impressive feature set and really thought through usability. I ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 I've been engaged in thinking about education and professional development since encountering the fantastic difficulties (most vividly displayed as a university lecturer and student advocate in an advanced graduate program in the mid-2000s). Since then, I have developed a fairly good idea of the exact, largely intractable nature of the difficulties specifically in ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 In rough, this is the publishing workflow that gets books from conception/marketing to publishing and distribution. Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Publishing a book or journal is first and foremost a marketing decision. That is, it has to in some way reach and appeal to a readership, and that includes who are the distributors (electronic ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 This is my attempt to give a good set of guidelines based on two sites: Migrationology and Bellroy. What these sites do well and what they do poorly will be discussed, delivering a list of what is important. This post builds on the discussion in Multiplatform Web Design. Summary of Mobile Web Best ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 This brief report could just as easily be called The Status of Education 2.0 but I think we are over this versioning. What is really at work is a de-institutionalization of education as an institution. What we are witnessing is the reorganization of learning outside of the organizing principles of the Medieval University. ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 These misleading terms Adaptive and Responsive don't matter much, but rather the result which is an experience of the user (and higher conversion rates) across various platforms (including operating systems, browsers and screen resolutions). For authors and publishers (both book and web formats), design is a rather important topic. Hardcover, paperback, ebook, web ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Back in the days of the typewriter, there was a time when the humble apostrophe would serve as apostrophe, single quote and double quote (two strokes). There were also a few other technical uses or meanings (actually, glyphs), but these three were sufficient overloading of the character. ASCII, HTML, Unicode In the ASCII ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 First published in 2014, updated in 2021 Back in 1998 I applied for a MS in Information Science at UC Berkeley. There was a programming requirement, so I took a C class. Then in 2000 for my graduate thesis we needed some kind of user interface so I designed that in ColdFusion, an ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 For all website designers and administrators, especially those with multiple sites, a common URL structure is the key to sanity. Of course this also works for those who only have one website. After all, best practices for busy site designers are best practices for those with a single site, as well. Basic Rules ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 While many of these projects are obviously a few years old, it seems that everywhere one sees the emergence and increasing importance Node.js and Coffeescript-based tools for publishing. That is, front-end development tools and languages are starting to displace traditional "native" (C and its ilk, misbegotten java) and older scripting languages (python, ruby). ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 > Note: These days it comes down to Atom on the desktop, StackEdit.io on the web, and Writebox on iOS (this app is no longer in the appstore, but still works great). Editing code, text bits, and larger documents is a bit of a pain these days with multiplatform and cloud synchronization becoming ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Permanent Traveling is a well-documented Personality Disorder, and there are additional unsavory related compulsions. These people need help. Ah, the digital nomad. Those who have left the rat race behind, or perhaps they have taken it with them? Digitized its essential nature? Is in fact a symptom of the problem and not a ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 In this case, editors means software editing tools, and 2014 means April 14, 2014. We also mean to include the three main platforms: Desktop, Browser and Android (updated: iOS). Note: I've updated this for 24 October 2014. What a difference six months makes... Other Articles on Editors Visual Studio Code Editor Multiplatform Text ... Read more