Does web design matter?
I recently visited the website of a amateur theatre company, and any web designer would say it is awful. Anyone with the slightest aesthetic sense will say it is ugly. As a user of the site, it is perfectly good and better than most sites a designer would like. (more…)
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AirBNB hosts can block bad reviews – and my AirBNB horror story
If an AirBNB “host” needs to give a refund because the accommodation was terrible, they can block the bad review by cancelling instead of refunding. It does mean a 100% refund, but that is clearly preferable to bad reviews and AirBNB have confirmed that this is deliberate. (more…)
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Beating Node.js with TCL
This is partly a reaction to people who talk as if Node.js is unique, and partly to test my code against something that has seen production use. There are all sorts of problems with doing this sort of comparison, and while I would have liked to compare more servers, used a better environment, performance tuned everything, done more measurements etc. but I think what I have done is enough to prove my point. (more…)
Why you should not use WordPress
The appeal of WordPress is obvious: cheap and easy, and lots of “developers” know it. The biggest problem with WordPress is that something originally designed as a blog platform, has evolved general CMS features, and is widely used a development platform. The problems are that it has security issues, and is neither flexible nor productive when used a a development platform and cheap developers are not good developers. (more…)
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Smarterer – a broken recruitement tool
Having taken a number of Smarterer tests I find it scary that people use it as a recruitment tool. The tests are unreliable and meaningless. First, I will explain what is wrong about my scores — and I am complaining more about scores being to high than too low, so there is no personal grudge here. Then a few quick thoughts on the reasons. (more…)
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Takeover Panel claims copyright on regulatory information
The Takeover Panel (which regulated mergers and takeovers inn the UK) has sent me an email telling me that reproducing the list of takeover offers (i.e. a list of company names and dates) would be a breach of copyright, and that they would be unlikely to allow commercial reproduction except though “official news channels”.
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List of Django IDEs
I have a more detailed review of Python IDEs that is probably a lot more useful.
As requests for IDE recommendations on the django-users mailing list/Google Group, and as I assume that anyone developing with Django knows they should search for answers on the net before asking, here is a summary of the most often recommended options. (more…)
Twitter the productivity killer
Nothing can destroy my productivity the way Twitter can. There are a lot of potential distractions, especially the multitude available over the internet, but Twitter’s nature makes it far more distracting than web browsing, email or even other social networks. (more…)
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The build a platform and squeeze business model
A business model that excludes competition, reduces consumer choice, and creates monopolies is the anti-thesis for free markets, but this is exactly what threatens both software and the distribution of media (ebooks, video, and music) over the internet, and much more. (more…)
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The website owners guide
It is an unfortunate fact that many websites work badly, from individuals’ blogs to small organisations’ simple sites to expensive sites belonging to large enterprises. The problem is that the managers of the organisation do not understand the web. This is my attempt to provide what they need to know without getting too technical. (more…)
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