This comes up time and time again. I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, an expert on computer interface design, however, I do spend a lot of time using computers, writing software for them, and helping other users with problems.

A recent topic at work is the implementation of undo on our web application. I'll skip discussing the challenge of making undo work accurately on a multi-user application, and go right for the throat as to why I think it's bad form to consider undo the correct option in this case.

I've been spending a fair amount of time getting things going for Triangulation: End of the Rainbow. This has involved things such as getting a budget approved, getting the guidelines put together and online, scheduling the first sessions, etc.

They may have pushed me over the edge. They may have just made it so easy to steal that I can no longer resist.

I just heard an advertisement on the radio that some bank or another is offering "text message banking."

Thank you. I mean it. Thanks to everyone who tries to use this feature. I'm going to be taking your money now.

Really, when you leave it lying around on the ground in public, I'm not sure it's even theft any more.

I'm trying to imagine how text message banking could possibly be a good idea, and I'm drawing a blank. Good luck keeping your money, people.

With the availability of free database systems, such as the 20 MySQL forks, SQL light, and my favorite: PostgreSQL, a lot of people are trying to integrate RDBMS functionality into their software.

It's amazing to me how many of these people really shouldn't be doing this, or who should at least ask for some help from someone who understands a little bit about databases.

Let me paraphrase a conversation I saw on a mailing list recently:

If you ever stay up late at night and end up watching those late-night advertisements, you've probably noticed the formula they use:

1. Tell you that you have a problem. Do your friends think that you stink?
2. Establish that their competitors don't solve the problem, and are actually embarrassing or dangerous to try. Normal deodorants can't mask your stench, or they smell too strong and freak everyone out. Some of them actually cause nasty rashes, requiring months in intensive care to recover from.
   

Like many people out there, I hate spam. I expect I have less brethren who hate it so much that they make an actual effort to do something about it, but that's me. I report every spam email I get through the SpamCop reporting service, and you should to.

Usually this reporting results in very little, but it generates statistical data that puts pressure on companies to solve the problem and allows mail server administrators (like myself) to decide who to refuse mail from.

Here's my big complaint about precedent-based law: if a party of a lawsuit is incompetent, an unreasonable verdict can be reached that sets a precedent that's difficult to overturn.

Based on this article which contains the entire text of a legal "finding of fact", performing zone transfer could be considered illegal. This is complete nonsense.

When it becomes illegal to access publicly available information, we start to live in a scary world. In points 8, 9, and 10, the court correctly found the purpose and nature of zone transfers.

People seem to think that computers should be easy to use.

No. No. No. No. NO!

There's a very good reason that computers should be difficult to use, and there's lots of evidence to back this up. The reason is that life is hard. Computers can make your life better, the can not make it easier.

It's pretty simple really. There are only two ways to make life easier:

1. Have the person get more skilled at living life.
2. Take their life away from them and give it to someone who's more skilled than they are.

Sanitizing input in software has become a huge topic over the last few years. Big enough that Little Bobby Tables is already a classic cartoon.

Why? Because crooks have learned to trick software in to interpreting things differently than intended, so software now has to be written to more carefully ensure its interpretation of things is correct, or risk corrupt data or broken security measures.

The title is not meant to be sarcasm. It's also not meant to be derogatory. Yes, it is criticism, but more important, it is a serious question that someone deep within the community should make an effort to answer, at least for their own internal understanding.