Microsoft’s implementation of unordered_map in Visual Studio 10 has performance issues so severe it may be unusable in your projects.

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Getting a new computer can be interesting. My recent purchase of a Dell XPS notebook came with a few problems that I didn’t anticipate, including: The video hardware is not properly supported under Linux – my fault for not checking up on this. The backlit keyboard is an ergonomic catastrophe. When viewed under bright light, [...]

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For most of the thirty-some years that I’ve been paid to program, I’ve worked with Assembly language, C, or C++. There have been some diversions to Java, which is pretty painless for a C++ programmer, and always the odd short job or two in anything from Perl to Haskell. But for the last three months [...]

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The storage of plaintext or encrypted passwords by any company that does business with the public is an act of stupidity. An act of stupidity so dangerous that it needs to be made illegal. Yes, we need federal law banning the storage of passwords on more or less all IT systems in the world. The recent break-in of the Gawker user database makes this point more clearly than anything I can say, but that won’t stop me from trying.

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When Google Voice stopped receiving my SMS messages, I was reminded how bad support can be for non-paying customers.

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Nobody likes getting ripped off, and I’m no exception. I search the web from time to time to see who’s copying my stuff, and it’s always a little disheartening. This week I ran a check to see who was copying my 20-year old LZW Compression article. Mind you, I’m not talking about isolated quotes taken [...]

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This isn’t the first time I’ve complained about innumeracy, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Just to get off on the right foot, let me give the definition of the word from thesite innumeracy.com: A term meant to convey a person’s inability to make sense of the numbers that run their lives. Innumeracy [...]

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Slate has a regular piece called Explainer, subtitled “Answers to your questions about the news.” A while back, they apparently lost their Explainer and asked for applications for a replacement. As part of the application, they requested that you submit a list of 10 sample questions to be explained. Now, I have no real general [...]

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Apple is in the middle of a minor fuss right now over their use of software updates as a promotional device. It turns out that if you are a Windows user with a copy of iTunes, Apple’s update process does its best to get you to install a copy of their web browser, Safari, along [...]

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If you’re going to use the web to perform a survey of your customer base, this report on a similar project from American Express should serve as a cautionary tale.

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