Lars Pind

Looks like can’t stop trying to make life hard for other browsers. Or something.

If you’re running the same combination I am, and am annoyed that Outlook 2003 asks you to “Locate link browser” when you click on URLs in emails, and – if you do choose a link browser, like Firefox – opens two windows with the same URL, here’s a fix:

Fire up regedt32 and delete the following key, and all children: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\HTTP\shell\open\ddeexec.

At least that fixed it for me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/20/technology/20CND-GATES.html

Microsoft generates roughly $1 billion in extra cash each month. “I don’t know any company out there that generates that kind of excess cash,” Mr. di Bona said.

Could this, by any chance, have anything to do with the company having a monopoly in 3 markets – operating systems, office productivity suites, and web browsers?

http://www.pinds.com/photo-album/photo?photo_id=20154

We’re digging up out back yard, so we can redo the plumbing. As Yon noted, in the third world, you’d no doubt get someone to come in with a Bobcat and do the work. Here, in the first world, labor is too expensive (you need a training to use the Bobcat and be insured), so we end up digging the hole ourselves. Dig dig.

http://www.gadgetopia.com/2004/06/29/TheBuildingOfBasecampReview.html

Talli sent me this link last week, and it’s been rumbling in my head since.

This guy’s list of main points are completely in line with my current beliefs about how to develop great software, in particular these three, which I’ve quoted verbatim:

• Say “no” by default to any feature request. Make a feature work very hard to be implemented.
• Start everything with the screen design. The screen IS the application. The screen drives the functionality, not the other way around. The screen design is the requirements document. (I know, I know — the hair on the back of your neck just stood on end…)
• Avoid preferences. Preferences can be cop-outs to tough problems. Whenever you have the user set a preference, you’re having them make a decision (Joel Spolsky’s book is big on this too). It’s more challenging to come up with a solution, and mandate it. As a result, Basecamp requires something like four fields to be completed and it’s ready to go.