Random Flux

You have no privacy online and there is nothing you can do about it

Khoji — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:30:38 +0000

Privacy online no longer exists and there is nothing at all you can do about it. In fact, everything you can try to do about it will just make it worse. While everyone and the media and their dog have all been screaming and shouting about privacy on Facebook, privacy and Google Street View and [...]

Web designers’ responsibility in the web standards mess

Khoji — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 10:49:31 +0000

In a recent Twitter exchange Helen Emerson, a web designer I admire a lot, celebrated the fact that Internet Explorer 9 is finally going to support rounded corners. My feeling on this to this is that’s nice, but it would have happened a lot sooner if we web designers hadn’t hidden IE’s deficits by finding [...]

Apple: “Do be evil.”

Khoji — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 08:40:18 +0000

Apple are behaving like snake oil salesmen and that’s sad because it’s so unnecessary. Quacks have to dupe you because their products are junk. Apple’s products are the best in the industry, they have no need to hide their mistakes, because all of the mistakes they have ever made are trifles compared to the overall quality of what they do.

Game makers: Allow saves at any point and double your sales

Khoji — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 06:14:43 +0000

Video game makers could probably at least double their sales if they would allow you to save you current progress at any point in the game, instead of only allowing specific “waypoints”. It would be fine to do this in Easy Mode only. This would make games more accessible to a huge number of potential [...]

Internet Explorer: Just say No.

Khoji — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:11:05 +0000

I think the time has come for web developers everywhere to rebel against the tyranny of Internet Explorer, particularly the older versions (6 and before). We’re all donating hours of valuable working time making modern websites backward-compatible with IE6 for freeloaders who are feeding off of our work. The time has come to just say [...]

Convert TextExpander snippets for Windows

Khoji — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:19:54 +0000

If you use both Mac and Windows you may have wished you could use your Mac TextExpander snippet files on your Windows computers or virtual machines. TextExpander radically speeds up your work if you often need to use the same text blocks, and having the same texts with the same hotstrings available on Windows makes [...]

“Equitable Artists” media business model

Khoji — Mon, 04 May 2009 10:14:53 +0000

What is the value of mass-distributed media when its distribution effectively costs little or nothing (if distributed virally via BitTorrent)? And how does this value correspond to the value of the work that went into producing it? In fact, does it correspond at all any more? If ten million people want to buy a song [...]

MediaLink: Make the PS3 a Mac media center

Khoji — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:01:47 +0000

For a long time I was frustrated that I couldn’t access the media files on my Mac with my PlayStation 3, which has everything needed to be a great multimedia center, in addition to being one of the best BluRay players around (and incidentally allowing you to play some pretty good video games as well). [...]

Zen and the art of not getting an iPhone

Khoji — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 11:19:19 +0000

Geeks and tech users tend to be junkies. Literally. I’ve noticed that in myself recently in connection with the issue of whether or not to get an iPhone. There is no good reason for me to get one, but my inner geek has developed what is quite literally a physical craving for one. Dealing with [...]

Operating systems are irrelevant

Khoji — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 09:20:51 +0000

The operating system debate is so dated that it’s getting to the point where it’s embarrassing when people get heated up about them. Nowadays being passionate about a particular OS makes you look about as cool as those people who used to build their own bomb shelters during the Cold War. Get over it, it’s [...]