Posts tagged as:

Funny

The Twitter Developers’ Checklist

by Joey deVilla on November 11, 2009

Truth be told, I’d wish I’d come up with this list myself:

1. Create micro-bloggin network. 2. Call it something lame. 3. Let people have 1000s of followers. 4. Watch as they judge themselves against other people's follower-counts. 5. Wait...(until they're super-vulnerable).  6. Give them lists so they can exclude shitty people (and be excluded themselves). 7. Cash in on billions of $$.

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Computer Problem of the Day

by Joey deVilla on October 28, 2009

how do i turn off caps lock

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Is Your Code a Candidate for “There, I Fixed It”?

by Joey deVilla on October 27, 2009

There, I Fixed It is a hilarious photoblog that catalogs kludges, jury rigs and hastily-improvised duct-tape repairs and modifications to everyday objects. The photos below are a sample of some of the quick fixes shown on the site, each one somewhere on the spectrum spanning “clever and thrifty” to “cheap, shoddy and frightening”:

There I Fixed It

(Regarding the photo in the right column, second one from the bottom – the piece of paper attached to the pencil sticking out of the computer says “Pull to turn on”. It’s a jury-rigged replacement for the power switch.)

Sloppy work like this isn’t limited to the physical world. I’ve seen (and okay, sometimes I’ve written) code that could’ve been a candidate for There, I Fixed It, and chances are you have too:

  • Some of my hacks were a little more elegant and useful in the long-term, as long as you weren’t going to be too fussy about aesthetics. They were the software equivalent of the CD-ROM drive installed below the car radio and attached to it with a cable with 1/8” stereo jacks. They weren’t pretty, but they were solid, reasonably maintainable and viable in the long term.
  • Others were terrible kludges that were originally intended to be temporary solutions that forgotten and lived much longer than they should have. They were like fixes shown in the two photos on the bottom (the hasty bridge repair and the car exhaust held together with zip-ties).
  • I’ve also copped out by glossing over bad user interface design with some explanatory text or dialog box instead of actually correcting the design. This is not unlike labelling a doorknob “hard to open” or a hastily-improvised switch “pull to turn on”.

Be sure to check out There, I Fixed It. They’ve had some pretty hilarious pictures lately, and perhaps it’ll inspire (or shame) you to eschew the quick fix or kludge in favour of putting some time and thought into writing better code and building better user interfaces.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Windows 7: Even Linus Approves!

by Joey deVilla on October 22, 2009

Here’s Linux creator Linus Torvalds, taking a break from the Japan Linux Symposium to pose at a store where Windows 7 was on sale:

linus torvalds and windows 7

[Thanks to Stefan Arentz for pointing me to the picture!]

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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The Truth About Pac-Man

by Joey deVilla on October 19, 2009

pac-man

[Found via Certified Bullshit Technician.]

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

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WIND Mobile’s Videos: Funny. Canadian Mobile Phone Situation: Not So Funny.

October 19, 2009
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I have no idea if WIND Mobile is going to be able to deliver what they promise – a mobile phone company that listens to its customers and provides better service than the sad players in the Canadian mobile phone oligarchy – but they’ve got the right ideas and some rather funny videos that perfectly [...]

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Mario Learns an Important Lesson

October 17, 2009
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Trouble, Incorporated

October 6, 2009
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One of the features at the TechDays cross-country conference is the “Ask the Experts” booth, which is staffed all day by speakers (when they aren’t speaking, naturally) and other local tech experts. They’re there to answer attendee questions about Microsoft tools and technologies, tech trends, the industry in general, the local job scene and so [...]

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XKCD’s Tech Support Flowchart

August 24, 2009
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Give this to your non-techie friends and relatives who keep hitting you up for tech support:

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Friday Fun: Ben Stiller Explains Twitter to Mickey Rooney

August 21, 2009

Chances are, as a reader of this blog, people ask you to explain Twitter to them. If that’s the case you might find this video in which Ben Stiller explains Twitter to Mickey Rooney amusing:

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Microsoft’s “Fune”

August 20, 2009
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While I do hope and believe that Microsoft can get their mobile strategy right, there are days when I worry that Windows Mobile 7 is going to be like this:

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Know Your Cat Ports

August 3, 2009
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For more comics like this, see www.slowwave.com.

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The “CSS Is Awesome” Mug

July 23, 2009

If you’ve worked with CSS and multiple browsers long enough, this mug will make you laugh (or cry):

At US$12.95 (available at Zazzle.com), it’s a pretty good “Secret Santa” gift for the web developer or designer on your team.

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A Busy Day

June 2, 2009

It’s a busy, meeting-filled day for Yours Truly down at the local headquarters for The Empire. Here’s a (slightly edited) photo that I took at our big Evangelism team meeting around 3:30 this afternoon:

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The Story Behind “Keyboard Cat”

May 15, 2009

Another internet meme made the big time today – today’s edition of CNN’s “American Morning” ended with anchor Kiran Chetry announcing that they would be “played out” by “Keyboard Cat”. In case you haven’t yet seen them, Keyboard Cat videos all follow the same formula:

They all have the name “Play Him/Her Out, Keyboard Cat”
They [...]

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