There really needs to be a corollary to Newton’s Second Law of Thermodynamics, stating that website maintenance is a constant (and un-winnable) battle against the Stupid introduced by other people.

Usually this involves a lot of quiet fuming while cleaning up the ( Read more... )

Another gem from work.

We’re looking to hire a senior frontend developer. I was given a resume that came in via a headhunter and was asked to comment on it. After eyeballing it, I went to the candidate’s portfolio site.

The third item on his web portfolio looked kind of familiar. In fact, it was one of my company’s primary sites. Wow ( Read more... )

Jul 5:OMA:Can someone replace the older ad code on this page? Jul 6:PM:Assigned ticket to Ornoth. Jul 6:PM:Needs time estimate, may time some time as this is the ASP site. Jul 14:Ornoth:Assigned ticket back to PM. Jul 14:Ornoth:This value appears to be hardcoded in the compiled DLL Searches.Ads.Google.Render. Can't be changed without recompiling ( Read more... )

Two more nuggets from life as a consultant.

It’s probably not a great idea to draw attention to yourself by BitTorrenting at the client site. Nor is it good form to give your computer a name that includes profanity. Combine them and you might have to own up to it when the client IT staff publicly ask, “Who here has the computer called ‘Little ( Read more... )

Another evening of fun with the smart machine...

Ornoth:danger, will robinson! SmarterChild:Hi Ornoth, I'm SmarterChild! SmarterChild:What can I help you with? Ornoth:danger, will robinson! SmarterChild:Wow. Ornoth:how do people get inside my television? SmarterChild:Why people get inside your TV is a much better question. Ornoth:why do people get ( Read more... )