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Anatomy of a Bully
February 8th, 2015
This is a combination of research that I read, what I witnessed and what I personally experienced. I was bullied since childhood, too many times to count. I continue to be bullied on a regular basis. I blocked nearly a hundred bullies and harassers on Twitter alone, and it takes much effort to get on that […]
Fake Facebook Profiles
February 5th, 2015
If you participate in Facebook groups, you have probably seen requests to join. About half of the people who try to join my group are fake profiles. I block them. But how can I be sure which ones are fake? It’s really easy. I look at a number of elements. Date joined Fake profiles would probably […]
RE: How to Submit a Talk to a Conference
October 28th, 2014
I just read a very nice post by my friend Beth Tucker Long “How to Submit a Talk to a Conference“. Here are some additional thoughts. Two thumbs up for “Identify a clear problem that the topic of your talk will help solve”. I read hundreds of proposals each year and nearly half of them fail […]
Reduce number of queries
October 28th, 2014
Customers often call me because their site is slow. One of the most common problems I found was a high number of queries that get executed for every single page hit. When I say a lot, I mean sometimes more than 1000 queries for a single page. This is often the case with a CMS […]
Should I write a code of conduct?
September 10th, 2014
Without concrete actions to eliminate harassment and other bad behavior, a code of conduct for your event is quite meaningless. Some companies use this as a lazy way of dealing with harassment. “See? We have a code of conduct. We care about inclusivity. Moving on.” You can write one, but don’t pretend like it will actually solve anything. Well-behaved people […]
On ethics and optimism
July 20th, 2014
It really annoys me when people say that discussing ethics on social media doesn’t change the world. That is just cynical and pathetic, and these people want to drag others into inaction. Discussing allows you to question your morals and refine your opinions. You eventually act on those values and change the world. A single person […]
Common PHP Mistakes
July 19th, 2014
I was recently asked by one of my readers to give feedback on the following article he read: 10 Most Common PHP Mistakes. It is well written and very thorough. Most of the tips are specific to PHP, others are about web programming in general or database performance. It’s a very good read. I was also asked […]
What is technical debt
June 13th, 2014
Technical debt means saving money on development now but paying more money later. Let me explain this concept in detail. What is a debt? It’s called a technical “debt” because it works like any other debt. Say you want a $100K house today, but you don’t have that money upfront. That’s what mortgages are for. If you […]
How to kill creativity, part 2
June 12th, 2014
In a previous article, I discussed the creative process and how pressure and constraints kill it. Here are the 5 elements that when combined, will increase your chance of getting good ideas. Remove distractions If my phone keeps ringing, if someone keeps talking to me or if I need to monitor my e-mails, I cannot be creative. When I must think alone, […]
Brute-force countermeasures
June 10th, 2014
Password brute-forcing refers to trying all password permutations until the attacker finds the right one. Here are some of the most common ways to mitigate that risk: Increase the length of the password. With every additional character, the number of permutations goes up exponentially. Say you use 26 letters and 7 characters. You’ll get 8 billion combinations. Increase that to 8 characters and […]