I’ll be away in Andalusia for two weeks. Hopefully I’ll be able to take some lovely photos to further aid those who wish to stalk me via pictures of my past.

I have begun to use .net version 2.0. So I’m only two years or so behind the cutting edge, but that’s how rock and roll I am.

Anyway. One of the features of C# 2 is generics. These allow one to specify a placeholder for the type of an object (say one to be placed in a list or a method parameter) which is then filled in at compile time based on the types actually used.

Analysis of how the brain processes negations gives those pedantic, pragmatic programmers amongst us some hard science to use as backup for some of our minor code changes.

An important tactic when programming is to simplify things to make it easier for the readers of your code. A computer will not complain about the shoddy-ness of your code. The next person who has to update your code, however, will thank you if your code is clean, readable and easy to follow. More often than not, that person is yourself, allowing you to reap what you sow.

There are many methods Firefox could use to improve how you interact with the program using the keyboard. This is a major way Firefox should differentiate itself from the competition and at the same time introduce a significant improvement to the web browsing experience. Combining a GUI with text-driven interaction is an incredibly powerful way to help people complete their day-to-day tasks quicker and more easily.

Evolution has perfected language over thousands of years, an amazing way to abstractly describe objects and the actions we wish to do on them. Engineers have come up with the keyboard, an amazing way of entering language into a computer. Why cannot we use the keyboard to enter language into a computer describing what we wish the computer to do?

Universal have made the decision not to renew their contract with Apple to supply the iTunes music store. Or, at least, are considering it. The decision is being reported as a major blow to Apple, but I’m not so sure.

Universal must be making this decision because Apple will not allow them to dictate the pricing on the iTunes store. This has been the chagrin of the recording industry since the introduction of the store. Apple wish to have a single price for all songs, which is 79p a track here in the UK. The record industry wish to have variable pricing, which they control. Popular artists would be more expensive, less popular artists less so.