As many longtime readers know, I am no big fan of Windows. It’s a solid OS, and I know that there are many people that like it; that’s great, but Windows just isn’t for me. The way I work is more suited for the Mac environment. It’s strictly a personal preference issue. As for Microsoft itself, I really only have one big problem with the company. No, it’s not that they have a stranglehold on the operating system market. No, it’s not that they are Microsoft, so therefore everything they do obviously sucks. My biggest problem with Microsoft is that they try to go in every direction at once and make things more convoluted for their customers than they should be. I’m not talking about the operating system itself, either. This all comes down to marketing.

Fuzzy Math

“Lies!” you say? Well, let’s look at some examples. First, let’s look at Microsoft’s endeavors in the digital music business. In the past two or three years, Microsoft has launched three music services: MSN Music, URGE (in conjunction with MTV), and Zune Marketplace. The first two use Microsoft’s PlaysForSure DRM scheme (Note: MSN Music no longer serves as a music store; instead…
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As everyone reading this surely knows by now, Steve Jobs strode onto the stage at Macworld ‘07 and announced a product he proclaimed would change the world.  It’s hyperbole, sure, but if Jobs has his way it won’t be too far from the truth.  Most everyone who heard the announcement - from keynote attendees to reporters to Internet tech fans - was intrigued and impressed to at least some degree by what was presented.  Many of them rushed online to their favorite message board to discuss what they’d seen, where of course they encountered that most charming of Internet personalities, somebody I like to call Guy Who Was Not Impressed.  I’m certain you’ve met, probably on more than one occasion.

You see, no matter what products are announced at any given Stevenote, there are always a group of people who find no use whatsoever for any of them.  They believe that their needs are the only ones that matter.  They act like these new products will be foisted upon them, as though perhaps Steve Jobs will break into their homes and Superglue iPhones to their hands.¹ “I don’t care about all that other stuff,” they say, “I just want to…
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Well everybody, this last year was one heck of a year here on Deep Thought, and as we start things for 2007 up I’m going to be giving you my quick list of the five worst websites of 2006. The explanation of a “bad website” is simple. Its a website that has one of three issues.

NOTE: All websites considered for worst website are mainstream; this will not include small one-man websites that have a reason to look and be crappy.

Three qualifying issues

The first of the three issues with a website is design: a muddled website just plain will not work. So if I can’t get around your website, you qualify. Secondly, their is the qualifier of customer support. Since I’m a jerk to many people I find it fun to write fake customer support email to websites and see how they handle things.  Some of the replies I’ve gotten range from scams to just plain rudeness. The third and final qualifier for the “worst website” is purely how much I like it, just my opinion. Now lets get started with number five.

Number Five

This years number five worst website of the year award goes to THE…
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In today’s world, everything is copyrighted; the TV shows you watch, the shampoo you use, and even the patterns on the clothes you’re wearing. One non-profit organization has created a way for everyone to share the fun. It’s called Creative Commons. The basic premise of Creative Commons ("CC" for short) is that you can give others the right to use your artistic work easily and quickly. If you are clicking at normal speed, it takes about one-and-a-half minutes to get a HTML code sporting the customized license you have chosen for your work. The concept and process of CC really is a brilliant thing for artists. Deviant Art currently employs an easy DHTML plug-in on their submit art page that give you the power to use the CC license, as opposed to applying a full copyright.

I’m not going to even attempt the whole legality of CC, because I’m not a lawyer. However, the CC lawyers have written up this page to help us who don’t understand it. As I said earlier, CC is very quick to use, and quite nice with its clean HTML codes that it outputs. Heres a test CC code i generated.

Editor’s note:  Pilky originally published this on his personal blog.  He agreed to republish it here at our request.  We have edited it to a minimal degree for formatting and minor changes like capitalization.

Database design is becoming key to developing applications. Almost all web applications are driven by a database, and with Core Data, Cocoa applications are starting to have true database back ends. Therefore it is surprising that so many programmers don’t know anything about database design. So here is a simple overview of the theory behind database design.

What is the benefit of using a database? Well, for one, it is fast. If you were using XML file stores for lots of data then you will know just how slow they are. SQL is much faster as it only loads the data that is needed. Another benefit is data redundancy, or rather the lack of it in a well designed database. There are 3 main bits of database design that I am going to go through: keys, relationships and normalisation. The first two are very simple, but normalisation is a little hard to get your head round at first, but it is fundamental to a well designed…
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