Ars Aranea

Despre intuitivitatea programelor de calculator

Skippy — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 00:28:54 +0000

Aţi auzit probabil foarte des vorbindu-se de programe sau interfeţe “intuitive”. E o temă de discuţie extrem de populară în IT (şi nu numai). Programatorii ajung să fie acuzaţi de rea-voinţă, obtuzitate sau mai rău.

În primul rînd, cred că se exagerează cînd se atribuie sentimente procesului de elaborare de interfeţe. Desigur, rezultatul poate deseori sugera [...]

Romania says yes to OOXML once again

Skippy — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:16:38 +0000

On March 26, Dan Matei, the president of CT210, the Technical Comittee within ASRO in charge of OOXML, made public the results of Romania's decision regarding the adoption of OOXML as an ISO standard: 15 votes for it, 6 votes against and 5 abstentions. Read on for the dirty details.

Hacking and the real world

Skippy — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:06:26 +0000

I was reading an article by Adrian Spinei and, not for the first time, it made me think about how our society likes to consider computer hacking similar to physical aggression, invasion of personal space or privacy violations.

It wouldn’t be so bad if just the uninformed masses had the wrong idea. But it doesn’t seem [...]

Agregarea de trafic: furt sau practică acceptată?

Skippy — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:39:32 +0000

Se dau două site-uri: unul nou, unul vechi şi cu trafic mare. Cele două îşi comasează traficul în sistemele de tracking. Este un furt sau o practică perfect normală?

OOXML: What happened in Romania

Skippy — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 13:39:25 +0000

This article presents my research regarding what went down in Romania as part of the process that allowed national standard organizations to express their position on the proposed ISO/IEC DIS 29500 specification, known as OOXML.

ODF contra OOXML

Skippy — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 17:35:06 +0000

Domneşte o mare confuzie în rîndul publicului românesc în jurul OOXML, în general, şi al acceptării sale ca standard ISO, precum şi a comparaţiei cu ODF, în particular. Să încercăm să risipim măcar parţial această confuzie.

Sclavul IT român: mic ghid de supravieţuire (I)

Skippy — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:09:05 +0000

Acest ghid intenţionează să prezinte o serie de realităţi relevante pentru industria IT în România, din punctul de vedere al celor ce formează marea masă de lucrători IT. Această primă parte enumeră o serie de lucruri esenţiale pe care cei care activează în domeniu ar trebui să le ştie şi să nu le uite niciodată.

Important changes in store for the .ro ccTLD

Skippy — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 09:12:03 +0000

After more than a decade of amateurish management and abuse, .ro domains may finally undergo important changes. Read on to see what went wrong, how wrong it went, what should be done and what is supposed to happen come this autumn.

How to speak SQL in the shower

Skippy — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 06:36:41 +0000

How to mix SQL prepared statements with gettext and get a shower of benefits in return.

Romanian politicians still resist the OLPC project

Skippy — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 17:52:56 +0000

Back in July I was writing how the Information and Technology Minister, Mr. Zsolt Nagy, was expressing a negative opinion about a project which would bring 5 million 100$ dollar laptops to Romania.

Back then, the Minister proved he didn’t do his basic homework in regard to this project. But it wasn’t his place to [...]

The elusive blogosphere

Skippy — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 21:08:59 +0000

Blogging seems to have reached a new level of awareness in Romania. It's in the news, it's cool, and recently it's in the sights of advertising people. So it looks like a good time to debunk some of the myths surrounding the ever elusive "blogosphere".

Cookie separation in modern browsers

Skippy — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 18:23:49 +0000

A short analysis of how modern browsers separate session cookies between their different instances.

If you build it, they will come

Skippy — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 08:11:24 +0000

Lots of websites built for a small investment become huge names with millions of users and get bought for many millions of dollars. What makes these sites so good? I think I can tell you.

Special characters, on the fly

Skippy — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 12:08:30 +0000

Are you away from your regular computer or notebook and you find yourself in need to generate certain special characters for a webpage? The solution is simple: use a bookmarklet that will bind those characters to certain keyboard shortcuts.

chml srucnoc: spam Google, win a prize

Skippy — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 17:04:31 +0000

A Romanian Web-hosting and design business (CHML Web Services) came up with an interesting self-promotion plan under the guise of a SEO contest.

The idea is rather simple. The company offers about $1,300 in cash and several hosting packages (from their own hosting services) as prizes. Each contestant has to join the contest with one single [...]

The $100 laptop not good enough for Romania

Skippy — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:36:44 +0000

The Romanian IT Minister, Zsolt Nagy, has advised negatively a project meant to bring the $100 laptop to every school kid and teacher in the country. His blatantly misinformed statement claims that the laptop's low hardware specs make it unsuitable for any real work and that it hasn't yet been "tested" in a practical environment.

Web content gone terribly wrong

Skippy — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 10:53:08 +0000

A political refugee's childhood picture has been used without permission by a newspaper in a context that implies, ironically, that she had been one of the children who have collaborated with the infamous secret agency "Securitatea" during the Ceauşescu dictatorship regime.

Romanian copyright enforcement: level 2

Skippy — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 07:41:53 +0000

In the light of the recent copyright enforcement operations in Romania, a counterfeiting and piracy international Congress suddenly apears in a grim, hopefully misguided, posture. Intention or incompetence?

Code injection on the Web

Skippy — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 09:38:00 +0000

This article presents an overview of code injection on the Web, in general, and describes some types of code injection, in particular. The point of view is that of a PHP programmer, for obvious reasons: PHP is a loose-typed language and has features that can be easily misused by novices.

Romanians learn about copyright

Skippy — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:59:20 +0000

After having swept the rug from under the feet of legitimate IT businesses in Romania, the ever resourceful Romanian government now tackles another long standing IT-related problem: software and music or movie piracy among end-users. By force, naturally.