People have different reactions to different words. “Smash Box” cosmetics must’ve seemed like a great idea to a marketing manager somewhere (“We’ve got to convey being out of the box and different and new. Why don’t we smash the box! It’s brilliant”). But to someone more, well, frankly, puerile, it takes on an entirely different meaning. (Warning: Urban Dictionary, may or may not be safe for work, depending on how draconian your workplace is about cursewords)

“Sexy” is another interesting case. Personally I use it to describe anything that is particularly nice or attractive, and along with “Epic”, it forms James‘ entire repertoire of adjectives. However, there are a few family members who look at me sideways when I describe a piece of computer equipment in this manner, maintaining that it should only be pulled into service when describing the attractiveness of a potential mate.

One of our customers recently sent me an instant message:

btw… I reset the other day my password for my account and it emailed me the following pw “asshole2342″… quite funny

(Alain, it should be noted, is particularly awesome)

The source of the trouble was the sexy_temp_passwords Rails plugin I had installed. Its word list included, among other things, “penis” and “virgin”.

Now, you can giggle, but some people might not. We thought it safer to replace the word list with a list from a less controversial source.

Watch your wordlists carefully folks. And check Urban Dictionary before you name your company.

Like designers, if you give a programmer a problem with parameters, they’ll apply every bit of genius they have to solve it in the best possible way. If you tell them how to do it, you’ll suffer the wrath of an angry God.

I can bear testament to the veracity of this. There was a previous workplace (will shall, of course, remain un-named) where I was often told by a non-programmer “that should be really easy. Surely it’s just a SQL query”.

Nothing makes me madder. Especially when the “offender” has no clue what they are talking about, and are simply using the only piece of jargon they happen to have picked up. My typical response was similarly useful – to turn my laptop around, fold my arms and say “Fine. If you know so much, you write it”.

Hmm. Perhaps the word “God” in that quote should be replaced with “petulant child”.

Zed Shaw reminds me of House.

He acts like an asshole most of the time, but he’s smart and right too often for anyone to do anything about it. And he gave an awesome talk at CUSEC – about becoming a corporate programmer and not losing your soul. It is so freaking cool that they have speakers of this calibre talking to students. Should’ve gone to school in Canada.

“Corporate” programmers have been getting a lot of stick in my orbit lately (much to the amusement of the closest thing to a corporate programmer I know). I don’t think I’ll be in the position to go and work for a “big” company anytime soon – I’m enjoying being my own boss way too much. But, if I was looking, I know where I’d be going. Look at this office!

I’ve never written code for any company with more than about 7 employees. I’m definitely missing out on some valuable learning and experience working with smart people in big teams. But everybody complains about it so much!

Someone (who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent) who works at the State Services Commission (government) just came on my IM and said: “It’s POETS day!”.

Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday.

I couldn’t even go to work if I felt like that. Why bother doing something you hate?

But hey, I’m a freshly-minted University graduate with no family to feed or mortgage to pay. Make the most of it while it lasts, I guess.

(Photo from the Fog Creek Software Office Tour)

Every so often, I’ll write a funky little control in Javascript. Usually it’s because a customer has asked for it, or because I think it would be cool for them to have. Every so often it’s just to see if I can.
I thought I should release a few of the latter category, as a collection of useful snippets for anyone to use and build upon. And so, I present to you, Show Off!

Show Off! on Github

I’m not generally a fan of big Javascript UI control libraries. I prefer to pick and choose, and not add extra dependencies into my project (aside from Prototype, of course). So Show Off! will be an independent collection, from which you can pick and choose whatever takes your fancy.

Currently, there’s just a fairly basic iTunes-style search box. I’m looking for suggestions for more though. What would you find useful? What have you seen elsewhere but didn’t have the time to implement?

Boy, has it been quiet around here!

As you’ve likely guessed, we’ve been hard at work. We’ve been helping Wildfire build their interactive promotions application (which was an fbFund winner – congrats to Alain, Victoria, and the rest of the team!), doing some (not so) top-secret work on soon-to-be-released TribeHQ, all while mentoring a student and speaking for the Summer of Code.

So, a metric buttload of V (I don’t think I would have made it this far without the introduction of the big 500ml cans) and many sleepless nights later, we come to our first Christmas holiday. We’ll be taking an “official” break until the 5th of January (If you really need us though, you know where to find us).

I’m going to take this opportunity to say a big thanks to everyone we’ve worked with this year, everyone who has offered advice, asked questions, or provided humorous Tweets. We’re pretty stoked to have built a kickass business in our early twenties, while finishing off degrees (although Ollie still has a wee way to go!). And if we keep working hard hopefully more success will follow.

Instead of sending out a naff present this year, we decided to take Nat’s suggestion and invest some cash on Kiva. I’ll keep you updated as to how that pans out – hopefully well for Mr. Aboubakar Joseph who is starting a MotoTaxi business in Togo.

Isn’t the internet awesome?