Mail Protocols
When it comes to checking your mail, unless you want to use a web-based interface, you will need to use your mail client to connect to your mail server to download your messages. There are two...
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Making the Voria Logo
As many of you may know, sometime around 2002 I began work on starting my own company. In January of 2004, that dream was realized as Voria Studios. That company has come and gone, but the logo that I...
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the MacOS X Keychain
The "Keychain Access" application that comes with MacOS X is one of the most useful tools that come with Macintosh computers, but it is also one of the most neglected. If you are a Mac user and don't...
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Goodbye Legacy IM
As I have mentioned before, I believe Jabber/XMPP will be one of the most influential technologies on human communication since the introduction of standard email1. I've been thinking lately about...
View ArticleFull-Time Jabber
A few months ago I made a post telling the world that as of my birthday of this year I would no longer be using AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, or ICQ—and use federated IM...
View ArticleWebsite Security
I've learned quite a bit over the past year or so that I've been developing darcness, but one lesson stands out above all others: It is just staggering how many ways there are to compromise the...
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XO-1
I participated in the Give-1 Get-1 program last month, and a few weeks ago I got my shiny new OLPC XO-1 laptop. I took a picture of myself using the built-in camera. As you can see, my cat Zahki never...
View ArticleObjective-C Memory Management
A while back a friend of mine mentioned that for programmers starting to learn Objective-C often have difficulty fully understanding how Objective-C handles memory management. Objective-C memory...
View ArticleCalendar Federation and XMPP
Why can't sending an event invitation to someone be as easy as sending an email? Why can't I check a friend's availability if they aren't using the same calendar server? Why can't I share a calendar...
View ArticleIPv6 Security and those damned dirty NATs
With less than 10% of IPv4 addresses remaining unallocated, IPv6 has been getting a lot of attention lately. As such, hardware vendors and ISPs (like Comcast) are now starting to figure out how best to...
View ArticleThoughts on Facebook Chat
I was quite excited last Wednesday to discover that Facebook has finally delivered on their promise of exposing an XMPP client interface to their integrated chat system. After the initial euphoria wore...
View ArticleThoughts on Prius Acceleration
I own a 2004 Toyota Prius, and it is the best car I have ever owned. The only car I want more than my current Prius is the 2010 model. And, yes, I have even experienced the "sudden unintentional...
View ArticleX10 vs UPB vs... ybox2?
Now that I finally have a house, I can start doing what I've been looking forward to for a very long time—home automation. One big part of that is being able to control lights and appliances in an...
View ArticleLocks, Deadlocks, and Evil
I have a firm belief that locking primitives (Often called mutexes, or just "locks") are evil, and should be avoided if at all possible. I realize this may sound like blasphemy, but in practice I've...
View ArticleRadio Frequency URI
Over the past few weeks, I've been thinking that it would be useful to have a URI format for describing a radio frequency or channel. Such a URI scheme would be useful for hyperlinking to a specific...
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