Joe Ganley [http://ganley.org/]

Writing code since 1979

I have been a professional software engineer for over 10 years. I have written many kinds of software, but my particular strengths are interactive graphics applications, compilers and interpreters, and algorithms.

I also enjoy writing, woodworking, and home improvement. Also this.

Resumé

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Sunday, October 19, 2003

IMFree: Hackable?

I just read today about the IMFree, a Blackberry-sized AIM client with a small QWERTY keyboard and a 9-line LCD display, that works wirelessly within 150 feet of a PC. At $100, this seems like a prime candidate for hacking, if it's hackable. I like the form factor. Plus, given that these devices generally don't seem to catch on, in a few months they'll probably be deeply discounted. Update 5/9/02005: There is, in fact, a project to hack this device. I'll be keeping an eye on this project; I still think this is a great form-factor if you could get it to run a web browser (e.g. for viewing recipes in the kitchen).

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Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Announcing the second edition of the Man-Bag Buying Guide! All but two of the bags in the first edition had apparently been discontinued, so once again I scoured the internet for man-bags and assembled my findings into this handy guide.

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Tuesday, October 14, 2003

I've seen a rash of TV ads for the new, colorful $20 bill. They don't seem geared toward educating people so they don't think the new bills are counterfeit, but rather they seem to be trying to make people feel good about the new bills -- to sell them, if you will. Like, what? Is there a danger that people are going to stop spending them? Or that they're going to go with some other, competing money? Things like this remind me of the scene in The American President where some cabinet member is trying to justify a $40M appropriation for a campaign to make people feel good about the American car they've already bought. (Update 10-27-03: Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks an ad for money is rather silly.)

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Those of us who own an entire domain have a novel way to defend against spam. Every mail that goes to this domain ends up in my inbox. So, every time I give out an email address online, I use a different one (usually a variation on the hostname to whom I'm giving it). If an address ends up in the hands of spammers, I just set my filters to send mail to that address straight to the trash. Besides being very effective, this gives you a good idea of which companies can be trusted; the most surprising place I ended up getting spam (really nasty porn spam, and lots of it) was from the address I had given to Hertz for my Gold car rental account!

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Wednesday, October 08, 2003

It's not often you see a valid C program in the comics section. Bravo.

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