Articles in the Review category

Goodbye Money

By Eric — 2 minute read

The current stock market makes the title generally appropriate, but I'm specifically talking about Microsoft Money here. I used to use Quicken pretty heavily, but I got tired of forced upgrades so I've been using Microsoft Money for a little while. Now I'm happy to be done with both of …

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WordPress

By Eric — 3 minute read

After years of building this site with my own custom software, I've decided to switch to WordPress.

My previous system started with XHTML content transformed through various XSLT style sheets that produced summaries, an RSS feed, a Google sitemap, and a common appearance across all the pages. The whole process …

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Matches and Bulk Actions

By Eric — 4 minute read

I noticed again this morning that Quicken was still unable to download my credit card transactions online. It hasn't worked since some time in February. The error message said that my PIN or Customer ID was wrong. I know I've double-checked the PIN previously, so I figured it must be …

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Design by Contract: Is It Worth It Without Language Support?

By Eric — 7 minute read

This is a continuation of thoughts after reading Design by Contract by Example by Richard Mitchell and Jim McKim. This time I want to write a little about design by contract without direct language support. What do you give up without language support, and is it still worth it to …

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Design by Contract: An Alternative to Testing for Code Quality

By Eric — 7 minute read

I recently finished reading Design by Contract by Example by Richard Mitchell and Jim McKim. The book, as its title suggests, gives advice about writing good contracts through a set of principles applied in various examples. In addition to wanting to learn more about design by contract generally, I came …

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Dell Axim X50v in a Palm User's Hands

By Eric — 7 minute read

It seems like Microsoft's typical entry into a market goes something like this. It sees an interesting market built up by someone else, and releases a product in that space. The product is crap compared to the existing market leader. Microsoft revs the product a few times until it is …

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