Since when has distributing software free of charge, or freeware, amounted to forfeiting the copyright of said freeware? When it's open source? Because the code was given away for free, thorny questions emerge when a violation has been discovered and someone is found to have shoved the code into their own for-profit products without giving anything back, in the form of attribution and disclosure of the alterations they made. ... Read full entry

15 ways in which the usability of free software can be improved. The easiest way of getting volunteers to contribute to a program is to make it open source. And while thousands of people are now employed in developing Free Software, most of its developers are volunteers. So it's in Free Software that we see volunteer software's usability problems most often. Also read John Gruber's thoughts on making improvements... ... Read full entry

Friday 1 August is Usability Challenge 2008 day. Because the world needs a usability shake-up. And more emphasis on end user and customer testing before web or software applications are launched. Or the layout of the cheese display is finalised at the supermarket, for that matter. I'm talking about poor information architecture in the gourmet cheese section of the deli (where's the BLOODY stilton???). I'm talking about cash registers ... Read full entry

This week's "say what" moment is courtesy of Microsoft marketing executive, Brad Brooks, speaking about an advertising campaign intended to restore consumer confidence in the Windows Vista operating system, who is quoted as saying "software out there is made to be compatible with your whole life." "We've got a pretty noisy competitor out there," Brooks said of Apple whose "I'm a Mac... and I'm a PC," commercials criticize Windows ... Read full entry

Annoying software: a rogues' gallery From Apple's auto updates that clandestinely attempt to install new software, to the erratically performing Windows Vista in general, to the 80 megabyte Adobe reader "updates", software upgrades increasingly seem to be designed to hog system resources and infuriate computer users. What does Adobe Reader do? Displays PDF pages. How does it do it? With as much bloody-minded bureaucracy, delay and needless interaction as possible. ... Read full entry

Microsoft seeks patent for office 'spy' software. Microsoft is apparently seeking to patent new software that sounds a lot like something out of a science fiction story... The system would allow managers to monitor employees' performance by measuring their heart rate, body temperature, movement, facial expression and blood pressure. Unions said they fear that employees could be dismissed on the basis of a computer's assessment of their physiological state. It sounds like ... Read full entry

Where Keyboard Shortcuts Win. For the point and click generation of software developers. Just when should keyboard shortcuts be included as a feature of an application? For very common tasks, such as opening and closing files, and/or for tasks performed less frequently, though several times when they are? When you're doing the same thing over and over - not even necessarily right after each other (e.g. Paste, Paste, Paste, Paste…) but ... Read full entry

2.4 Skipped 2.5 Is Next It now looks like the next Wordpress upgrade will arrive in March, rather than later this month, and will be issued as 2.5 rather than 2.4. As discussed in the developer mailing list, the next release of WordPress will be in March instead of January because of the holidays and the amount of changes that will take place in the codebase as well as the ... Read full entry

Dear Apple, How often must we download updates for your fine iTunes software? It seems nowadays nary a week goes by without the appearance of that dreaded software update notification pop-up on my lappy screen. Why, these days I feel I spend more time downloading your music playing software than I do downloading music to play on it! My question, and maybe that ... Read full entry