Why is it so many captchas are case sensitive - does it really matter if I enter ‘E’ or ‘e’? As well, have you noticed how often the letters are uppercase, so not only do you need to fiddle with the captchas in the first place, but you have to...

Dialogs are everywhere- those little popup boxes that give us an inside peek as to what the computer is up to. They’re often necessary (aren’t you glad there’s an ‘are you sure’ box when you’ve accidentally chosen to format your hard drive?), but sometimes they can be taken to extremes...

As veteran users of software, we are accustomed to managing our own files. More than likely, you’ve used Explorer to navigate around your hard drive, and grown accustomed to the file open and save dialogs. However, this reliance on files is actually not a service to the customer, but to...

As I read this title, I realize that this could be the start of a book, not a short article. Ultimately, every bit of software written is for somebody (even just for the programmer who wrote it). So this means that end user (or customer) has the final say as...

You know them - the dreaded icon. Derived from the Russian Icon, a religious picture, they have been adopted with religious fervor among computer programmers everywhere. These little picture shortcuts in programs are designed to make it easy to find commands and functions, since we all know we are visually...

What are modes? Simply put, it’s different ways of dealing with the same action. In a program, modes are often the same command (or keystroke) that does two different things, depending on the ‘mode’ you are in. As an example, run your favorite word processor, and type some text. Now...

For those who remember the Newton handheld, the Palm’s popularity may be somewhat of a surprise. Small, underpowered, without easy handwriting recognition, yet it is one of the big successes of the late 90s, and created a resurgence in handheld devices. How? While there may be any number of reasons...