Peter Coffee

Mobile applications are the fastest-growing opportunity and challenge for developers, who are finally getting both the tools they need and the consensus on good practice that liberates them to do their best work. A mobile user should not be envisioned as merely a Wi-Fi-enabled, laptop-carrying knowledge worker in a conference room or a coffee shop. […]

Developers enjoy expanding freedom to treat mobile devices as industry-standard platforms. Developers should be careful, though, not to judge mobile application tools by merely the same criteria that theyre used to applying in familiar enterprise settings. Mobile devices inhabit environments filled with novel challenges and serve users with rapidly rising expectations. Obfuscating tools issues Its […]

Im intrigued by the news that eBay is eliminating access fees for developers whod like to explore eBay Web Services (www.developer.ebay.com). This turns the online auction site into an enormous playground for those with innovative ideas on how to improve the worldwide match between supply and demand. I expect to see a corresponding flood of […]

If I said that integrated programming environments are mixed blessings, any developer who started work in the past 15 years might look at me oddly and say, “Compared to what?” Most developers probably feel that their choice is between one integrated environment or another. The idea of using entirely separate tools—an editor from one vendor, […]

Take rising gas prices, add ubiquitous broadband connections, garnish lightly with fear of crowded malls that might harbor avian flu or terrorist bombers–and you have the makings of a vigorous online shopping season that begins, oh, right about now. This is therefore an excellent time to make sure that your instrumentation of site performance and […]

In Fritz Leibers 1958 short story, “Try and Change the Past,” a man gains unauthorized access to a time machine. He tries to rearrange events to prevent his own death from a bullet between the eyes. He gives up when he sees himself die of a micrometeorite impact in precisely the same place. He decides […]

Were looking back this week at 20 years of Microsoft Windows, and along that timeline theres much to admire. Id fall short of my duty to eWEEK readers, though, if I didnt make it clear that you didnt get all that you had coming to you. PC users have demonstrably been robbed, not to mince […]

How hard would it be to record every action youve ever taken on your PC? How much would that be worth? It would probably cost a lot less than youd willingly pay. This came to mind after a talk by Neil Puthuff, director of hardware engineering at Green Hills Software. He was on the agenda […]

Prepare to be overwhelmed by this weeks long-awaited launch of Microsofts Visual Studio 2005, whose final bits were frozen late last month — perhaps before they should have been. Every tool maker that I regularly cover has been in touch with me over the last few weeks — in some cases, during the last few […]

What could be more outdated than the analog local loop that connects us to the circuit-switched telephone network? What could be more welcome than digital, untethered Wi-Fi access to low-cost and location-independent VOIP service? Thoughtful answers to those questions must address issues of infrastructure reliability, public policy and international cooperation. Anything as pervasive as telephone […]