Google's excellent Gmail has been my e-mail of choice for a while - despite the rename to googlemail in the UK. It has by far the best web interface.

Recently I got an email address to First.Surname@domain, which is odd because my e-mail is actually FirstSurname (no "."). It seems like if Google can't find an account for an address it looks for a similar one. I tested it with FirstSur.name and Fir.stSurname and they both work too.

This is really useful, as when I give out my e-mail address people often forget whether to include the dot.

Another neat trick is that Google supports the obscure "+" operator. This allows you to add a sub-name to your address: username+sub@domain will be delivered to username@domain with the "+sub" left in. You can set up rules for the results.

On a related end-of-Friday note:

http://view.break.com/521743 - Watch more free videos

There has always been a clash between those that make a product, and those that sell it.

Software engineers are pessimistic, negative and cynical. All engineers have to be. I don't mean that they have negative personalities as such - they just need to constantly worry about what might go wrong. You never want engineers to just 'hope for the best'.
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Sparklines are data display tool invented by Edward Tufte. The are "data-intense, design-simple, word-sized graphics" that can be used to show data where the overview at a glance is what's important, like this: , or this

They're probably at their most useful when comparing results:

Google's charts API provides a neat way of drawing these little charts - the ones on this page all use it. There's even a chart generating tool to help build the HTML.

Back when I was training to be a secondary school teacher I had a problem with how dyslexia was commonly handled. The dysfunction behind dyslexia is completely independent of intelligence. So how come only really smart kids are ever diagnosed with it?

The common (and wrong) perception is:

High IQ with reading difficulties = Dyslexia Average or low IQ with reading difficulties = Stupid This sounds like an oversimplification, and maybe it is, but I have seen this pattern of prejudice first hand.

Off topic, but this is impressive:

Big Ideas (Don't get any) from 1030 on Vimeo.
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Recently in the Guardian Amazon UK have clearly stated that the Kindle is not coming over here (kudos to the reporter for linking in the Ray Bradbury quote though). It's annoying we're so completely cut out of that wireless market, but in a way it's a good thing...

This gives all the other reader manufactures a chance to get their product out and mainstream in Europe. I'd like to see iRex or Bookeen succeed over here before Amazon realise that they're too late for the party.

Writing applications for blind and partially sighted users is a challenge. We have one client who requires 508 compliance. There are lots of rules to follow, some of which really should be more mainstream.

For instance red-green colour blindness is relatively common, yet lots of applications use red and green indicators.

Completely blind users can use Text-To-Speech readers, but you have to take account of them in your application design.

FxCop complains if you don't override GetHashCode() and Equals() for value types, even if you don't ever compare instances. Today I stumbled across a good illustration why.

While optimising some database lookup code to use a generic Dictionary I needed a key made up of a parent type and a parent id. I used the generic KeyValuePair<TKey, TValue> value type as the dictionary key.

I've been watching the new trend in e-books with interest. Now that e-book readers have e-Ink technology they are starting to look like they might reach that critical velocity and go mass market.

E-readers won't replace books - but I read a book a week. I've always had more books than friends: who (outside facebook) has over a thousand friends? I don't have space for even a small fraction of them.
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