TheJach.com

Jach's personal blog

(Largely containing a mind-dump to myselves: past, present, and future)
Current favorite quote: "Supposedly smart people are weirdly ignorant of Bayes' Rule." William B Vogt, 2010

Small Rant

Just gonna do a small rant about several things. Maybe I'll do a monthly rant...

I really don't like how some sites are organized. For example, having "next" on the left and "previous" on the right of a blog history as you go back in time. They should be the other way around, but even then it's not very clear. I use "Older Posts" and "Newer Posts", which I think everyone should use, as it's quite clear which is which and that's in fact what the reader is thinking. "Hmm, I want to see some older stuff. Ah! Older Posts!"

Apparently lots of business sites don't have their contact information in big font on every page. Bad idea! See DrNoot.com for an older design I did, but also note the distinct business name and contact information at the top right. (The site also kind of reads like a business card as well.)

Not really an annoyance, but something I'd like to see: the ability to login to a site using your password's hash instead of the password itself. (Or a hash of the hash if you're scared of directly revealing your hashing algorithm--which you shouldn't be if you're using salts.) It's on my to-do list, as it's not very difficult to implement.

It's a fact of life that most people use the same password for everything. It's easier to remember just one, and it's easier to remember short ones or dictionary words, so that's what a lot of people choose. The remembering bit used to have a solid argument, until Remember Password features in browsers became standard. So since many sites use different hashing algorithms and keys, it makes sense to offer the user their encrypted password--which is unique and much harder to guess (so having two passwords doesn't drive security down)--as a password to login with. They can have their browser remember it, and if they're using a different computer or their browser fails, they can use the old one. It may also prevent password phishing when they notice their browser didn't autopopulate the form.

There should be a Little Caesars pizza place here in Bellevue. Maybe I'll run a franchise in the summer.~

I don't like ProjectFUN overly much. I can do (almost) everything faster in Python + PyGame.

Anyway, that's it for now. I'll probably do either a monthly or bi-monthly rant from now on, just for fun.


Posted on 2009-10-29 by Jach

Tags: programming, rant, stupidity

Permalink: https://www.thejach.com/view/id/40

Trackback URL: https://www.thejach.com/view/2009/10/small_rant

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