Writing

Long-form essays on technology, business, design and human behaviour.
Shorter, rawer notes live on the Journal.

Latest writing

02 Dec 2011Accidental Entrepreneurs Don’t ExistThere is no such thing as the accidental entrepreneur. Ideas, failure and persistence matter, but building a company still requires choosing to do the.Business
2 min 24 Nov 2011Non-Alphanumeric PHP ShellA PHP shell written without ordinary alphanumeric characters demonstrates how strange language behaviour can be abused—and later turned up in real malware.Security
3 min 12 Nov 2011Mobile Apps vs. Mobile WebNative mobile apps and the mobile web solve different problems. The question is not which will win, but which experience makes the most sense for the task.Development
5 min 19 Oct 2011Looking Back at Steve JobsA personal reflection on Steve Jobs after his death: the loss of a visionary whose products, ideas and insistence on excellence shaped an entire generation.Thoughts
2 min 26 Aug 2011Reflection on Steve Job’s ResignationA reflection on Steve Jobs stepping down from Apple, his Stanford message about mortality and the extraordinary influence of a career built around doing.Thoughts
3 min 09 Jun 2011English is not Good for MarketingWhen everyone is told to market themselves through social media, simply speaking English is not enough. Distinctive communication is what makes expertise.Marketing
3 min 04 Jun 2011Teh Playground!Teh Playground was a lightweight PHP testbed for quickly trying snippets in the browser without setting up a local LAMP stack or creating temporary files.Development
1 min 03 Jun 2011Display PHP Logo on any URLAn obscure PHP query-string feature could once expose the PHP logo on almost any enabled server, one of the language’s stranger pieces of historical cruft.Security
1 min 23 Mar 2011ColorColor’s founder could explain his company through a memorable story. Being able to distil a complicated product into a simple narrative is a powerful startup.Business
1 min 20 Mar 2011Fragility of FreeFree services are fragile when users are not the customer. If a product has no sustainable business model, popularity alone does not guarantee its future.Business
1 min 20 Mar 2011Don’t Be Afraid To ChargeCharging money is not something a business should apologise for. Customers pay when a product solves a problem well enough to justify the value it creates.Business
3 min 16 Mar 20112 Obscure PHP FunctionsTwo obscure PHP features—including GOTO—show that even much-maligned and rarely discussed language features can occasionally have surprisingly practical uses.Development
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