Do you happen to view your bank statements on-line? Long process, is it not? It can be automated with this huge library of Perl scripts for many different banks around the world. A click or two can reveal your balance, transactions, etc.

Certain design bugs are so common that we have become too blind to spot them. An essay titled Ten Most Persistent Design Bugs makes some excellent observations.

• If the computer loses power for more than a few thousandths of a second, it throws everything away.
• Designers offer no way for users to discover why a given menu or option has been dimmed (grayed out), nor how to turn it back on.
• 15 Dec 2008 sorts as being before 2 Jan 1900

MATLAB Central had me ranked 4th (world-wide) for my code contributions this month with over 1,600 downloads. This nearly tops July 2004 when I was ranked 2nd with almost 2,000 downloads. I was then only surpassed by the product manager, Stuart McGarrity.

This morning I wrote my first piece of PHP. I can now see why it has been awarded ‘Programming Language of 2004′. Truly deserved. For the curious, the code rotates banners in my front page depending on the time of the day. Below lies an example.

Picture at 10AM GMT

I have recently been thinking about extending a project of mine, Othello Master, to form a new project. The new project will take a different title and occupy a different domain. Chess, Checkers and the like can be considered. If you would like to be a part of this, please send me an E-mail because without somebody’s collaboration, I don’t plan on doing it.

I am highly suspicious about MATLAB Central‘s management of their ranking mechanism. For several months I have noticed that the Instrument Control Team (employed by MathWorks, makers of MATLAB) gets just few isolated downloads (indicating the number of times people download one’s code), and then, within hours, it gains hundreds. I wondered if someone out there modifies their numbers slowly enough for no-one to suspect. Be alert. ‘Inside trading’ might always be around the corner.

Many programs fail where it matters the most. They do not layer levels of options so as to allow new users to cope. This is why I have changed the menu that you see on the right. Shall you need more advanced options, press the ‘Extended Menu’ option at the top. Implementation/installation details have been included. On the left:
 
   A restaurant’s minimal menu!