Several years ago people were talking about Google taking over the IT world (presumably from Microsoft). Now Google are probably the most influential IT company but the pace at which it grows has slowed considerably. The illusion that everything bearing the Google trademark is innovative and super cool is slowly but surely wearing off. However we cannot live without Google's product today much like we cannot live without Microsoft's. Now the question is "Who is next?" and my answer is - Facebook...

   It has been a while since I posted a technical article so my mailbox is jammed with e-mails from people begging me to spread more wisdom. This particular post deals with one of the most pressing and hard unsolved problems in computer science – Is it better to store user uploaded files in the database or on the file system? This question has spawned thousand of IRC, forum and other flames. I too have participated in my share of flames on the topic. So it is time for you, the reader, to learn what is the right way to store user uploaded files and it is...

   Happy programmers' day to all programmers, IDE operators and PHP writers. We know that we and not those fancy business guys do the work that makes the world tick. Sometimes we are scared to death by this thought because we have seen it from the inside and we know how fragile our systems are but I am sure that if the giants could see us they would be proud.

   The day of the programmer is getting momentum and this year it has been accepted as an official professional holiday in Russia. Soon in your country!

   In order to pass the last exam left and graduate from the University of Plovdiv I had to create a small program that draws some splines. I picked Bézier curves as they seemed to be one of the simplest kind of parametric curves...

   Some of you probably know that the minority browser makers worried by the fact that people do not give a fuck about their crappy software and the useless web "standards" went to the EU Commission and asked it to make Microsoft bundle their browsers with Windows because according to them Microsoft abused their OS market share by bundling Internet Explorer. Of course Microsoft had no intention to bundle alternative browsers with their OS. At the very least Microsoft do not want to answer support calls for browsers they did not make. So what did Microsoft do. They said "FUCK YOU" to the EU Commission and they will ship Windows 7 in Europe without any browser. There will be a separate CD with IE for OEMs. Of course all OEMs will just install IE because none of them will want to take all the support calls complaining that "The Internet is missing". Most of them probably will not bundle alternative browsers because this means they will have to support it. Basically IE will be bundled with as many Windows installations as it is bundled with now - all of them. The only people who will be affected are the 10% of the users that I (and most probably you) belong to who install Windows on their own. Now the installation will require two discs - one for Windows and one for the browser (be it IE or a minority one). How is that any other OS can ship with a browser but Windows cannot? The funny part is that IE has less than 50% usage share in Europe. Good job protecting the consumers EU Commission. FUCK YOU!


Update 03.08.2009

   Microsoft has decided to include ballot screen in Windows 7 if the default browser is IE. The solution is quite interesting since the ballot screen will be presented in IE itself. It will be a web page with an option to download browsers ordered by market share. Even more interesting is the fact that the ballot screen will be pushed through Windows Update to XP and Vista machines. It will be displayed only to users that have IE set as the default browser so this can lead to users moving away from IE but not the other way around. Microsoft will be promoting direct competitors. It is not yet sure if the EU Commission will accept this offer.

   One thing that is really good about this decision is that 5 years from now Windows 7 will not be shipping with 5 years old Firefox.

Q: What is worse than 8 years old browser shipping with the most popular OS?
A: Five 8 years old browsers shipping with the most popular OS.

You can read more and see a screenshot of the ballot screen here.