The fundamental paradox of Stack Overflow’s requirement of objectivity

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Stack Overflow requires that questions be largely objective, but is based around a voting system that would be largely unnecessary if all questions actually were. The requirement for objectivity can be readily tested by asking a subjective question and watching how quickly it’s removed, but it’s also made explicit in their blog posts:

Stack Exchange is about questions with objective, factual answers.

their FAQ:

…open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site…

and the reasons a question might be closed:

We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or specific expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion.

The message is quite clear: objective good, subjective bad.

Creating Custom stencils for Omnigraffle ( the right way )

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Recently I have been using Omnigraffle for creating wireframes. I like using Omnigraffle because it offers a lot of flexibility in terms of styling the wireframes, while being quite simple to use.

Another great thing about Omnigraffle is the Graffletopia stencil library. This extensive resource includes many commonly used design elements and icons – you can download it from http://www.graffletopia.com.

Writing a Secure Android App

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When it comes to developing an Android app that deals with sensitive information, you must take extra precautions to make sure that the information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Although Android devices come with state-of-the-art security features, app developers often don’t leverage them. Even if they do, they may not necessarily be using them properly. One simple security hole is all it takes to compromise your app’s security as well as the security of the servers/systems it’s connecting to.

A Software Consulting Conundrum: Providing Estimates While Staying Agile

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Software Estimates

As a software consulting firm, Grio strives to provide high quality, high value software to its clients. We embrace an agile software development methodology based on Scrum. This iterative approach provides our clients with flexibility to adapt and change their product over the course of development as discoveries are made while using the software.

This flexibility can prove challenging when providing up front estimates regarding project costs. The problem arises that providing an estimate that is too high may lose you the contract; Estimating too low can result in several outcomes:

Adventures in Unity

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Constructing our next internal video game (Whack Attack) in the Unity software system has been a joyful experience and a return to my roots as a video game programmer. Instead of dealing with tables and lists for an enterprise web application, I find myself programming mole AI and hit reactions. As an internal project, the few hours a week I get to spend making cartoon mammals run around my phone are a welcome diversion, and makes my return to client work that much more satisfying.

Testing UI in iOS….and some Gotchas

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Most times in your application  a solid unit test trumps testing your UI. But that’s no reason to neglect your UI from having to endure the same rigorous testing you give your models. “But I don’t have time to sit around and tap every part of my application.”, you say. Enter Automation…

Turn Your Macbook into a Blender

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A decade or so ago the idea of running a full 3D software suite on a mac laptop was pretty much unheard of. Processor speed and memory were the greatest obstacles, and the aggregate of 3D software for the Macintosh platform was rather limited, as well as expensive.