There are some complicated ways to do this, as well as simple ways. Here’s one simple way that can be tested.

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In sharp contrast to the Duchess of Windsor’s adage about never being too rich or too thin, software can never be too subtle or too bloated. Which may be one reason that software’s adoption by small businesses is, well, very thin indeed.

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Of all the whizbang web browsers currently available, only one allows a Flash insert to gain focus programmatically. So much for open standards.

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Apple may have more to gain than anyone else with HTML5, but the ultimate loser in this battle may be the apple community itself. There is a Chinese saying that covers this nicely: Be careful what you wish for.

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Selling complex products ‘as is’ and unwarrantable was not invented by the software industry. This technique is now being adopted by old line manufacturers that built their reputations the old fashioned way, and are now losing those once stellar reputations the new fangled way. Moen kitchen faucets illustrate the caveat emptor wisdom of the ancient Romans.

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Sometimes the InvalidBitMapData error is really masking something else. This error can occur with Firefox and IE7/8 by doing page refreshes. Here’s one way to work around it.

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ActionScript’s LoaderInfo object is missing a lot of information if an error occurs. This presents a real housekeeping problem if multiple loads are done. Here’s a technique that makes sure nothing falls through the cracks.

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Most software products eventually destroy themselves, forcing customers who really don’t want the hassles of moving to something else to move to something else. ZoneAlarm is the most recent to snare us with their latest update.

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The usual means of protecting online images are not really effective, but they did require the thieves to work at getting them. Today’s web browsers eliminate that work, but there are ways to stop all but the most fanatical or obsessed. Here’s one that works quite well.

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Validating user input should be a fundamental requirement, at both the front end and the back end. Failure to do so can result in something more than an embarrassment, and relying on any development framework to do the cleanup is wishful thinking. Here are some code snippets that will eliminate inadvertently erroneous or deliberately malicious user input, as well as sloppy coding deep within the framework de jour.

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