Outside The Box blogs, Autodesk University anecdotes, articles, blog digests, and product news in chronological order. See Articles for the same material by subject.
One of the most important skills in resolving technical problems is not problem solving, but problem definition. Stripping a problem down to its essence often makes the solution obvious. I think this is generally true, but especially true in my experience with software tech support and tracking down software bugs.
…
Excited news stories this morning about how your computer is vulnerable to attack from a phone plugged into your USB port (http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20028919-245.html) made me chuckle. This “novel hack” involves making an Android phone mimic a USB keyboard in order to send keystrokes to the computer. Cool, but why wouldn’t a hacker just use a USB keyboard in the first place?
…
One of the required tools in a programmer’s toolbox is a tool for comparing files. File comparison utilities have come a long way since the original Unix diff command, but this genre of utilities is still referred to as diff tools. For Windows, I use an open source diff utility called WinMerge. WinMerge includes a shell extension that makes it easy to use from within Windows Explorer.
…