Category: Development
-
PSA: Security of Folder Downloader for Dropbox
I received this inquiry via email: Could this app leak my Dropbox password? With the recent news that 6.9million Dropbox passwords have been stolen, I am now wondering how secure this app is. I think it’s better to repost my answer here, with some additional information for semi-technical people. The app does not know your…
-
New Android App: Silent Mode Bypass
I’ve just published a new tiny, free Android app: Silent Mode Bypass. This app does just one thing: disabling Silent or Vibration mode when you receive a phone call from a selected list of contacts. It’s useful for emergency calls that you must be absolutely sure to receive, typically at night, while still keeping everything…
-
FDfD Extremes
There have been a few reports about stuck downloads with Folder Downloader for Dropbox, so I added some logic to better handle network read timeouts. The main problem is with Java’s FilterInputStream.read() method, which is blocking and has no timeout setting. I ended up using Eclipse’s TimeoutInputStream (see update below). That said, such timeouts were…
-
On Object-Oriented Programming
Object-oriented programming, or OOP, is a programming paradigm that uses “objects” – usually instances of a class – consisting of data fields and methods together with their interactions – to design applications and computer programs. In practical terms, to build a program, you define objects that contain data and expose operations (called methods). A typical,…
-
Eating Your Own Dog Food
Eating your own dog food, or dogfooding, is a term coined adopted by Microsoft indicating that a software company should use its own products internally. It’s true, and Microsoft does it. Internally, the company runs on its own products, and each team even uses pre-release versions of their products, such as Office, Exchange, Windows, whatever.…