How to Fix a 2001 Ford Explorer Power Seat Switch

Posted by Justin A. Parr on December 13, 2014
Posted in: Good Design - Bad Design. Leave a Comment

My children have reached the milestone in life, where the state of Texas entrusts them, under supervision for now, to operate a motor vehicle.  Without going in to details, the object of their foray in to driverdom is a 2001 Ford Explorer.

Knowing that the vehicle has power seats, and that the power seat switches were worn out, I Googled the problem, only to find that a replacement, specialized part, that Ford no longer makes, and that is poorly designed at inception, would cost between $200 and $400, and I needed TWO of them – both the driver’s side and passenger’s side were malfunctioning.

I asserted that I could fix it without the crappy Ford part, and I did.

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Technology-Related Movie Myths

Posted by Justin A. Parr on August 28, 2014
Posted in: Math and Science, The Light Side. 1 comment

In the movies, technology is often depicted as a deus ex machina, a convenience for the writer to instantly solve a problem.  It’s common for writers to stretch the truth a little bit, in order to facilitate flow or continuity, but with technology, writers can sometimes imbue nearly magical qualities.  Rightly so, as Arthur C. Clarke stated, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic“.

And sometimes, the writers just plain get it wrong.

Worse, sometimes, the incorrect depiction is MORE appealing than the real-world functionalities and capabilities, leading to the creation of a mythology that gets propagated until the myth itself is part of pop-culture folklore.

Here are some examples of movie tech myths run amok.

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Top 10 Virtually-Unknown Technology / Computing Pioneers

Posted by Justin A. Parr on July 7, 2014
Posted in: Math and Science. 4 comments

Everyone is familiar with the contributions of technical moguls  such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.  Likewise, computing history remembers people like Charles Babbage and John Von Neumann.  There are many lesser-known, but equally-important figures, whose contributions made our current “online” lifestyle possible, and made computing both affordable and physically small enough to be almost ubiquitous.

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More Common Developer Mistakes

Posted by Justin A. Parr on June 27, 2014
Posted in: Analyses and Responses. 2 comments

Part 1 can be found here:  https://justinparrtech.com/JustinParr-Tech/top-developer-mistakes/

Security issues and design flaws can be costly to fix, once an application has already been written.

In spite of everyone’s best efforts and intentions, these are some additional, common mistakes that can be made during the application design / development process.

 

Click here to read more!

WordPress: How to Write a Plugin Options Page SIMPLIFIED

Posted by Justin A. Parr on June 12, 2014
Posted in: Wordpress Stuff. Leave a Comment

While trying to write an options page and leverage persistent, admin-configurable settings for “JP User Registration Blacklist“, I found a maze of conflicting standards and options.

This is my attempt to provide a simple, straightforward, and comprehensive example, with source code that you can copy and implement with your own plugin.

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