Links for 2009-02-15

Here are some interesting links:

Fascinating interview with an adware developer

(this is from the Crypto-Gram Newsletter by Bruce Schneier). The take away from the interview for me is how easily exploitable the Windows API is… and how easy it is to hide malicious code from malware protection software. It's almost like Microsoft did it this way on purpose.

What do companies want?

The take away from this article for me is that it doesn't really matter so much what companies or people want, but what you, the programmer, want. Work on something you are passionate about and be your own number one user. But do put your idea out there for the world and take in the criticism to improve it. User feedback and criticism will tell you if you are working on the correct implementation of the idea. As Paul Graham has so eloquently articulated Figure out what the real problem is, and make sure you solve that.