Bytes in the Margin

Make them Interact!

2010-02-08T10:01:45-05:00

The more that a team can interact and iterate, the better you're final product can be. In my ideal world, I'd skip a detailed wireframing exercise and get to building a prototype as soon as possible. Its so much easier to explain what is difficult to build if there's something to click on. Or you might learn that what you thought was hard turns out to be easy, or vice-versa. Finally, if you already know if you are using Sharepoint, Drupal, or anything else, you're front-end designer has to know assumptions the platform makes, how it manages content, and other implementation details.

In my practical experience, I find that teams are more efficient when roles overlap and people understand what is happening outside of their silo.

Developers and Designers « Content Here

How do you prioritize tasks?

2010-01-29T14:58:09-05:00

Do you mark everything high or highest priority? I've avoided that trap, but nonetheless, it just means everything is Normal priority for me. Unless I attach a due date to something, its easy for it to slip off of my radar. WebWorkerDaily has a short post describing one way to prioritize your todo list.

About a week ago, I noticed that my task list had this distribution for prioritization: 95 percent “highest,” 4 percent “high,” 1 percent “normal,” and no tasks at all at the “low” and “lowest” priorities. Is this because I am so important that everything I do is of the utmost importance? I wish that were so, but no. It’s because I’m not being realistic about my prioritization. That’s my dirty little task management secret.

My Dirty Little Task Management Secret – WebWorkerDaily

Poor Decisions - Marvel Comics edition

2010-01-27T09:42:38-05:00

Wow, how do ideas like this get out into the real world? Is this the unfortunate result of groupthink and an unwillingness to challenge someone else's ideas in a meeting?

When I first heard about this project the grapevine, I thought it was an Onion story. No one could seriously come up not only with an ungainly name but a one that invoked unfortunate sexual imagery.

Psst… Marvel? This Name is a Really Bad Idea | GeekDad | Wired.com

Arsenal signs Bolivian Player

2010-01-20T11:19:18-05:00

Color me surprised. Bolivian players in the EPL are few and far between afaik. Was Jaime Moreno the last one to play in England?

Está establecido que Samuel Galindo tendrá un salario de aproximadamente 15 mil dólares en el Arsenal, club inglés que recientemente lo fichó tras la aprobación del entrenador francés Arsene Wenger.

Facteas Deportivas

Open Source Lifestream projects using PHP

2010-01-13T12:48:40-05:00

Both of the lifestreaming projects discussed in this Ars article are both built using PHP frameworks, one Zend and the other is CodeIgniter. I was pleasantly surprised, I expected them to be Python or Rails projects.

In days of yore, all a self-respecting Internet enthusiast needed to be at the forefront of Web hipness was a simple vanity page with pictures of their dog and maybe a few moderately coherent rants about technology or politics. In the modern world of Web 2.0, where our thoughts and activities are strewn across the global network of tubes, we need slightly more sophisticated solutions to capture and convey the ethos of our Internet identities.

Make your own lifestream with open source Storytlr

Nintendo Wii to Add Netflix Service for Streaming Video - NYTimes.com

2010-01-13T11:48:37-05:00

I may have to promote the Wii back up from its basement exile, and maybe cut back our Netflix plan a bit.

Nintendo is bringing Netflix’s online streaming video service to its Wii gaming console, the most popular in the industry, the companies plan to announce Wednesday. The service lets subscribers choose from a catalog of generally older movies and television shows and watch them instantly.

Nintendo Wii to Add Netflix Service for Streaming Video - NYTimes.com

Drupal - Get a working Nodereference Explorer module

2010-01-13T00:27:59-05:00

The short version is that I now know way too much Drupal for my own well being.

patch in #9 didn't work for me. I don't think you can simply manipulate the array you get from drupal_add_js() and drupal_add_css() and expect your changes to persist through later preprocess functions. Those two functions keep an internal array with js and css data, so you have to use them. I re-rolled a patch that works for me and also removed a .buildpath and .project file inadvertently included in the same patch. Nodereference explorer is working for me now.

Optimize Javascript (and CSS too) breaks Nodereference Explorer | drupal.org

On the upside, Nodereference Explorer project is a great concept for providing a better UI when relating one node to another in drupal. Its supposed to pop up a Modal window with a richer interface that allows users to filter and search for the desired node. Unfortunately, neither the "stable" nor "development" versions worked for me. I had to break out the firebug and tweak a patch I found in the bug report above to get it working.

Hopefully there aren't any more issues in this module, as I really need it to work in my current project.

Warning, Nexus One users! Dangerous fees may lie ahead

2010-01-12T11:24:50-05:00

This gives me pause in considering the Nexus as my next phone ... cancel early and you may pay more than the phone is worth.

In such a climate, introducing a hot new phone with a set of combined fees that can actually be more expensive than the unsubsidized device itself might seem to be a risky move, coming only weeks after the FCC went after Verizon on a similar issue.

Warning, Nexus One users! Dangerous fees may lie ahead

Vacuum Places Improved :: Add-ons for Firefox

2010-01-12T00:11:21-05:00

If you're a Firefox user and your browser has lost that speedy feeling, check out this extension. I installed and ran it to tune Firefox's databases and, so far, its noticeable more responsive.

Vacuum Places Improved :: Add-ons for Firefox

Evo Morales: Climate Power to the People | FP Passport

2010-01-07T01:25:07-05:00

Having solved all of Bolivia's own problems, Morales will now turn to fixing the planet.

There aren't two sides to the issue; there are at least two hundred. Environmentalists, pro-green energy businesses, anti-green energy interests, climate skeptics, and neoconservatives have already organized backers to articulate points of view. Now Morales wants to be the spokesperson for global climate justice leftists. It was only a matter of time.

Evo Morales: Climate Power to the People | FP Passport

There's nothing prattle can't fix, right?

2010-01-07T01:23:06-05:00

My two cents ...

Once upon a time, I believed in the theory that logic and evidence influenced public policy. After experience rudely contradicted this thesis, I switched to Theory No. 2: Political incentives cause public officials to say things inconsistent with logic and evidence -- babble.

Nexus One: The Best Android Phone Yet – GigaOM

2010-01-06T15:58:02-05:00

The Nexus phone is an intriguing announcments, moreso for me since it'll be available through T-Mobile. I've been very happy with T-Mobile, so switching carriers to get any other phone, no matter what vowel it's name starts with, has been a no-starter with me.

Rather than doing a typical review of its features -– frankly all that stuff has been blogged to death — I wanted to share with you what it’s like to live with this device, day in and day out. In other words, to tell you whether or not the Nexus One is worth the hype.

Nexus One: The Best Android Phone Yet – GigaOM

Speaking of cell phones, there's an interesting clash of strategies at play between Google and Apple in this market. Android phones are becoming more available across all carriers, and its only a matter of time before someone gets the hardware and software combination just right. Meanwhile, Apple's iPhone, which sets the bar for smart phones now, is available only through AT&T - unless you jailbreak it. Will this be an Achilles' Heel that Google and other carriers can exploit? At least it's nice to enjoy this much choice as a consumer.

We're at the AT&T presser here at CES, but it looks like we know what to expect: the carrier just announced that it's launching five new Android devices in the first half of 2010, including devices from Motorola, Dell, and HTC.

AT&T finally goes Android, confirms Dell, HTC and Motorola on board -- Engadget

This Is American Soccer, US Soccer, MNT, WNT, and MLS » Blog Archive » Not So Secret Agent

2010-01-06T15:50:18-05:00

Should some players start learing Vietnamese just in case there is a work stoppage this offseason? More seriously, this is a great interview with a lot of details soccer fans don't normally get to read.

I wouldn’t really tell a lot of guys that Vietnam would be a #1 destination for footballers, but if you want to make a lot of money in a short amount of time, they are offering some pretty big contracts over there. Instead of taking the MLS minimum or maybe $50,000, a player can easily double if not triple that in a place like Vietnam.

This Is American Soccer, US Soccer, MNT, WNT, and MLS » Blog Archive » Not So Secret Agent

How to write a Drupal Panels style plugin

2009-12-21T18:30:15-05:00

If you're looking to build your own style plugins for Drupal's Panels module, the following post will step you through how to do so. The functions and files you'll need to declare are a bit arcane and this beats stepping through the panels code yourself. I've found the rounded corners plugin that ships with panels is a good reference to review when you're stuck.

Creating panels styles can be very powerful. You can define certain styles for your client to choose from, so they can choose what type of display the panel pane will be like. This way you keep the workflow clean, your code under revision control, your themer gets to keep his sanity, and your concious stays clear.

How to create a panels style plugin | manuee – Putting the puzzle together.

Tools don't make you a better programmer

2009-12-11T12:27:11-05:00

Please ignore this post, which makes the utterly ridiculous recommendation that customers should care about what tools developers use in their work. Programming is such an individualized task that what works for one person will not necessarily work for someone else.

That's why, when talking about tools, I like to describe why *I* like the tools and how it makes my tasks easier. I've tried a lot of different IDEs over the years, and I always come back to jedit. Some of it is definitely due to comfort, but big IDEs tend to make assumptions about how and where you organize your code, and want you to do all of your work via the IDE. I like to drop to the command line a lot, to do SVN diffs, commits, and updates. It feels faster to me, even if it isn't, plus those are the tools I have at my disposal on my server's command line - no fancy GUIs there to guide you.

If the answer is notepad++ you should stay away from that company, no matter how cool the flash design looks.

When evaluating a development shop, you're much better off asking them how they score on the Joel test. It gives you a much more complete look at "the quality of a software team." But Oscar, #9 says "Do you use the best tools money can buy?" As I read the question, its really asking if you provide them with the best tools to keep them productive and happy. If someone is a wizard with notepad++ or vim, who's to say they must use anything else?

The recent revelation that at Microsoft, the top developers prefer Old School methods highlights that fancy programming environments aren't necessarily better or make for better programmers.

"When there are five things on the screen, you can burp that out [in text]. But when there are 500 things, [graphical programming] is completely unusable. You zoom in and zoom out and you lose all context. I think it's just smokin' dope."