Jack of All Trades Web Development

jQuery Enlightenment is a Worthy Purchase

m@marcgrabanski.com (Marc Grabanski) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:58:10 -0700

Category: JavaScript & jQuery Tags: jQuery, Books

If you haven't heard of or read jQuery Enlightenment, then you probably should go subscribe to more jQuery blogs, this one has been posted everywhere. Simply because this book is an excellent read with excellent examples, worth the $15 purchase. It has live links to code examples you might need down the road.

And no, I wasn't paid to do this post. All the dough goes straight to Cody Lindley on this self-published e-book, and he deserves every penny. Go Cody go! *cheers*

Tips to Secure Your Web Hosting Server

m@marcgrabanski.com (Marc Grabanski) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:41:44 -0700

Category: Linux & Server Admin Tags: Security, Linux

A friend of mine, Elliot Swan got hacked - one of his JavaScript files had been modified to contain some sort of advertisement. Here are a few tips you can do to lock your server down, starting with simple things and getting more advanced at the bottom.

Change your web hosting password.
Change your SSH / root login username (if possible) and password.
Change your FTP username (if possible) and password.
If you changed your FTP username, chown the files to the new user through SSH by typing "chown -R username:usergroup YOUR_WEB_PATH". If you don't know the usergroup, check out the current files by typing, "ls -la YOUR_WEB_PATH"
Change your permissions to the lowest number to allow your website to still work, this might be 444, 644, 655, 744, or 755. "chmod -R 755 YOUR_WEB_PATH"
make sure there are no authorized keys found in your "~/.ssh/" folder. Type "ls ~/.ssh", and then "rm authorized_keys" if it is there unless of course you use that for authentication. Authorized keys allows you to ssh without a username and a password, because you put your id on your computer and on the server.
(tip via friend, Grant Wood) There is a linux service called, "aide" that can email you when files are changed, but that is fairly intense to setup.
(tip from friend) Check your log files in /var/log to make sure there is no unauthorized connections that you haven't made.
Update your php.ini file with better PHP settings.
Upgrade any installed CMS or web-based software.

If all else fails, switch web hosts or hire a server admin, because you are screwed.

RSS Feeds in Facebook, Walled Garden of Fail

m@marcgrabanski.com (Marc Grabanski) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:18:02 -0700

Category: Usability & Testing Tags: Facebook

If you hook your RSS feed up with Facebook, the items keep you inside the walled-garden of Facebook fail.

Let me give you an example.. so if I see this RSS item show up in the facebook stream:

I click on the link and it sends me to a Facebook note.

The RSS feed links should go to the intended context, my blog! #facebook #walledgarden #fail

What's Up with Marc Grabanski? Summer 2009 Edition

m@marcgrabanski.com (Marc Grabanski) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:16:52 -0700

Category: Marc Grabanski's Work Tags: My Work, Business

Aside from my office turning into a complete disaster...

Here is an update on the status of my projects as of 10 months ago.

Rent Update: launched public beta! We are now walking property managers through sign up for their free listings and gathering feedback. The product is about 2 years in development, but still in the user-testing stage. I'm sure I'll make a big announcement article and promote the product when it starts humming. Follow Rent Update on Twitter for more updates.
jQuery Datepicker v4: turned into Calendar Engine, an ambitious project intended to fix problems with the native JavaScript date object and give you access to internationalized calendar functions in straight-JavaScript (no jQuery). It works with Gregorian and Persian calendars so far, but I want to build a calendar and datepicker on top of it to showcase its abilities.
CakePHP jQuery Integration: tried to iron out some of my thinking through a JavaScript RFC for Cake 1.3, but I still have a ways to go. I'm tossing around so many ideas that I haven't solidified something actionable.
Carcassonne Online: with the new things in webkit/iphone this could be a very interesting browser-based game, but I've put the project on hold for now until I feel inspired to learn what's new in webkit.
Family Reminder: will be built on CakeCal and Calendar Engine, so I need to finish those open source projects before I get to this application, on hold for now.
Open Ad Sense: on hold until I get momentum behind this project, maybe next year.

New developments!

Launched my consulting company's website, MJG International. Showcases the network of people and some work we've done.
MarcGrabanski.com broke one million visitors in under a year! 1,043,421 since late July '08 and you can view more details in Mint stats.
Learning Ruby on Rails because of doing a UI on top of one of my client's projects, fun so far.
New startup company deals with organizing and sharing content on the web, this one is interesting because they are both paying my company and giving percentage of equity based on the performance of the project. Exactly the type of contract I've been trying to get.
Sat down at the table with business owners around Minnesota, prepping them and selling them on a new e-commerce platform that I've been planning for years. This one will be huge because I know how it will run, we just have to work out the specifics financially to get development underway. This one is very exciting for both local businesses in Minnesota and me.

On a personal note, I'm engaged! She's now enrolled in college at Art Institute International downtown Minneapolis, the added financial burden just increases my motivation to make the business run stronger.

Check out the Sushi + Engagement Ring plate!

And don't worry, I cleaned my office!

Pivotal Tracker is Amazing, Period.

m@marcgrabanski.com (Marc Grabanski) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:43:42 -0700

Category: Business & Management Tags: Free Tools, Productivity, Management

It is not very often that I am blown away by software to an (tech)emotional level. Today I was blown away. I honestly believe Pivotal Tracker could change the way I view product development from now on.

It is like someone reached inside my dreams and then made a tracking system based on it. I have even pitched this same type of idea to a business partners before: ticket items based on value-added to the business. Finally, a tracking system that works how I think.

10 Reasons I am Blown Away By Pivotal Tracker

Creates charts of time line / deadline against amount of work yet to accomplish.

Look at how huge this is.. if your manager wants to hit the deadline, he/she has to remove "points", or feature requests and slide them to a new release. There is only so much you can get done in a given time period, and Pivotal Tracker makes that clear.
Centered around value-added to the business. Amount of value added in a iteration (week) is the velocity.
- Each new feature is assigned a point value depending on how difficult it is to implement.
- Project's velocity is based on how many points you accomplish in an iteration (week).
- Chores and bugs are viewed as necessary overhead, but do not add value to the business so they do not contribute to a project's velocity.
There is only so much you can get done in a week, realistically. Pivotal Tracker knows this and pushes new items to the backlog, showing management a good idea of what is realistic.
Team strength adjusts the amount of points able to accomplish in a given week.

Here the client was able to accomplish 9 points in a given week typically. Upon adding me, they adjusted team strength to 175%, allowing for 16 points worth of features to be shown in the weekly cycle. All features above 16 are scheduled for following weeks.
The server is polled periodically, allowing you to see changes your team makes without reloading the page.
Sortable, drag and drop prioritization of tickets.
Clicking, "start" shows that you are working on a particular bug, avoiding team overlap.
Make your project private or public.
Customizable view-panes and clone existing view panes.
Comment and attach files to tickets (stories).

I've always wanted a tracking system that demonstrates the value that I am adding to the business when adding features. Pivotal Tracker does this for me. its feature set is just enough to add to your experience with the tool and not over-complicate things.

Go use it now.