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Some books I'm interested in

matt — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:03:57 +0000

Amazon sent me some recommendations and they are good. 7 out of 9 look like something I want to read. Kind of for my own future reference here are the books they recommended:

Even Faster Web Sites: Performance Best Practices for Web Developers by Steve Souders

For web dev, a great monitor is critical

matt — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:57:55 +0000

I’ve been using my new computer for a little over a week now. I bought the Mac Book Pro 13. One of its features that may not jump off the page to you when looking at the tech specs is how great the screen is. To my horror I’ve gone to some websites and realized I’ve made some serious errors in optimizing my images. Things that look fine on a typical computer screen but look retarded on a really good quality monitor.

because of twitter I blog less

matt — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:23:47 +0000

Well, blame it on Twitter. I’ve been blogging much less lately (I’m @newz2000 on twitter and identi.ca). I’m going to resume writing soon and have some great material to start out with.

Mac cheaper than Dell

matt — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:13:10 +0000

I’m getting ready to replace my Dell Latitude D420 laptop. I love it. It’s very light, very portable, has an extended battery that gets 3-5 hours of life. If I could change only two things it would be a slightly larger screen (or more specifically, a slightly lower DPI) and a standard dual core cpu rather than the ultra-low voltage (ULV) dual core cpu. Dell and Apple both offer a computer that meets my requirements but to my surprise, the Apple is ~~cheaper~~ almost identical (corrected, see below) .

Two essential books every web dev should read

matt — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:54:01 +0000

My brother is applying for a jr. web-dev position so I was thinking about what tips to give him. That thought process lead from one thing to another and I realized that two of the most influential web-dev books I’ve read are not ones that would normally jump out at you. These are not replacements for a good HTML or JavaScript book, these are a bit more high-level. No matter what your development expertise (front-end, java, php, ruby, etc) these books will each take you up a significant notch in your web-dev skills and will set your web-applications way above the norm.

Cutting Pizza Asymmetriclly

matt — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:54:28 +0000

I’ve invested a non-trivial amount of thought and research into the optimal way to cut a pizza for a small family and have come to the firm conclusion that in most cases cutting asymmetrically is the best.

By this I mean that I now deliberately try to cut the pieces so that they are not the same size. There are some instances where this is not the best route but for a typical family dinner it works out ideally.

Can ads boost your credibility?

matt — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 03:14:39 +0000

OK, the previous blog post was on site credibility, lets continue on that theme for another post. This may seem off-key but follow with me. If you see a woman join a group of attractive women you will formulate an opinion of her. If you see a man join a group of other men who look like they are of ill repute you will probably hold him in a similar low regard.

We have a tendency to make assumptions based on association. I’m no psychologist but I’ve seen enough sitcoms to know that it’s true. The saying is that birds of a feather flock together, right? But how does this relate to your website and what does it have to do with ads? I’m glad you asked.

At a glance credibility - link to content ratio

matt — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:44:21 +0000

Have you ever mis-typed a domain name and been taken to one of these parked sites filled with links? It only takes you a fraction of a second to tell you’re in the wrong place. I’m not talking about porn, gambling or pop-up laden websites, just these squatter-style parked domain web pages with tons of links. Sometimes I’ve come across sites that are legitimate sites but my first thought is, uh-oh, I mis-typed, I hit a parked domain site. This is because something intangible about the site’s homepage is communicating that the site doesn’t really contain any information.

Awesome creative commons images for your website

matt — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 03:52:12 +0000

Finding awesome images to use for your website can be a challenge. However with this little trick it’s quite easy to find exciting, fresh images that have creative commons licenses allowing you to publish photos on your blog or website (as long as you give attribution to the artist and don’t use them for commercial purposes - see the image’s license for details, but the trick I’m demonstrating here only includes CC licensed images that allow derivative works). Total time to find and add an exciting image to your blog post is 2 - 3 minutes.

“The Scoble Show” by Thomas hawk

Beagle Board vs. Hammer

matt — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:19:25 +0000

The Beagle Board is getting a lot of attention lately. It should, it’s an awesome platform. How does it compare to the Tin Can Tools Hammer (discussed in a previous blog post here)? Well, the Beagle is faster and cheaper for one thing, it also has excellent video and audio output capabilities. But that doesn’t necessarily make it better. It all depends on the application.