Bust Out Solutions ยป Blog http://bustoutsolutions.com Web and Mobile Design, Development, and Strategy Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:35:49 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 44.947515-93.287424 Engine Yard Associate Partner http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2010/04/20/engine-yard-associate-partner http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2010/04/20/engine-yard-associate-partner#comments Tue, 20 Apr 2010 19:53:51 +0000 Jeff http://bustoutsolutions.com/?p=514 Thanks to the good folks at Engine Yard for inviting Bust Out Solutions to be an Associate Development Partner. We recently started using Engine Yard for hosting and so far their service has been great. We’ll be working on an experimental JRuby project as well as regular client work using Ruby on Rails.

Engine Yard Associate Partner

]]> http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2010/04/20/engine-yard-associate-partner/feed 0 Google Suggests http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2010/01/27/google-suggests http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2010/01/27/google-suggests#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:40:31 +0000 Jeff http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/?p=285 Google Suggest is the search engine’s feature that auto-completes the text as you type in search terms. There’s been a number of funny suggestions discovered, and even a website dedicated to them. Bust Out Solutions is in good company when it comes to suggestions from Google: fraud, burlesque, mafia wars, bail bonds… Wonderful.

Google Suggest for 'Bust Out'

]]> http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2010/01/27/google-suggests/feed 1 Top Underreported Tech Stories of 2009 http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/12/28/top-underreported-tech-stories-of-2009 http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/12/28/top-underreported-tech-stories-of-2009#comments Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:48:17 +0000 Jeff http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/?p=280 One of my favorite quotes by Ruby on Rails founder David Heinemeier Hanson was at Minnebar 2007 when somebody asked him if Ruby on Rails was ready for the “Enterprise.” His response was something like, “To me ‘Enterprise’ is just steak dinners, strip clubs, and expense accounts.” (Anybody have the exact quote?)

Whether you hold The Enterprise in high esteem or not, introducing new technologies into large IT departments is a challenge. It’s difficult to teach an old dog new tricks, and that’s especially true for large corporations with a lot of inertia.

That said, we’re honored to be mentioned in the InfoWorld article about the Top Underreported Stories of 2009. Sitting at #7 is the respect for Ruby on Rails in the enterprise, and our work on Best Buy IdeaX is used as one example.

]]> http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/12/28/top-underreported-tech-stories-of-2009/feed 1 Heroku Success Story http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/12/11/heroku-success-story http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/12/11/heroku-success-story#comments Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:25:26 +0000 Jeff http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/?p=271 We recently moved bestbuyideax.com to Heroku, a Ruby hosting platform that runs in the Amazon cloud. We’ve been incredibly happy with their platform, as well as their service. Thanks to Oren Teich for writing up a success story about Best Buy IdeaX.

Heroku Success Story

]]> http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/12/11/heroku-success-story/feed 2 Minor Re-design Before the Big Bang http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/11/18/minor-redesign-before-the-big-bang http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/11/18/minor-redesign-before-the-big-bang#comments Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:17:29 +0000 Jeff http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/?p=266 It’s often the case for anybody in the industry to neglect their own site as they focus most of their time and energy on client work. We’re not exempt from that at all. The Bust Out website has finally gotten a minor, rushed, temporary face lift while we work on a total relaunch of our site, due to be complete before the year’s end sometime soon.

Bust Out Solutions has undergone many stages of evolution this year, including new office space, several new team members, and our very own t-shirts for sale! Business has been very good in 2009. We continue to service a few dozen existing clients and have had the pleasure of meeting several new clients this year such as Travel Beyond, Best Buy for Business, Quantum Retail, and Pedal Brain. Lots of exciting stuff going on!

]]> http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/11/18/minor-redesign-before-the-big-bang/feed 0 Zompire Dracularius http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/10/20/zompire-dracularius http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/10/20/zompire-dracularius#comments Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:39:09 +0000 Jeff http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/?p=257 Dan Grigsby’s SEO competition at the University of Minnesota is back. This year, the word is “Zompire Dracularius,” and just like last year I am honoring link requests from the first students to contact me. Good luck to these sites:

]]> http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/10/20/zompire-dracularius/feed 10 Better alternative to text-indent: -9999px http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/10/08/better-alternative-to-text-indent-9999px http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/10/08/better-alternative-to-text-indent-9999px#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:08:43 +0000 Jeff http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/?p=255 Thanks to David Reese for this great tip. Instead of this:

text-indent: -9999px; height: 20px;

you just do:

height: 0; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 20px;
]]> http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/10/08/better-alternative-to-text-indent-9999px/feed 4 Snow Leopard, Office 2004 and #$@%! Characters http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/09/29/snow-leopard-office-2004-and-characters http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/09/29/snow-leopard-office-2004-and-characters#comments Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:11:05 +0000 Ted http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/?p=248 On the off chance this may help someone…

My mother recently upgraded to Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard. It seemed that the upgrade went smoothly, but a couple of days later, she had trouble opening certain .doc, .ppt, and .xls files with Office 2004. The error messages were obscure. Messages from Excel complained about not having read permissions on the file. PowerPoint would complain about not being allowed to open the specified file type. And Word had no error message; some docs simply wouldn’t open. There were lots of Google results, none of which helped.

The problem? It turns out she had a “#” character in the name of a parent folder. Once we removed the “#”, all was well.

I understand that “#” is an unusual character, but come on! This is 2009! I should be allowed to use whatever characters I please when naming a folder.

]]> http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/09/29/snow-leopard-office-2004-and-characters/feed 0 How to Install WordPress on Mac OS X (Leopard) http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/07/28/how-to-install-wordpress-on-mac-os-x-leopard http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/07/28/how-to-install-wordpress-on-mac-os-x-leopard#comments Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:01:22 +0000 Jeff http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/?p=244 This is one of the most comprehensive tutorials on how to install WordPress on Mac OS X Leopard: http://lettersandscience.net/software/tag/mac-os-x

]]> http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/07/28/how-to-install-wordpress-on-mac-os-x-leopard/feed 1 Best Buy Idea X Launches http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/05/09/best-buy-idea-x-launches http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/2009/05/09/best-buy-idea-x-launches#comments Sat, 09 May 2009 21:11:51 +0000 Jeff http://bustoutsolutions.com/blog/?p=224 I’m pleased to announce the launch of Best Buy Idea X, a website where you can share, vote for, and discuss ideas that will help make Best Buy a better company. The site is built using Ruby on Rails and runs in Amazon’s Compute Cloud.

Best Buy Idea Exchange

We’re far from done with the site. There is already a list of 20+ new features and enhancements that we will be developing over the next 12 months. If you have any feedback or great ideas for the site feel free to let me know. Or, better yet, post an idea in Idea X itself and let the community decide if it’s a good one.

Thanks to Gary Koelling and Steve Bendt at Best Buy for being the muscle behind this project, Barry Judge for executive support, and to my team for kicking ass – Paul Cantrell, McClain Looney, Eric Grossnickle, and Andrew Bessler.

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