Today I am going to recommend 2 new books that have just become available for pre-orders.

The first is called Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson of 37Signals. Their first book, Getting Real, is a great read for any Software Development team. It will be out on March 9, 2010, and is only $14.96 for the hardcover version. According to the authors “Everything we know about business is in Rework.” If you’ve ever read or heard Jason Fried speak, that means it will definitely contain a lot of great information.

Second, if you read Smashing Magazine, you probably know their long awaited design book, The Smashing Book is also available for pre-order. Right now they are offering their book for 20% off ($23.90 USD), with free shipping. It will be available sooner that Rework (late September 2009). The early reviews are great, and if its anything like their regular posts, it too be be informative, and a must read.

Give these a try. If you happen to have a pre-release copy, or have some other reading recommendations, I’d love to hear in the comments.

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It’s been another 2 weeks (plus holiday weekend), so here is another wrap up of the tools, links, and other sites that came across my various readers, etc… It could be a good resource, an interesting blog post, or anything I found useful since the last Web Tools Tips and Talk, #8.

NOTE: If you find these useful please note this is not my full list of links, tools and news. As I come across links for use, I add them all to my Effective Development Delicious.com page.
Sometimes I come across a quick link that I don’t want to wait for the Wrap-Up. Those links I send out as I find them on my Twitter account.
Finally, you can always follow my RSS Feed and check out the Tools Tips and Talk Archive.

Feel free to suggest other links in the comments.

Web Tools

• Colabolo Team Collaboration – I do not use this product but I believe strongly in collaboration software, and I also believe in having choices, so here is one you might want to check out.
• ICSI Netalyzr – Having trouble with your internet connection? This tool will help you deduce if you are having a firewall problem, or blocked port, etc…
• pingdom – This site was famous for pinging a site of your choice, and emailing you if it was down. Now they have opened their full site monitoring for free for one site. Great feature at a great deal.

Web Talk/Blogs

• Google changes PageRank flow: Why you should use an iframe in blog comments – Short discussion about Google’s new PageRank algorithm, and how it may affect your comments and nofollow code. If you have comments that allow users to post links, research this and see if it affects you.
• 10 UI Design Patterns You Should Be Paying Attention To – Guide to common User Interface design patterns and a discussion about why they should be important to you. Usability is very important, and this is a pretty detailed read.
• 5 things I wish some people wouldn’t install on their PCs – Fun rant about some of the extras people install on their PCs ultimately slowing them down, or making them unusable. You must know someone who has 20 toolbars installed on their web browser?… or maybe you!
• How to adapt Basecamp to an agile methodology – Case study of an actual development shop using BaseCamp for their SCRUM/Agile team.
• CSS Image Replacement, what’s up Matt? – Article and video discussing using CSS to replace text with images. Discusses why you would want to try this, including SEO benefits.

Web Tips/Resources

• 10+ useful jQuery Plugins for web development – Exactly what it says. A good list for jQuery, tips demos, and code. Always good to have in your code toolbox.
• 7 Firefox Add-ons that make Web Development Easier – I’ve posted similar lists before, but if you don’t have these tools installed, you should. /li>
• 50 Fresh JavaScript Tools That Will Improve Your Workflow – More tools for your toolbox if you are a JavaScript programmer.
• LESS – Leaner CSS – Tutorial and examples for producing cleaner CSS code.
• 35 CSS-Lifesavers For Efficient Web Design – Much more in the lines of CSS tips and tricks.

Enjoy, and have a good week.
Post any good resources or links you use in the comments.

image by seanbonner

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It’s been another 2 weeks, so here is another wrap up of the tools, links, and other sites that came across my various readers, etc… It could be a good resource, an interesting blog post, or anything I found useful since the last Web Tools Tips and Talk, #7.

NOTE: If you find these useful please note this is not my full list of links, tools and news. As I come across links for use, I add them all to my Effective Development Delicious.com page.
Sometimes I come across a quick throw away link that I don’t want to wait for the Wrap-Up. Those links I send out as I find them on my Twitter account.
Finally, you can always follow my RSS Feed and check out the Tools Tips and Talk Archive.

Feel free to suggest other links in the comments.

Web Tools

• mobify – There are a few tools out there that do this, but this site creates a slimmed down mobile compatible version of your site. They have free and paid options, but it look like a good place to get your feet wet in the mobile market.
• Notify Mee – Ever have a site you frequent often go down? (ahem…Twitter, Google) When a site you own or use is down, and you want to know when it comes back, simply go here, enter the url, and the email where you’d like to be notified, and they will send you a status when its safe to go back.
• Convert PDF to Word – Upload a PDF, click convert, and you will receive a word Doc (DOC). Simple, free, useful. Sometimes that’s all you need.
• Iconza – Customizable icons for your web site. – Create custom icons to use for free on your site. Tweak the style, size, and color.

Web Talk/Blogs

• DeepTrawl Helps Webmasters Find & Fix Site Errors Quickly, Simply – Quick review of a pretty good tool that traverses/spiders your site looking for typos, broken images and links. You can even schedule it to run at set times and get a report.
• Google Wave: A Complete Guide – I realize Google Wave was announced a few weeks ago, but if you want to weed through the hype, or just missed the discussion Mashable has put together a great guide.
• Monitor Content Copying On Your Site Using Tynt Tracer – Good article discussing a tool that you can setup to check if others are plagiarizing your content. If you are paranoid, or even if you share your content openly and are curious, check out this tool.
• Google Docs gets x’ier with .docx and .xlsx support – Google now supports the x extension that is common in the newest versions of Office. docx, xlsx, etc…
• Adobe service puts browsers side by side – Interesting tool from Adobe called BrowserLab to help you view your site across multiple browsers simultaneously. There are a few ways to do this already, and as a developer/designer, you may already have your favorite. but, Adobe makes good products, so its worth checking out before they start charging for it.

Web Tips/Resources

• EntityCode – A Clear and Quick Reference to HTML Symbol Entities Codes – Simple HTML reference for those quirky HTML codes you sometimes need. Like registered trademark, copyright, dollar and currency signs, etc… Bookmark this one, you’ll need it someday.
• 10 HTML Tag Crimes You Really Shouldn’t Commit – Tutorial I found from twitter.com/KISSmetrics reviewing some simple HTML best practices. Or rather bad practices to avoid.
• OOPhoto – Another Attempt At Learning Object Oriented Programming (OOP) In ColdFusion – Ben nadel writes great instructional programming series. This one focuses on writing a photo gallery on ColdFusion, with a focus on Object Oriented Design. If any of these facts interest you, check it out.
• Useful checks to test for XSS attacks on your ColdFusion site – Quick post that discusses how to check if your ColdFusion site is vulnerable to XSS (Cross Site Scripting Attacks)
• How To Change Default Webpage Source Editor Of Browsers – Want to view browser source in Notepad, or notepad++? This quick tutorial tells you how to change the default viewer for various popular browsers.
• Effective Strategy To Estimate Time For Your Design Projects – I wrote a post about estimating resources and projects this week. Coincidently Smashing Magazine also ran a really good article about this topic. Its a very good read, with a lot of details.

Enjoy, and have a good weekend.
Post any good resources or links you use in the comments.

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You may have noticed the new addition to the site recently. I have added an Amazon Bookstore to my header navigation and to the right column of the site. While I do make a small percentage off of any sales, this is also an opportunity to showcase books I have read and found useful to my coding and management style. I have read most of the books here, and if i didn’t they are in my Amazon Wishlist for future reading.

A lot of the ideas for my blog are formulated from my experiences and findings. Many are based on things I have read and various discussions with peers. Like i said in my early posts, I do read and keep up to date with many of the latest methodologies, but I adapt and try to fit them into the reality of working in a corporate environment. I do not blindly chase and accept all the latest trends.

I would like to briefly discuss some of the books I’ve chosen to showcase in my store and why they would be of use to you. I do not read a lot of code books, many of them are out of date before they are published. The web is the perfect resource for changing data. But for timeless concepts, book are still important to have on hand. And if you are truly anti print, get a Kindle.

Web Design and Development

Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. This is one of the best all around web design books. Steve is a fan of simple usability techniques. He wants to keep things easy and clean. He is a huge advocate of usability testing. He makes it clear how useful usability tests are and how easy and cheap they are to conduct. Since passing this around my group we conduct usability tests on a regular basis. The book is a very fast read, and if you read one book on my list, make it this one.

Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design By Robert Hoekman Jr. This book makes a good companion to Don’t Make Me Think. It also talks about simple, clean design and how the user experience should be the most important factor when creating web apps. A lot of my Knowing your users will help make effective decisions post, is based on some of these ideas.

Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer By Bryan Eisenberg, John Quarto-vonTivadar A good intro the A/B and multivariate testing. It focuses on Google Website Analyzer specifically but many of the concepts can be applied to any testing tool such as Omniture Offermatica. My first 2 books talk a lot about the importance of testing but does not go into specifics on how to achieve this. This book fills in a lot of the gaps.

Web Analytics: An Hour a Day By Avinash Kaushik Avinash is widely considered one of the top web analytics gurus and he focuses on Google Analytics. If you use Google Anlytics, then this book is very practical. Google makes setting up their analytics package so easy, but sometimes it is hard to extract exactly what you need from their tool. Avenish explains concepts like conversions and also explains their importance. Google Analytics help is so hard to come by, this book really provides a strong basis for working with the tool.

Getting Real: The smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application By 37signals. This book is really a composite of essays written by 37Signals. It gives you a window into their world of Getting Real, the philosophy upon which their company runs. I’ve often said my feelings of effective development are basically a practical spin on a lot of Getting Real. Getting Real is sometimes too ideal, but you can’t formulate what works for you without first reading the original

Team Management

Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace By Ricardo Semler This is a wonderful, cheap and fast read. This book is very entertaining, and the story is very unique. It explains a lot of groundbreaking management techniques that Ricardo Semler began in his company in Brazil years ago. Many management techniques have since been adapted from his still unique ideas. Even if you do not run your company you will benefit from this read. I have found many little areas where I try to work in adaptions of his leadership techniques.

Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: No Schedules, No Meetings, No Joke–the Simple Change That Can Make Your Job Terrific By Cali Ressler, Jody Thompson
Similiar to Maverick, it applies groundbreaking but extremely practical ideas for workplace management. Once again, read it and formulate what is effective for you. These are not bibles, rather they are written to get you thinking of how it is applicable to your unique workplace.

Those are the books i have read recently and felt inspired to share with you. I have added other groups in my Amazon store that I have either placed in my wishlist or feel passionate about.

The project management group consists of books written for project management in an agile environment. traditional project management is dying. I plan to write a post shortly about how we are able to manage projects in a pseudo agile workplace.

The business and marketing section consists of 2 book I plan to read soon. I have read good reviews of both. Basic marketing is a necessary skill for today’s developers and managers. Traditionally it is not taught in computer science curriculum. More often we are put in positions where we need to market our teams and the products we build. As projects get more agile, and do not come with hundred page accompanying docs, management needs to be sold on features and iterative changes. This is where marketing yourself and your group comes into play.

The web books from Amazon is simply a window into Amazon’s web development genre. It is broad but you may find it useful for finding some good tech books.

Finally I am becoming a huge fan of netbooks. They will not replace you primary computer, but now that specialized devices like the Kindle and iPhone are becoming so popular, I suggest you look to a netbook instead. Rather than getting a device that is just like a computer, why not actually buy an actual computer. They are small, relatively powerful, and cheap. I have a Dell Mini 9, and love it.

Photo by IntDev

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David Pierce who runs the very useful tech blog “The 2.0 Life” has posted another guest post written by yours truly.

The Complete Google Guide to Blogging Tools, focuses on running a blog from setup to monetizing your site while using only Google tools. As a reader of this site, you will probably be interested as its quite practical and applies to running most websites, not solely blogs.

Give it a read, and while you are there, subscribe to The 2.0 Life RSS feed. Its full of great tips and practical advice for all the Web 2.0 Apps that seem to pop up daily.

As always, you can follow me on Twitter to keep updated with my various postings and other tech links that I share.

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It’s been another 2 weeks, so here is another wrap up of the tools, links, and other sites that came across my various readers, etc… It could be a good resource, an interesting blog post, or anything I found useful since the last Web Tools Tips and Talk, #6. Feel free to suggest other links in the comments.

Web Tools

• coloRotate – Cool 3-D looking tool that enables you to find color matches and develop palettes for design.
• Chartle.net – interactive charts online! – Easy tool to build charts and graphs online to embed on your website. Early Beta.

Web Talk/Blogs

• 10 WordPress Plugins Every New Blogger Should Install – This is an article I wrote for The 2.0 Life, if you are new to WordPress, you might find it useful.
• Web 3.0 or Not, There’s Something Different About 2009 – Short article about some new trends that are emerging in the web.
• Google: Web and browsers will lead app development – At Google I/O 2009 in San Francisco Google execs spent time showing developers how future web apps will mimic many features of current desktop applications.
• Online Publishers: Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow – Brief summary of one of the talks at the Web 3.0 conference about web publishing and content.

Web Tips/Resources

• Apps Status Dashboard – Google Apps Status Dashboard enables users and businesses to monitor the status of individual Google Apps services. Users of Google Apps can now view the status of individual services such as Gmail/Google Mail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs, Google Sites and Google Video for businesses.
• 120+ Javascript, Ajax, jQuery Mega Toolbox – Huge sampling of code tips, tricks, tutorials etc… For Ajax, CSS, jQuery, you name it.
• Use jQuery to “turn off the lights” while watching videos – jQuery code to mimic the close the lights feature on YouTube.

Misc. ‘Fun’ Stuff

• MonaTweeta II on Flickr – This person has created a rough estimation of the Mona Lisa using 1 Tweet.

Enjoy, and have a good weekend.
Post any good resources or links you use in the comments.

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I’ve written a guest post on the blog “The 2.0 life: How to Thrive in a Digital World ” entitled: 10 WordPress Plugins Every New Blogger Should Install. Please go check it out, and while you are there look over David’s site. It has a lot of great, practical advise for using web tools and other online survival skills.

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As usual, a semi-weekly wrap up of links, tidbits, and other sites that came across my plate. Code, development, management, anything I found interesting since the last post. Feel free to suggest other links in the comments.

Web Tools

• hidetext – I plan to use this one on my blog and see if it works. You type text and it translates it to a graphic that is human readable but hidden to spammer bots. Its creative too. If you type in a google email address, the graphic it creates can be drawn in the google rainbow of colors.
• ADrive – File storage and sharing site. 50Gb free. I first saw this one on The 2.0 Life. I’ve been looking for a replacement ever since xDrive shit down. Why not start back at the top of the alphabet?
• Windows 7 Release Candidate – Windows 7 RC1 was released this week and the reviews are positive. Is it actually good or did Vista set the bar so low, we would welcome windows 3.11 at this point? Time will tell.
• PDF To Excel Online – Upload a PDF file and you are returned an excel (CSV) table of data. I havent used it, but reviews I read say its fairly accurate, and if you need this type conversion, I haven’t seen many choices before.

Web Talk/Blogs

• Cool changes coming to Twitter Search | Webware – CNET – Discusses the major improvements that are coming to Twitter search. Important for developers and Twitter users alike.
• Find free alternatives to commercial apps with osalt – Blog Post from Hack Your Day about another product that helps you find free alternatives to commercial software.
• 6 Tools To Be An Effective Web Developer – Good post, the title says it all.
• Why You Want To Be A Craftsman Instead Of
  A Cowboy -Another good post from Geek Daily. I’ve said this one many times before, only I use the terms practical Vs ideal. Not to ruin the read, but I agree with the author, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.
• What is creativity? – Short musing about creativity and whether developers can be creative or is that reserved for designer.

Web Tips/Resources

• Google Similar Images – Search product from Google Labs, where you can find an image and search for similar images based on look. not perfect but usually more reliable than keyword searching for images.
• A Snippet on JQuery -Very brief (but good) intro to jQuery.

Misc. ‘Fun’ Stuff

• Game to let you run your own Ponzi scheme | Webware – CNET – Fun game where you run your own ponzi scheme or simply invest fake money in one. You make as much as you can taking money form investors or investing before the ‘feds’ shut down your ponzi scheme. the feds are the company employees.

Enjoy, and have a good weekend.
Post any good resources or links you use in the comments.

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In light of today’s massive Google outage I thoguht I’d pass along a few ways to check if google is down.

If you use and rely on Google Products such as Gmail and Docs, bookmark this page.
Apps Status Dashboard (http://www.google.com/appsstatus) If you are experiencing problems, check this link and see if your issue is isolated to your situation, or part of a larger problem.

For a more Web 2.0 approach you can follow Google on Twitter.

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Recently I wrote a review of my Dell Mini 9 Netbook. It hasn’t been long enough to change my opinion, and that is not what this post is about.

Along with my Dell Mini, I have a BlackBerry 8330. Also called the Curve. I have had a few blackberries, which were OK, but I love this one. This post is not about that either.

Recently I decided it would be fun to tether my Curve to my Dell so that I could browse the web while commuting. So I set out to try just that.

First I checked Verizon. Simple, for $15 more a month they would add tethering to my data plan with unlimited (5Gb/month) modem data. All I had to do was install their app, and enable the feature on my account. Except, the app only runs on Windows and MacOS. My netbook runs Ubuntu Linux. Hmmmm.

Confident I’d get to the bottom of it, our ops team at my job enabled the feature on my plan. Now I just had to figure this out. To the community. No one on my team had tried this, so I went to Google. “tether blackberry Ubuntu” was the first thing I tried. I had good luck. Seemed everyone uses a product called Barry. Basically it is like the RIM desktop manager where you can sync your blackberry, move data, and even tether it as a modem. So I started to install Barry.

Like anything Linux, you are now faced with a lot of libraries that depend on each other, and you have your work cut out for you. I tried that for an hour, and got nowhere. Turns out my version of Linux for the netbook is so light, it is missing a lot of communication libraries Barry needs. Everytime I installed one library, it depended on another. This wasn’t for me, so I went back to Google. This time I read more posts, and concentrated on the comments. Finally I found someone who said they gave up on Barry and found and easier alternative. Easier = practical, so I investigated.

This is how I found Berry4All, “Blackberry support for for the the rest of us”. It was way easier to setup. It’s a python script, so you only need to install python and wxpython for the GUI. I highly recommend this if you are trying to accomplish Blackberry tethering. The install instructions are very straight forward, and work as described.

You install the script, then edit the config file that matches your provider. Luckily for me replacedefaultroute seemed to be supported by my netbook. I disabled mass media mode on my blackberry, plugged it in, and connected. You have to enter your password if your blackberry has one, and you can also edit the connection speed in the config file. Other than that there was not much.

Finally there was one very important piece. Apparently Firefox does not recognize the connection, so it goes into “work offline” mode by default. This made me think my modem tether was not working for awhile, but eventually I ran a ping, and saw I was indeed connected. If using Firefox, go to File and uncheck work offline. You should be able to browse form there.

All in all it was a good learning experience, and jogged my modem knowledge from my younger days (circa 1997). Unless you are a Linux guru o rwant all the features of Barry, give Berry4All a try.

I do have a question for anyone out there who has tried this. I am playing with the connection speed setting in the config file and I have yet to really notice a difference. Does anyone know the ideal setting for the BlackBerry 8330 over Verizon’s CDMA (EVDO) network? Right now i have it set to 230400, which is double the default.

Finally, does anyone know if its possible to disable the BlackBerry battery charging via USB when connected as a modem? The tethering drains my laptop battery pretty quickly and I would love to stop it when my netbook is not plugged into a power source.

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