I’m hiring for my Web Development team in New York City. You can read the job description here.

Mainly I’m looking for a front-end (JavaScript, CSS, AJAX) developer, with experience in server-side technologies.

If you are qualified and interested (or know someone who is), apply at the llink above, or send your resume to:
jobs[at]smartmoney[dot]com

Related posts:

1. Privacy Policy Privacy Policy for effectivedevelopment.net The privacy of our visitors to...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

A few months ago I wrote a post describing the benefits of using project collaboration software. It helps team members communicate, it avoids information hording, and at any time management can check in and see a project’s progress.

At my job we use BaseCamp. It is a paid product that is extremely powerful and truly helpful. BaseCamp allows you to get projects done, and in my experience does not seem to add a layer of distracting work or complexity. Its features include a wiki, messaging system, a place to store files, and even chat. There is a tool for almost every group’s style. But for my purposes it was lacking some much needed reporting features. This is by design. The creators of BaseCamp felt that instead of developing tons of reports that never to EXACTLY what everyone needs, they would build an API. With the API, you could then in theory build reports that suit your specific needs.

We have a weekly managers meeting where we briefly run down all our open projects and their status. The responsible party can then update and if necessary elaborate briefly on specific items within their project. It is a great meeting to have because it gets all parties from various groups in one room where we quickly keep everyone abreast of the projects being worked on. People in theory can get all the same information from BaseCamp themselves, but reality is this is not always the case. Having the meeting lets us discuss small items with other groups and departments without having to have a longer time consuming meeting.

To create a report for this meeting, I decided to try the BaseCamp API. I figured a quick report that can generate a concise PDF to print out and bring to the meeting will work best. I sat down and used my regular tech community channels to see if anyone has created a BaseCamp API module for ColdFusion. Sure enough, I found baseCamp.cfc from Terrence Ryan. It was exactly what I was looking for. It was written for the older BaseCamp API, so I had to plug in some new methods, but it was a real time saver because it handled all the requests, and parsing of the responses.

I created a report that gathers the list of open projects and their details. First you login with your BaseCamp credentials. Hers is something to take note of. The API code is now logged in as you. If you are creating a report of all the projects to share, then you MUST login as a user who has access to all the projects. It needs to be your account creator, or very high level user. Alternatively, you can simply create a user called reports, and have them automatically added to ALL projects. Then hardcode your API tool to login as this user, and you will have the highest level access to print accurate reports.

Once logged in I grab all the active projects. Then I loop through the project list and make additional API calls to collect the open to-dos and incomplete milestones for each project. Then when I have all my data, I loop through all this information, and format the projects with all their remaining work and due dates.
I also created a longer report that retrieves closed items as well, and adds some more verbose details.

I also had a second need for a report. I have a group of developers that report to me. Each week we go over their assigned tasks and discuss progress. It also gives us a good chance to discuss common problems others may have come across, and share information. The first few weeks after implementing BaseCamp, I was forced to click on every project and then see what was assigned to who, or click on every person and grab their assigned to-do list. The second option was better than the first, but both were little wasteful and time consuming.

Instead, I created a report. First I retrieve all active users from BaseCamp. I display those names as a series of checkboxes. Now any user I csn scroll through the list, and grab the assignments for all the users they checked off at one time. When I loop through the user list, I grab each to-do assigned to them. I can also collect the project information and group the report together by project. So now we can simply review the list of projects and the assignments as a team. It helped keep my meeting organized and productive.

Once I retrieve all the BaseCamp info, parse it, and output it, I have an HTML and PDF view of the reports. Converting output to PDF is extremely simple in ColdFusion, and this gives me great flexibility. Now we can print out a stack of reports when needed, or in the case of my personal group’s meeting, I can simply view it on the computer.

BaseCamp and ColdFusion really paired nicely using the API. I have another report I plan to code soon, involving timesheets. I plan to be able to create timesheets based on project, person, and for various timeframes. I will keep you updated on how it goes.

Does anyone else use the BaseCamp API for their needs? Please share your ideas and experiences in the comments section. I’d love to get new ideas to make BaseCamp even more useful.

image by nataliej

Related posts:

1. Use Project Collaboration Software We use BaseCamp here for managing projects. It is extremely...
2. good development teams share information Sometimes its hard to effectively share everything among all members...
3. How to Effectively Use the Development Community This may seem obvious to most, especially to regular blog...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

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.

Related posts:

1. Web Tools Tips and Talk: #9 It’s been another 2 weeks (plus holiday weekend), so here...
2. Guest Post @ The 2.0 Life I’ve written a guest post on the blog “The 2.0...
3. What’s new? Amazon Bookstore You may have noticed the new addition to the site...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

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
A lot of web tools this week. I suggest that even if you don’t check them all out, bookmark this page for future reference.

• scrum’d – I don’t use this tool, I use BaseCamp, but i am a big fan of project collaboration tools and of agile development. Their tag line is “Simplify project management for your agile team with scrum’d.” That seems like a perfect fit. I may open a free account to see.
• KnowEm – Great site to check the availability of a username across many if not all of the social sites. Great for anyone who wants to secure or build their brand name. I use it, and for a fee, they will secure the names for you, but I’m not sure that’s necessary.
• TypeTester – Simple site to setup and compare different font settings side by side.
• CometDocs – This site will let you upload and convert docs to different formats. Convert xls to csv, or pdf to txt, etc…
• Remember The Milk – Very popular and very powerful Todo list manager. I highly recommend it for keeping organized. If you haven’t heard of it, Google it, there are plenty of reviews.
• TweetDeck – Good AIR Desktop Twitter client. Has a good interface for search, and even lets you post simultaneously to FaceBook if desired. It’s free.
• Writeboard – Web based tool to allow you to create, share and collaborate web pages with others. I don’t use it, but its from the makers of BaseCamp (37Signals) which has a writeboard feature, and that works well.
• itpints – A search engine that searches what people are talking about. In other words, type in a string and they search twitter and other blogs and social media. So it bills itself as a timely search engine because it searches what’s being conversed about now. Haven’t used it much but I think it might be useful when looking for finding a timely answer to a code problem or error message.
• backboard – I am a fan of project collaboration. If you are not a fan yourself, or reluctant to try, this is a good start. You can upload a file and share with others to get feedback. I don’t use it, but with Remember the Milk, you could piece together a bit of a project management system if you wanted. I rather use true project collaboration software, but there are other options out there.
• feedmil – Search engine that searches blogs and blog feeds. Could be useful. I added my blog, so we’ll see.
• jing – Great tool to grab screenshots or web captures, and share with others. Simple, useful and effective. Everything I love.
• AlternativeTo – Site to search for alternatives to almost any windows based app.
• Linux App Finder – Similar site, but finds Linux apps that are equivalent to Windows/MacOS apps you may know.

Web Talk/Blogs

• Why Choosing Form Over Function Kills a Site – Interesting article about using functional, standard design elements on the web. Practical advise.
• Mapping the Current Web Transition – Simplified but interesting article about the history and a bit of the future of the web. Different trends, revenue models, etc… A quick read.

Web Tips/Resources

• Learn To Code At Any Level With Google Code University – Great guest post by David Pierce of “The 2.0 Life” tech blog about Google Code University. A site with a lot of code tutorials in many different programming languages. Good resource.
• Opera Web Standards Curriculum – Another tutorial, this one about web standards. Looks like a useful reference.

Misc. ‘Fun’ Stuff

• GE SmartGrid – Really interesting marketing site for GE. Uses some funky technology to make a ‘hologram’ appear from your monitor. Fun to try.
• Google News Timeline – Fun Labs site from Google for visualizing news headlines.

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

Related posts:

1. Using the Basecamp API to Create Project Reports A few months ago I wrote a post describing the...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.