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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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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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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A few weeks ago I wrote that good design is a dying but important art. While I do believe that is true, there is also too much of a good thing. Sometimes you can get too caught up in the ‘ideal’, worrying and designing things to be perfect. Deciding what is the right blend of ideal and pragmatic is also an art, and in my opinion one of the most important tasks of a developer or manager.

I have worked on many web projects in many roles. I have been a junior developer, senior developer, and the technical architect where I was not going to do any of the actual coding. Whether developing or designing you are constantly faced with a challenge. Developing the ideal or textbook vs a real or pragmatic approach. My philosophy is to lean towards pragmatic. I believe you should be versed in the textbook methodologies as they are very useful and it is wasteful to reinvent the wheel. You need them in your arsenal to apply when necessary. In the end if we have a production quality piece of code that runs with minimal issues, and can be updated, do I really care if my developers used the ‘correct’ factory or design methodologies for the project? I do not. The correct methodology for me is the one that works and gets the job done on time. Again I want to re-iterate that does not mean I believe in sloppy, spaghetti code. I certainly do not. But I definitely value function over form.

A lot of these development styles are fads. Yes things are constantly being improved, but just because something is new, its not always better. Extreme programming leads the way to another style. Configuration and initialization files were all the rage for years, now abandoned in favor of self describing code. Developers could sit and debate the correct factory to use for a job in the same time I could code the whole project.

We are builders, we take a tool (programming language) and we create product. So
just like there are many ways to build a house, the same holds true for web development. Sure some methods are better than others, but if your team is talented enough most of the decisions they make will be good enough for the job.

You need to build the product for as long as its lifespan. Not every house is built to stand 500 years, and neither is code. Just like a builder in Montana does not build a house to be hurricane proof you should not build for problems you don’t have. You should build code in a way that it can be modified and extended should the need arise. But if you are building a niche craft site with only a handful of users and 5 products to sell, do not waste time designing to be the next Amazon.com. When you add more products you can worry if your shopping cart class has the extendability to grow, just get the code live.

My advice is if you are a senior tech lead or manager you should keep up with the new methodologies that are making a wave. But don’t chase them all, and don’t distract your development team with all of them. They have a lot of code to write and having them chase the next development fad is not in anyone’s best interest. As a manager you should know when to push your developers towards a certain technology, and where to adapt it to fit your team’s and company’s needs. You may spend 2 years designing the perfect framework for a job but that is just not practical, and in most companies it will not be tolerated. Most senior managers do not care about how it’s done, just that it was completed under budget and on time. As a tech manager your role is to find the most effective blend of ideal and practical to keep management happy and your developers skill set ready to tackle the next project.

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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

• No new ‘tools’ caught my eye this week. Anyone have anything cool they have been using?

Web Talk/Blogs

• 10 skills developers will need in the next five years – Good article about skills needed by developers to prepare for the future of web development.
• Experiences deploying a large-scale infrastructure in Amazon EC2 – Technical article about a real life deployment onto the Amazon EC2 cloud

Web Tips/Resources

• 27 Must Read Tips and Tutorials for Bloggers [Day 6 - 31DBBB] – Great set of articles for bloggers, and even for anyone who runs a website. Lots of good info and links. Part of an ongoing series.
• 15 Firefox add-ons for Web developers – This is an often repeated list but if you are not using these, or at least familiar with them you should be.
• The Online Collaboration Tools Guide – This is a list for people who need to collaborate with others when using docs, spreadsheets, etc… Google docs does a great job a this, but there are other options out there.
• 10 Cool Things We’ll Be Able To Do Once IE6 Is Dead – The developer’s dream of not having to code for IE6 quirks is getting closer…

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

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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

• CoTweet™ – How business does Twitter – Very cool business app for twitter. Allows multiple people to use and manage a twitter account. Still in Beta, grab an invite.
• HostMonk – Compare hosting packages – Dedicated hosting, VPS hosting, Shared hosting – Good site to compare prices and features if you are looking for a new hosting environment.

Web Talk/Blogs

• O’Reilly: The Web is still learning, but it can teach, too – Web 2.0 conference is going on in San Fran this week. Despite the lame name and bad economy hurting attendance, I’ve seen a few good articles coming out of here. Tim O’Reilly usually has something interesting to say, and here he talks about how Web 2.0 is not a version number but rather a chance for rebirth after the dot-com bust.
• Continuous deployment in 5 easy steps – I’m still reading this one, my verdict is not in, but I’m always interested in development and deployment techniques. There are things to be learned from all styles.

Web Tips/Resources

• 14 Blog comments design considerations – Good design article about how to display comments on your site.

That’s all I really got this week. You may recall, I did get discouraged weeding through April Fool’s content this year.
Enjoy, and have a good weekend.
Post any good resources or links you use in the comments.

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