Back 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

The tools of a Nerd

If you're a nerd like me, you definitely value your hardware. This leads me to touch on the greatest modern battle of them all Macs vs PCs. Don't worry, I'm not going to hate on anyone for their preference - I completely understand the value in appreciating something for the purposes it serves and, as most things are, the prefered useage of a particular brand of computer is, at times, situational. I used to be 100% PC and a cold hearted hater of "Apples". Now, the only PC under my roof isn't even plugged in, and I proudly power a MacBook Pro, 27" iMac, iPad, iPhone. So, when did I make the conversion? Probably about the time I started doing more work than video games... most of my gaming now is console based - and all of my development is done on my macbook pro. It makes me wonder though, 10 years from now, what will I be working on? Will it be all one preferred brand or split? Hard to say.

About Project Management

Let me start off by saying that I am not a project manager. However, I feel qualified to write on this topic because I interact with project managers on a daily basis. With anywhere from 5 to 20 active (not simultanious) projects in the pipeline at a time, there's a lot to juggle. I believe the trick to project management is simple to ask questions and then set deadlines, todos, or timelines. Without knowing the full story of a project, be it a web site, iphone app, or any other medium, it's tough to know how long it will take to complete, or how long a particular part of the project will take - let alone the effects one portion of the project may have on something else.

Often times we have clients that feel like it's their job to "manage" the project by adding features, making changes, and basically extending deadlines. These are not good practices for managing projects, OR people for that matter. It's like tasking someone with the job of putting out a fire, while the entire time you're adding more wood, gasoline, and tossing matches into the already blazing flames. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying clients shouldn't be envolved. I believe clients should be as envolved as is necessary... during the planning phase.

Perhaps I'm just jaded from working with so many clients that feel like it's their job to prolong the lifespan of a project by changing their mind 5 times and then going back to the first idea, but only after the other 4 have been fully developed. Sure, sometimes you see something and you just don't like it - but if it was what you asked for, then now it's what you've got. If you want to make changes, set a hard and fast breaking point - let's change this... not let's try this, no maybe this, or wait how about this. Keep elements of what you like, remove what you dislike, and work towards a better product - not a muddled mess of a project abomination.

Stepping down from my soap box now. Thanks for listening.

Google joins SOPA blackout

I was a little surprised, well - not surprised, but I just didn't expect exactly what I saw on google.com. What an awesome way for them to participate without leaving us all up a creek during the SOPA blackout. I definitely think it's awesome so many sites, I've heard something like 5000, are participating - but I worry it will have little impact at all. It almost seems like a joke at this point. Don't get me wrong, I truly hope the message is received. I just don't expect much. Statements like this often fall on deaf ears- not for a lack of trying, but for a lack of attention on the part of the receiving end... seriously, if they aware at all and not so blind/deaf and dumb would this really even be an issue?

I think it was Wiki founder, Jimmy Wales, that said something to the effect - "By this logic they should just ban all cars for fear that at some point they might be envolved in a bank robery". Well said Jimmy, if it was really you who said it - and I apologize for the misquote if not.

Jerry Yang Leaves Yahoo

So, one of Yahoo's (yes, the search engine, email client, entertainment, dating, etc etc etc site) co-founders, Jerry Yang, announced today that he's outta there! Apparently he's been a bit of a trouble maker for the company for some time now - funny how a "co-founder" becomes a trouble making / deal blocker - but hey I guess that's how it goes in the web biz. Noone can argue that he's had a good run, I mean, it's yahoo. Raise your hand if you ever had a yahoo email address? Yup, I know I did. Raise your hand if you can remember the last time you did a search at yahoo.com? Hmm... me neither.

Here are a few more articles in case you really want to read into this more:

How To: SilverStripe Controllers made easy

If you're like me, sometimes you just want to build out a quick action sort of link. You know, like, dropthenerd.com/action/update/$recordID, or dropthenerd.com/post/new. At first I found myself just tacking these on the Page_Controller, and spitting out links like dropthenerd.com/home/myaction/ID/OtherID... but I'm pretty specific in how I like my link structures to look - so I adopted the following approach.

_config.php:

Director::addRules(50, array(
    'action'    => 'Action_Controller',
));

mysite/code/Action_Controller.php

class Action_Controller extends Controller {
    static $allowed_actions = array('post');
   
     function index(){
       // do your worst
    }

    function post(){
      // post it
    }

}

That's about it - I know, it's pretty simplistic, but you can extend this to whatever you want. Don't forget to add, your action to your $allowed_actions if it's not the index. My favorite part about this approach is the flexibility to keep very specific actions in very specific controllers - and never having to worry about a cumbersom Page_Controller - also, when you just tuck these into Page_controller, if you're also setting up css/javascript includes, then it's loading a whole lot more than just directing you to the one controller you need. It's significantly faster. Just make sure you're not extending Page_Controller.

Back 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8