Recently in tools Category
There's value in presenting a crude first cut of a design. It keeps the customer focused on the essence of the problem, and not the incidentals ("hey! I think I might want a blue dropshadow!").
I might be late on this, but Balsamiq Mockups is the perfect tool for making rough comps for a user interface.
I haven't pulled the trigger on the pay version yet, but just playing with it is fun. If your freehand art is too crappy to show to others, and you don't want to present a perfectly polished page for initial reviews, this is a nice tool to have in your utility belt.
Does anyone know of a burn down tool suitable for generic task-tracking (that doesn't require a network admin to install)?
He's heard me extolling the virtues of the burn-down chart, and wants to give it a shot.
The only ones I know of are either tricky to install and run, like XPlanner, or are big, pricey software engineering packages.
Any suggestions?
Sometimes I get confused by vim to other application transitions. I find enter "kkkjj" in weird places.
NO MORE.
I know I'm probably late to the game, but I just found a Firefox add-on that makes lets you use vim commands, with all their key-driven goodness. Grab yourself Vimperator and be confused no more.
So you've likely seen Webslug, the neato tool that lets you battle sites against each other for fastest load time. I suggest you try it out, but only to start you thinking about performance.
When I saw my site lose to traceback.org (grrrrr), I started contemplating what I have on CodeSoftly that's bogging things down. I came up with three right away:
This got me thinking that maybe I can optimize the markup behind the site to shrink things even further.
THAT got me thinking about what the fastest site ever would look like.
A single loss got all that going. Coolio.
When I saw my site lose to traceback.org (grrrrr), I started contemplating what I have on CodeSoftly that's bogging things down. I came up with three right away:
- My ShareThis javascript
- Embedded YouTube Videos
- Images
This got me thinking that maybe I can optimize the markup behind the site to shrink things even further.
THAT got me thinking about what the fastest site ever would look like.
A single loss got all that going. Coolio.
Automated ticket emails aren't annoying spam. They can be very handy if you manage your inbox and issue tracker the right way.
Back in my consulting days, we used a different issue tracker for every project. Sometimes it was dictated by what the client already had installed, sometimes the project picked one. Sometimes bought, sometimes homegrown.
Regardless of the specific tool, people always complained about "ticket spam". After the initial notification scheme was set up, there was an endless cycle of tweaking to exclude people from the CC list in certain cases, include them in others, or remove them completely. Configuring the ticketing system became it's own separate project. Ultimately many people started ignoring the mail entirely, relying on logging in to the tool to see what was happening.
Looking back, I think the problem wasn't the notification scheme, but how people were managing their inboxes.
Ticket mail is useful. It's a way for an issue to broadcast it's life to the world of interested parties. It eliminates the need to send someone a separate email to ask how things are going or to get a status.
The problem is that you don't care about most ticket mail. Most ticket mail you could ignore forever, some you'd like to see at least the subject line, and some you need to know about immediately. The trick is to manage your inbox to accomplish this.
Set up a rule to send messages that probably don't need your direct attention (like tickets that aren't assigned directly to you) to their own folder. Check in on them from time to time to get a bird's eye view of what's going on.
Tickets that are assigned directly to you should go to your inbox, just as if a person had sent you an email about the problem.
If the issue has a high priority, configure an alert so that it really grabs your attention. You want to be notified immediately of tickets that require your attention while less important ones go on the back burner.
In the end, you want people to pay attention to ticket mail. This actually reduces the load on your inbox. You won't have any more messages titled "What's the status of that login issue", or "RE: Progress on ticket 2992399".
Back in my consulting days, we used a different issue tracker for every project. Sometimes it was dictated by what the client already had installed, sometimes the project picked one. Sometimes bought, sometimes homegrown.
Regardless of the specific tool, people always complained about "ticket spam". After the initial notification scheme was set up, there was an endless cycle of tweaking to exclude people from the CC list in certain cases, include them in others, or remove them completely. Configuring the ticketing system became it's own separate project. Ultimately many people started ignoring the mail entirely, relying on logging in to the tool to see what was happening.
Looking back, I think the problem wasn't the notification scheme, but how people were managing their inboxes.
Ticket mail is useful. It's a way for an issue to broadcast it's life to the world of interested parties. It eliminates the need to send someone a separate email to ask how things are going or to get a status.
The problem is that you don't care about most ticket mail. Most ticket mail you could ignore forever, some you'd like to see at least the subject line, and some you need to know about immediately. The trick is to manage your inbox to accomplish this.
Set up a rule to send messages that probably don't need your direct attention (like tickets that aren't assigned directly to you) to their own folder. Check in on them from time to time to get a bird's eye view of what's going on.
Tickets that are assigned directly to you should go to your inbox, just as if a person had sent you an email about the problem.
If the issue has a high priority, configure an alert so that it really grabs your attention. You want to be notified immediately of tickets that require your attention while less important ones go on the back burner.
In the end, you want people to pay attention to ticket mail. This actually reduces the load on your inbox. You won't have any more messages titled "What's the status of that login issue", or "RE: Progress on ticket 2992399".
I have a healthy respect for what the folks at Yahoo! have been up to . Projects like Pipes and YUI show they're committed to not being followers or Google wannabe's.
So I was happy to see the Yahoo! Developer Network Blog announce a sneak preview of BrowserPlus, their new-fangled platform for squeezing even more out of the humble web client.
I tinkered around with some of the demos, and was impressed with the snazz factor. The installation, however, is still probably too much for the casual web user. My dad unplugs his cable modem after every use. I seriously doubt he's going to be cool with a site calling for an installation of C++ 2005.
Paranoia aside, I'm excited that people are still trying hard to find new an better ways to get more out of the web. I'll see if I have some time this week and follow up with a more thorough review.
Yes, CSS is the greatest single advance since electricity itself. A self-respecting web developer would never admit to any deficiency in this core skill. Luckily, I am not that developer. I am sub-awesome at styling pages: box models, margins, browser quirks, quirks mode. Sheesh.
Instead, I cheat on CSS, and on the user interface in general. I find lots of places to use simple but powerful tools to make good stuff.
One of my favorites is the Web Developer's Handbook. It's a huge listing of links to CSS tips and tricks, along with other interface stuff like color palettes and rounded corner generators. It doesn't have everything, but it's got a lot. Chances are good they have a link to what I need when I encounter something I don't know how to do, which is often.
Instead, I cheat on CSS, and on the user interface in general. I find lots of places to use simple but powerful tools to make good stuff.
One of my favorites is the Web Developer's Handbook. It's a huge listing of links to CSS tips and tricks, along with other interface stuff like color palettes and rounded corner generators. It doesn't have everything, but it's got a lot. Chances are good they have a link to what I need when I encounter something I don't know how to do, which is often.
I've done a pair of sites [1,2] using SimpleViewer, a sweet Flash thingy that makes great looking galleries. It's a wonderful example of how a product can market itself. There are a lot of configurations, but the default setup is perfect for 99% of what people need in a gallery. They also have scripts for crunching thumbs from your images. After that, you just point SimpleViewer at your image directory, and you've got a slick gallery. Basically, an image folder + SimpleViewer equals sweetness.
It's way better to have a product that comes out of the box ready to go, rather than one with all kinds of neato features, but that you need to configure from the ground up.
I used the pro version for one of the sites, so I could resize the thumbs and play with positioning. Even the ActionScript config is well-documented and easy to use.
It's way better to have a product that comes out of the box ready to go, rather than one with all kinds of neato features, but that you need to configure from the ground up.
I used the pro version for one of the sites, so I could resize the thumbs and play with positioning. Even the ActionScript config is well-documented and easy to use.
