Archive for General

Don’t split into silos…

// August 26th, 2010 // No Comments » // General

I never believed that a developer (in this example) should be a
front-end/back-end ONLY guy…

There’s no such thing and in my opinion if you’re hiring in this way
you’re not doing yourself a favour and sure won’t be your smartest
decision!

Was reading the “Getting Real” ebook by 37signals…when this topic
came out so here’s a summary:

Too many companies separate design, development, copywriting and
marketing into different silos. While specialisation has it’s
advantages, it also create a situation where staffers see just their
own little world instead of the entire context…

Don’t let things get lost in translation.

Even better, hire people with multiple talents who can wear different
hats…the end result will be a more harmonious product.

I’m looking to hire a Unicorn

// August 14th, 2010 // No Comments » // General

When I was reading this, I was simply smiling for the entire post! 

Everyday since some time ago, when they ask me to hire people… I’m looking for something mythical in nature.

So why it’s a good idea to be a JavaScript developer and what it takes to be one?

  1. You need to know HTML. You need to know everything about it. Everything.
  2. You need to know CSS so well you’ll regret it. You just added a negative margin-top to a link and guess what, the users of certain browsers can no longer click them, despite the fact that you gave it a z-index of a million and you can clearly see the damn thing. 
  3. You need to know the browsers. You need to know that IE won’t let you convert this string: “<meta></meta>” into DOM elements by setting the innerHTML of a DIV. And forget about injecting it in the HEAD to turn it into a DOM element, because that thing is read only. 
  4. Did I mention JavaScript? You need to be really good at abstraction. Seriously brilliant at it. You need to be good at designing APIs for yourself as well as others. You need to know how to test your code and how to manage it.
  5. You need to be decent at design You need to be able to interview a user, a client, a stranger, an expert, whatever, and ask them the right questions to be able to devise an experience that solves their problems. Not just the ones you can imagine, but the ones they don’t know how to describe. 
  6. You need to be comfortable on the server side. You need to be able to pick up other languages relatively quickly (in, say, a month or less). Python, Ruby, Java, PHP… If you only know one programming language, it doesn’t count. If you only know JavaScript and PHP, and you balk at any task that requires you to use something other than those two (rather than, say, looking at it as an opportunity to learn something new), then you need to ask yourself what you’re doing here.
  7. And then there’s about a million other things that you need. You need to understand Git. Git is amazing.

 

http://www.clientcide.com/deep-thoughts/why-its-a-good-idea-to-be-a-javascrip…

My best ideas come to me when I’m in the shower

// August 11th, 2010 // No Comments » // General

I think most people have one top idea in their mind at any given time. That’s the idea their thoughts will drift toward when they’re allowed to drift freely. And this idea will thus tend to get all the benefit of that type of thinking, while others are starved of it. Which means it’s a disaster to let the wrong idea become the top one in your mind.

I suspect a lot of people aren’t sure what’s the top idea in their mind at any given time. I’m often mistaken about it. I tend to think it’s the idea I’d want to be the top one, rather than the one that is. But it’s easy to figure this out: just take a shower. What topic do your thoughts keep returning to? If it’s not what you want to be thinking about, you may want to change something.

…..

The shower is when I come up with the most elegant solution to a problem that I’ve been struggling with. In the shower I figure out the best algorithms, the simplest way to store data, the best way to write an email I’ve been avoiding, the best tactic to negotiate something.

 

http://sachin.posterous.com/my-best-ideas-come-to-me-when-im-in-the-showe

 

Does this mean that u need to get dirty more often, to found an excuse to wash yourself more often?

No!

Whatever is your job, once in a while (quite more often of what you could think) STOP! Take a deep breath, jump outside the box, change your point of view and let your mind flying… you’ll miss the big picture otherwise.

 

1. Leave your desk

2. Do nothing

3. Crucial insights arise when we least expect them 

http://the99percent.com/tips/browse/68/recharging

They Will Steal Your Idea. They Cannot Steal What Really Matters.

// July 30th, 2010 // No Comments » // General

I just came across this…

 
and doesn’t matter if you’re planning your own revolution, if you’re thinking of starting your own business, if you’re stuck in a business that is not yours or if you’re simply happy where you are…
 
…you gonna love this!
 
 
 
They cannot steal your long term vision
They cannot steal your domain expertise
They cannot steal your market failure driven pivots
They cannot steal your talent (at this point)
They cannot steal your analytical insights
They cannot steal your plans for generating revenue
They cannot steal your passion for great service
They cannot steal your passion to make this idea a reality
They cannot steal your luck

 

Optimizing javascript/jQuery loading time!

// July 14th, 2010 // No Comments » // General

So you created that nice website or web application and would like to go a step further in optimizing the front-end loading time? With some great free tools you can easily optimize your javascript to load 2 or 3 times faster if you are willing to trade the regular way of embedding javascript file in the head document.

 

Loading script asynchronously

One thing you need to know is that your script tag block the rendering of your page. In fact, it blocks literally anything from happening, when you are downloading and executing one script, not one css file or one image is downloaded. So imagine you got 10 script files loaded in your head with around 300k in size, well the browser need to load them one by one (well in fact 6 at a time in FF and WebKit, and as many as 18 (or more) in IE8. In older browsers it will be one at a time. ), and execute them one by one, by that time there is a good chance your page would have already render the HTML and CSS.

The first and very easy thing you can do is loading them just before the body end.

That way, at the very least, the CSS and the html will be loaded before the javascript. One thing really cool about doing this is that the jQuery DOM ready statement becomes obsolete. Your html is already ready because you parsed it before any script tag. 

 

Going one step further with labJS

With LABjs you can load your js files completely asynchronous. The difference with the previous example is that even if your scripts are at the bottom, they are still downloading one by one. With this tool, you can load your scripts simultaneously and specify an executing order. From my tests with dynatrace, the javascript load 3x more rapidly using LABjs, and my page is loading 15% faster (for about 15 js files) on IE8. 

 

More here: http://www.position-absolute.com/articles/optimizing-javascriptjquery-loading-time-a-beginners-guide/

Subversion Re-education

// July 9th, 2010 // No Comments » // General

I will be never too tired of keep reading this great article!

Question:  Do you write perfect code the first time?

If you answered “Yes”, you’re a liar and a cheat. You fail. Take the test again.

New code is buggy. It takes a while to get it working respectably. In the meantime, it can cause trauma for the other developers on the team.

Now, here’s how Subversion works:

  • When you check new code in, everybody else gets it.

Since all new code that you write has bugs, you have a choice.

  • You can check in buggy code and drive everyone else crazy, or
  • You can avoid checking it in until it’s fully debugged.

Subversion always gives you this horrible dilemma. Either the repository is full of bugs because it includes new code that was just written, or new code that was just written is not in the repository.

As Subversion users, we are so used to this dilemma that it’s hard to imagine it not existing.

Subversion team members often go days or weeks without checking anything in. In Subversion teams, newbies are terrified of checking any code in, for fear of breaking the build, or pissing off Mike, the senior developer, or whatever.

Start from here and read, read, read!!! http://hginit.com/00.html

Outlook’s broken… someone fixed!

// July 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // General

Thanks God & Brian Thies, finally a solution to the most annoying thing ever (if one day you’ll have to create email template and make it work in the bloody Outloouk 2007).

They manage to fix the stupid issue of Outlook 2007/2010 not been able to display background-image!!!

Replace your <html> tag with:

Code:
<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml">

Add this style in the head:

Code:
v\:* { behavior: url(#default#VML); display:inline-block; }

Add this code within the <td> you want the background image to display in, and modify according to the size of the image as well as the source:

Code:
<!--[if gte vml 1]> <v:image style='width:600px;height:402px;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;border:0;z-index:-1;' src="http://www.yourlocationhere.com/image.gif" /> <![endif]-->

Hello World!

// December 31st, -0001 // No Comments » // General

I’m a self-starter, willing to learn and take ownership ofmy role; able to work with limited supervision, showinitiative where relevant and multitask. I’m also a good humoured team player and I have confidence dealing withpeople at all levels of an organisation. 

Absolutely Open-Source because information should be for everyone! 

Absolutely Apple user because: ”is there something better?” 

In the last years I focus my attention on Apple Mac OS Xand Apple hardware, developing some applications in Cocoa and Objective-C, indeed these have been the base argumentsfor the study of my thesis: “Cocoa & Rendezvous forZeroConf networks”.

 As final work of my studies I developed an application thatuse Rendezvous (now called Bonjour), an amazing technologythat enables automatic discovering of computer, devices andservices on IP networks.

I continue to develop & design websites using HTML,Flash, CSS, JSP, Java, CMS like Joomla or Mambo and developapplication in many language like C, C++, Java, Jsp,Servlet, MySQL, FileMaker, 4th Dimension and sure Cocoa& Objective-C.

Absolutely I have an optimal knowledge of the mainlyoperating systems from Windows to Unix and sure Mac OS X(for me the best) & OS 9; an optimal knowledge of Macromedia Studio, Adobe suite and Office! 

In the last five, six years I spent a lot of time in liveconcerts like an audio engineer and in some recording studios for some productions; for this reason I know a lot of audio equipments and music professional software (LogicPro, Peak, ProTools etc.).  

Am willing to tear down walls, build bridges, and light fires. I have lots of energy, a bit of that “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” and I’m not afraid to start from the beginning.

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