Weekend Reader – friendfeed, blogging, technology, programming, wordpress
This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. You can follow this list of links as I post them on Friend Feed or on Twitter. Or you can get the weekly update by subscribing to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.
- [BLOGGING] Exposed – Blog-Post Confidential, nytimes.com
- From the article: ” I kept coming back to the idea that I had a right to say whatever I wanted. I don’t think I understood then that I could be right about being free to express myself but wrong about my right to make that self-expression public in a permanent way.”
- [BLOGGING] Stop asking, start filtering, a.wholelottanothing.org
- Filter out the PR companies, for they are dumb and don’t let us unsubscribe.
- [BLOGGING] Video Comments? Blow Me., expertidiot.com
- Video comments are the stupidest feature ever and this sums up my opinion of them.
- [CODE] Blogging Horror, girtby.net
- Has Coding Horror jumped the shark? Jeff responds in the comments.
- [DIGITAL CULTURE] Gilligan’s web, roughtype.com
- Counter argument to Clay Shirky’s pro-internet piece from last week.
- [FRIENDFEED] FriendFeed Friday Tips #1: Five Ways To Use the Hide Function, louisgray.com
- How to use hide as your information filter
- [FRIENDFEED] FriendFeed Friday Tips #2: Using the Bookmarklet, louisgray.com
- More ff tips from lg
- [FRIENDFEED] Keep Your Eyes On FriendFeed: It May Be The Google Of Social Networks, webomatica.com
- Why Jason things Friend Feed is one of the social apps to watch for 2008
- [FRIENDFEED] On FriendFeed, We’re All TV Channels, bhc3.wordpress.com
- Great analogy. I wouldn’t worry too much about your ‘channel’ — just be yourself and they people who find that interesting you probably share interests with.
- [INFORMATION OVERLOAD] Too Many Choices, Too Much Content, readwriteweb.com
- Dear Internet, give us a better way to filter information than “turn off the computer”.
- [LIFEHACKS] Grocery List Templates For Healthy People, smarterfitter.com, via:lifehacker.com
- Great little Excel template for those often shopped for items
- [PIRACY] Understanding Anti-Piracy Enforcement, torrentfreak.com
- An attempt to clear up some of the FUD.
- [SOCIALMEDIA] Summon Monsters? Open The Door? Heal? Or Die?, gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
- Are social media sites useful for anything other than sucking up your time?
- [SOCIALSOFTWARE] Designing for the Social Web: The Usage Lifecycle, bokardo.com
- Your users are at different stages in adopting your software, make sure you target each stage in your messages.
- [STARTUPS] How to be authentically fake, ricksegal.typepad.com
- Don’t use stock photography and claim its team shots of your employees. This is the future of visual search engines.
- [TECH] Early Adopters Are Useless, technosailor.com
- Needs more meat, but has some good links.
- [TECH] Looking back at mesh 2008, mathewingram.com
- Collected links to the Mesh 2008 conference
- [WEB2.0] How to Build a Social Web App, simon.incutio.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
- These are the most amazingly concise notes I’ve seen of social web app best practices by the guy who made delicious.
- [WORDPRESS] 13 of the best WordPress plugins, davidairey.com
- Plugins for Self-hosted
- [WORDPRESS] How To Protect Your WordPress Theme Against Upgrades, themeshaper.com
- I didn’t know that you can essentially derive a new theme off of an existing WordPress theme.
Weekend Reader – programming, lifehacks, code, blogging, funny
This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. You can follow this list of links as I post them on Friend Feed or on Twitter. Or you can get the weekly update by subscribing to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.
- [BLOGGING] 70 Simple Power Tao Secret Hacks to Writing the Perfect Productivity Article, Plus a Guide & System for Doing It, thegrowinglife.com
- The ultimate guide to writing lifehack posts. :)
- [BLOGGING] A Secret to Blogging Success – Build Upon What You Build, problogger.net
- Good advice for anything, really. Always leverage what strengths you already have.
- [BLOGGING] Thurday at Noon is the best time post and be noticed (PST), 3.rdrail.net
- When is the best time to post a story that will get noticed?
- [CODE] Git forking for fun and profit, blog.labnotes.org
- Really good explanation of distributed version control and GIT and why you should git it.
- [CODE] Invitation to try out open source code review tool, mail.python.org
- Google’s Mondrian code review tool is going open source.
- [CODE] Programmers Don’t Read Books — But You Should, codinghorror.com
- Reading one programming book a year makes you a better programmer than the average.
- [COMMUNITY] Listening to Customers is Hard, Hard, Hard, continuations.wenger.us
- Some tips on how to make the most out of customer feedback.
- [CROSSLOOP] The Crossloop Community, winextra.com
- I’ve been unhappy with the social aspect of Crossloop before (namely, takes to long to get someone to install the software), but the “helper” marketplace can be a great thing.
- [DIGG] The StatBot pits Digg vs Digg, thestatbot.com
- Digg 2007 vs Digg 2008 for keywords
- [GEEK] J.K. Rowling, Lexicon and Oz, linearpublishing.com
- Harry Potter author misuses copyright to sue related work by fan she once gave an award to.
- [GEEK] Nomophobia and The Curse of The Mobile Phone, putthingsoff.com
- What kind of mobile phone user are you?
- [IPHONE] iPhone Canada: Pay me now, or pay me later, mathewingram.com
- The iPhone is coming to Canada, but will this mean data plans open up? My guess, big no. Rogers has too much of a track record when it comes to sucking.
- [LASTFM] soundamus – new and upcoming music releases from the artists you listen to, soundamus.net
- Website that gives you an RSS feed to alert you when your favs on Last.FM release new music.
- [LIFEHACKS] The Battle for Our Minds, thegrowinglife.com
- Using our minds at work all day is making us stupid.
- [SLEEPHACKS] Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor, 37signals.com
- From the article: ” If you encounter someone who’s acting like an ass, there’s a good chance they’re suffering from sleep deprivation.”
- [SOCIALMEDIA] Greasemonkey Scripts For the Social Media Addict, readwriteweb.com
- Scripts for Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, Delicious, Facebook, and Flickr. Several of them by yours truly.
- [TECH] Early adopter angst, scobleizer.com
- Arguments why earlier adopters do matter.
- [TECH] What’s Mainstream Technology? Ask Joe Average, The Spouse, Grandma, and Dave Letterman — Webomatica – Technology and Entertainment Digest, webomatica.com
- How to figure out if tech is mainstream.
- [TWITTER] TwitterSnooze! v0.13, twittersnooze.com
- Stop following someone for a few days.
- [WORKHACKS] Up or Out: Solving the IT Turnover Crisis, thedailywtf.com
- Embrace change, and quit your job when you start to stagnate.
Delicious Links – 20 links – blogging, windows, codinghorror, amazon, shopping
This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. You can follow this list of links as I post them on Friend Feed or on Twitter. Or you can get the weekly update by subscribing to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.
- [AMAZON] Amazon Discounts: Secret Amazon Discount Finder, deallocker.com
- Cool tool for finding discounted items at Amazon. Works in Canada. Also has a coupon blog.
- [AMAZON] Top 10 Amazon Power Shopper Tools, lifehacker.com
- If you’ve ever shopped on the Internet, then you’ve used Amazon. Here are ten tips to help you use amazon from building wishlists to finding discounts/free shipping/coupons to getting refunds for items you’ve bought.
- [BLOGGER] Jerry Springer For Programmers: Only A Matter Of Time, gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
- From the article: ” It’s awesome to get a free burrito every 11,429 times somebody decides to read your blog. But that awesomeness doesn’t translate well to full-time careers.”
- [BLOGGING] More Bloggers Raising Money. Here Come The Politics. And Here Comes My Rant., techcrunch.com
- Arrlington on the business of blogging. Very honest.
- [BLOGGING] The Art Of Heresy (Or How To Thrive Under The Benevolent Rulership Of King Gabe Rivera), chartreuse.wordpress.com
- From the article: ” If your audience can view you anytime, anywhere then you have to be good all the time.”
- [CODE] Forced To Write English Syntax Code – Simplicity or Burden?, codesqueeze.com
- How being forced to write code in English makes things simpler for non-North Americans. You almost have to appreciate the strength of his opinion about the French…
- [CODE] The Programming Style that Saved my Marriage, ourdoings.com
- Programmers get grumpy when interrupted. Functional programming is a style that handles interruptions better than procedural programming
- [COPYRIGHT] Free your mind, stevenpoole.net, via:codinghorror.com
- Copyright should be renamed to RightToEat.
- [FACEBOOK] Facebook knows who you are, and that’s worth more than you think, paulbuchheit.blogspot.com
- If you don’t think Facebook is going to be a profitable company, then you’re underestimating the value of identity.
- [FLICKR] The definitive collection of Flickr tools, plugins and API applications, flickrbits.com
- Huge list of tools for working with Flickr
- [GAMERS] Grand Theft Auto IV Activity Book For Kids, the-minusworld.com
- And they thought Mass Effect was bad…
- [GEEK] stackoverflow, stackoverflow.com
- New podcast by Jeff “Coding Horror” Atwood and Joel Spolsky FTW
- [PHP] Rails for PHP Developers, railsforphp.com
- Great idea – it looks like the PHP reference, but it shows you how to do the same task in Ruby.
- [SCREENSCRAPING] Automating Firefox for Web Application Integration, urbanhonking.com
- Controlling Firefox using Ruby with the JSSH extension for screen scraping Javascript.
- [TWITTER] Shout about the best of Houston at PlaceShout, blogs.chron.com
- Interesting, like Twitter but for location. A bit rough around the edges, needs to support non-US zip codes.
- [WEB2.0] The noise in Web 2.0 is mainly a Tech Elite problem, vanelsas.wordpress.com
- Real people don’t suffer from information overload because they can walk away from the computer.
- [WEBDEV] Web pages have ‘come alive and started breeding’, telegraph.co.uk, via:gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
- Interesting idea: the design of the web page evolves based on how people interact with it.
- [WINDOWS] Tray It, teamcti.com
- Great little free windows application that lets you minimize ANY software in the system tray.
- [WINDOWS] Upgrading from Vista to Windows XP: A Review, dotnet.org.za
- Worth reading :)
- [ZUNE] 5 reasons my Zune is dead to me, crave.cnet.com, via:raganwald.com
- Remember the Zune? Me neither.
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Delicious Links – 20 links – friendfeed, lifehacks, blogging, programming, wordpress
This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together for my blog on Internet Duct Tape.
Subscribe to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.
- [BLOGGING] The Conversation Has Left the Blogosphere, readwriteweb.com, via:friendfeed.com
- Examples for bloggers on where to find and how to manage all the conversations that are happening OUTSIDE of your blog about your blog content.
- [CODE] Google Code University, code.google.com, via:lazycoder.com
- Google is putting together tutorials about programming subjects for university level. Good refreshers.
- [DIGG] 12 Must-Have Tools for Active Digg Users, doshdosh.com
- This is a *KILLER* list. The extensions I’ve already tried on the list are must haves, and the rest look even better.
- [EMAIL] Do Not Reply, donotreply.com, via:codinghorror.com
- Many companies use @donotreply.com for their automatic emails. What they don’t realize is that donotreply.com is a real web address and he’s posting the contents of the emails! IT security at its worst.
- [FRIENDFEED] FriendFeed is for Lurkers too, oracleappslab.com
- How FriendFeed is becoming a user generated content repository for the parts of the web that people are actively creating.
- [FRIENDFEED] Friendfeed Grid, blogoscoped.com, via:louisgray.com
- A random look at the people on Friend Feed.
- [FRIENDFEED] Hack to Get an RSS Feed from FriendFeed Search Results, lifestreamblog.com, via:techcrunch.com
- FriendFeed is a lifestreaming aggregator. Here’s some tips for getting RSS feeds from it.
- [FRIENDFEED] How FriendFeed Became Internet Famous, runningwithfoxes.com, via:friendfeed.com
- An analysis about how FF became the “IT” webapp of 2008.
- [INTERNET] George Clooney, esquire.com
- Esquire sits down with Clooney and goes through a Google search of his life. Interesting from the geeky POV of all the information that is out there, and how accurate is it, really?
- [JAVASCRIPT] EJS – JavaScript Templates, embeddedjs.com, via:gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
- I might be able to use this with rss2html to work with Yahoo Pipes formatted data
- [LIFEHACKS] 5 Tools to Track How Much Time you Waste while Online, makeuseof.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
- I recommend RescueTime out of the list they have. The best suggestion might be “unplug your internet connection when you’re trying to get work done”
- [LIFEHACKS] The Top 100 Productivity and Lifehack Blogs, collegedegree.com, via:readwriteweb.com
- Huge list of lifehack blogs organized by topic.
- [LIFEHACKS] Wisdom from the way-out edge, theage.com.au, via:chipsquips.com
- From the article: ” Reward risk, risk is good. Trust crazy people. Believe in yourself, everyone else is faking it. Find the real problem to solve.”
- [MARKETING] Nomadic Growth: Moving to Greener Pastures, skelliewag.org
- In order to keep expanding your audience you have to keep reaching out to new plateaus.
- [SOCIALSOFTWARE] Relationships are complicated, factoryjoe.com
- What works better: asking users to explicitly list their relationship with people, or viewing how they interact with people and deducing the relationships from there?
- [STARTUPS] How To Use Perks and Rewards in Startups to Get The Best Talent, instigatorblog.com
- Anywhere could hire me away if they offered me the best-of-breed source control, chat, backup and allowed me to attend conferences.
- [TWITTER] favotter, favotter.matope.com
- It’s like twitter.com/popular — a list of tweets that have been favorited a lot. Pretty entertaining.
- [WEBDESIGN] 101 Five-Minute Fixes to Incrementally Improve Your Web Site, insidecrm.com
- If you run a website then there’s some gems in here you haven’t thought of in a while. In depth advice on each item is available.
- [WORDPRESS] 10 Things You Need to Know About WordPress 2.5, technosailor.com, via:andybeard.eu
- I can’t wait until we get some of this stuff on WordPress.com
- [WORDPRESS] More WordPress Theme Viewer Screenshots, winextra.com
- Preview screenshots of the new WordPress theme viewer
- Powered by Delicious Links Pro
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Delicious Links – 20 links – tools, gamers, workhacks, code, links
This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together for my blog on Internet Duct Tape.
Subscribe to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.
- [BITTORRENT] Dutch University Uses BitTorrent to Update Workstations, torrentfreak.com, via:l33t.reddit.com
- Pretty cool. Then when from 20 servers and 4 days to update clients to 2 servers and 4 hours to update clients.
- [BLOGGING] 17 Tips For Getting Bloggers To Write About You, informationweek.com, via:doshdosh.com
- This should be titled “WELCOME TO THE INTERNETS”. Mandatory reading for understanding linking. It gets bonus points because the article doesn’t follow its own rules.
- [CODE] insomnia and productivity, sob.apotheon.org
- hack mode
- [FRIENDFEED] Elite Bloggers Joining FriendFeed In Droves, louisgray.com
- List of tech bloggers who are on friendfeed
- [GAMERS] Animal Crossing Is Tragic, animalcrossingtragedy.ytmnd.com
- Sad little tale of a gamer who shared Animal Crossing with his/her dying mother.
- [GAMERS] The Co-op Gaming Bill of Rights, ozymandias.com
- Co-op gaming can be a ghetto on a lot of platforms. I’d love for more games to adopt these.
- [GAMERS] Warlords Online, warlords-online.com, via:lazycoder.com
- Online MPORG based on Puzzle Quest
- [LINKS] Ten Sites for Finding Wonderful Things, readwriteweb.com, via:twitter.com
- Some suggestions for ‘best of the weird web’
- [OPENID] Zero Sign On – 1 better or Infinitely better than Single Sign On?, drnicwilliams.com
- How to use OpenID certificates so that you NEVER have to log in to any site that supports OpenID.
- [TECH] The real reason I left my career in tech, backinskinnyjeans.com
- What women have to deal with being in the hightech workplace
- [TWITTER] 17 Ways to Visualize the Twitter Universe, flowingdata.com
- Some cool examples of visualizing data
- [TWITTER] Need help managing your Twitter Karma?, dossy.org, via:experiencecurve.com
- Something I’ve been complaining about. A better Twitter followers manager. Needs more info about the followees though.
- [WEBDESIGN] 20 Websites That Made Me A Better Web Developer, sixrevisions.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
- List of webdesign related websites. Most are familiar.
- [WEBDESIGN] Administrative Debris, tomayko.com
- Content is everything… then why do we display so much stuff that isn’t content?
- [WEBDESIGN] IE App Compat VHD, microsoft.com
- Virtual machine images of different versions of Internet Explorer so that you can test a website on multiple versions of the same web browser.
- [WEBHACKS] Down for everyone or just me?, downforeveryoneorjustme.com
- Find out if a website is unreachable for the entire net or just your machine
- [WEBSAVVY] the Awesome Highlighter – be nice, highlight, awesomehighlighter.com
- note to my parents: please use this all the time so I have some clue why you sent me that web page in an email.
- [WORKHACKS] 10 Ways to Improve Your Programming Productivity, matthewpaulmoore.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
- Good advice, even if none of is groundbreaking.
- [WORKHACKS] 9 Simple Strategies to Getting Things Done At Work, lyved.com
- Tricks for being more productive in the office
- Powered by Delicious Links Pro
This Week at Internet Duct Tape
Internet Duct Tape is my blog where I talk about software, technology, blogging and other geeky subjects.
This Week at Internet Duct Tape
Internet Duct Tape is my blog where I talk about software, technology, blogging and other geeky subjects.
- [DELICIOUS/STUMBLEUPON] Delicious Stumbles v2.0
StumbleUpon upgraded their interface last nice so that means you get a new version of Delicious Stumbles.
This Week at Internet Duct Tape
Internet Duct Tape is my blog where I talk about software, technology, blogging and other geeky subjects.
- Installing ruby-prof as a plugin on Rails 1.2
- rails/mysql: Load your production database on to your development server
- How not to replace WEBrick with Thin
Tags: blogging, code, design, gamers, links, programming, tools, twitter, workhacks
Delicious Links – 17 links – programming, stumbleupon, blogging, windows, copyright
This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together for my blog on Internet Duct Tape.
Subscribe to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.
- [BLOGGING] Bloggers Beware: Nigerian Fraud Has Evolved Into Display and Text Link Ad Solicitations, deepjiveinterests.com
- Those people who want to pay you money might be scamming you to GET your money.
- [BLOGGING] Death Threats, Intimidation, and Blogging, codinghorror.com
- When good blogs become silenced we all lose.
- [BOOKS] Neil Gaiman’s Journal: The nature of free, journal.neilgaiman.com
- From the article: ” the problem isn’t that books are given away or that people read books they haven’t paid for. The problem is that the majority of people don’t read for pleasure.”
- [CODE] Are .NET Developers the American Tourists of the Software Industry?, caffeinatedcoder.com, via:raganwald.com
- From the article: ” The comments that drove this home was the one said my opinion should be discounted because I break the programming languages world into –languages by Microsoft– and –other languages–.”
- [CODE] What Does It Take To Become A Grandmaster Developer?, moserware.com
- From the article: ” The way to the top is filled with things getting harder. There are no shortcuts. Sorry.”
- [CREEPY] CUBOCC, cubo.cc, via:news.ycombinator.com
- The web is a weird, weird place.
- [DELICIOUS] Welcome to del.ishli.st!, del.ishli.st, via:lifehacker.com
- Use delicious bookmarks to build a wishlist.
- [FREELANCING] 1000 True Fans, kk.org, via:codinghorror.com
- Great take on being successful. 1000 people spending $100 on you a year is a $100,000 salary. Second amazing article I’ve seen from this blog, gonna have to subscribe.
- [LIFEHACKS] Messy Productivity: Why Perfection Will Slow You Down, anywired.com
- Getting things done means letting go of being perfect
- [PERL] Strawberry Perl, strawberryperl.com
- Perl 5.10.0 for Windows
- [RUBY] Monkey Patching Ruby, just like in The Matrix – Whoa!, blog.semanticart.com, via:ruby.reddit.com
- Metaprogramming with Keanu Reeves
- [SOCIALMEDIA] IM Etiquette: 8 Tips from Top Social Media Users, reemabeidoh.com, via:doshdosh.com
- How to promote your website without making an ass of yourself.
- [SOCIALSOFTWARE] The Second Order Network Effect, avc.blogs.com
- One Facebook app developer is building its own network of Facebook apps and click-sharing WITHIN Facebook. Looks like how blog networks happened, but within Facebook.
- [STARTUPS] Startups Must Hire The Right People And Watch Every Penny. Or Fail., techcrunch.com
- Some good advice on what is needed for startup success.
- [STUMBLEUPON] My StumbleUpon Favorites, linklusion.com, via:techipedia.com
- Tool for taking your bookmarks out of StumbleUpon and making them into bookmarks for your local computer.
- [STUMBLEUPON] StumbleUpon Alerter, blog.adamant.com.au, via:doshdosh.com
- Little app for your system tray that monitors your “discoveries” to see how popular they get.
- Powered by Delicious Links Pro
This Week at Internet Duct Tape
Internet Duct Tape is my blog where I talk about software, technology, blogging and other geeky subjects.
- Searching for the Perfect Inline Code Documentation Tool
- I have an intense love automatic documentation generation. Nothing makes me more tickled pink than seeing code and documentation living side by side in perfect harmony. I hate seeing documentation put on the company intranet only to diverge from the code it’s supposed to explain as the days go…
- Mashing Your MP3 Music Collection with Last.FM
- One geek itch I’ve been wanting to scratch is to be able to listen to my MP3 collection using the recommendations from Last.FM. I’ve you’ve never heard of Last.FM, it is a music service that lets you listen music as a radio station over the internet. I’ve been using it for a year and…
- Delicious Links – 19 links – tips, google, music, code, blogging
This Week at IDT Labs
IDT Labs is where I announce new software tools I’m working on.
- [TUMBLR] Regular Post Digest of the Last X Days
- Build a list of the last X regular posts from your Tumblr account in the past Y days. Useful for doing weekly digest posts with Yahoo Pipe Cleaner . Based off of a pipe by romzombie . IDT Labs is a blog for news announcements about software, tools or blog themes created by InternetDuctTape.com .…
- [TUMBLR] Delete your Tumblr with TumblrCleanr 0.0.1
- There’s one Tumblr feature that’s missing: how do you delete your Tumblr? At some point you might want to destroy all traces of your tumblr (privacy concerns, or you want to use it for something else) and there isn’t an option to do that — other than click the delete button on every…
Tags: blogging, programming, stumbleupon
Delicious Links – 13 links – programming, lifehacks, productivity, geek, games
This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together for my blog on Internet Duct Tape.
Subscribe to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.
- [BLOGGING] 10 Reasons Why Bloggers Hate Blogging, geeksaresexy.net, via:chipsquips.com
- because it’s a beast that never stops being hungry.
- [BLOGGING] Comparing Six Ways to Identify Top Blogs in Any Niche, readwriteweb.com, via:twitter.com
- …and they all suck. How do you find good resources around a niche?
- [BLOGGING] Scaling Yourself, chrisbrogan.com, via:problogger.net
- Some good thoughts on time management when you’re working for yourself / by yourself
- [EMAIL] How to Stop Checking Email on the Evenings and Weekends, lifehacker.com
- tips for email management
- [GAMERS] Criterion Collection: Xbox 360 Games You MUST Own, thegamereviews.com, via:digg.com
- List of the best Xbox 360 games.
- [GEEK] George Lucas Will Sell Your Dreams For Candy, io9.com
- Star Wars merchandising that never was. High quality artwork.
- [MOVIES] 2008 Movie Sequel Guide, geeksofdoom.com, via:digg.com
- A geek’s guide to the sequels.
- [MUSIC] Sources For Free & Legal Music, seanpaune.com
- List of free sites with legal music downloads
- [REPUTATION] What happened to me and the new girl (or: –The girl who cried Webmaster–), joeydevilla.com, via:weblog.raganwald.com
- Ugh. Reminder that there are crazy people out there.
- [RUBY] Do not learn Ruby, webmat.wordpress.com, via:ruby.reddit.com
- The downside of embracing Ruby
- [WEBDESIGN] Internet ’96, msu.edu, via:digg.com
- A look at major corporate websites in 1996.
- [WORKHACKS] Five steps to enlightened expectations, blogs.techrepublic.com.com, via:weblog.raganwald.com
- How to manage expectations
- Powered by Delicious Links Pro
This Week at Internet Duct Tape
Internet Duct Tape is my blog where I talk about software, technology, blogging and other geeky subjects.
This Week at IDT Labs
IDT Labs is where I announce new software I’m working on.
- [GREASEMONKEY] The Pirate Bay + Rotten Tomatoes = Crazy Delicious
This script will create links to Rotten Tomatoes while browsing the Pirate Bay.
Tags: lifehacks, productivity, programming
Delicious Links – 20 links – geek, twitter, sleephacks, design, programming
This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together for my blog on Internet Duct Tape.
Subscribe to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.
- [CODE] The Years of Experience Myth, codinghorror.com
- It’s more important to hire smart people who get things done than masters of the domain
- [COMMUNITY] 4 Reasons You Should Encourage, Foster and Harness Dissent on Your Blog, problogger.net
- Reasons against censoring dissenters
- [COPYRIGHT] The Pirates Can’t Be Stopped, portfolio.com, via:techcrunch.com
- An interview with the kid who hacked Media Defender copyright police.
- [GEEK] 10 Breeds of PC User Identified and Explained, anywired.com
- This was great. I’m a bit of 5, 7, and 9 with maybe a dash of 10.
- [GEEK] George Lucas Will Sell Your Dreams For Candy, io9.com
- Star Wars merchandising that never was. High quality artwork.
- [GOOGLE] How 404 pages work in Google Toolbar Beta 5, mattcutts.com
- The new Google Toolbar won’t display your custom 404 page if it’s less than 512 bytes long.
- [HIRING] The Naive Approach to Hiring People, weblog.raganwald.com
- Really excellent read by raganwald on why interviewing candidates is a Bayesian filtering problem instead of a if-then problem.
- [JAVASCRIPT] XPath Overnight, ejohn.org, via:lazycoder.com
- XPath is taking over DOM traversal in javascript libraries.
- [LIFEHACKS] I Was Programmed by Tetris to be a Better Person, io9.com
- The 7 habits of highly effective form tetris players
- [MOVIES] Netflix on the PS3 or Xbox 360 Could Be a Killer App, parislemon.com
- Much agreement that this is too good to be true. If this happened it would kill the movie industry overnight.
- [PIPES] Our one year anniversary, blog.pipes.yahoo.com
- Yahoo Pipes is one year old. They have a list of tutorials
- [PIRACY] Internet users could be banned over illegal downloads, technology.timesonline.co.uk, via:l33t.reddit.com
- The UK is setting up a “three strikes” rule where pirates could be banned from having internet access.
- [SLEEPHACKS] Ask YC : How many hours do you sleep in average ?, news.ycombinator.com
- Good discussion about sleeping
- [SLEEPHACKS] Relax Like A Pro: 5 Steps to Hacking Your Sleep, fourhourworkweek.com
- Some things I haven’t heard before
- [SOCIALSOFTWARE] The Complexity of the Web 2.0 World, hq.andrewshuttleworth.com, via:l33t.reddit.com
- A crazy look at what ubiquitous computing really means.
- [TWITTER] Dear LazyWeb, dearlazy.com, via:blog.twitter.com
- A questions and answers interface using Twitter as the backbone
- [TWITTER] Twitter-proxy: Any Interest?, assetbar.wordpress.com, via:l33t.reddit.com
- A look at why Twitter has such scaling issues.
- [URLS] I CAN HAZ dot COM, icanhaz.com, via:lifehacker.com
- new url shortner
- [WEBDESIGN] 10 Principles Of Effective Web Design, smashingmagazine.com
- Well researched look at what makes for effective web design
- [WEBDESIGN] Interface Screencast #1: The WordPress Dashboard, binarybonsai.com, via:wank.wordpress.com
- Screencast of the (old) WordPress dashboard, and why it sucks. A little on the long side at 30min
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This Week at Internet Duct Tape
Internet Duct Tape is my blog where I talk about software, technology, blogging and other geeky subjects.
- Digest for December 2007 and January 2008
- Book Review: Halting State by Charles Stross
- If you’re a programmer/gamer geek and looking for a gripping book that you won’t be able to put down then look no further than Halting State.
- The Canary in the Coal Mine of Open Source Code Re-use
- Don’t reinvent the wheel. It’s one of those things that’s much easier to say then it is to do, particularly when it comes to programming. Programmers suffer from a horrible mental disease called Not Invented Here Syndrome (it’s in the DSM — check if you don’t believe me). We…
- Book Review: Everyware by Adam Greenfield
- Adam Greenfield is a designer and one of the guys behind Boxes and Arrows. He’s also the guy who coined the term “moblogging” for blogging from your cellphone. He’s got a knack for inventing terms because “everyware” is such a simpler name than unicomp or “ubiquitous…
- Delicious Links – 20 links – programming, community, development, twitter, lisp
- programming, community, development, twitter, lisp
This Week at IDT Labs
IDT Labs is where I announce new software I’m working on.
- [GREASEMONKEY] The Pirate Bay + Rotten Tomatoes = Crazy Delicious
This script will create links to Rotten Tomatoes while browsing the Pirate Bay.
Tags: career, design, filesharing, geek, lifehacks, piracy, programming, sleephacks, twitter, web2.0
Delicious Links – 20 links – programming, community, development, twitter, lisp
This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together for my blog on Internet Duct Tape.
Subscribe to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.
- [BLOGGING] Absolute Guide to Losing Readers, raproject.com
- Things not to do
- [CODE] David Heinemeier Hansson step aside, Paul Graham is next to be voted off the island, weblog.raganwald.com
- The backlash against the new Arc LISP dialect
- [CODE] Let The System Design Itself, gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
- From the article: ” 1) runs all the tests, 2) contains no duplication, 3) expresses every idea you want to express, 4) minimal number of classes and methods. When you work with these rules, you pay attention only to micro-design matters.”
- [CODE] The Programmer’s Food Pyramid, osteele.com, via:labnotes.org
- Good point. Instead of writing about code, we should be reading code or writing code.
- [CODE] can lisp do what perl does easily?, groups.google.no, via:programming.reddit.com
- Ouch. Stinging roast of Perl.
- [COPYRIGHT] Better Than Free, kk.org, via:blogs.chron.com
- From the article: ” The internet is a copy machine.”
- [DESIGN] 8 Web Design Mistakes That Developers Make, wakeuplater.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
- What programmers get wrong when they try their hand at web design. I found myself nodding my head.
- [DESIGN] DOs and DON’Ts – Colour, inspirationbit.com
- advice on choosing colours
- [GAMERS] The Mass Effect, nytimes.com
- From the article: ” –Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it’s like pornography,– she added. –But it’s not like pornography. I’ve seen episodes of ‘Lost’ that are more sexually explicit.–“
- [GEEK] 10 Breeds of PC User Identified and Explained, anywired.com
- This was great. I’m a bit of 5, 7, and 9 with maybe a dash of 10.
- [LIFEHACKS] Applying Unix Philosophy to Personal Productivity, lifehacker.com
- A decent read if only because it’s a good refresher on unix philosophy
- [PHOTOS] 5 Image Resizing Tools to Die For, friedbeef.com
- Includes the resizer tool for GIMP/web that lets you resize only the non-important parts of images. Coolest resizer ever.
- [RSS] Rating Burner, ratingburner.com, via:louisgray.com
- What are the most popular blogs?
- [RUBY] reddit for ruby hackers, reddit.com
- Reddit has a spot just for ruby posts
- [SOCIALSOFTWARE] Nofollow Killed Google Social Graph API 3 Years Ago, andybeard.eu
- A look at the Google social tools
- [SOFTWARE] Best Software Tools for the Family Tech Support Guy, killertechtips.com
- Useful tools for debugging Windows PCs
- [TWITTER] Power Twitter by 30 Boxes, 30boxes.com, via:hmmcast.com
- Firefox extension for adding new features to Twitter
- [TWITTER] When Seth Godin isn’t Seth Godin, problogger.net
- Interesting look at branding on social media sites. Someone can pretend to be you with negative consequences
- [WEBDEV] Web Developer’s Field Guide – Your Ultimate Resource, webdevelopersfieldguide.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
- Ok. That’s a ridiculous list of links. Everything you need to know if you’re doing anything on the web.
- [WORKHACKS] Firing on All Cylinders: Productivity Tips for the Knowledge Worker, baron.vc
- It’s isn’t about getting more done, it’s about distancing yourself from the work so that when it’s time to work you are prepared for it
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This Week at Internet Duct Tape
Internet Duct Tape is my blog where I talk about software, technology, blogging and other geeky subjects.
- V-Day Alert
- This is your friendly neighbourhood geek reminder that Valentine’s Day is only a week away and that now is the time to make restaurant reservations and/or go gift shopping.
- How to Install the Exception Notifier Plugin with Ruby on Rails
- Exception Notifier is a Rails plugin that will email you when an error occurs in your Rails application with full debugging information. It’s as useful as you can imagine, and running it is the difference between happy users and grumpy users who don’t use your web app because every second…
- Delicious Links – 20 links – blogging, programming, ruby, photography, copyright
- blogging, copyright, lifehacks, photography, productivity, programming, ruby, rubyonrails
Tags: community, development, lisp, programming, software, twitter, webdesign
Delicious Links – 20 links – blogging, programming, ruby, photography, copyright
This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together for my blog on Internet Duct Tape.
Subscribe to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.
- [BLOGGING] Feel Free to Steal My Content, zenhabits.net
- ZenHabits goes open source
- [BLOGGING] My next book: the story of blogs, wordyard.com
- Scott Rosenberg’s next book is the history of blogs
- [BLOGGING] What Are Your Anti-Memes?, smoothspan.wordpress.com
- Some thoughts on the type of articles one of my fav tech bloggers usually skips over.
- [CODE] Let The System Design Itself, gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
- From the article: ” 1) runs all the tests, 2) contains no duplication, 3) expresses every idea you want to express, 4) minimal number of classes and methods. When you work with these rules, you pay attention only to micro-design matters.”
- [CODE] Rich Programmer Food, steve-yegge.blogspot.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
- Why programmers need to know how to write a compiler. I really enjoyed reading this one.
- [CODE] Valued Lessons: Garlic Programmers for Silver Code?, valuedlessons.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
- How can you measure programmer productivity when the biggest factor is the code base they are working on?
- [COMMENTS] Reading Apptitude Questions rather than Captcha, lemurcatta.org
- Interesting idea: prove that the reader read the article before posting a comment.
- [GAMERS] 18 Undiscovered Websites Every Gamer Should Know, dailybits.com
- Some cool stuff in there, like the indie game awards
- [LIFEHACKS] Let Me Save You $40: Here’s How to Be Happy, enfranchisedmind.com, via:codinghorror.com
- 7 things you can change about your outlook to life that will greatly improve your enjoyment of it.
- [LIFEHACKS] New RescueTime Goals and Alerts Actually Helps Rescue your Time, blog.rescuetime.com
- RescueTime now has goal tracking so you can limit yourself to checking feeds for only three hours a week, for example.
- [LIFEHACKS] The Five Browser Shortcuts Everyone Should Know, codinghorror.com
- Have a better experience surfing the web with these shortcuts. There were a few I didn’t know.we
- [MEDIA] What My Kids Tell Me About The Future of Media, avc.blogs.com
- A look at how children consume mass media
- [PHOTOS] A Savvy Approach to Copyright Messaging, powazek.com
- Cool trick to add copyright notices to your photos without having to worry about people seeing them unless they’re trying to copy them.
- [PHOTOS] Namexif (Rename EXIF Photos), digicamsoft.com, via:noheat.com
- Rename your photos by date. Uses the info from your camera rather than the file date.
- [RAILS] 10 Alternative Ruby Web Frameworks, rbazinet.wordpress.com, via:lazycoder.com
- [RAILS] How to ruin a Rails project, dataconstellation.com, via:labnotes.org
- How many of these have you done?
- [RAILS] Ruby on Rails Handbook, railshandbook.com, via:virtualhosting.com
- Tons of cheatsheets and tutorials
- [RUBY] TreeTop, treetop.rubyforge.org, via:blog.zenspider.com
- ruby extension to make it easy to create new expression grammars
- [WORDPRESS] WordPress Plugin: Socialize Me!, blahblahtech.com, via:dailyblogtips.com
- When people come to your blog via a social bookmarking site, it will welcome them and prompt them to add you as a friend.
- [WRITING] That to This, randsinrepose.com
- 10 tips Rands learned that made him a better writer
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This Week at Internet Duct Tape
Internet Duct Tape is my blog where I talk about software, technology, blogging and other geeky subjects.
- Year in Review – Most Popular Posts of 2007
- Year in Review
- My Favorite Albums of 2007
- New Year’s Resolutions for 2008: release my “Best of” lists in the beginning of January, not at the end of January.
- Yahoo Pipe: Sub-Reddit Feed Filter
- Popular social bookmarking site Reddit has announced a great new feature: users can create their own sub-reddit. What does this mean in English? Users and communities can create their own social bookmarking sites around specific topics: blogging, wordpress, specific programming languages, etc but…
- How to Play Downloaded Videos on Your iPod, Xbox 360, or DVD Player
- I’ve been slumming through the support forums at answers.yahoo.com lately and this is a question I see come up often: how do I download a video and put it on my electronic device? More and more consumer electronics devices that can play videos, but that means we have to learn more about the big,…
- Delicious Links – 20 links – writing, programming, javascript, jquery, testing
- Tags: javascript, jquery, programming, writing
This Week at IDT Labs
IDT Labs is where I announce new software I’m working on.
- [PIPES] Filtered Technorati Recent Mentions
My Filtered Technorati Recent Mentions pipe works again. It can give you an RSS feed of the latest blogs that links to your blog. - [GREASEMONKEY] Userscripts.org Popular Scripts v0.2
Updated my script for identifying the most popular Greasemonkey scripts on userscripts.org
Tags: blogging, copyright, lifehacks, photography, productivity, programming, ruby, rubyonrails
Delicious Links – 20 links – writing, programming, javascript, jquery, testing
This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together for my blog on Internet Duct Tape.
Subscribe to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.
- [CODE] Research Supports The Effectiveness of TDD, haacked.com
- IEEE paper on why Test Driven Development works
- [CODE] Valued Lessons: Garlic Programmers for Silver Code?, valuedlessons.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
- How can you measure programmer productivity when the biggest factor is the code base they are working on?
- [COMICS] Build your own Comics and cartoons, chron.com
- You can put together a single page with most syndicated comics on it
- [COPYRIGHT] Bad COPP No Netflix, davisfreeberg.com, via:dailybits.com
- DRM causes hardware probs, that could make you lose all your legitimate digital downloads.
- [DESIGN] Paper Prototyping, snyderconsulting.net
- hallway usability testing before you code
- [DESIGN] Web 2.0 how-to design style guide, webdesignfromscratch.com
- Yes, we’re all tired of “web2.0” designs — but this guide makes some good points and is full of examples.
- [GAMERS] Audiosurf: Ride Your Music, audio-surf.com
- Independent video game with strong ties to music/mp3s
- [GAMERS] The Weighted Companion PC – Final shots, bit-tech.net
- I’d love to have this PC mod… for Portal fans.
- [GREASEMONKEY] Greasespot: Greasemonkey Security Update, greasespot.net
- New version of Greasemonkey is out. Please update.
- [GROUP WRITING] Blog Writing Project: Tutorials, dailyblogtips.com
- Write a tutorial as part of Daily Blog Tips group writing project
- [JAVASCRIPT] The jSkinny on jQuery, errtheblog.com
- Examples of using jQuery instead of prototype or rjs files
- [JAVASCRIPT] jQuery plugin: Tablesorter 2.0, tablesorter.com
- Client-side library for sorting tables.
- [MYSPACE] January 30th is International Delete Your Myspace Account Day, bloggasm.com
- It’s a good idea to delete your old social networking accounts that you don’t use anymore.
- [PHOTOS] everystockphoto – searching free photos, everystockphoto.com, via:scottkuperus
- search engine for copyfree photos
- [REDDIT] what’s new on reddit: new features, blog.reddit.com
- Users will have the ability to create their own public/private reddits.
- [RSS] Dosh Dosh Reaches 10,000 Subscribers (and the Reason Why People Subscribe to a Blog), doshdosh.com
- How to get an audience
- [RUBY] Rubular: a Ruby regular expression editor, rubular.com
- Web-based regular expression tester
- [SOFTWARE] Ned Batchelder: Software I use, nedbatchelder.com
- List of Windows software… some stuff worth trying in there. I recognize a lot of it from lifehacker.com
- [WRITING] Effective Writing – George Orwell, pickthebrain.com
- 5 tips from one of the masters
- [WRITING] Programming Book Profits, ejohn.org
- A look at how much income writing a book can generate
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This Week at Internet Duct Tape
Internet Duct Tape is my blog where I talk about software, technology, blogging and other geeky subjects.
- CoinStar — Is It Worth It To Convert Your Spare Change?
- When I was a kid rolling up the spare change to take in the bank, I always wondered why there wasn’t a machine that would do it for you in bulk. Sorting coins mechanically isn’t rocket science; all you need is holes of different sizes. Now we’re in the 21st centuary. We might not have…
- Stupid iTunes Tricks – How to Burn a MP3 CD with Folders
- An MP3 CD is a regular old data CD like any CD you put in your computer. Any program that burns CDs can create an MP3 CD, but I like to use iTunes because I’m already using it to manage my music library.
- Free Idea: Outlook Calendar Screensaver
- People often guard their ideas thinking that if they let the word get out people will steal their golden shot at success. What they don’t realize is that idea are worth nothing. Implementation is the only thing that matters. Here’s an idea I had for something I’m not planning on…
- Best of Feeds – 19 links – blogging, inspiration, writing, design, apple
- apple, blogging, design, inspiration, tips, writing
This Week at IDT Labs
IDT Labs is where I announce new software I’m working on.
- [PIPES] Filtered Technorati Recent Mentions
- My Filtered Technorati Recent Mentions pipe works again. It can give you an RSS feed of the latest blogs that links to your blog.
- [GREASEMONKEY] Userscripts.org Popular Scripts v0.2Updated my script for identifying the most popular Greasemonkey scripts on userscripts.org
Tags: javascript, jquery, programming, writing
Best of Feeds – 23 links – programming, music, photography, psychology, rails
RSS feeds are like cookies (that are good enough for me). Best of Feeds is a weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet this week. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together on Saturdays. I don’t blog on the weekend so read these links instead.Subscribe to //engtech to see this every week (or get it by email).
- [STARTUPS] Building a .com in 24 hours
- Walk through of building a website with Ruby on Rails
- (dominiek.com 1325 33 1924 )
- [SOCIALSOFTWARE] The Art of the Sign Up Page
- analysis of what makes a great sign-up page
- (turtleinteractive.com 496 30 21 )
- [PHOTOS] Stuck In Customs
- really awesome photo blog
- (stuckincustoms.com 343 100 )
- [MUSIC] Music business lessons
- (sethgodin.typepad.com 326 100 31 )
- [COMICS] 17 Sensational, Free and Downloadable Graphic Novels
- Mostly DC first issue TPBs
- (dailybits.com 315 10 37 )
- [CODE] 6 Reasons to develop your tests first
- Article on test driven development. I love the graphics in it.
- (lispcast.com 142 2 )
- [MUSIC] Best of Bootie 2007 CD
- 21 track bootleg mix CD
- (bootieusa.com 126 95 7 )
- [GAMERS] 15 Minutes of Fame: Noor the pacifist
- Interview with a WOW gamer who doesn’t kill anything
- (wowinsider.com 58 28 1624 )
- [CODE] No Matter What They Tell You, It’s a People Problem
- Ouch, but true. Biggest predictor for doing good work is how much you like the people you’re working with.
- (codinghorror.com 46 14 5 )
- [COMMUNICATION] saying more by saying less
- How to nip flamewars in the bud
- (slantsixcreative.com 39 22 )
- [TECH HUMOR] Why It Won’t Work
- a look at sony’s new digital music offering
- (scalzi.com 38 30 4 )
- [LIFEHACKS] Interesting Uses of Camera Mobile Phones To Stay Productive
- Camera phones are everywhere, use em.
- (labnol.org 36 29 2 )
- [BLOGGING] Don’t Just Have a Blog – Learn to Think Like a Blogger
- Good analogy with losing weight… you have to change the way you think
- (problogger.net 33 7 10 )
- [CODE] Billy Martin’s Technique for Managing his Manager
- ack, good advice.
- (weblog.raganwald.com 30 3 )
- [COPYRIGHT] Gaming the Creative Commons for Profit
- What you need to know about how creative commons photos can be used against you.
- (danheller.blogspot.com 28 9 )
- [CODE] Just when you think you’re the only one suffering…
- Why rails is hurting ruby, and why corporate programming sucks vs hackers
- (feyeleanor.livejournal.com 11 )
- [OPENSOURCE] An Utter Disregard For Freeloaders
- quote: If enough demand for the feature exists, the feature comes into existence. There’s a tautological nature to it that makes it very clean and neat. Supply and demand are so closely linked as to become almost indistinguishable.
- (gilesbowkett.blogspot.com 7 )
- [PHOTOS] Photo Products to Watch in 2008
- Memory card that includes wifi adapter to automatically upload when the camera is on, and magnetic picture frames so you can easily swap photos in your house
- (commoncraft.com 6 4 )
- [CODE] Is Programming Like Music or Engineering, and Must it Be Unintuitive?
- (smoothspan.wordpress.com 6 )
- [BLOGGING] performancing awards | Performancing.com
- Best blogs of 2007
- (performancing.com 5 24 )
- [CODE] 9 Tips for the aspiring Emacs playboy
- tips and tricks for emacs kung-fu
- (lispcast.com 4 )
- [GOOGLE] How To Get Your Data Out Of Google Web Apps
- In light of the Scoble Facebook data portability, how easy is it to get your data out of Google Aps?
- (webomatica.com 2 2 29 )
- [BLOGGING] 40+ Social News Websites You Can Use
- Lots of niche social networking sites I’ve never heard of that might be good sources of traffic
- (doshdosh.com 19 14 )
Legend
- saves – number of people who bookmarked on http://del.icio.us
- inbound links – number of blogs who linked to it (max 100)
- diggs – number of people who dugg on http://digg.com
This Week at Internet Duct Tape
- 9 Ways to Know When to Jump Ship at a Startup
- For the last couple of months I’ve been plagued with wondering if I should stay at my current startup. I’ve been approached with a few different job offers that I haven’t followed up on, and maybe it’s time I pursued greener pastures. In the words of the Clash: should I stay or…
- Online Survival Guide: 9 Tips for Dealing with Idiots on the Internet
- Winter is one of the worst for flame wars because environmental conditions make people more irritable and more likely to spend more time online. Here are some tips for navigating online discussions from someone who has been participating and managing public forums for over 15 years.
- Best of Feeds – 20 links – geek, movies, blogging, programming, xbox360
- geek, movies, blogging, programming, xbox360
This Week at IDT Labs
- [WORDPRESS] Category Resizer v1.0
- WordPress Category Resizer 2008/01/02 – v1.0 – BUGFIX: newer versions of WordPress.com broke this script – BUGFIX: will run on any WordPress install, not just WordPress.com – BUGFIX: now works when you have less than three categories – added automatic update check – Tested with WordPress.com…
- [WORDPRESS] Comment Ninja v0.5
- Comment Ninja v0.5 2008/01/02 – 0.5 don’t display comment ninja in mass-edit mode, since it doesn’t work on that mode wordpress.com added avatars to the comment display and they were being sent in emails on multi-author blogs it grays out the comments you can’t edit IDT Labs is a…
Tags: development, mp3, music, photography, photos, programming, psychology, rails
Best of Feeds – 20 links – geek, movies, blogging, programming, xbox360
RSS feeds are like cookies (that are good enough for me). Best of Feeds is a weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet this week. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together on Saturdays. I don’t blog on the weekend so read these links instead.Subscribe to //engtech to see this every week (or get it by email).
- [CODE] DNA seen through the eyes of a coder
- High geek alert on this one. Not for non-programmers.
- (ds9a.nl 479 33 11 )
- [XBOX360] TVersity
- Another program for streaming divx to xbox360
- (tversity.com 429 100 16 )
- [BLOGGING] 7 Types of Blog Posts Which Always Seem to Get Links and Traffic
- might be a good idea to give one of these a try when the blog well is dry
- (problogger.net 289 8 )
- [CODE] Choosing a Distributed Version Control System
- And here I am wishing we could move to subversion of cvs/rcs
- (dribin.org 226 )
- [CODE] The Cults of Programming
- where do you fit in?
- (mikeash.com 57 3 2 )
- [BROWSER] How to make an Internet Explorer voodoo doll
- so you can stick pins in it when IE drives you crazy
- (chigarden.com 47 1 )
- [XBOX360] Stream video to Xbox 360 with Winamp Remote and Windows Media Player
- Streaming DivX to XBOX360
- (paininthetech.com 45 3 7 )
- [PRESENTATIONS] HTML Slidy
- Framework for doing presentations in HTML instead of powerpoint.
- (w3.org 42 2 )
- [FATBLOGGING] Weight Loss: New Year’s weight loss hacks
- A few tips from lifehacker
- (lifehacker.com 33 40 2 )
- [MOVIES] Chart Shows Most Post-Apocalyptic Movie Of All Time
- The most post-apocalyptic movie award goes to…
- (io9.com 15 )
- [WORDS] The trashing of zen: a rant
- On the dilution of the word Zen
- (scottberkun.com 7 5 )
- [BLOG] How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Learned to Love the Blog: Goodbye Dead Trees!
- I’ve used that title before. Print reporter on switching to online publishing only.
- (kara.allthingsd.com 7 27 )
- [MOVIES] 15 Movies To Watch (Or Avoid) This Year
- More geek movies to look forward to in 2008
- (io9.com 6 6 8 )
- [RSS] New Year’s Resolution: Keeping Head Above Water With RSS Feeds
- Tips for managing too many RSS feeds
- (smoothspan.wordpress.com 4 )
- [BLOGGING] Why It Is Better To Network With Non Probloggers
- You can build a bigger relationship with “smaller” bloggers
- (bloggingmix.com 2 3 )
- [SOCIAL] Making Social Software for Real People
- quote: The reward must be in the using of the thing.
- (web1979.com 2 )
- [RAILS] TechCrunch Comments About Zed Shaw
- Such a great followup to Zed Shaw’s rant
- (gilesbowkett.blogspot.com)
- [GAMERS] The first and last Portal craft of ’08: Custom Companion Cube tissue box cover
- Companion cube, I love you.
- (destructoid.com)
- [MOVIES] Ten Most Anticipated Geek Films of 2008
- To look forward to
- (bigtmac68.wordpress.com 7 )
- [COPYRIGHT] The Generational Divide in Copyright Morality
- Anecdote by David Pogue on how the latest generation sees nothing wrong with copying
- (nytimes.com 41 )
Legend
- saves – number of people who bookmarked on http://del.icio.us
- inbound links – number of blogs who linked to it (max 100)
- diggs – number of people who dugg on http://digg.com
This Week at Internet Duct Tape
- Book Review: Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson
- The thesis behind the book is simple: if you look at the popular media culture over time it is becoming more and more complex. There have always been avant garde examples that wove complex stories but over time the same techniques are used in mainstream pop culture. IE: It is becoming common place…
- Fat Blogging 101 – Weight Loss Tips
- 21 tips for losing weight in the New Year
- Best of Feeds – 14 links – security, gmail, google, testing, dns
- gmail, google, security
This Week at IDT Labs
- [WORDPRESS] Category Resizer v1.0
- WordPress Category Resizer 2008/01/02 – v1.0 – BUGFIX: newer versions of WordPress.com broke this script – BUGFIX: will run on any WordPress install, not just WordPress.com – BUGFIX: now works when you have less than three categories – added automatic update check – Tested with WordPress.com…
- [WORDPRESS] Comment Ninja v0.5
- Comment Ninja v0.5 2008/01/02 – 0.5 don’t display comment ninja in mass-edit mode, since it doesn’t work on that mode wordpress.com added avatars to the comment display and they were being sent in emails on multi-author blogs it grays out the comments you can’t edit IDT Labs is a…
Comments Off on Best of Feeds – 20 links – geek, movies, blogging, programming, xbox360
Getting Started With Ruby on Rails – Week 2
I’ve fallen for the hype and started using Ruby on Rails for building database driven web applications. You can follow along with my weekly experience discovering gotchas with Ruby on Rails.
Previously: Getting Started With Ruby on Rails – Week 1
Emacs Rails-mode
Last week I complained about wasting time setting up rails-mode in emacs. I’m starting to find some real time saver though. The navigation short-cuts are absolutely necessary for navigating the file structure of a Rails application and I really like how the syntax highlighting can capture lines that don’t make any sense to Ruby. This is a great feature if you’re learning Ruby at the same time as you’re learning Rails. It has auto completion for “”, [], {} and ending function blocks and even picks up things like when you have one too many ends in your file.
Which files should be checked in?
I couldn’t find a list of what files are allowed to be checked in anywhere in Agile Web Development with Rails. The answer seems to be anything but:
db/schema.rb # easier to let your db:migrate control it config/database.yml # because it contains database passwords coverage/* # generated by rcov logs/* # generated by server tmp/* # temporary sessions files
Don’t overwrite the flash
Bad, no validation errors will be shown:
@model.save flash.now[:notice] = "I saved it"
Better:
if (@model.save) then flash.now[:notice] = "I saved it" end
Will trap and display ruby errors as well as validation errors:
begin if (@model.save) then flash.now[:notice] = "I saved it" else raise "Error saving" end # Do stuff rescue Exception => e flash[:notice] = e.message end
Keep controllers streamlined
I found myself creating one controller that had add/show/delete/list actions for multiple models. It’s much cleaner to have multiple controllers for the individual models.
Conditional Linking
link_to_if will put an unlinked version of the text if the conditional is false. This is much more useful than removing the link text completely for a lot of situations, because you don’t have to worry that the rest of the text around it will look weird. Don’t try to use html_options as a hash! I lost quite a bit of time to this because it won’t use the method parameter, but it doesn’t give you an error.
link_to_if (check_if_user_can_delete), "Delete Image", { :action => "delete", :id => @image.id }, :confirm => "Are you sure?", :class => "dangerous", :method => :delete
Generate validates_* off of database
I would have liked it if the generate script automatically generated validates_* helpers off of the database table. validates_length_of could be generated for :limit and validates_numericality_of could be generated for :integer.
Using the same partial to display create/edit/show
This is a neat little trick I found. You can use the same partial for your create/edit/show actions by using html_options and setting
{ :disabled => (controller.action_name == "show" ? true : false) }
for all the fields. It might not be useful for many public applications, but for an internal app it’s a great way to use the same ajaxy displays that you use for create/edit in show.
Polymorphic Associations
Are weird if you want to validate uniqueness. They might work better with has_many relationships than with has_one relationships. Or, I made it more complicated that it had to be.
Deploying sucks
It’s true. Played around a bit with capitrano and vlad the deployer but the both seem to assume you’re using subversion.
Free Tidbit: How crypt works in passwd files
I don’t know why this was so hard to find in Google: passwd files that use the crappy crypt mechanism use the first two characters of the expected password as the salt!
given_password = "hello_world" encrypted_password = "ahga3sgj" return encrypted_password == given_password.crypt(encrypted_password.slice(0,2))
and don’t worry, I’ll talk about something other than Rails later this week :)
Getting Started With Ruby on Rails – Week 1
I’ve fallen for the hype and started using Ruby on Rails for building a database driven web application. If you’ve never heard of Rails it is a web framework using the Ruby programming language. Ruby is an object-oriented interpreted language, that’s often compared favourably with Smalltalk. [1] What’s a framework? A framework provides a structure and a set of tools usually for solving a particular type of problem. A programming language solves general problems while a framework extends a programming language to better solve a specific problem.
Rails is a framework for building web applications: stuff like blog software, instant messaging, to-do lists, web magazines, and your favorite web comic. Word on the street is that ROR is a resource hog but the resource consumption is balanced out by how much more productive it is to develop with. It’s easier to buy more computers to host a web application than it is to hire more developers. Computers get more powerful over time; developers not so much.
I’ve been developing websites as a hobby off and on since 1994, but I only learned CSS in the past six months. I’ve done some minor hacking of other people’s web apps that were written in ASP or Perl and they were always horrible messes of spaghetti code. I’m really looking forward to trying out a web app from scratch.
Choose Your Path
I run a Windows machine with a VMWare Linux box inside of it, so I can choose to do my Rails development under Windows or under Linux. If I use Windows then I can use InstantRails, which is a one-click installer that gives you everything to need to start coding ASAP. But I much prefer developing under Linux because you can’t beat the power of having a strong command line. The Windows command line console is a joke, and requires a ton of 3rd party utilities for stuff that’s already there under Linux. [2]
The downside is that there is no one-click install for Linux. Well, except for this one, which I didn’t notice until now :)
Installing ruby, gem and rails is simple and I was able to do it under my user account using the standard –prefix=/home/engtech install options.
Gotcha #1 – MySQL
I already had MySQL installed on my Linux box but it was an extremely old version that blew up the second I tried to use Rails to talk to the database. You need at least MySQL 4 to use Rails because it uses ENGINE=InnoDB for its calls. Older versions of MySQL don’t have InnoDB turned on by default, and once you do turn it on they only understand TYPE=InnoDB.
Mysql::Error: You have an error in your SQL syntax near 'ENGINE=InnoDB'
Tip: Get the latest and greatest version of MySQL instead of whatever came with your Linux install. I needed the Server, Client, and Developer RPMs. MySQL was the part of the install process that required root access.
Tip: If you use a password for your MySQL root account, make sure you change config/database.yml to use it.
Gotcha #2 – Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
Rails doesn’t come with a standard IDE, but instead gives you a wide option of choices. Aptana RadRails, based on Eclipse is a good choice. But I’ve already sold my soul to one editor for all my coding needs: emacs. Emacs is the “kitchen sink” IDE because it supports everything: you can find extensions for any programming language or task. The downside is that it has a learning curve like you wouldn’t believe.
There’s a tutorial on how to add rails support to emacs. It’s long and complicated. Using rails mode in emacs requires upgrading to emacs version 22 that broke a lot of my existing DotEmacs hacks. I eventually got it working, but in retrospect I might have been better off going with RadRails because I lost hours to this. I’m still finding emacs keystrokes that don’t do what I expected them to.
I’m unimpressed that there isn’t a quick reference print sheet for rails-mode, this is the best that I could find. So far I’ve only been using the syntax highlighting and C-c C-c g K and C-c Up / C-c Down to navigate between files.
Gotcha #3 – Development Server vs Production
When I was running into MySQL installation problems, I toyed with using SQLite3 instead for a while. Needless to say, make sure your development database is using the same versions of everything as your development and test servers. It’ll save you lots of headaches.
Initial Opinion
People weren’t lying about how productive programming with Ruby on Rails is. In the same amount of time it took me to write this blog post I was able to get a simple web application with user authentication up and running with a web interface that is probably “good enough” for final release. Which is ridiculous, compared to my previous experience hacking apps together using ASP or Perl.
- Directory structure – Clean, clear, and everything has it’s place.
- Naming conventions – One of the best things a framework can give is enforcing a standard way of naming things. It takes a while to learn it, but it becomes second nature that if a class is called X, the database table is called Y and the tests are called Z. If you leave it to themselves most developers create small inconsistencies in naming conventions that waste time — especially if more than one person is working on the code.
- Don’t Repeat Yourself – I really like the way Model/View/Controller separates the code and keeps it becoming a mess. Inheritance and helpers/partials are great for keeping you from duplicating code.
- Succinct – Wow, you really do get a lot done with very little code writing. They weren’t kidding when they said you could write blogging software in under 15 minutes.
- HTML / CSS / XML – I really love that it doesn’t try to hide the HTML, CSS and XML under a lot of programming calls. There are helpers for doing common things, but you’re free to write your own web code.
- Development / Test / Production – In my limited experience with web apps, I’ve never worked on anything that had more than 20 users. Testing was all done manually, and the production server was the development server. It was a mess. Clean separation makes it much easier to work on code independently and only push it out to users once it has been rigorously tested.
- Migrations – We use to build our database tables using a PHPMyAdmin web interfaces. Needless to say, doing it through scripting where you can tear down, reassemble, and rebuild the database tables is much cleaner because everything is reproducible from scratch.
- Rake, rdoc, and test – One of the things I like most about Ruby is that it has all the fixings I expect from modern languages: the ability to automatically generate documentation off of the code and a built-in unit testing and build framework. I’m always amazed when I see a language that doesn’t natively support these facilities.
- Religion – The big downside to Ruby on Rails is that it feels a little bit like a religion sometimes.
Conclusion
I should have tried Ruby on Rails a long time ago. I spent entirely too much time setting up my development environment compared to when I could have been developing a web application. I could have been up and running in less than an hour if I had:
- Used InstantRails
- Used Aptana RadRails
Footnotes
1 – Did you know that Smalltalk inspired the Macintosh GUI? Smallpark was yet another example of the magic that was going on at XEROX PARC in the 70s. These are the guys who invented the mouse, colour graphic, windows/icons for a GUI, WYSIWYG text editors, Ethernet (how you talk to other computers on a network), and laser printers. Programmers at Work featured interviews with some of the people from PARC.
2 – I’m always amazed that people can program without easy access to diff, find, grep, perl, etc. All of these things are available for Windows for free, but they never work quite the way I expect them to.
Programming Best Practices: Profiling
My first task coming back from my work stress blogging hiatus is to finally fix problems with Akismet Auntie Spam that Lorelle reported over a month ago — if your Akismet spambox has over 10,000 spam comments then Auntie Spam is going to crash hard. Viewing that many comments at once will make Firefox use eight times more memory than normal web browsing, even without using Auntie Spam [1].
This means it’s time to do some code profiling [2]. In programming, profiling means to measure your code and find out which parts are using the most time and the most memory. Profiling gives you performance analysis measurements so that you can optimize your program for speed and/or memory.
“Don’t prematurely optimize” is a programming Best Practice, and it can be summed up in the words of my grandfather: “measure twice and cut once”. You can guess at what parts need fixing, but it is much more effective to measure how your program performs so that you can focus on the worst parts. They have the most room for improvement. Without profiling you could easily spend several hours optimizing a loop that executes in negligible time and ignore the three lines that copy huge chunks of memory for No Apparent Reason. Get it working, and then use your profiler to get it working fast.
Profiling is a Skill
I’ve been creating Greasemonkey scripts using javascript for a year now, and this is my first time firing up any kind of javascript profiler. It really struck me that I waited too long to do this. Don’t prematurely optimize, but also don’t waste any time learning how to run a profiler on your code and interpret the results. If you’ve never gone through the process of optimizing code in a language you regularly use, then you’ve been relying on all kinds of bad habits [3]. Learn how to integrate a profiler with your program as soon as possible so that performance analysis doesn’t become one of those “I’ll get around to it” tasks that never happens.
Another good rule is to always test with large data sets. Ideally you want a fast case for rapid prototyping of new features, and a worst case for stressful testing of that new feature. To often we use small sets of data for development and testing. We never realize how badly our code performs in real world conditions. Speed and responsiveness play a greater factor in whether or not someone becomes a regular user of your program than you might realize.
Footnotes
[1] One thing WordPress does wrong is it includes all of your comment spam in their WordPress export files. One friend saw his export file decrease from 83 MB to 8 MB once he deleted the comment spam.
[2] The best way to profile Javascript is with FireBug, but it doesn’t recognize Greasemonkey scripts unless you embed them in the page so FireBug can find them. Wikipedia has a list of profilers for popular languages.
[3] Some of the bad habits that were lurking in Auntie Spam:
- I was using a custom getElementsByClassName instead of an XPATH call. XPATH can be so much faster that walking the DOM.
- I had too many innerHTML assignments instead of leaving HTML as a string and then giving it to the web page to process as a final step
- Inefficient regular expressions
- Too many copies of the comments in memory
Best of Feeds – 30 links – programming, google, tips, agile, facebook
RSS feeds are like cookies (that are good enough for me). Best of Feeds is a weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet this week. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together on Saturdays. I don’t blog on the weekend so read these links instead.Subscribe to //engtech to see this every week (or get it by email).
- [MOVIES] Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time
- about 8 on there I haven’t seen yet
- (snarkerati.com 1227 100 2012 )
- [CODE] The Future of Software Development
- Very fluffy discussion of waterfall vs agile with the hypothesis that small teams are the future.
- (readwriteweb.com 617 54 734 )
- [DESIGN] Top 100 User-Centered Blogs
- centered around the user experience
- (virtualhosting.com 558 72 45 )
- [HIRING] 100 Resources to Attract, Retain and Utilize Rock Star Programmers
- Great list of resources for hiring programmers
- (hrworld.com 343 16 109 )
- [RUBY] 10 Reasons to Learn Ruby
- I’m drinking the koolaid.
- (cyberarmy.net 342 17 1028 )
- [RAILS] Zero to Riding the Rails in Four Months
- Experience getting started with a Rails app.
- (hackd.wordpress.com 301 17 3 )
- [BLOGGING] Top bloggers reveal how to build traffic off-blog without spending a dime
- Guest posting and building relationships are the top two ways.
- (jonathanfields.com 269 27 708 )
- [SOCIAL] NOSO
- Online web app that is focused on getting people off of their computers and interacting in meatspace.
- (nosoproject.com 227 100 6 )
- [GTD] Top 10 Distraction Stoppers
- They included my “distraction free gtd” web app pack
- (lifehacker.com 100 20 22 )
- [GAMERS] I Played Through Episode Two Holding A Goddamn Gnome (Spoilers)
- From the article: ” Who watches the watchers? The gnome does. He watches everyone, unblinkingly.”
- (kfj.f2s.com 83 35 2946 )
- [CODE] Free Programming Tips are Worth Every Penny.
- I think I’m developing a blog crush.
- (wilshipley.com 66 19 24 )
- [DESIGN] What about research, interviews, and documentation?
- Throw it at the wall and see what sticks. Good advice.
- (37signals.com 33 3 5 )
- [WORKHACKS] Remember, This Stuff Is Supposed To Be Fun
- Work should be something that you enjoy.
- (codinghorror.com 28 15 15 )
- [SEO] What if Google had to design for Google?
- What the Google homepage would look like if they had to design for SEO.
- (meangene.com 24 28 )
- [STARTUPS] ‘Un-sexy is good business,’ and other rules from Scott Rafer
- MyBlogLog founder on how to survive the market bust that’s coming in 5 months.
- (foundread.com 23 9 )
- [HALLOWEEN] Animal Halloween Costumes
- Impressive number of Star Wars costumes.
- (nynerd.com 11 6 10 )
- [BLOGGING] The First Month: Building Something From Nothing
- Skellie’s building traffic from nothing guide. Great tips in there, must read for beginner/intermediates.
- (skelliewag.org 8 3 3 )
- [SMO] Targeting StumbleUpon Users
- How to build a stumbleupon community
- (dailyblogtips.com 7 7 )
- [IPHONE] Video Game Ideas: iPhone SDK edition
- A ton of ideas for iPhone games. Really cool stuff.
- (wilshipley.com 7 8 )
- [COMICS] Missing!
- The disappearance of Calvin and Hobbs
- (clevescene.com 5 4 )
- [OCD] On Being Crazy
- From the article: ” Then I’ll have a week so dark that simply taking mail out of the mailbox seems like an epic struggle. And I remember, oh yes, right, you aren’t going away. Because you’re my brain. You’re my chemistry. You’re me.”
- (wilshipley.com 2 7 )
- [STARTUPS] The Wheels on the Bus
- Why buying a bus ticket and hanging out with REAL PEOPLE might be the best thing for your startup idea. And it’s true — normal people don’t have nearly the same problems I try to fix in my own life.
- (ricksegal.typepad.com 2 2 )
- [FACEBOOK] Inner Circle App
- Facebook application that lets you build custom groups of friends.
- (facebook.com 2 )
- [GOOGLE] Ad Blindness? How About Ad Repulsion?
- Interesting.. make the real content look like AdSense and it becomes immediately repulsive.
- (franticindustries.com 2 )
- [OPENID] Automattic,Gravatar, and the Elusive Unified Identity
- Automattic is making a move to providing single-sign-on using your wordpress.com IDs. Good business idea, but still scary considering I managed to lock myself out of sites using because of my wordpress.com openID.
- (neomeme.net)
- [FACEBOOK] Google scared of Facebook? Puh-leeze
- Matt skewers business 2.0 :)
- (mathewingram.com)
- [PATENTS] Amazon patent foiled by lone gunman
- That’s awesome.
- (mathewingram.com)
- [MICROSOFT] Ballmer to Web 2.0 Execs: You Have a Pulse? We’ll Give You At Least $50 Million For It.
- developers, developers, developers. Ballmer is such an idiot.
- (parislemon.com)
- [REDDIT] the reddit toolbar: taking social news one step closer
- Hidden setting on reddit that puts a toolbar on outgoing links… very useful for voting without using the bookmarklet.
- (muhammadsaleem.com)
- [GEEK] Star Trek Cast
- (blog.logtar.com)
Legend
- saves – number of people who bookmarked on http://del.icio.us
- inbound links – number of blogs who linked to it (max 100)
- diggs – number of people who dugg on http://digg.com
This Week at Internet Duct Tape
- How I Use Google Reader
- “How I Use” is a new series I’m starting about the software I use on a day-to-day basis. I want share tips and tricks and to learn tips and tricks from readers sharing with me in the comments. Google Reader is a web-based RSS reader. Because it’s web-based I can access my Google…
- The Attention Age: Accelerando, Software Agents, Filters and Gatekeepers
- Last night I finished reading Accelerando by Charles Stross. Like many of the books I read these days, I heard about it from another blogger. It feels like a spiritual sequel to Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, John Brunner’s the Shockwave Rider and Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan. It is…
- Blog Action Day: Save Paper when Readers Print Your Blog
- Today is Blog Action Day with a focus on the environment and I’m going to teach a quick CSS trick for how to save paper by reducing what gets printed when someone prints an article from your blog.
- Coworkers Considered Harmful
- I hit a realization this weekend that I’ve hit many times before. There’s an inordinate number of times when I’m in the office late not because of my own time management failures but because of the people I work with.
- Best of Feeds – 26 links – programming, webdesign, javascript, design, tips
- Tags: blogging, design, fun, javascript, lifehacks, programming, rails, tips, usability, web2.0, webdesign, writing
This Week at IDT Labs
- [WORDPRESS] Extract Comments or Trackbacks only from the Comments Feed
- I’ve created two Yahoo Pipes for building filters of the comments feed on your WordPress blog so that you can see comments only or trackbacks only.
- [RSS] Tagosphere
- Tagosphere is an example I created for Jon Udell that builds an RSS feed around a specific tag using delicious, flickr, technorati, and wordpress.com.
Tags: agile, blogging, career, facebook, funny, games, google, ideas, marketing, programming, rails, startups, tips, traffic, usability, webdesign
Best of Feeds – 26 links – programming, webdesign, javascript, design, tips
RSS feeds are like cookies (that are good enough for me). Best of Feeds is a weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet this week. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together on Saturdays. I don’t blog on the weekend so read these links instead.Subscribe to //engtech to see this every week (or get it by email).
- [JAVASCRIPT] Ext JS – JavaScript Library for Web Windows
- Interesting javascript library for doing web windows. Has a nice spreadsheet display.
- (extjs.com 3318 100 6 )
- [JAVASCRIPT] Welcome to Tablecloth
- Javascript code for doing quick table highlighting
- (cssglobe.com 1767 100 1247 )
- [WEBDESIGN] 30 Usability Issues To Be Aware Of
- common tips, good for beginners
- (smashingmagazine.com 1705 100 781 )
- [SQL] A Visual Explanation of SQL Joins
- Jeff, where were you in 1997 when I needed this!?
- (codinghorror.com 1069 67 9 )
- [DESIGN] 10 Usability Nightmares You Should Be Aware Of
- (smashingmagazine.com 874 100 253 )
- [DESIGN] So you want to create WordPress themes huh?
- 16 how-tos on building a wordpress theme
- (wpdesigner.com 585 100 21 )
- [SLEEPHACKS] Top 10 Ways to Sleep Smarter and Better
- LifeHacker has the goods on beating insomnia
- (lifehacker.com 546 68 1489 )
- [JAVASCRIPT] Help! I Don’t Know JavaScript!
- Collection of intros to javascript
- (blog.mootools.net 470 10 27 )
- [GAMES] Science Museum – Launchpad Online – Launchball
- Very cool little physics simulator game.
- (sciencemuseum.org.uk 392 100 947 )
- [GIFTS] 30 Frugal Gift Ideas to Show You Appreciate Someone
- Holidays are coming up…
- (zenhabits.net 326 25 669 )
- [CODE] 10 Things Every Programmer Should Know For Their First Job
- General, but true.
- (applematters.com 172 19 4 )
- [RUBY] Mr. Neighborly’s Humble Little Ruby Book
- Another free Ruby ebook
- (infoq.com 53 33 )
- [WEIGHTLOSS] Geek Diet and Exercise Programs
- All familiar links and photos to me, but still a good roundup.
- (codinghorror.com 44 35 46 )
- [INTERNET] The Life and Death of Jesse James
- The scariest people in the world are the lonely people, and this true story strikes it home for me with full force. This is essential reading for anyone who spends a lot of time in internet culture.
- (laweekly.com 40 18 )
- [RAILS] Two months with Ruby on Rails
- Two months checkin with what he doesn’t like about Rails
- (t-a-w.blogspot.com 39 10 )
- [BOOKS] Hard Work, No Pay: What’s the Point?
- Petzold on being an author of programming books. Response to Jeff Atwood post.
- (charlespetzold.com 30 12 )
- [TWITTER] Twitter is Paying My Rent
- Why Twitter is a great tool for a first class tech blogger.
- (marshallk.com 25 7 20 )
- [BOOKS] Expert Advice: Websites for the Book Lover
- Quite a few sites I hadn’t heard of.
- (makeuseof.com 24 4 20 )
- [DELICIOUS] Readeroo
- Simple browser extension for marking items “to be read” later and then marking them as read when you’re done.
- (monsur.com 21 5 )
- [WEB2.0] Q&A: Foul-Mouthed Blogger Ted Dziuba Tells Why Most Startups Fail
- Uncov in wired! What.the.fuck!
- (wired.com 19 31 4 )
- [WEB2.0] Tim O’Reilly – Graphing Social Patterns
- Liveblogging notes from Tim O’Reilly’s presentation.
- (allfacebook.com 9 )
- [BOOKS] When Completing a Book Depends on Someone Else
- Blogging Heroes should be in print soon. I was interviewed for the book, not sure if I made it into the final cut.
- (mikebanks.blogspot.com)
- [COPYRIGHT] Happiness In Slavery No More: Nine Inch Nails Goes Record Label Free
- Fans and artists are learning to bypass the recording industry.
- (parislemon.com)
- [FICTION] The ride home
- From the article: ” People with happy lives don’t go on quests, they lead their happy lives.”
- (beatsentropy.com 3 )
- [CODE] Getting rid of the use global contstants file
- Another post from my old friend who used to bring me subway cookies at raves.
- (dlowe-wfh.blogspot.com)
- [MARKETING] The Smart Way to Get Traffic and Links: Creating a Prospect List for Bloggers
- This is the proper way to promote yourself with other bloggers. Get on their radar before you ever approach them about anything.
- (doshdosh.com 3 )
Legend
- saves – number of people who bookmarked on http://del.icio.us
- inbound links – number of blogs who linked to it (max 100)
- diggs – number of people who dugg on http://digg.com
This Week at Internet Duct Tape
- What I’m Playing: PC, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360
- I’m on day 10 of “one of those weeks” so I haven’t had time to fully develop the usual cornucopia of rainbow-coloured blog post ideas. All of my time has been spent on work and family with a smidgen of video game playing to decompress my brain. This isn’t one of those…
- The Holiday Spread – Group Weight Loss Game
- This past weekend was Thanksgiving (aka Turkey Day) in Canada, which means seeing your family and eating a lot of food together. One of the favourite pastimes at any holiday is pointing out who’s gained weight and who hasn’t. This got me thinking: one of the principals of successful dieting…
- Best of Feeds – 34 links – programming, google, lifehacks, ruby, funny
- Tags: blogging, estimation, free, funny, google, gtd, javascript, lifehacks, productivity, programming, rails, ruby, rubyonrails, search, seo, tips
This Week at IDT Labs
- [WORDPRESS] Extract Comments or Trackbacks only from the Comments Feed
- I’ve created two Yahoo Pipes for building filters of the comments feed on your WordPress blog so that you can see comments only or trackbacks only. WordPress Comment Extractor WordPress Trackback Extractor
- [RSS] Tagosphere
- Tagosphere is an example I created for Jon Udell that builds an RSS feed around a specific tag using delicious, flickr, technorati, and wordpress.com.
- [GTD] Distraction Free GTD UpdateNow with 36 applications + fixes some problems with apps that don’t support https .
Tags: blogging, design, fun, javascript, lifehacks, programming, rails, tips, usability, web2.0, webdesign, writing
Best of Feeds – 34 links – programming, google, lifehacks, ruby, funny
RSS feeds are like cookies (that are good enough for me). Best of Feeds is a weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet this week. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together on Saturdays. I don’t blog on the weekend so read these links instead.Subscribe to Internet Duct Tape to see this every week (or get it by email).
- [LIFEHACKS] The Printable CEO
- Collection of PDFs for task/hour tracking.
- (davidseah.com 949 100 7 )
- [BOOKMARKING] toread – an email-based bookmark service
- Simple service to use to track stuff ‘to read later’. They store the top 10 for each day. It’s like having an archive of the delicious popular list.
- (toread.cc 938 100 440 )
- [RUBY] The Little Book Of Ruby
- 85 page guide to the ruby language syntax, free ebook
- (sapphiresteel.com 492 38 28 )
- [CODE] Software Is Hard
- *Excellent* article about software estimation and Rosenberg’s Dreaming in Code
- (gamearchitect.net 449 68 15 )
- [STARTUPS] The Future of Web Startups
- Paul Graham on how web startups will start to be standardized and easy to do… which will change everything.
- (paulgraham.com 443 100 671 )
- [LIFEHACKS] Top 100 Productivity Blogs
- I’m not on the list, but many there’s a lot of great finds on here.
- (whitepapers.org 440 44 53 )
- [RUBY] Ferret – full text search engine
- I’m wondering if this could be a replacement for intranet text search?
- (ferret.davebalmain.com 429 )
- [JAVASCRIPT] The Elements of JavaScript Style
- Everything you need to know about writing good javacsript.
- (javascript.crockford.com 336 30 )
- [ESTIMATION] Web Worker 101: Estimating Basics
- Nothing new, but good round-up for people who have trouble estimating.
- (webworkerdaily.com 296 36 6 )
- [JAVASCRIPT] Learning JavaScript resources
- Good collection of tutorials and links about Javascript
- (juixe.com 289 4 6 )
- [CODE] Software Branching and Parallel Universes
- One of the best explanations of software branching in revision control that I’ve ever read.
- (codinghorror.com 274 34 3 )
- [GEEK] Flo Control Cat Door
- Image recognition to prevent cat from coming inside with a mouse. Why do I enjoy every link Coding Horror sends me so much?
- (quantumpicture.com 228 80 )
- [RAILS] Rails Rumble: 92 Web Apps Created in 48 Hours
- Winners from the 48 hours Rails Rumble
- (readwriteweb.com 169 28 681 )
- [FIREFOX] A Visual Guide to the Firefox Web Browser – Learn Firefox
- via: rooster
- (learnfirefox.cybernetnews.com 167 100 17 )
- [RAILS] Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Applications
- Free e-book for next 60 days. Probably not as good as Agile Web Development.
- (sitepoint.com 151 100 6 )
- [VIRUS] Gathering ‘Storm’ Superworm Poses Grave Threat to PC Nets
- Your antivirus software is completely useless. This is scary.
- (schneier.com 104 62 14 )
- [CODE] Inheritance is evil, and must be destroyed: part 1
- Using the strategy pattern vs inheritance with dark jedi examples.
- (berniecode.com 76 9 )
- [IPHONE] If wishes were iPhones, then beggars would call
- If you want to hack your phone (dvd player, etc) then buy a phone that lets you hack. Don’t complain about Apple’s lockin when everything they do revolves around lockin.
- (diveintomark.org 60 61 9 )
- [LIFEHACKS] 6 Rules for Dealing With Habits vs. Tasks
- Good ideas about how to build habits
- (zenhabits.net 54 8 58 )
- [BLOGGING] Blogging is Dumb, Stupid and Successful
- Rant against blogging about blogging and ‘quick tip’ type posts.
- (cornwallseo.com 38 25 716 )
- [CODE] What I Learned From X That Made Me A Better Programmer In Y
- From the article: ” We go with Bob’s plan because Bob successfully asserted his dominance over Fred. If we’re lucky, Bob is good at making plans as well as asserting dominance, but if he’s bad at making plans but good at asserting dominance, his plan is still the plan”
- (gilesbowkett.blogspot.com 37 3 2 )
- [HUMOR] Microsoft Search
- Microsoft Press releases shows that Microsoft Live Search will finally read the state Yahoo/Google was in 7 years ago.
- (wdr1.com 25 11 )
- [LIFEHACKS] shoutingmat.ch (lifehack)
- Interesting agreggator for posts about lifehacks.
- (lifehack.shoutingmat.ch 22 10 )
- [SEO] SEOS : The Card Counters of the Internet
- From the article: ” “Google is a casino, and you are a visitor.””
- (johnon.com 19 24 19 )
- [HUMOR] Crackbook
- Facebook parody site.
- (theinternetnowinhandybookform.com 16 17 )
- [BLOGGING] The 7 Habits of Highly Defective Bloggers
- 7 habits inverted with a view on blogging — what not to do
- (lifetrainingonline.com 12 6 13 )
- [PRESENTATIONS] Keynote (The Software) Considered Harmful
- Do presentations and demos with nothing but a whiteboard. Much more interactive.
- (gilesbowkett.blogspot.com 9 )
- [SEO] How I reversed my Google ranking penalty
- More on how asking for links with specific anchor text can get your blog blacklisted by google. Contest bloggers be aware.
- (davidairey.com 6 15 14 )
- [HUMOR] 300: The Board Game
- I still enjoy the meme :)
- (defectiveyeti.com 5 4 )
- [GUESTBLOGGING] Get Your Guest-Posts Here
- Guestblogger for hire, Chris G.
- (chrisg.com 3 18 )
- [COPYRIGHT] Has And Belongs To Many: The Problem With Trademarking Rails
- From the article: ” Trademark rights are destructive to the cooperation and trust necessary for successful open source projects.”
- (gilesbowkett.blogspot.com 2 )
- [RUBY] When does ( ?? == 63 ) ?
- True dat. Successfully scared me away from Ruby :)
- (sob.apotheon.org)
- [SEO] A Google Allegory at Hamlet Batista dot Com
- Asking for links with specific anchor text can get your blog blacklisted by google. Contest bloggers be aware.
- (hamletbatista.com 8 )
- [COMMUNITY] Poisonous People
- OSCON PDF slides from the SubVersion guys. Read the poisonous people one!
- (red-bean.com 5 )
Legend
- saves – number of people who bookmarked on http://del.icio.us
- inbound links – number of blogs who linked to it (max 100)
- diggs – number of people who dugg on http://digg.com
This Week at Internet Duct Tape
- Distraction Free GTD: 32 Todo List Web Applications
- Web Runner is a tiny site-specific web application that runs using less resources than Firefox or Internet Explorer. The whole idea behind a site specific web browser is that you want to access a web application without being tempted to access other sites. You want to access a site without being…
- Magazine Review: October 2007 Issue of Inc. Magazine
- I came to a rather startling discovery in the past month: magazines are just blogs with the added luxury of being able to read them while on the toilet or in the bathtub (but hopefully not both). I picked up the October issue of Inc. magazine because Joel Spolsky of Joel On Software has joined the…
- Blog Tip: Create a Link Post in 3 Seconds
- One question I’m frequently asked is “how do you build those Best of Feeds weekly links?” The way I do it is pretty complicated, but I’ve found a much simpler way that I want to share with you all.
- Digest for September 2007
- Every month I publish a digest post collecting the best of Internet Duct Tape.
- Best of Feeds – 30 links – programming, productivity, code, socialsoftware, socialnetworking
- Tags: adsense, advice, blogging, career, code, design, development, firefox, gtd, lifehacks, productivity, programming, ruby, rubyonrails, socialnetworking, socialsoftware, tips, web2.0, webdesign
This Week at IDT Labs
- [AKISMET] Akismet Auntie Spam v2.04
- Our favorite Auntie has a new version. 2007/10/04 version 2.04 – Fixed (some) memory problems with v2.03 – Still slow, I need to get it working with a profiler, none of the hacks for Greasemonkey + Firebug seem to work.
- [DELICIOUS] Delicious Link Builder
- Build a list of links using your delicious account to bookmark them. Works great with my Yahoo Pipe Cleaner script . Example : [BOOKMARKING] toread – an email-based bookmark service Simple service to use to track stuff ‘to read later’. They store the top 10 for each day. It’s like…
- [RSS PIPE] Stupid Credit Builder
- This is a clone of Stupid Feed Rewriter that backdates the entry to January 1st, 1970. Useful for adding a credit link at the end of a list.
Tags: blogging, estimation, free, funny, google, gtd, javascript, lifehacks, productivity, programming, rails, ruby, rubyonrails, search, seo, tips
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