Google Developer Day 07

Just found out, they upsized the venue - and I'm in! preview of the day here:

http://code.google.com/events/developerday/au-home.html

Will post a review after it happens.

Generation Y

This is a very interesting article on managing fresh talent who have just entered the workplace out of uni (or genY as the oldies call it these days). Even though I still feel fairly young in my career, being a KFC trained lemming, I can sympathise with what they're getting at. I feel I've worked pretty hard myself, and it gets to me a little when someone thinks they deserve everything without proving their worth. I've had a bit of experience now dealing with this kind of thing - at this stage I guess it's a mind set that both sides need to comprimise on.

Of course there's always exceptions to the rule. Make up your own mind - read about here:

http://blogs.smh.com.au/enterprise/archives/2007/05/are_geny_really_despicable.html

How good are rss feeds?

Yes, I am a late bloomer. It takes me a little while to catch on sometimes when I'm preoccupied by alot of other things. But now that I've learnt how to use the feed reader in IE7 properly - it kinda saves me heaps of time and shows me info I want when new stuff becomes available - rather then wading through masses of irrelevent stuff. Why didn't anyone tell me about this before!?!?!

management bullies

Just read an interesting blog article on microsoft's bullying management nature from an ex employee... gives a little insight into the company. It may get results, but jeez, I kinda like to have fun at work too. I guess if you've got deep pockets you can afford to be a bully.

http://blog.tomevslin.com/2007/05/microsoft_memor.html

web software: open source vs proprietary vs writing your own

The challenges I'm facing at the moment are continually changing goal posts (so preferably the solution needs to be flexible and all encompassing), not enough time to focus on one thing (solution needs to be available immediately), it has to be of the highest quality and it's gotta add to the bottom line in some way, otherwise it's a waste of time.

So I'm looking at web software options to solve a big issue I'm having at work, and being short of that magical "one program does all" utopia, what are the options available to me? Some experiences I've found so far on three options.

Open source

Pros

• Cheep cheep!
• Customisable

Cons

• It's someone elses code... is it best practice? secure? easy to maintain? easy to configure?scalable? portable? compatible with my chosen host? there's plenty of uncertainty.
• Accountability for application stuff ups?
• Does it do exactly what you want - or does it kind of.... but not quite.
• Lower quality interface and/or useability (in general... not always the case)

Proprietary

Pros

• Higher quality interface (in general... not always the case)
• Can hold vendor accountable for issues.
• Usually plenty of documentation
• Established user base

Cons

• Up front cost.
• Support costs.
• Rigid.
• Forced workflow. You have to do things their way, or it's the highway.
• There'll always be something you want in the package that isn't there.
• There'll always be something in the package you'll never use.

Writing your own

Pros

• Ultimate flexibility
• Can sell it later!

Cons

• Analysis Cost.
• Development cost. Time, effort.
• Goalposts can change, rendering some features previously developed useless.
• You're accountable. (but this could be alright if it lessens time taken to address an issue)

In summary - I'm a developer at heart, so i'd always prefer to write my own solutions if I had the time. There's something about selling (that is... getting someone else to sell it) your own work that gives me ultimate job satisfaction. Network admins, techie pros and managers will often have a different view. Unfortunately commercial reality pisses all over my idealism much of the time, and I have to bite the bullet and face facts. :)

search engine listings

nothing strikes a cord in a website owners mindset like the realisation that "oh my gosh!!!! my site doesn't show up on the first page of google!!!!!!! it's the end of the world as we know it!!!!!!". It absolutely amazes me that people think their site should magically appear where they expect it to. So here goes - my guide to simple stuff that everyone can do to improve listings.

1. Get as many other sites to link to you as possible. The higher the traffic and more popular the sites are that are linking to you, the better chance you have. Scenario: If Amazon and YouTube had permanent links to your site on their front page, you would be in a very good position. (be realistic though… you’ll never get a link from Amazon unless you pay lots and lots of money for an advert). Blogs are a great way to get other sites linking to you. Start up your own! Comment on other like minded peoples blogs (but don’t spam them) – you might be able to strike up a relationship with them so you can swap links.
2. Change the textual content of your site often, while keeping the relevance of the information. Google keeps a copy of your site on its own servers (the copy is called Google’s “cache”), and compares this cache with your actual site on a regular basis. If you have changed the content often, in the eyes of Google you are being seen as proactive in keeping information up to date. You have to ask yourself, is your site static brochure ware? Or is your site a selling tool for your business? Selling tools such as websites need constant refinement to keep information relevant and interesting for your users – otherwise, why would they come back?
3. Major keywords need to be in “heading” format (This is HTML jargon). If you want to be found by the keyword “widget”, it needs to be in a Heading 1 format on the front page of your site. You must target your major keywords and concentrate on these throughout your site.
4. Make sure your HTML page titles display appropriate text. Don’t just give a page the title “Home”, this doesn’t mean anything to someone choosing your site over another one in a search engine listing. Give the page title your business name, followed by what the page is about. E.G. “Widgets Incorporated – About Us”. Even better is to have one of your major keywords in the title.
5. Paid advertising – Pay per click campaigns such as Google Adwords do really work. You need to make the decision of whether it's right for you.

Like I said, simple stuff. There's alot more that can be done.... but I dont feel like getting into that right now. It's actually hard work to keep a site at the top - and pretty dry work at that too. I might do a post later on for the more advanced stuff if I'm in the mood.

wiki critical mass

I get the sense that wikis are starting to gain momentum now as a business tool. Doing a bit of research - it looks like wikis have actually been around since 1995 (the original wikiwikiweb... 12 years ago!!! phwoar), but it's taken some big, well publicised examples like wikipedia to throw it in the limelight.

I think the reason for the lag in adoption was because it used to be such a radical concept to let just anybody edit information on a webpage like they were writing in a word document. I mean - geez! everybody can see it!

But now attitudes have matured. The fact that intranets are a common occurrence in the workplace, blogs are everywhere, and businesses are outgrowing their first and second generation intranets, people are looking for an easier, cheaper, more efficient way to collaborate. Especially over a geographically dispersed area - and they're easily obtainable by small business.

SMH has a great article about wikis in business - working the wiki way. check it.

de-personalise

I had my monthly management mentoring meeting today - and I took away an excellent piece of advice: de-personalise.

One of my major problems at work is that I get too emotionally involved in a project. Because I've played a big part in building up most of the products and systems at work, if someone has an issue with something I tend to take it personally. Even if the problem stems from a third party plug in shortcoming like freetextbox. The problems that arise can be any number of things - mainly user initiated, but instead of trying to train users properly or trying to learn how the product works ([sarcasm]my gosh, that would take some effort on their behalf! what a concept that I could even suggest such a thing!!![/sarcasm]), people try to shift blame, ultimately ending back in my side of the court.

So I had a talk to my mentor today about this. I didn't realise this till my mentor said today - all you need to do is de-personalise yourself from it all, don't get so emotionally involved. In the end, it's just a job. By all means though, stay passionate about the job.

Go back to the system, make people use it, keep on doing what your doing.

Hearing this little piece of advice - I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, like I had one of those "moments of clarity", like I had been enlightened.

Such a trivial little thing... you might be reading this and think "big whoopdi doo". But for me - I think I just got the right piece of advice at the right time and I feel much better for everything now. It's nice to get a detached perspective - sometimes I cant see the forest for the trees, and simple advice when your bogged down can just make everything seem so much clearer.

StumbleUpon

I found this really cool tool off digg last night called StumbleUpon. It's kind of a cross between digg and the old "hot or not" website, but instead of rating humans it rates websites by use of a toolbar in the browser, with a thumbs up or thumbs down.

You get to choose your interests that you would like to stumble upon - and when you start stumbling (click the stumble button), it actually returns very high quality sites, that you would normally never find from a search engine (or something like digg for that matter). It also takes note of what you rate good or bad to return more relavant stumbles.

havva go: http://www.stumbleupon.com/

yahoo pipes - nice explanation

I like this explanation of yahoo pipes - and the concept of "treating of the web as a database". Me being a database junkie it appeals to my sense of information organising....

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/yahoo_pipes_web_database.php

I guess it's a search engines job to treat the web as a database - yahoo is just making it more obvious now by letting your average everyday chum to do some of their work for them - and giving them something in return.

I still havent tried it out... so I cant comment too much. You have to sign up to yet another account which is putting me off. I had a yahoo one about 6 years ago - cant remember it now or what email it was signed on as. I'm starting to get account overload.

new collaboration system - preview 1

I finalised the new data structure of the latest project at work today. Should be a great system - it will let all our clients collaborate much more efficiently, and generally let the whole process flow much more smoother.

I would classify it to be a "web two point oh" class of app - or a more preferable term for our target market: a rich user experience web application - geared towards service based businesses. It'll enable us a much higher level of customer service and give clients a better experience right through the project life cycle.

We'll use it ourselves to prove the platform - but I think it'll be a very attractive system for similar businesses.

I've still got some specifications to complete - coding not far off beginning.

media coverage

The website they're talking about in this news release:

http://ninemsn.video.msn.com/v/en-au/v.htm?g=67c5901f-a9d0-4b48-8ac6-670a89ec1864&f=39&fg=email

Made by us!

new direction

ok, this blog needs to be ramped up. at the moment it's a bit of a mish mash of ideas/interests I had 2 or 3 years ago.... some of them I still think quite applicable, but still pretty random.

Because I'm so interested and involved in web development and system development - it's really gotta be more focussed on that.

So this is my offical "change in direction" post - i want to focus more on trends, ideas, achievments, cool stuff, all web focussed. i promise i'll be more proactive in getting info up here - i want to treat it as a kind of scrap book.

cool. i'm amped. grrrrr!

creativity

ok so I'm sitting here chill'n at the moment, listening to some smooth jack johnson tunes - and reading all about creativity. Some great articles I've come across so far on "exercising the mind" which i feel that could be applied to any line of work:

• stre-e-tch your imagination
• 10 ways to boost creativity
• your imagination, the ultimate success tool

google javascripting

taken from http://frassle.net/Directory/index?note=561051

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I've been doing some more reading about what's going on behind the scenes in google's cutting edge javascript applications.They are essentially running javascript based thick clients in the user’s browser, and doing all server side communication through xml http calls. Some services they are currently offering, driven mainly on the client side:
http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en
http://gmail.google.com
http://maps.google.com/maps
Some analysis of the technology behind these services:
http://serversideguy.blogspot.com/2004/12/google-suggest-dissected.html
http://johnvey.com/features/gmailapi/
http://jibbering.com/2002/4/httprequest.html
And, for the truly brave, the javascript source code from google suggest, devoid of line breaks and comprehendable variable names:
http://www.google.com/ac.js
and a decompressed, refactored version (reverse engineered outside of google — thanks Shimon for the pointer)
http://www.fastbugtrack.com/misc/google/ac.js
This technology is now being used to power cpan search, and they have released their backend implementation of the api.

innovation

i saw this book in the bookshop today.... The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson. I think I want it... very interesting stuff about encouraging innovation through a mixing of already experienced technologies / available resources. it sounds a bit cliche that "necessity is the mother of invention" - but this takes it further. will report back if I get around to buying it.

knowledge

i just found out about a society today called mensa... which is a group of people who socialize together who are extremely intelligent. To qualify to be in this society - you have score in the top 2% of the population who take an IQ test.

I am very intrigued - and it has prompted me to think about the topic of knowledge. I think i'd like to read more books on knowledge and how to nuture it.... it weird how you become acutely aware of something all of a sudden that's always been there.

books i'd like to read:
Knowledge and Decisions by thomas Sowell

functionality

not sure whether i like this blog yet..... i think i want more options, like categories and stuff. An old mate of mine has some nice features in his - http://www.geeklane.com/blog

security summit

went to the microsoft security summit in darling harbour today.... came out not felling that impressed. previous years have been much more informative - this year it was one big sales pitch. bugger