Local Folder Listing
Firefox kept coming up and staring me in the face with the default Google search page. I figured that this could be better. A few Google searches later and I had a PHP script that pulls up a chosen directory, hides any hidden folders and the folder the file is in.
Drop it into your Sites folder, edit the file to point to your Server Root,create a virtual host, and then make it your home page. Now instead of a page you’ll never use, you have a simple page that lets you be a bit lazier.
Feel free to download it.
Getting Rid of Crap
More and more these days, I find myself getting rid of things. Last week I listed a dozen or so items on Amazon. I sold some DVDs to friends—and I’m going to try and trade in the rest to a local game shop. I pared down my Netflix subscription to one-at-a-time and only two for the whole month. My Audible subscription? Canceled. Podcasts? Gone, except for a few short and relevant ones. Noticing a pattern yet?
I used to subscribe to every RSS feed I could, and at the peak I was ‘reading’ roughly 250 feeds a day and keeping up with them. That takes hours of your time, hours that could be spent writing code, doodling, goofing off, or spending time with someone special to you.
The more and more I get rid of, the more I realize I never really needed it and don’t miss it. I find that I have time to do more things that I’m interested in. And at this point I gauge every purchase with the mindset of do I want to spend the time to use what I’m about to buy. Do I want to buy this book, will it truly help? Do I want to play this game, am I enjoying it? When you start to ask questions like that, you might just start to see that the answer is usually no.
Enjoy the spare time.
Owning the iPhone
It’s been a little over a month with my iPhone. In that time, I’ve found a few applications that make my day just that much easier.
Things
On my laptop, I use Things on a daily basis. Adding tasks without really thinking about them and coming back later to just drop them into the proper project, schedule a due date and add tags. Then being able to see what needs to be done Today, what can be done Next and what has to be done by a certain time is fantastic. Then take all of that power and shrink it down to an application that fits neatly into my phone. Fantastic.
For some reason, the iPhone version doesn’t allow you to assign tasks to other people like the desktop version does. Even tasks already assigned to other people don’t show that.
Price: $9.99 Rating: 9/10
Tweetie
Twitter is probably the biggest waste of time that I indulge in. At the same time, I’ve found out things on Twitter sooner then anywhere else. To boot, I converse with more then a few friends on Twitter. Tweetie makes all of this easy. It also lets me save items for later to Instapaper and quickly see attached photos.
I wish it had the conversation view for Direct Messages like it’s desktop counterpart does. Also, push notifications would be nice.
Price: $2.99 Rating: 8/10
Byline
RSS will save you time if you’re reading more then ten blogs a day. Google Reader will then save you more time off the top of that, but using the Google Reader mobile site seems like a bit of a pain, plus you need a consistent connection. Byline synchronizes with Google Reader and caches all of your unread posts and starred posts. It shows you a list of either Unread, Starred or Grouped feeds (based upon the groups you setup in Google Reader).
I wish it had Instapaper built in, but until then I can just open up Safari and add it to Instapaper.
Price: $4.99 Rating: 8/10
Mint
I no longer use any manual way of tracking my finances. Keeping up with all of the transactions manually (since most Mac apps don’t sync) became a pain in the ass. Mint came about a few years ago and I’ve been on board since. Seeing where my finances are at a glance at any time is fantastic.
The iPhone version is a bit limited, but it gives you everything you need to know while out and about.
Price: Free Rating: 7/10
Streaks
Streaks is a great little application that keeps a set of calendars that are not at all related to the calendars in the Calendars application. Instead these allow you to keep track of your ‘streaks’. For example, I keep a calendar for going to the gym. If I miss a day then I’ve broken the streak. It’s a small application with a great idea that really helps motivate me.
It is missing some streak patterns such as every other weekday (Monday, Wednesday, Friday).
Price: $2.99 Rating: 7/10
Real Racing
One of the many games I’ve downloaded, Real Racing is probably the most impressive. It’s a pocket sized version of Gran Turismo and yet it incredibly accessible. For those worrying about steering, braking, shifting and holding down the accelerator, you can calm down. The game takes care of the gas, brake and shifting. All that you have to do is steer. This sounds boring at first, but as you get better and this gets boring, you can make all or some of those controls manual. I’ve only been playing this game for a little while, but I don’t see it going anywhere soon.
Price: $9.99 Rating: 8/10
The Death of Plugins
In this month’s issue of .Net Magazine, Mozilla vice president Jay Sullivan says, “We need to get out of plug-in prison.” It’s alluded to (rightfully or not) that they’re talking about the death of plug-ins. Jay is talking about HTML 5 and the addition of new tags such as <audio>, <video> and especially <canvas>. He could also be talking about <meter>, <progress> and the other interactive elements.
It’s an interesting thought, that we’ll no longer need plug-ins; that they’re somehow going to go out of style like leisure suits and pro-war sentiments. I’d have to disagree with this idea though for one simple reason: we will always want more than what we have. Think about it, all of the popular plugins are stopgaps someone was jonesing for. The Flash plugin had to have started because someone thought, “…this isn’t nearly interactive enough for me.” Video plugins like Quicktime and Realplayer were borne out of the need to show a video. These needs are finally being addressed in HTML 5, but I have a strong feeling that it won’t be enough.
We will need something new, something this spec won’t give us, something browser makers can’t deliver. At this point, I can only imagine what we’ll be doing then. But there will be something.
On Moodboards
Moodboards are the equivalent of wireframes for design. They’re either an image (such as JPG or PNG) or a physical board or poster. I tend to go with the image route, but either will work. The basic idea is to pin inspiration to it and to define the visual style. Typically I’ll put in some imagery, color swatches, typography examples and textures. But you could also put in images that have the right attitude, or screenshots of websites that have the same feel you want.
I like moodboards because they allow you to quickly give your client a good idea of what the design is going to look likem the mood it will carry, the lightness or darkness of the design, and graphical elements you will either use or use as inspiration. Also, you can include inspirational quotes and even semantic invariants. A semantic invariant is a short sentence that answers a good number of questions, think of Google’s “do no evil” but for an individual project.
However there are several problems with using moodboards, but I think that they can be overcome and dealt with. And issue that came up on a recent project was naming the moodboards, something I had completely forgot. I e-mailed the two moodboards to my client with descriptive file names: moodboard_1.jpg and moodboard_2.jpg. Nowhere on the image itself did I give it a name or an identifier. This ended up costing me time since I mistakenly thought they had picked one moodboard when in fact they had picked the other. Take away: Give each moodboard a name and make sure it’s clear which moodboard you are looking at.
Another issue is confusion over their purpose. I know exactly what I’m doing when I make a moodboard: to define a visual style and a direction for the site. Client’s don’t think in these terms, not even a little bit. They might see a moodboard as home page comp, or maybe they even think of it as a brochure of the website. The only way to deal with this is education and communication. You need to explain what the purpose is and why you are doing it. Explain what it is not, and that it will lead to a ‘design’ in the sense that they know it. Take away: Communication is key.
In the end, I think moodboards will save me time. I believe they provide a quick and disposable way to give the client the separate looks and feel they want to pick from, while not wasting my time designing multiple comps, just to end up using only one.
Tumblr
So, in an effort to split up what I talk about and where I talk about it, I’ve been rearranging some deck chairs. This site—whose name will eventually change—will have much more of a focus on development and design in the world of web sites and web applications. It will also feature a portfolio and a list of projects.
If, on the other hand, you aren’t interested in all that and just want to see random videos, quotes, and links, pop on over to http://mynameiswes.com/.
Feedburner Woes
If you were subscribing to my site via RSS, you might want to unsubscribe from that one and switch to the new feed at http://feeds.wesbaker.com/wesbaker/.
The Workflow
I intend this site to be a bit of a pet project, growing over time and being added to constantly. I hope the design changes more than four times a year, mainly because I need somewhere to play with that sort of thing. It’ll be a test of certain addons and methods. And the first method started before this site even came about—actually it was how it came about.
I used a combination of technologies that I am still just getting acquainted with: Git, Capistrano and (lesser so) ExpressionEngine. The idea is I keep a version of the site on my machine for testing and such. I can commit to my repository and push it up to Github as often as I please. When it’s ready for the public, I deploy it using Capistrano. There were a few initial bumps getting it to work right and a few times where I was wondering if I was doing things right, but in the end it all worked out.
If you are looking into this workflow, I recommend looking at Dan Benjamin’s article on it.
Meager Beginnings
So, undoubtedly you’ve noticed I’m doing some redecorating around here. There’s also a bit of work occurring in the back end as well, a switch from Wordpress to ExpressionEngine. I figured it was about time to restructure how my sites currently function and make them a bit easier to manage. I also plan to write more and keep it focused.
For now, you get black text on a white background, but soon enough that’ll change.
Synchronizing Bookmarks
Synchronizing bookmarks has always been a problematic thing for me. When I was using Windows, Xmarks worked out great for me, allowing me to have the same bookmarks at work and at home. But when I switched to Mac — about a year ago — Xmarks wasn’t enough. So I combined Xmarks and an application called Bookit.
Bookit
Bookit worked great for a while, allowing me to easily sync my bookmarks, under the condition that no browser was running. And for this convenience they charged $12. Then Firefox 3 came out and Bookit no longer worked. Within a few days the developer announced that the then current version of Bookit (3.7.5) didn’t support Firefox 3 and that they would be coming out with a new version that did. Great! So I waited patiently because I assumed that they would get around to it. It’s been a little less then 7 months since that day and the developer has done nothing but say they’ll work on it, with no proof of any development.
Xmarks
Re-enter Xmarks, all new and shiny from a huge change in the way it works. Now, Xmarks will sync bookmarks for Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer. So not only do I have access to my bookmarks on any machine I’m on, my bookmarks on either browser are always current. And all of this for the low low cost of nothin’. Now, add in the fact that it supports profiles which allows me to select which folders get updated in which browser and I’m a happy camper. Safari keeps up to date with all of my bookmarks, while Firefox — where I do my development — just gets my ‘tool’ bookmarks.
Recap
Bookit
- Will work with Safari, Camino and a bunch of other browsers
- Doesn’t work with Firefox 3
- Doesn’t sync to anywhere offsite
- Costs $12
Xmarks
- Only works with Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer
- Keeps a copy of your bookmarks offsite
- Allows you to access your bookmarks without installing anything
- Absolutely Free
So while I think it’s obvious that I regret paying $12 for an application that doesn’t fit my needs, I’m very happy to have found Xmarks.