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I’ve spent some time attempting to create a JPA implementation for SimpleDB to see if it could be done. After some serious hack sessions, I’ve got what appears to be a solid working version.
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I decided to embark on figuring out how to make my site as fast as possible. There were a few tips I was already aware of but decided to grade myself using YSlow. My initial score was bad, an F
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When you’re using Rails and OS X, you’re using the platform of choice for douchebags.
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A good software development process should optimize experimentation and improve feedback from reality. In software the most important realities are UE and technical quality, while the primary experiments are working software and code.
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Amazon is not obsessed with page-load times. When I cleared my cache and pointed YSlow at Amazon’s front page, it took over 40 seconds to load! And a good 10 of those seconds showed nothing but an empty page.
Archive | February, 2008
links for 2008-02-28
February 28, 2008 
0 Comments
Closing a Few Doors: Software Requirements Gathering
February 27, 2008 3 Comments
Wow, the parallels in Dr. Ariely new book “Predictably Irrational” to the Software Requirments Gathering process are unintentional but powerful.
“Xiang Yu was a Chinese general in the third century B.C. who took his troops across the Yangtze River into enemy territory and performed an experiment in decision making. He crushed his troops’ cooking pots and burned their ships.
He explained this was to focus them on moving forward — a motivational speech that was not appreciated by many of the soldiers watching their retreat option go up in flames. But General Xiang Yu would be vindicated, both on the battlefield and in the annals of social science research.
He is one of the role models in Dan Ariely’s new book, “Predictably Irrational,” an entertaining look at human foibles like the penchant for keeping too many options open. General Xiang Yu was a rare exception to the norm, a warrior who conquered by being unpredictably rational.
Most people can’t make such a painful choice, not even the students at a bastion of rationality like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Dr. Ariely is a professor of behavioral economics. In a series of experiments, hundreds of students could not bear to let their options vanish, even though it was obviously a dumb strategy (and they weren’t even asked to burn anything).
The experiments involved a game that eliminated the excuses we usually have for refusing to let go.. In the real world, we can always tell ourselves that it’s good to keep options open.
You don’t even know how a camera’s burst-mode flash works, but you persuade yourself to pay for the extra feature just in case. You no longer have anything in common with someone who keeps calling you, but you hate to just zap the relationship.”
How many of us have fought business analysts who want ‘everything configurable’ and to deploy ‘every feature’? Frankly, I can’t think of any bigger timesink for software teams these days.
See the full article and NYT review at: The Advantages of Closing a Few Doors – New York Times
links for 2008-02-27
February 27, 2008 0 Comments
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Jacob is writing about why he putting-out-the-fire believes that TDD zealots have caused people to skip unit testing altogether
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Listening to users is a tricky thing. Users often don’t know what they want, and even if they did, the communication is likely to get garbled somewhere between them and you. By no means should you ignore your users, though.
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As part of this project I was running plenty of bechmarking tests, trying every technique imaginable to squeeze more juice from the servers. And so, I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few “secrets” that are going to put your site on steroids.
Google Trends: What are you really reading in Reader?
February 26, 2008 0 Comments
Google’s rss feed application Reader has a somewhat hidden but extremely useful feature. Go to your Reader Trends Page and you’ll see what feeds you’re actually reading, emailing and sharing.
My trends headline is:
From your 126 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 10,970 items, starred 0 items, shared 89 items, and emailed 1 items.
Which may mean that I’m addicted to RSS. Check out my personal Trends screenshot:
My most read feeds weren’t exactly what I expected as I seem to read a lot more Digg and Engadget than I thought. I also love the Subscription Trends >> Inactive tab for removing dead feeds.
links for 2008-02-26
February 26, 2008 0 Comments
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Yukihiro Matsumoto, software programmer best known as the chief designer of the Ruby programming language, speaks about Ruby 1.9.
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3-2-1 Launch is aimed to clients who want 1.0 version of their website in three days. After a prospective client interview, the Hashrocket team will work with you to develop a clear, realistic vision for your site and build it right the first time.
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The defining characteristic of Ruby on Rails is, as the name suggests, speed. Using Rails, an adept programmer can create a simple blogging application in 15 minutes or a photo database in five. Two guys built Twitter in two weeks.
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Create a platform for you to create your own social content website.
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An interface library that allows Ruby or Ruby on Rails applications to easily connect to the HTTP ‘Query API’ for the Amazon Web Services Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and manipulate server instances.
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Take the much easier route and use an existing SMS gateway service. One such provider is Clickatell who are one of the bigger providers out there with a range of services whose customers include Barclays Bank, the BBC and CNN.
links for 2008-02-25
February 25, 2008 0 Comments
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Now, I’ve got a few of my social networks integrated into my Socialthing! Lifestream. I’m already able to reply to Tweets from the interface, and soon I’ll be able to Digg stories, comment on Flickr photos and a ton more…
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Friends for Sale did all this using Ruby on Rails, two part time developers, a cluster of a dozen machines, and a fairly standard architecture. How did Friends for Sale scale to sell all those beautiful people?
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The huge psychological gap between “almost zero” and “zero” is why micropayments failed. It’s why Google doesn’t show up on your credit card. It’s why modern Web companies don’t charge their users anything. And it’s why Yahoo gives away disk drive space.
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Some JBoss World presentations are now available. More are being put up every week.
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“It” is Client Certificates, and to me to means “never logging on with username/password NOR OpenID ever again”. Zero Sign On. It must be better than the much-targetted Single Sign On.
Skype-compatible webcam for $9
February 24, 2008 0 Comments
There are many reviews saying this camera is great for Skype, it’s ultraportable and clips about where the MacBooks have their camera. Looks great for $9 after rebate and free super saver shipping.
Amazon.com: Logitech QuickCam Deluxe for Notebooks: Electronics
links for 2008-02-24
February 24, 2008 0 Comments
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Organize and share your checklists online with “the wiki of checklists,” sharing and collaboration webapp Checkser. Current available checklists cover self management projects, how to prepare for a vacation and more.
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Immediacy — it’s a rolling present. You won’t get the sense of Twitter if you just check in once a week. You need to hang out for minutes and hours, every day, to get in the groove.
links for 2008-02-23
February 23, 2008 0 Comments
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In this article I will take a good look at XFN – the microformat for describing relationships between people. I will look at the basic markup before then looking at the benefits you can get from that data by extracting it and using it in different ways.
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Where Are They Now?: I can’t stop! Today I read Programmers at Work, a 1986 book of interviews by Susan Lammers. I was compelled to write this weblog entry detailing what all of the people mentioned in the book did since the book was published.
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wouldn’t it be great if you could run those apps side-by-side with your Windows apps—like Linux users can do with WINE or OS X can do with Parallels or VMWare? You can
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Here’s how to get set up with DoubleTwist and Twist Me to start sharing media between with your Facebook friends.
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Wikipedia deploys bots—supervised by a special caste of devoted users—that help standardize format, prevent vandalism, and root out folks who flood the site with obscenities. This is not the wisdom of the crowd. This is the wisdom of the chaperones.
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There are three things that will help you become a microcelebrity: Put yourself out there. Talk about your successes and your mistakes. alk about your opinions and the reasoning behind them. Be authentic. Be eccentric.
links for 2008-02-22
February 22, 2008 0 Comments
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Google? No I passed on that. t-shirt
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The folks at iPhone Atlas have taken care of that one for you; they’ve just posted an article that guides you step-by-step on how to take video from that purchased DVD and get it onto your iPhone or iPod touch.
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There is no doubt that the Semantic Web is slowly becoming real. However, there is a gap emerging with Content Authoring tools, which have not yet made this paradigm shift.
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DoubleTwist bridges the gap between iTunes & Facebook so that media flows freely from person to person. DoubleTwist could become an essential social and music tool.
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If you are an Outlook user, you probably have it open all the time. Now you can update your Twitter status and follow your friends without having to open any other applications. OutTwit seamlessly integrates Twitter into Outlook.
