Stop Using Internet Explorer 6 & 7!
Internet Explorer 6 & 7 contain several security holes that will never be patched. Simply put, ie6 and ie7 are not safe browsers to use in any situation.
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Developers and Testers
Should ‘developers’ rely on ‘testers’ for large projects? Or should they be responsible for their own testing?
I have been working with a few developers part of a larger firm that ‘hand off’ code to testers when they feel it is ‘done’. In my mind the developer should religiously check their own code as they work on it and only consider it done if they have checked it from every angle they can think of. Only later would testers come through to find the very unobtrusive ‘bugs’. Above all, a tester should never be a crutch for the developer.
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BING.com (But Its Not Google)
I’ve been seeing a lot of bing.com commercials lately so I thought it may be time to look into this ‘new’ search engine. (In case you haven’t seen these yet you can check them out here.)
Bing.com, formerly Live Search (live.com), formerly Windows Live Search, formerly MSN Search (msn.com), went fully online June 3 2009.
It sports some cool new features (specifically with video and image searches) but beyond that it doesn’t seem to be much more than a new face on an old search engine. Microsoft is spending $80 – $100 million to advertise this ‘new’ search engine which, when it comes down to it, is just msn search with a new skin and some cool new bells and whistles.
So far, I haven’t found a reason why it is any better than Google or Yahoo. I will continue using Google as my search engine of choice and don’t see switching any time soon.
If you would like to read more about this, Wikipedia is a good place to start.
Basecamp & Highrise Review
As business increases I have recognized the need to use a project management and CRM software solution. Keeping track of 3-4 concurrent projects can be done in your head, but increase that to 12-15 and things start slipping through the cracks! I recently started using the solutions offered by 37signals.com and I am very impressed!
This may sound like a paid review, but trust me it is not. I do get 50% off my monthly fee if you click the links on this post and sign up – but that is not the reason I have written this. In the short time I have used these solutions I have become more productive, things are getting done more efficiently and my clients are happy. At first the monthly fee put me off, but if being more organized means getting even one more project in a month its paid for itself many times over.
I reviewed many other solutions from open source (www.opensourcecms.com look under ‘groupware’) to paid solutions (www.activecollab.com) and ended up back at 37signals.
Oh when will I go Mac…
I’ll admit, Macs are very cool and I have been considering making the switch for some time. It seems that every web developer I aspire to either started on a Mac or has recently made the switch. I’m getting the feeling I’m missing out on something. Besides that, It would be useful for my business to have one on hand for cross-testing instead of relying on third party solutions (or Safari on PC). I just haven’t been able to justify the cost.
Is a mac really worth 2x the cost of a PC?
The Truth About Hosting
Over the years I have used several hosting companies for my own personal websites and for the last few years administered our company dedicated servers. In this time I have noticed an industry trend to ‘oversell’ hosting. This is most prominent in the very inexpensive hosting options know as ‘shared hosting’. In this article I will explain the different hosting options and expose what I believe to be the truth about ‘overselling’ in the industry.