Archive for 2008
Front End Performance
We’re all web developers here right?
Most of us?
At least, I am.
An article posted at DrunkenFist.com, Why Front End Performance Matters to Everyone, Not Just the High Traffic Giants, goes into why front end performance is important on all sized sites.
The article quotes a commonly spoken theme in web development:
That stuff is for the Googles of the world. We don’t really need to focus on that with what we do.
I hear it all the time from people. That there isn’t a need to worry about that 35k 120×120 JPEG on the home page. Lets make it animate, even if the single function adds 28k to the page download.
What sticks with people is hearing that when google shaves off some small amount of file size, the result is something like $50,000 / hour in return. This number is made up, but meant to illustrate a point. To small store owners, $50,000 is a large number. To google, it is very small. Small business will possibly realize a few dollars a month with extensive optimization, assuming their hosting plans are even based on that at all.
What’s the point in optimization if we only make a few dollars a month?
The end user experience. The user experience is not quantifiable in terms like “$10 / hour”, it is just as important. A faster web page, more solid web page, reflects the business itself.
If a company is always interested in making all of their processes more efficient, then it is more likely that whatever they do for revenue has the same types of optimizations. Over years, optimizations can become quite dramatic.
If this year a website only gets 1000 visitors, and of that only 10 of the users realized the benefit of the optimization — that doesn’t mean much. However, what if one of those 10 users just happens to run a blog in your industry?
The point of all of this, front end performance is important. You can almost always improve the user experience.
As an exersize try to build a standard webpage with a miniscule allowed footprint. I’ve always had the most fun with flash banner ads that must fit into 10k or 20k file sizes. You will gain an understanding of what you are working with, and become more of a craftsman in your work.
Flash banner customization has helped me understand the following skills:
- Embedded fonts — picking which letters to embed and fonts to embed
- Sometimes vector art in Flash is much more efficient than imported graphics
- Sometimes vector art in flash is NOT as memory efficient as imported graphics
There are always tradeoffs in everything we do. Until we push our work to the edge, we rarely see how to control it.
OpenDNS – Free powerful DNS service
You may have noticed the Entrecard advertisement on the side of this blog, it’s a site that links bloggers together.
Entrecard helps you get the word out about your blog, and hopefully find more people that you want to follow, as well as readers for your own blog.
One of the habits Entrecard creates is looking through a lot of blogs in the beginning of the day. You can see a list of blogs that are members of Entrecard and have looked at your site. It’s nice to see a list of people who are interested in your subject matter. Unfortunately, that list of blogs can reach into the hundreds on a daily basis.
I found myself queuing up about 40-50 tabs in Chrome (still using and loving it) and looking through everyones blogs.
This brings me to OpenDNS.
Before using OpenDNS servers, I would normally be able to only load up a page or two before pages started to fail. I know I have a fast computer, and that the links were valid, the hosts were not going down, it was merely a problem with my internet connection. Seeing as the problem was mostly binary — either pages loaded or had DNS issues, I figured the problem was DNS related.
OpenDNS has a great tutorial on how to setup OpenDNS on your network.
It was quick, easy, and drastically improved some browsing experiences (normal browsing is a bit faster, but not as noticable as when I load dozens of pages at a time).
One bonus is that you have a dashboard that can be used to control your networks usage. You can easily filter sites, monitor usage, and create shortcuts for any machine in your network (home points to www.google.com, mail could point to mail.google.com/a/domain.com, etc).
Below are some recent articles about OpenDNS:
- Lose your Time Warner internet connection (again)? You could try Open DNS
- 20,000 K-12 Schools Adopt Free Web Security Tool
- OpenDNS – a blogger writes about DNS security issues, and why OpenDNS helps
Back from Holidays (almost)
Our new dog, a Shih Tzu / Yorkie / etc mix.
It’s been a while, I’ve been traveling for the holidays.
The best part of the holidays has been spending time with our new dog, Olive (the photo should be here in the post).
She traveled from Rhode Island, down to Long Island, back to Rhode Island, up to New Hampshire and finally back to Rhode Island. She couldn’t have been a better dog. Most of the car ride she would curl up in the back seat and go to sleep. Occassionally she would nose her way up into the front seat to sit on our laps.
I have asthma, and significant dog allergies. That is only for certain dogs though. Olive is a hypo allergenic dog. To her credit, she is much better than any previous dog my family has ever had. However, it is still not perfect.
The first 5 days with her were bearable. My nose stuffed up immediately, but that could have been from standing in the cold waiting for her to arrive. The 6th day with her my lungs started to tighten up significantly. This was unfortunate, Olive was already a loved member of the family.
What helped it? Air filters!
I did a lot of research online, and determined that the IQAir HealthPro Plus HEPA Air Purifier – Air Cleaner with with Gas and Odor Filter – HyperHepa Technology
was the best out there (this is not paid, just my opinion). If you have severe allergies, please check it out. It is very expensive (the model I was looking at was easily twice the price of comparitive models), but sounded great.
The problem was that my lungs were in distress that minute, and couldn’t wait for the air filter to be delivered. While waiting for calls back from distributors, I went to Home Depot and picked up some items:
- 3M FAPF03 Filtrete Ultra Cleaning Filter
- Honeywell HFD-120 Tower HEPAQuiet Air Purifier with Permanent IFD Filter, Black
I’m not sure which one it really was, but the combination changed everything. I was getting better within 15 minutes of turning the filters on.
Within 2 days you could see the buildup of particulates on the 3M filter. Now a week later, I’m breathing fine with the dog.
For now I’m holding off on getting the IQ Air filter (which I think will be amazing) since I’m breathing ok now. The sales guy I talked to about the IQ Air was actually very honest, saying that what I did could very well have eliminated my allergies. He of course was proud of his air filter and offered an in home demo, but said I should wait to see if I really needed one. I respect that. If things aren’t working for you, and you are in the Northeast region check him out (let him know where you heard of him — he may be interested to know, it won’t get you a deal though):
Air Quality Solutions
79 Putname Pike #7
Johnston, RI 02919
401-231-2240
Normally I post stories that I find interesting, or professionally relevent. That’s not how I intend to keep this blog going.
There will certainly be more stories from my life.
At that, I still have some posts to make about computer related topics. They shoudl follow this post. The next post should be about OpenDNS.
Happy Holidays to everyone, and Happy New Year!
Synergy: Multiple Computers and One Keyboard/Mouse
About a week ago I posted about useful tools for web development. Today I wanted to make sure everyone knew about a great application for almost every web developer.
If you’re like me, you have multiple systems set up. My workspace includes a Windows XP (laptop), Windows Vista, and a Mac running OS X. When doing web development, we all have to test our web pages with every platform out there. This is why I have this many computers.
The annoying part is that to use the Mac, I have to either hook up my extra keyboard to it, or move my USB key for my Logitech diNovo
Synergy, is a great app for that. Synergy allows you to install a client or server on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista (I have tested this myself, even though it isn’t listed on the site), Mac OS X 10.2 or higher, and Unix (X Windows version 11 rev 4 or higher — or XTEST extension).
Basically Synergy sets up your mouse and keyboard on the “server” machine, and lets clients connect. The server requires you to configure it, telling the server where each clients resides in relation to your server monitor.
I found the setup very easy. It isn’t as intuitive as you would like, requiring you to say things like “Computer X is to the left of Computer Y”. I like the multiple monitor configuration in windows, where I can drag windows to where I want them.
To use it, you just run the client / server — and move your mouse. Move it off the screen to another machine.
It works.
Flash on the G1, Android OS — it works
We’ve been waiting for it, and the G1 has now demoed running Flash Player 10.
Andy Ruben has demoed that Flash can run on Android. In Andy Ruben demos Flash on the G1; it won’t be long now, we read that on November 17th at the Adobe MAX event Andy Ruben was able to demo Flash.
See the video below:
Google Android GPhone #2
With all the “hype” around the T-Mobile G1, what did we get?
Certainly not enough.
Now we are waiting to see what happens with the – Agora.
The Kogan Agora, powered by the Android Operating System will be the first phone in Australia powered by the Android software.
That’s right, Australia. Will it get to the states? It looks cool enough, but what about the specs?
- 2.5-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with 262k QVGA (320 X 240 pixel) resolution
- 5-Way Central Navigation Key
- QWERTY Keyboard
- Bluetooth 2.0
- Built in Mic and Speaker
- Headphone output
- Video: JPEG2, H263, H264, MPEG4, AVI
- HxWxD – 108mm x 64mm x 14.8mm
- Weight: 130g
- 1300 mAh Lithium-ion battery
- Up to 400 minutes Talk Time
- Up to 300 hours Standby Time
- 624 MHz processor
- 256 MB On-board + 128 MB Flash
- microSD card expansion slot
- VERY IMPORTANT: UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz), GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
- Handsfree
- FM Radio
- SMS
- MMS 1.0
- Video Recording
- IM
- Phone Book
- Ring Silencer/Quick Silent
- Mini-USB Connectivity (Charging, headset)
Silicon Alley Insider reports on the release as well, Another Google Android GPhone On The Way (GOOG).
Dan Frommer, of Silicon Alley Insider, says that this phone woudl work better with AT&T than T-Mobile, as it doesn’t support the 1700 MHz frequency that T-Mobile uses for 3G.
Papervision Augmented Reality
In the 2008 presidential elections, CNN had some pretty “cheesy” special effects.
CNN tried to involve “holograms” (they were far from holograms technically) into their live coverage. In reality, it was mostly augmented reality that they were using. Give them credit for trying something new. It would have been nice for them not to say it was a hologram. For the next 5 years people are going to see real holograms and say they saw CNN do it better in 2008.
Boffswana (formerly Digital Pictures Interactive) has published the source code to a Papervision and Flash powered augmented reality.
Papervision – Augmented Reality, lets you print out a symbol and place it on your desk. When you start up the flash movie and let it access your video camera, you can move a 3d object around in the flash movie — augmented reality .. not a hologram — and see a 3d monster object move around as if he were on top of it.
They provide source code and printouts. How fun.
The project requires Papervision and FLARToolkit libraries.
A video from there site is below:
Papervision – Augmented Reality (extended) from Boffswana on Vimeo.
Favorite Software for Web Development
Sometimes when you start out doing something on computers, it seems so hard until you get the tools that everyone else uses.
In this post I’m asking everyone else for feedback, what do you like to use? Go ahead and comment it in there, I’ll add it to the article as I see em.
Below are some of my favorite pieces of software for web development, some will be very obvious (Flash, Photoshop, etc.) … some maybe not so much:
TextPad
I love textpad for basic text changes from everything PHP, to HTML, to writing notes. It’s great to have multiple documents, line numbers, quick global / file / local search and replaces etc. I use this when I’m working with source files, XML definition files, CSS files, to CFM or other formats. I love it.
HomeSite
Those of you who know homesite, will know it’s pretty much gone nowadays. The heyday was many years ago. The direct FTP editing was amazingly useful. It has some features that I still go back to now and then. Mostly search and replace functionality, FTP based editing (right on ther server … mostly), document formatting (code sweeper), and other utilitarian functions.
CuteFTP Pro
Working on the web, we all are in constant use of FTP (more so than we should be). Cute FTP has always been a staple of my software toolbox. It’s so easy to launch connections to all the FTP servers you use throughout the day, keep them open for jumping between projects. The number of protocols it supports is flexible (FTP, FTP w/ SSL, SFTP, HTTP, HTTPS, etc.), and it always seem to be able to connect. The speeds and setting are highly configurable. It’s nice having 50 simultaneous downloads going at a time.
Tortoise SVN
Whoever isn’t using SVN, should be using SVN (or CVS or whatever other version control system you can think of). Tortoise SVN is an essential windows interface enhancement to integrate SVN into the file browser. For those of you who use CVS, there’s a Tortoise CVS as well. It is easy to look at version histories, compare files based on modification dates, and to pull down new updates.
Subversion
Source control is underutilized in my experience. So many sites aren’t run with source control. Think of the advantages: automatic source control, automatic offsite backup (if you use an external host — which I would love to recommend svnrepository.com, a very cheap hosted SVN repository). Read about it, get used to it, it will save a project.
Eclipse
You were waiting for me to say it weren’t you? An open source IDE. Technically it started as a Java IDE (most Java developers should be intimately familiar with this). Thanks to add-ons developed by the community, it supports, quite adeptly, PHP and other web development technologies. It has built in SVN support, supports deployment scripts… its amazing. Try it, explore the community around it. Check out the Subclipse add-on, as well as the Web Developer Tools, and Eclipse XML Editors and Tools.
Adobe Flash (Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium
Pretty much a no brainer, you need Adobe Flash to develop flash. It’s a great tool, worth every penny.
Adobe Photoshop (Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium
Another obvious one. Photoshop is a requirements for all web development. No, you shouldn’t be doing web design work as a developer. However, there is always the need to look at colors, size things, cut up images, process original artwork, the list goes on forever. I really recommend the Adobe Creative Suite, we use almost all of the software anyway.
Microsoft Word (Microsoft Office
You will always need this (or another decent word processor). Yes, you can get by without it. However the sheer amount of things Word can handle: Estimates, Proposals, Letterheads, Envelopes, Labels, the list goes on and on.. you will wish you had it someday.
Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Office
Another one that you don’t always think about, but excel makes writing estimates so much easier. You can update your entire estimate based upon a new discount, manage hours, track changes. I’ve used Google’s online spreadsheets before – they are great. But they aren’t fully able to replace excel yet.
Microsoft PowerPoint (Microsoft Office
Those proposals are much better with an accompanying presentation. Tell your clients what you do, what they need, in a way that can impact people in a conference room. Everyone yawns when it comes to yet ANOTHER powerpoint presentation, but you look unprofessional without one in most cases.
MySQL
Normally this is on a hosted platform, but you need a database to do the cooler web development projects. MySQL is cheap, but if you want you can substitute in Microsoft SQL Server, or even Oracle. In my experience if you know why you want MS or Oracle, you can pay for them. If you don’t know why you want either of those, just go with MySQL.
PHP MY Admin
Administration software is just as important as the backend engine, at least for development. It lets you manage a database online, easily, and export simply. If you haven’t used it, try it.
SQL Server Management Studio
Another tool for development on SQL servers. Same as PHP My Admin, arguably much more helpful, but it is a client app. If you’re working with Oracle, or prefer these desktop applications to the PHPMyAdmin web interface — check out Aqua Data Studio.
There are really dozens more tools I consider very useful. Not exluding:
- Versions of all browsers
- VPN Connectivity software
- Remote Desktop
- VNC Client
- pcAnywhere (not so much anymore)
- Outlook / Email Client
Last but not least, is Google. It is the best tool you will have when working in web development.
Apple Releases official iPhone 2.2 firmware!
As predicted earlier, Apple released iPhone 2.2 firmware update today. I’m stuck without access to my machine, so I can’t update my iPhone, but here’s the description from macrumors.com:
Enhancements to Maps
- Google Street View
- public transit and walking directions
- display address of dropped pins
- share location via email
Enhancements to Mail
- resolved isolated issues with scheduled fetching of email
- improved formatting of wide HTML email
Improved stability and performance of Safari
Podcasts are now available for download in iTunes application (over Wi-Fi and cellular)
Decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
Improved sound quality of visual voicemail messages
Pressing the Home button from any Home screen takes you to the first Home screen
Preferences to turn on/off auto-correction in Keyboard settings
The update appears to deliver all of the expected features that we have detailed over the past several weeks. Other new findings include:
- App Store links in Mobile Safari correctly link directly to the App Store.
- Street view does not appear to be in the iPod Touch
- Tech note on downloading Podcasts in iPhone 2.2
- Netshare still works according to one user
- Emoji troubleshooting and Emoji technote for Japanese customers.
- Security changes found in 2.2.
- Transit directions screenshot
- How to invoke Street View on the iPhone
Wired: Why Apple Won’t Allow Adobe Flash on iPhone
A topic I am highly interested, the intersection of two of my favorite technologies — Adobe Flash (earlier, Macromedia Flash) and the iPhone.
Wired.com has a story published today, November 17, 2008 — Why Apple Won’t Allow Adobe Flash on iPhone.
Although there are reports that Adobe is investing in porting Flash over to the iPhone, Flash for the iPhone (seangw.com), according to the iPhone SDK agreement, recently published by wikileaks.org, “No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s).”
Personally I just cannot see Apple eliminating Flash from the iPhone. It is a power struggle between Adobe and Apple, but why? Adobe’s applications have supported the core Apple “worhshippers”, designers, who have used Apple devotedly for decades. The only thing that Flash does for the iPhone is eliminate control by Apple over content on the iPhone. We all know it’s going to happen sooner or later.
Some other arguments Apple is using, or that can be conceivable are:
- Lack of control over applications
- Goes against the iPhone developer’s Terms of Service specifically prohibiting Flash from appearing on the iPhone.
- Customer support complaints regarding flash (given the already large number of requests for the iPhone)
- Battery life issues
- Straining the iPhone’s limited resources
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