I very recently took a new job working in an Enterprise SOA environment after having been out of this space for the last three years. Even back then, I had been working on developing an ESB product set (at webMethods), which is different than being a consumer of an ESB. For this reason, I thought [...]
Archive for November, 2009
SOA For Dummies
Posted in Architecture on November 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Don’t Make Me Think – The Rest of The Book
Posted in Usability and Design on November 20, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I had previously been blogging about this book.
I like the way Steve Krug uses the analogy of Sears department store signs and clerks to web navigation and search. He also discusses how important these are to retention and giving you a sense as to where you are in a site.
Web navigation conventions are very important [...]
Practices of an Agile Developer
Posted in Agile on November 18, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I earlier reviewed my experience thus far with this book at http://johnragan.org/2009/11/12/practices-of-an-agile-developer/. Now, I have finished reading it.
All in all, even though a lot of things weren’t new to me, I would have to recommend this book. I went through and summarized the contents in Evernote for later review, but I can’t share that with [...]
Inner Join vs. Left Outer Join vs. Right Outer Join vs. Full Outer Join Examples
Posted in Database and SQL on November 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I write SQL queries (and joins) every once in a while, but never had to deal with such things as “left outer joins” or “full outer joins” and so forth. I always found this a little confusing and could not remember the differences after reading about them.
Today I had a crazy idea – why not [...]
Copying Files From a Remote Server Using Putty
Posted in Linux/Unix on November 13, 2009 | 1 Comment »
In order to work with a Unix remote server from my Windows machine, I had to use Putty in place of ssh. However, I had to move a file from this remote server to my client Windows machine, and Putty is not a parallel of scp (which I normally use on my Mac).
However, pscp seems [...]
Practices of an Agile Developer
Posted in Rails on November 12, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I have been reading “Practices of an Agile Developer” by Venkat Subramaniam over a few lunches. At 200 or so pages, it is a quick read (I am 2/3 through).
The problem? I have not been learning anything new.
But is that really a problem? The book is excellent, pragmatic, and full of good tips and ways [...]
More on Google Maps – V2
Posted in Javascript, Web Front End on November 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I did some additional playing around with Google Maps.
In this version, I created (actually lifted) a custom heart icon for the markers to display on the map for some favorite locations at WDW. I did not worry about transparency nor altering the underlying shadow. Why a heart? Because the bright red offers good contrast.
I added [...]
Affordances Everywhere (or Not)
Posted in Usability and Design on November 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I just finished Don’t Make Me Think (more articles on that later). When you study web-site Usability, you notice more issues in real life.
I bought some things on sale at Safeway, and entered my phone number. It happily took it. Only later did I discover (luckily before paying) that it had not found my number, [...]
Don’t Make Me Think – Part 2
Posted in Usability and Design on November 7, 2009 | 1 Comment »
As stated in an earlier post, I said I would would continue reading “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug. I completed chapters 2-5 with these salient points:
Users don’t typically read pages but scan them.
Users don’t study the page and make the best choice. Rather, they choose the first reasonable option and go with it [...]
Basics on Using Google Maps – V2
Posted in Javascript, Web Front End on November 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I decided to play around the more basic aspects of Google Maps, and put together a working demo with a bunch of comments in the HTML. It covers most of the basic parts to get quickly up and running.
You can view it in action at http://wdwescort.com/other/maps/maps_example.html, and then get the page source to roll your [...]
