CHRISdotTODD

Steve Bayzl writes in his blog Petit ecureuil , 5 Easy Ways to be a Better Developer . Steve makes some very good points. Here is the list with my comments: Learn Ruby and Ruby on Rails: Steve's point is that you need to learn how to write clean and maintainable code. He is right on the money. It is simple: bugs need to be fixed, you will want to extend your app, and/or someone else is going to work with the code too. Read The Daily WTF? : I think the lesson here is learn from your mistakes and of others. Learn something new every week: Someone is doing something new and better everyday. I joked the other day that the Internet is moving so fast, we are now on Web 4.0. The point is that if you want a career as a developer, you need to be constantly learning. Understand customer wants != customer needs: A very wise observation. I have two comments -- First, one common situation is your customer comes to you to get a new tool to solve their business problem. What they really need is

Nintendo announced this week that their U.S. launch for the Wii (we) is scheduled for November 19th, selling for $250. This is $50 more than expected by industry analysts, but makes sense with the price of the Xbox 360 and PS3 being so high. If you have not seen the Wii, it offers an innovative controller worth checking out. Take a video tour of their event from September 14th on TechEBlog and then go over to IGN and get a first-hand look at Zelda. You wont want to miss the Zelda videos, they are truly awesome.

I was not the first to find this article, but it is worth passing on. Business Week wrote a great article on Jonathan Ive , the Apple Senior Vice-President for Industrial Design. This is probably one of the few guys that has been actually able to work closely with Steve Jobs, and the results have been great over the last 10 years. This line really resonated with me, "He talked about focusing on only what is important and limiting the number of projects", because I see too often people trying to do too many things at once. But what should really get you to read this is we rarely hear much about Apple's people , so this is a rare glimpse of Jobs' partner, who has helped to raise Apples stock over 225% in the last 10 years.

How do you solve technical problems with your computer? I have 6 PCs on a wireless network at home, plus my work laptop. In addition I support family and friends on occasion. There are so many things to know and learn, it is nearly impossible to have an answer all the time. (I did get A+ certified once, but that was a long time ago.) Amazingly enough, if you have an error code or message, or you can describe the issue in 3 to 6 words, you can often find the answer through Google. I even use Google when I know that it is an answer that I will likely find at Microsoft -- Google is easier. If you are not doing this already, it is time to start. Take for example when my firewall tells me I have a new program trying to access the Internet ( You do have a software firewall, right?! ). Recently compaq connections.exe came up -- I entered it in Google and found many results . Within the first three, I had found enough information to feel comfortable about the action to take. This part is impo

Seems once or more a week that I use Windows NetMeeting. When the participants look for NetMeeting, which Microsoft now hides, I hear them struggle to find it. For me, it is very easy -- go to Run... , type conf , and Enter . This is one of many shortcuts to launch applications that can save you time. For more of these shortcut, visit Another Home @ Sansor -- he has posted many such shortcuts . Now if you combine this with the shortcuts I posted on the 30th of August, here is what you get: type plus R , the filename from Sansor's list, and then Enter . Give it a try: + R , s-p-i-d-e-r , Enter

I cannot beleive that it is so difficult or I am so stupid, but I cannot seem to get Technorati to update (ping) my blog as being refreshed. I signed up about 12 days ago, yet it says that my blog has not been refreshed in about 95 days. Is this the day I first started my blog? I suppose it could be. I added their little promo on the right nav, but that did not help. I followed their instructions for Blogger, which I already had set, but that did not help either. And of course I have tried their manual process now about a dozen times. Of course I cannot find even an email address for support. I found something else in the FAQ section on tagging links, but I am not sure I understand how that would help either. Here's the format: <a href="http://apple.com/ipod" rel="tag">iPod</a>. I will try adding the rel="tag" to the link about, and I guess we will see. In the mean time, any help would be appreciated.

I seemed to have found several good resources related to speed and connectivity issues. My wife in particular has been frustrated that certain http connections seem slower than most – more specifically Yahoo! And Go Daddy . I decided to do some investigation, including whether I have other options besides Comcast (which I do not if I want broadband). I found a site called T1 Shopper , which provides tools and help, plus links to bandwidth testers. For example, here is their information on traceroute . They can even run a traceroute from their end to me, though Comcast seems to block the last hop. T1 Shopper also offers a download calculator . I cannot speak about the services they can hook you up with, but I believe the resources are great. Back to my connectivity issue. Here is what I sent to Comcast. Does this seem technically right? Any suggestions for better ways to troubleshoot and report connectivity issues? It seems we have problems connecting to websites reliably. My wife no

I found a great site in June, Public Knowledge , which "is a group of lawyers, technologists, lobbyists, academics, volunteers and activists dedicated to fortifying and defending a vibrant information commons." On the Public Knowledge site, Alex Curtis writes about Net Neutrality . August 30th he wrote about what it could be like if we did not have protection for a neutral Internet. In the future, we could be reading Consumer Reports for the ISP that provides interests that best match our needs. Curtis reminds us of the Prodigy, Compuserve, and (even) AOL days that did not stand the test of time. This looks like a good blog to follow.

Did you know that Firefox has a safe mode? I did not. If you find that Firefox crashes on you, perhaps after installing a new Extension, you can run Firefix in safe mode to correct the problem. Simply restart Firefox with the following switch: " -safe-mode ". Do this either through Run... , " firefox.exe -safe-mode ", or add it within the properties of your Firefox shortcut.

Jim Puzzanghera of the LA Times writes about how Olympia J. Snowe, Republican Senator from Maine actually understands the implications if we do not have a net neutraility bill. Some great insights are mentioned in this article: [New] lines won't be worth much if network operators can dictate whose data flows through them — and at what speed. [Snowe] fears that phone and cable executives would create an Internet class system. "The Googles and Yahoos will take care of themselves," Snowe said. But small entrepreneurs looking to launch innovative Web services, such as YouTube, would be at the mercy of phone and cable companies, who could charge "a mighty fee" for fast content delivery, she said. It looks like at least one more Senator is on board with Snowe, that is Byron L. Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota. Have you contacted your Senator and let him or her know how their vote will affect your vote? If you are in Washington , Senator Patty Murray is still un