Bogdan Pop : Web development , Photography , Dj

Now, web developers: programmers, copyrighters and all those of you who work in this business, are included.

Most of us have found themselves in this position many times. Now, you have the 10 reasons why your website will NOT be launched today!
1. The changes you sent to the design brief on Wednesday
2. The 150 images you sent to us yesterday
3. The text you sent to us yesterday…. in the post….. on paper
4. This is the first time your boss has seen it?
5. You never told us all your organisation used IE4
6. Yes, as we mentioned, 1024×768 won’t fit on your bosses smaller screen
7. What do you mean your logo is changing
8. So you’ve actually not got any content ready for sections 3,4,5,6 and 7?
9. Ah….. so you want sections 3,4,5 and 7 removed from the navigation….
10. The guy who controls your domain is leaving early today?

If you have any other reasons why your site will not be launched today, just feel free to post the comments.

Cheers!

I just couldn’t help it.

I’ve said it one year ago! I’ve said it hundreds of time since I said it one year ago. Well, that day has come today, and I started learning Ruby, Rails, all together ROR, or RubyOnRails. The name doesn’t really matter. What matters most is my first feeling I got after starting to read some chunks of ruby.

At first (couple of minutes), it seemed a bit harsh, but 15 minutes into reading an awesome book, I discovered that ruby is really easy! Of course, this depends on how skilled you are, perhaps, but for me it seemed very easy to understand. It has a very simple syntax, it is OOP, which is great for me, and I am really speechless when it comes to binding a ROR application to a database. This process is done by creating a database, however you like, changing connection configuration, and then creating models, and then running a simple: rake db:migrate in the command line. Of course, you need to specify some other small stuff, but the process is very very simple. If it happens you know SQL, than rails’s way in handling db creation, updating, altering etc. will seem like the cherry on top of the cake. It is simply beautiful.

What I also loved is that Jobs, Steve Jobs knew I will eventually need ruby, and bundled my MBP with ruby installed. I didn’t even had to install anything. I had ruby, I had mysql, I had apache.

4 hours later, 100 pages into a 600+ page book I feel like I knew ruby for a long time. Fascinating. Oh boy, oh boy. I will post my opinions, and feedback regarding ROR as I will go ahead into learning it, and testing it.

Wrap up:
1st day: 4 amazing hours. I already created an administration interface for products, with images, input validation and other features.

There are many web developers which outsource a part of their development process. Copyrighting. They do this simply because they are not good at it, they don’t like it, or because it is easier, cheaper. Yes, sometimes, it is cheaper to outsource copyrighting instead of writing yourself your own copy. This is due to the fact that the design of a website, for example, is more expensive than placing the content into a website, even if that content is highly optimized.

A good start for text writing, before learning optimization techniques and how to write good copy in one domain, should be a place where you can find out how each text types should be written. Such texts could be narrative,  reports, analytical, description, review and so on. The website linked above is a very god place to start.

Cheers!

In a previous post I wrote regarding a collection of web 2.0 websites. I was looking in my “coffe” break this morning if there’s some place with a collection of dirty jobs in IT.

I’ve found a mysterious, interesting place with opinions, thoughts, and creative writing about IT, marketing and other domains. Why mysterious? I couldn’t find any info about the one who writes on that website. Only the person who registered the website, but that’s irrelevant.

I came across this website while looking for the keywords I mentioned above in this article. I came across a post entitled “Seven dirtiest IT jobs”. I didn’t even know there’s this job called Legacy systems archaeologist, on-site reboot specialist, interdepartmental peace negotiator and 4 others. The best of the best is sludge systems architect described as follows:

Seeking individuals with demonstrated ability to squeeze over, under, or between confined spaces to solve technical problems. Candidates should be prepared to work long hours for low pay under adverse conditions. Must not be allergic to sawdust, vermin, airborne pathogens, or sewage.

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/10/11FE-dirty-tech-jobs_1.html

I was trying to find out the other day, due to the upcoming new release of webia, if there are any other people, talented ones, who just like to review websites, just like Web International Awards does, for free. This way I have found this review site. It is not something much, it is just a blog, but it contains so much good articles.

Of course, I stopped in the web 2.0 category, because that’s the one that interested me. This guy posts, I think, around 8 or 9 web 2.0 reviews each week. That is a lot. This is why so far he has a huge list of 140 websites in this category.

I saw in there Vimeo, Nabbr, MyWaves, The Standard and many many other powerful website. It is quite a good resource, just because those reviews are so objective. So, if you’re looking for web 2.0 websites, the above blog is the point to start looking, not Google.

Cheers!

A couple of years ago, I have registered a Romanian domain name, e-shopcenter.ro, which I planned and still plan to develop as a virtual mall. The idea is quite popular these days. The 2 basic issues such a platform has to deal with would be shopping comparison between not 2, but many many shop owners, which would probably offer the same products at varying prices. The other issue would be a global shopping cart, so that people can buy simultaneously from different providers. Just like in a real mall.

Therefor, I started to research into shopping comparison, to see how others have designed their user interfaces and their way to compare different online shopping stores. This is how I found Digxa. I stumbled upon their electronics category, and started to gather information.

At first, the category was empty, but upon selecting an inline category of electronics (camcorder accessories), the search narrowed, and the next step was me selecting a price range. Then I selected the brand I like most, and then the specific thing I was looking for. And I came up with 2 lens filters priced around 35$.

I spent 40 seconds in the process, a lot less than any other online store I have seen, and less than I would have spent in a real store asking an employer about my Canon 35$ priced lens filters.

Great website. Extraordinary experience!

Cheers!

Few days ago I was asked by one of my clients, which happens to be a nutritionist, to write some piece of code for his website that will calculate the body mass index of an adult person. To do this, I had to research a bit into this exact issue. So doing this i found BMI Calculator. They have a simple script which calculates in either English or metric system the BMI of one person.

As I have a similar math app, I might release my BMI script too, just as I did with the previous math converter/calculator. Of course, this script is not complex at all, but it can be very useful. I may even release it as an API, so that nutritionists, doctors and alike could easy implement it into their sites, or simply use them in their offices.

Until then, I warmly recommend you the above BMI calculator, which works great.

Quicknote: BMI is used to calculate if the extra weight you have translates itself into future health issues. You may also find the body mass index defined as quetelet index. As I said above that this is not a complex app, I must state also why. Well, BMI is calculated with a simple division, between the weight and the height, weight over the height squared.

Cheers!

I will start this article with the fact. Google search for modernbill acquired by parallels

. As you can see, my blog article regarding the acquisition of Modernbill is first result, just on top of Modernbill’s official website, while Parallels’s official site is further down, the last 2 items in the result page. So, this interesting article about Modernbill, Parallels (formerly SWsoft) which is top on Google is just another proof for me that my SEO skills are good. I think I will even create some print document regarding this to use in marketing here in Romania. Cheers!

What can I say, I was reading some finance related articles at around 12:50 AM in Romania. Of course, I was listening to Club FG as usual (Didier Sinclair was on air/line tonight) but at precisely 1 AM, Robbie Rivera kicked in. And my god. I finished those finance related articles hours ago (not really, but to emphasize). Why didn’t I go to sleep if I finished my late night reading? Simple. Robbie Rivera has threw in some sick tunes in his mix. I mean, there’s not 1 song that was with poor rhythm.

It was an awesome one hour mix, and I do not think this one compares to anything I have ever listened before. Hell yes, if this mix was played inside some club, the dance floor would have been flooded and the bar left empty.

Robbie, when are you coming to Romania? Specifically Cluj-Napoca, please!
And now you know that the next few days spare time I will use to find this mix, its tracks and re-listen it over and over and, over and out!

Edited 10 minutes later:
Ok, so Tecktonik kicked in with some guest dj whom’s name I didn’t pick up. The feeling is still as above. What is up with FG tonight? I haven’t heard such good quality electro in ages. It is as simple as that. Thank god Tecktonik has a lovely podcast I am subscribed to. I’ll check Tecktonik’s mix tomorrow when I have recharged my batteries. MacBookPro’s and mine aswell.

Cheers!