Funcoder Technology Blog

I find that life as a developer involves continuous learning of new techniques and technologies. To help me achieve this I thought it would be helpful for you folks to know the sites I use.

1. Sitepoint

I love the Sitepoint books, they are so clear and easy to understand and they get the aesthetics just right. I am always getting emails from them with great discounts on new books and being able to download the PDF version while I wait for the physical book to arrive is great.

Visit Sitepoint Here

2. Pragmatic Programmers

I was looking recently on my account and realised that I have purchased 28 books from this site. The range of content is fantastic, from Pragmatic Thinking when developing to learning Cocoa and iPhone development. The new feature of being able to download a purchased book and read it on my iPhone is very cool.

Visit Pragmatic Programmers Here

3. Peepcode

I admit it, I have a thing for Ruby on Rails and this is why I love the video training from Peepcode. It also has a few videos from Lars Pind, who is a great Life Coach and developer. I would highly recommend Productivity for Programmers.

4. Safari Books Online

There are so many books out there and sometimes you just need a section from a book to understand a concept. This is the great part of Safari Books Online and its search facilities. I wouldn’t use this to read a who book as I’m the type of person that wants to hold it in my hands and turn pages.

Visit Safari Books Online Here

5. Lynda.com

This site has a wealth of video training for us techies, ranging from HTML, CSS, JavaScript to how to use development tools like Dreamweaver.

Visit Lynda.com Here

I am a big fan of Sci-Fi movies, not just as they a great escapism but they also give me ideas for software projects. Solutions today are not only about functionality they are also about aesthetics, so I am on a mission to build solutions of the future using current technology.

The Microsoft 2019 video is a great way to see developers and designers ideas come alive. I highly recommend you watch this.

Well the week is over and the challenges fun will continue on Monday. This week I continued work on an exciting project for a prize management company here in the UK.

Each day I start by reviewing my task list I have for completing the project. I just use this as a refresher as the tasks are very brief, like “Winner CRUD operations”.

From this list I decide my work for the day and write a list of tasks I wish to complete by the end of the day. Each task often has notes associated, to remind me of requirements.

I believe it is important not to set a time scale for each task. So I wouldn’t recommend you add these to a calendar. Do so just adds further pressure for you to complete it in the allotted time. You then end up spending more time watching the clock and panicking when you could be spending time being creative.

So make a list of tasks you can realistically complete in the day and just do them. You will find your code will flow a lot better and you get a sense of achievement every time you tick one off.

There will be times when one task takes longer than expected and you have to bump other tasks to the next day. Don’t worry as you are still in control, so when you start the next day you just include the bumped task in the new days list.

What a great name for this new venture of Richard and Lance. The little snippet of the site tells us it’s going to be a finance app for us freelancers. Hope this is going to support other countries like the UK.

Have a look at http://underpaidgenius.com/

Richard is a very cool web developer and has created cool app’s like SlimTimer and ActiveScaffold for Rails.

Not sure what you want to do at work today, well choose one of these two options:

As a web/software developer I often have to step back and ask myself if developing a site from scratch is the correct solution.

There are so many third party and open source high profile projects that could often fit 90% of a projects requirements. The other 10% can be solved by making tweaks, adding or developing a plug-in.

I have one new client who requires a web site to promote their London Touring Cab business.  They want to publish content about tours, packages, special London events contact information. I have also recommended some community features to allow customers to interact, make suggestions, ask for advice and more.

With the work proposal I was able to identify that Joomla fit their requirements and also allowed them to publish  additional content and make changes. There are a number of plug-ins that can be added for additional features, plus I can create bespoke plug-ins for the client as required.

There are also many web graphics designers out there producing very cool Joomla templates, so we can get the site look and feel designed just right.

I know this could all be created in Rails but it will take more effort, time and resources than using Open Source. Also creating plug-ins for the client I can give back to the Joomla community by publishing them for anyone to use.

I finally found some space at home to place a desk and have a dedicated work area for my ever increasing web development and soon to be podcast. Lots of space for a nice shiny new iMac but I guess that will have to wait.

You don’t have to do everything by yourself. If you are running out of time or simply aren’t that enthusiastic about the coding process, you might be willing to consider special “coding services” to get your job done in time.

read more | digg story

WSL-Amazon 2.0 – REALbasic Amazon.com web services library. (Commercial): ”

WSL-Amazon - Easily Integrate Amazon Web Services into Your REALbasic Applications. This HTTPSocket subclass wraps the Amazon Web Services ECS 4.0 API into an easy-to-use library of 36 powerful methods and 164 properties with support for their US, UK, German, French, Canadian, and Japanese Amazon stores.

Includes extensive search and information retrieval capabilities, plus the ability to create, update and checkout Amazon shopping carts — all from within your REALbasic applications! This class library also comes with the project source code for a fully- functional Amazon-powered application, which you can reuse in your own REALbasic projects!

”

(Via MacUpdate – Mac OS X.)

At the weekend I spent time thinking about the direction of this blog and where I wanted it to go in the future.

Currently there is no direction except for being a general tech and media information site with everything feeling bitty. So I looked at the areas I would be excited about to publish and provide a service to the pro/enthusiast/hobby developer.

The decision is that I will be focusing on web applications, but from a different perspective.

I will be researching web app’s that provide API features and will be demonstrating these in this blog in text and video form.

It’s all about having fun with these technologies, mashing and thinking up new ways to take advantage of the features available.

These web app’s will also be reviewed in terms of the technology used to build them and where they are heading.

Along with all this there will be a new web site design and community features.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated and you can contact me via email or iChat at funcoder@gmail.com.

Here’s to the future….