I’ve been using Twitter for Mac for a few days now after TweetDeck went AWOL and started using up all of my CPU on me; I’ve got some thoughts on it. I used Tweetie (the amazing Twitter app for Macs) for a while and loved it (who didn’t?); when they stopped updating it, I stopped using it. Now that it’s back as the official Twitter app for Macs, I’m back in and have high hopes. Here’s what I think.
[singlepic id=7 w=320 h=240 float=right]Â Last week I launched a redesign of my freelance site, Manifest Development. I started developing it in late November, and wanted to revamp the site completely from design to content. I got some feedback from my students during one class when we were talking about the importance of a small business’ website, and I wanted to integrate that, as well as some of the new things I learned over the last two years. I’m planning on making this a multipart series, and in today’s installment, I want to talk about the most important part of a website: The Homepage.
Postcard #001, originally uploaded by jcasabona.
One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to get better at type/color combinations. I’m going to try to do one postcard a week. Here’s the first one.
It uses the lyrics from a song I’ve been listening to a lot lately, “Roll Away Your Stone” by Mumford & Sons
Yesterday I read a very interesting article in the USA Today about the 7 Deadly Sins of Website Creation. The article (actually entitled, ‘What should a small business’ website do?’) talks about just how important a good website is for a small business. After reading it, I couldn’t agree more. A while back the local paper published a story about how the writer was able to set-up a sufficient website for a local business completely free of charge using wordpress.com, and I was pretty appalled at the article. I knew it clearly wasn’t written by a professional web developer, just a hobbyist. In any case, I took this article to my students to see what they thought about it and to get their thoughts on websites in general.
Earlier in the week I said the iPad is best for consuming information, so it only makes sense that I’d mention the top three news apps for it: USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and NY Times. I haven’t used all of  them extensively though I did want to compare some of the basic features of each. I’ll cover: how intuitive the apps are to use, how much content they make available, and how well they integrate the ability to share stores on Facebook & Twitter.
It’s no secret that I love the show Home Improvement, especially if you know me personally or follow me on Twitter. As a freelancer I have the luxury of watching it everyday in the middle of the afternoon, and I got to thinking- there is a lot programmers and web developers can learn from Tim Taylor and his antics.
I hadn’t realized it, but next month will be 2 and a half years since my last redesign, which is considerably longer than my previous time between designs; I was young and impressionable and didn’t know what I wanted. But now something is different. My needs in 2007 were different than my needs now. Then, this was just a place for blog entries (and the occasional trying out a new web dev trick). Now information sharing has increased 10 fold. I have shared thoughts and links on Facebook, Google Reader, Twitter, and here. The new design needs to reflect that, especially since my day-to-day blogging has decreased with the advent of Twitter. I present to you: Info Overload. If you’re in a feed reader, click on through.
Cross posted at Manifest Development
After several months of design and development, I am proud to announce the launch of Burke Catholic High School’s new website. Burke first came to me back in November seeking a new, more interactive, easier to update website geared towards current students, parents,and prospective families. In development, I created the first iteration of Minerva CMS, a content management system powered by WordPress and geared towards high schools.
Over at Nettuts, they’ve posted an article titled, “Should You Attend University for Web Development”. Reading the article, I found it pretty interesting that a lot of people feel college isn’t necessary for web development and that their schools are behind the times when it comes to web development. I’m not going to defend my school and say it’s totally up-to-date, because it’s not. I do feel however, that that’s the nature of the beast when dealing with web development and computer science in general. As I wind down in the Masters program, set to graduate in May, I can tell you these two things after six year of college: the CS program should not be about the what but the how, and college is just as much a social thing as it is an academic thing.
First, let’s focus on the academics. Computing, no matter what your focus, is an ever changing field. It would be impossible for every school to stay on top of every technology is out there. I’m not being an apologist, I am speaking the truth. The idea should not be, “I’m learning C#,” or “I’m learning PHP.” It should be, “I’m learning how to program, using PHP.” I learned what Object Oriented Programming is and I can apply that to any language. I’ve learned the semantics of an imperative and a declarative language. I learned algorithms, and should be able to implement them as long as I know how certain language behaves, and I’ve learned how to teach myself that. Heck, my school doesn’t even have a web development major, and I consider myself a damn good web developer.
Beyond that, you learn the social skills you should have whether your profession be computer scientist, web developer, engineer, etc. There is a huge focus in our program on team building and communication. Human interaction isn’t something Google can teach you (yet). In our Masters program (in Software Engineering) we learn about process, eliciting requirements, etc. While you can learn some of this stuff with experience, hearing about it in a classroom certainly expedites the process.
But college isn’t just about academics. I will attribute a good amount of my social skills, professionalism, and 90% of my connections to going to college. I got involved in extracurriculars, networked, and made some amazing friends that challenged my way of thinking and got me to try new things. Again, that isn’t something you’re going to find on Google.
College should not just be about teaching you X. It should teach you how to learn. You should get some leassons in being social. It should give you some experiences you can’t get anywhere else. Those who say, “I don’t need to go to college to be X,” aren’t looking at the big picture and will never be the best at what they do.
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