The Ramblings of a Fosgnilbmareht

As I learn more of Joomla’s ins and outs, it’s getting easier to develop for it. The component I am working on right now is for a client and was specifically tailored to that client. But I can see it being the basis for a much larger project. I think I might want to turn it into a product management extension. I’m thinking it will be open source with paid support. Might bring in a little change, hopefully enough to pay for the server hosting the downloads but not expecting anything.

Please comment with features you would like in a product like this so I can plan them in for the initial release.

By the way, a big thank you to ircmaxell on the IRC Joomla channel for all the help. Show some support for a great resource: www.joomlaperformance.com

I use Firefox. I stopped using IE awhile ago after I realized how much better Firefox is. IE7 does a pretty good job most of the time, but Firefox is so much better when you can throw extensions, useful extensions at it.

I am a web developer. I make web sites (<- I never know if that’s one word or two). Part of making web sites is viewing them on as many browsers as possible to make sure everyone gets a consistent experience when viewing the site. Some of the extensions I use help with that.

Now on to the list (it’s not too long) sorted by what I think is most important/useful first:

1. Firebug
   This is probably the best extension out, even if it is buggy at times. If you don’t develop web sites, then you probably don’t use this or would have heard about it. But if you do develop web sites, and you don’t know how to use this, then you need to get in the know. Firebug is the most useful tool in your library. It will greatly improve your quality of life. Thank you to the developer’s of this.
   Now only if it worked in Firefox 3 perfectly…..
2. Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer
   Ever since I found this little gem, my surfing is so much easier. Now all of my bookmarks are synced across the 3 and up computers I use (Home, Work, Laptop, Virtual machines). I could use something like del.ic.ous or some other social networking site. Or I could even write my own script that would sync them, but why bother when this handy extension does it for me? I don’t care about sharing my bookmarks with people, and some of them I don’t want to. So this extension is great for me.
3. Google Notebook
   Google Notebook is a pretty useful because it lets me write notes and access them anywhere I have a computer with an Internet connection. With this extension, I can access my notebook even faster. I can just click “Open Notebook” in the lower left hand of my browser and instantly my notebook pops up in the corner. There’s even a right click context item that sends the current page to my notebook for later viewing (it saves a link to the page). I can store code, tips, reminders, any text I want to use later. Saves having to carry around an actual notebook.
4. Web Developer
   I only use a few features of this one, but that’s only because I haven’t played with all the features yet. Every time I try a new one, this extension gets better. It lets me block JavaScript, view the CSS for a page in it’s entirety, provides quick links to validate the page I am on through W3C, and many other tools I am still learning. Combined with Firebug and my web development life is almost a breeze (well not really since I still have to write all the code, but it does make debugging the visuals of a page so much easier).
5. PDF Download
   Not the most used extension, but good nonetheless. No more opening PDFs in the browser and bogging everything down unless I say it can. I normally use it to save the PDF to my computer, which should be the default action but isn’t always. I can also view the PDF as HTML.
6. StumbleUpon
   If Firebug and Web Developer are the tools of my trade, StumbleUpon can be described as the rust on my tools. This extension slows my work down. But maybe in retrospect, it speeds it up too. StumbleUpon will randomly take you to a page others have said are good. You define the categories of sites you would like to browse then hit Stumble and you are on your way. Great way to kill time, but really only if you have the time to kill, which I rarely do. I sometimes spend too much time on sites StumbleUpon sends me too lol.
7. Adblock Plus
   This would have ranked higher except that, once again, I am a web developer. Sometimes its me putting those awful, awful ads on pages. But to give myself a bit of credit, most of the sites I work on don’t have unnecessarily obnoxious ads since they are mostly corporate sites. Some of my personal sites (like this one) will from time to time have Google Ads, but those are plain text ads, not like the ones on Myspace or Facebook. I can’t really use this extension too much because I need to see the ads at time, but when I don’t need to this is great for getting rid of all that junk. If you aren’t a web developer then this should be at the top of your list.
8. Download Statusbar
   This one is only a minor one but a welcome one. It adds a counter to the bottom right of Firefox and lets me know when my downloads are done and how many are still going. Not much more to it than that.
9. Google Send to Phone
   Sometimes its easier to type a text message on my computer. What can I say, I text a lot.
10. Nasa Night Launch
    I’m throwing this one my list of extensions even though it’s a theme (although themes are considered extension in Firefox). This is purely a cosmetic thing. My home computer is Vista and has a nice dark theme going for it so having my browser match is nice. Even when I was running XP, I had the Royale Noir theme (which is pretty close to my current Vista them) so I had this theme too. It even works on my Linux boxes.

Well there’s my top 10 (and consequently the only 10 extension I use). If any of these sounded interesting to you, try them out and let me know your experience with them. If you don’t like them you can always uninstall them. Firefox makes that extremely easy. To get these, go to Firefox’s add on page at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

I finished reading ‘A sign of Macs to come’ by Matt Asay and must say I don’t entirely agree with some of the points. First thing that sticks out is this quote:

Yes, you can run Microsoft’s Office for Mac natively on the Mac, and it actually looks better on the Mac than on Windows. It works as well on the Mac as iTunes works on Windows.

Now, when I read that line, I laughed. iTunes doesn’t work on Windows. Yeah sure it plays music and videos and probably syncs to iPods and iPhones (wouldn’t know since I don’t own either and have no interest in either) but it slows computers down to a crawl. It takes up so much of your’s resources that it is ridiculous. I am a computer nerd and know pretty much everything going on with my computer so I can say that with some confidence. 3 different computers with different configurations have led me to that conclusion. I like the ease with which I can change tags and I like how good it sorts my music in the file system but I hate how slow it makes things. Given that my computer is pretty fast and has lots of memory so its not that bad, it still shouldn’t do that.

Another thing about that quote that I just thought of, iTunes doesn’t alway play nice on Windows. I remember last year when an iTunes update broke Outlook. The iTunes update did something and installed an Outlook plugin that prevented Outlook from sending emails and other weird stuff. Why in the world is iTunes trying to integrate itself into Outlook??!!?? It took awhile to figure that one out. We had to tell people that they could only install Outlook or iTunes, not both. It was crazy. Eventually they released another fix that problem but c’mon, it shouldn’t have happened.

I believe Macs have their place somewhere. I am firmly a PC guy (Not Window’s guy even though thats what I most use, but I use Linux often enough too) and don’t see what the big draw is to Macs. They are expensive (sometimes twice as much for the same exact hardware), not always expandable and are not as widely supported in terms of programs. It sometimes makes things try to be so simple that it becomes sometimes extremely easy to mess things up on your computer. Like you can have a million things loaded and then wonder why your computer is slow. All the icons are somewhat hidden on the launch bar thingie and applications can have all their windows closed but the app itself is still running.

I just don’t know. Most techies I believe prefer PCs and if they, the experts, prefer PCs, shouldn’t everyone?

I don’t know if it’s Joomla’s wackiness or the MVC model in general but I am still having trouble wrapping my head around the whole concept. At times it seems clear, but then I’ll read something and it blows my thinking out of the water. I think it could be a good concept, maybe I even use it at times already, but right now it seems to only add more steps to something that’s already complicated.

I like the idea of having as much separated out as possible providing the cleanest code, but I also hate it at the same time because you have to reference so many different files to see the whole picture. Overall I still am not sure about MVC programming but maybe with time and more practice I’ll come to like it better.

If you are going to redesign your website, or convert your website to a CMS (Content Management System), the first thing you should do is to sit down and figure out what you need. I know I wrote about this before but I can’t stress it enough. A website is often times the first thing people go to in order to find out information about your company. If it looks like it was made by a 2nd grader, or it’s from the early 90’s, it’s not making a good impression.

Your main focus should be on usability. you may have the flashiest website out there but if people can’t use it, then it is USELESS. Navigation should be straight forward, easy to understand and should not take you in circles. It should be well laid out before it is even created and content is even flowed. Start with site architecture and every thing else will be so much easier. If you have to click through 10 different menus to get to something that should be a main link, something is wrong. If you have a search and that doesn’t find what you are looking for then there is another problem.

A good website is gold. It is money in your pocket (or the companies, whoever). It will lend the company respect and earn customer trust. You wouldn’t want to do business with a company that has a bad website so why expect your customers to do the same. Make your site look professional, elegant and clean and you will get more business. If you don’t please let me know as I would really like to know why.