From the monthly archives:

March 2009

The right tools

To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Mark Twain

I recently took down a pool fence. It required cutting sections of steel fencing, removing rusty nuts from large bolts in the ground and walls, and cutting bolts. I had been delaying this job for a long time because I’m not a handyman and [...]

Read the full article → March 31, 2009

Apache? IIS? Niether … NGiNX

For many years, I was under the mistaken impression that there were basically two web server choices, Apache and IIS. My belief was founded in the fact that these were the only two I had ever used — not a very good foundation, I know.
My eyes have been opened recently and I have found that [...]

Read the full article → March 30, 2009

Learn CSS

In yesterday’s post, Geeking out, I forgot to mention the most important concept for both web designers and web developers to learn: CSS. Designers probably already understand the advantages, but developers implementing any complex functionality for a web site really need to know CSS today because of the client-side Javascript libraries that depend on CSS.
More [...]

Read the full article → March 27, 2009

Geeking out

I’ve enjoyed geeking out the past few days, but the example I wanted to show today is taking longer than I had expected, so I have to delay that one. I’m going to do more mini-tutorials and examples over the next few weeks, so stay tuned.
If you’re new to this site, please take a look [...]

Read the full article → March 26, 2009

Javascript geolocation using Google AJAX APIs

I always love poking around code.google.com to see what’s new — there’s always more than I can assimilate, but it’s fun nevertheless. Today I found that Google has provided Javascript-based geolocation via the Google AJAX APIs. If you’re not familiar with these APIs, you should read getting started with the Google AJAX APIs.
Originally, the AJAX [...]

Read the full article → March 25, 2009

Tracking events with Google Analytics

If you have any type of web site at all, you’ve heard about Google Analytics by now. It’s the Google solution to analyzing your web traffic. One of the more recent features in Analytics is the ability to track events that occur on your page that aren’t traditional page views. For example, if you have [...]

Read the full article → March 24, 2009

Measuring success

A hundred objective measurements didn’t sum the worth of a garden; only the delight of its users did that. Only the use made it mean something.
Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, 1999
US science fiction author

Consider how much time you spend looking at analytics such as web traffic, Twitter followers, Facebook friends, or Technorati rank. Now [...]

Read the full article → March 20, 2009

Your choice

On my flight home from Chicago to Phoenix Tuesday, I sat behind someone who spent the first twenty minutes of the flight complaining about how much she hates living in Phoenix and wishes she could move back to Chicago. She moved from Chicago in 1988 and has apparently lamented the move for the past 21 [...]

Read the full article → March 19, 2009

Integrating Facebook Connect using the Thesis theme

Propeller-head alert! This is a very technical article.
I’ve received a number of questions about how I integrated Facebook Connect with my blog, so I thought I’d go ahead and explain exactly how I did it. I’m still working on making a very simple open-source Wordpress plugin that does the same thing, but you should be [...]

Read the full article → March 16, 2009

The power of free

Photography studios attract customers with free sittings. Many accounting and professional services offer free consultations. Free quotes for insurance are common. Obviously in these cases, the free portion is the lead. Nobody needs a photographic sitting, they need family photos. Nobody needs just a quote or a consultation, they need tax preparation or insurance or [...]

Read the full article → March 13, 2009

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