Posted by mdrisser on 2009/06/01 under Development, PHP, Rails | 
I’m starting a new open-source project aimed towards freelancers. The project is called Adjunkt and its main goal is to bring together many of the documents and tools that many freelancers use.
Currently most freelancers have their customer database, invoices, time tracking and project management spread out across several websites. This makes managing the business side of things a pain. You have to visit several different sites, and can’t easily see the relations between things.
By bring all of these tools together in one site, freelancers will be able to more easily manage what they are doing as well as generate reports. What’s outstanding? What’s coming due and for who? What are my new leads. Who’s due for maintenance? etc.
If you are a designer (graphic/web/front-end) or a developer (either PHP or Ruby on Rails) and you would like to contribute, please let me know.
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Posted by mdrisser on 2009/04/15 under Uncategorized |
….I’ll get around to finishing the series I started comparing JavaScript Frameworks. It’s been over 2 months since I started the series and so far I’ve only gotten the first part done (sigh). I promise I’ll try harder to get the series finished. Don’t give up, its coming.
I’m also in the process of designing a new theme for the blog, then I’ll be moving it over to my main site. I’ll put a redirect here though, and a note to update your bookmarks, IF you’ve bookmarked it.
The reasoning is that I want things to be tightly integrated and recognizable.
Posted by admin on 2009/02/07 under JavaScript, MooTools, Prototype, jQuery |
I’m a jQuery fan, I love the framework and for me its a joy to use. But I also love to learn new things, try other tools, in this instance other JavaScript Frameworks. In particular Prototype with Scriptaculous and MooTools. So I decided to compare the three. Not to try to determine which one is better, but to compare how to accomplish the same tasks with each framework.
Read more of this article »
Posted by mdrisser on 2009/01/21 under Development, PHP |
Smashing Magazine has an article that is squarely aimed at those of us who are web developers, more specifically, PHP developers.
50 Extremely Useful PHP Tools | Developer’s Toolbox | Smashing Magazine.
A couple of these tools I use, or have used, but a great many of them I haven’t used and some I’ve never even heard of.
The ones I’ve used are mostly extensions/classes for the language, although I have used a few of the others mentioned as well. Here’s the ones I’ve used.
- Simple Pie (RSS/ATOM Library)
- phpDocumentor (Pretty self explanatory)
- xajax (Easy AJAX with PHP)
- CodeIgniter (PHP Framework)
- Zend Framework (Another PHP Framework)
- CakePHP (Still another PHP Framework)
- PHPEclipse (Really just an Eclipse IDE)
- Aptana PHP (Another Eclipse IDE)
- FirePHP (A great addition to the FireBug extension for FireFox)
A few of the IDEs listed I might look into, if they are available for the Mac 
The debuggers really hold the most interest to me. I still do my debugging the old-fashioned way, var_dump(), print_r(), echo(), a lot of head stractching and ‘Why isn’t this working?’ type of thing.
I’ll try out some of these tools and let you know how they work out for me.
Posted by mdrisser on 2009/01/07 under Uncategorized |
Over the last several months I’ve been collecting tips to help this blog. Now I didn’t want to be stingy, so I’ve decided to share these tips with you. Below is a list of 58 very good tips, from 3 different sources, most of the tips I can see the sense of while one or two I just cringe at (For my own personal reasons).
So without further ado, here is the list.
- Create amazingly useful content
- Create a great brand
- Network with other bloggers
- Write guest posts
- Experiment and have fun
- Get out there, often
- Seek out your potential
- Format your text
- Tell your reader the whole article in the first two sentences
- Always use quality images in your posts
- Put more time into your post
- Give back to your readers
- Do to others as you would have done to you
- Give more than expected
- Be active in Forums and use a Forum Signature including a link to your Blog
- Submit your blog to Blog Directories
- Submit your RSS Feed to Feed Directories
- Claim your Blog at Technorati
- Cross Link with other Blog Owners
- Bookmark your Blog posts
- Distribute articles including the “About the Author” part with a link to your Blog
- Create an account at MyBlogLog and use their Widget on your blog
- Post useful Comments on other Blogs
- Use Ping Services
- TrackBack other Blogs
- Notify your opt-in list subscribers about your latest blog posts
- Have a Signature with a link to your Blog in every email you send out with any email program
- Create and distribute viral ebooks that include a link to your Blog
- Build a Squidoo Lense and put a link to your Blog on that
- Build a Hub Page and put a link to your Blog on that
- Create and distribute a video, include a link to your Blog in this video
- Create an account at social pages like MySpace or Facebook – put a link to your Blog into your Profile
- Signup for EntreCard and add their widget to your Blog
- Register your Blog at BlogCatalog and put their widget on your Blog
- Signup for BlogRush and put their widget on your Blog
- Submit a XML sitemap of your Blog to Google Webmasters
- Provide good content on your Blog
- Be the first one who publishes a newsworthy story
- Publish content on a regular basis
- Install the most important WordPress Plugins
- Invite known experts in your niche to be Guest Writers for your Blog
- Be a Guest Writer on other Blogs
- Include links to useful ressources in your blog posts
- Don’t have your Blog full of advertising
- Start a Running Post, for example an experiment that lasts a week or a month
- Publish your contact information on your Blog and your Picture
- Create an interactive BlogWrite about stuff that is currently a Hot Topic in your niche
- Research keywords and use long-tail keywords in the title and the first sentence of your posts
- Customize your Blog with a unique Header and Footer Image
- Don’t use the Standard Layouts
- Categorize your Blog correctly, make it easy for your readers to find the content they are looking for
- Use Credit Based Safelists
- Answer all questions that your readers send by email or leave as a comment
- Have your Blog URL on your Business Cards (off-line traffic)
- Answer questions at Yahoo Answers
- Be Controversial
- Install a Bookmarking Widget below each post so that your readers can easily bookmark your post
- Create a Link Bait
Some of these tips I’ve implemented or am trying to implement, others I haven’t gotten to yet. But all of them are very good tips.
So, if you have a design or development blog, I’d be happy to trade links with you, and/or if you’d like me to write a guest post…. 
