5 Nov 2009

Google Knows

There's a tool that is installed by default on all Macs called Apache Benchmark. It's a very nice app that you can use to benchmark your sites. If you have ever considered running a test against Google...  We can now tell you what you will get!

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26 Oct 2009

Best Time to Email?

I was looking at statistics for websites tonight, and found something that was rather surprising to me. It appears that, out of the sites that I maintain, the most popular time of the day on these sites appears to be between 11AM and 1PM. I was intrigued, my mind wandered, and , I wonder what time of the day would be the most effective time to send an email.

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29 Sep 2009

Sphinx - on Mac. Try #1

I've been trying to install Sphinx on on my Mac, and it is a challenge.  Actually, sphinx it is installed... but it isn't fully usable yet.  To get it going, I had to:

Install MacPorts.  Fairly easy.

Next, install the sphinx port.

I realized later that the instructions are the same on every page. This example isn't true for sphinx.

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12 Sep 2009

S3 for Digital Downloads

If you want to run a store that offers  digital downloads, I recommend that you go with S3 for delivering your content.  I've dealt with traditional file hosting for years, and while it worked - I was on thin ice.

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8 Sep 2009

Bug vs. Feature

When you aren't a developer, it's so easy to look at everything in the context of "fix it".  You ask for something new to be added, and it needs "fixed".  You ask the Web Department (or the people who do the work) to "fix it", and they reply and tell you that it is working as expected.  You might think, grrr, those techies, what's wrong with them, they don't get it.  

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6 Sep 2009

A few don't do's of Software Development

Let me define something here:
  • Prod - the real live website that the world sees
This is a short list off the top of my head... Don't do these things.  Really, don't.  Don't play with fire either.

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