I got my iPhone in summer of 2008, and I’ve really enjoyed it over the last two years. However, it’s beginning to show its age, so I’ve been considering getting the new iPhone 4. But then I started really thinking about the total cost. The new iPhone 4 is $299, plus the voice and data [...]
I’ve been working with Magento Ecommerce lately, an ecommerce platform that is becoming more popular, and I thought I’d share a few random impressions in case someone else out there is considering using it. Here they are: 1. Magento is much better than most of the alternatives. The popular PHP open-source competitors are OSCommerce, ZenCart, [...]
When I was an undergrad, I was fascinated by the fact that so many wealthy people had either dropped out of college or skipped it altogether, and subsequently built amazing technology companies. This list includes Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and many, many others. I wondered if there was perhaps some link [...]
Bill Gates recently said the best college education could soon be available online and for free. And it does seem like we’re getting close to that ideal, doesn’t it? More and more brand-name schools are offering classes online. At the same time, you have this trend of schools putting a lot of their lectures, class [...]
Just a quick congratulations to my friend Ben Lew, who just launched his first iPad app: Interactive Alphabet. It’s designed more for kids, but if you have trouble with some of your letters, you might like it as well I don’t have kids, but after playing with the app, I think it would be something [...]
In the previous post, I covered the steps for preparing to really dig into a new project. Now that you’re ready to go, here are six steps that you might find useful. Get it running Do very high-level overview Dig into specifics Switch to clean backup or rollback with version control Cleanup unused code Fix [...]
I read a lot of books. And probably 75% of the time I’m reading a book, I think of someone I’d like to recommend the book to. I used to loan copies of books to people, or even buy them a copy if I thought it was particularly good. But then I got a Kindle, [...]
As a contract web developer, I frequently work with clients who have gone through one or more developers or development agencies and still haven’t achieved the goals they want, so they bring me in to mop up and finish the project. The sooner they call me, the better, but I often don’t come in until [...]
Clients often ask me to recommend a PHP-based MVC framework, so I’ve spent some time evaluating some of the more popular ones. There are dozens now, but two of the early ones are still very popular: CakePHP and CodeIgniter. This isn’t meant to be a super in-depth review, just a quick comparison of some of [...]