Joel Spolsky on Usability in One Easy Step

Software Architecture
I don’t like to post a link to someone else’s blog or web site without having a good reason. Joel Spolsky of FogCreek Software and the popular Joel on Software web site recently posted about usability. His post goes hand-in-hand with my post about product complexity from yesterday.

Complexity causes 50% of product returns

Software Architecture
This is an interesting article I came across. You should get the jist from the title. I think this applies to software as much as products. Too many companies try to jam as much functionality into a piece of software that it becomes too bulky and complex which results in...

37Signals finally Getting Real

Technology
37Signals has finally released their “Getting Real” book in PDF format. I have been waiting for this book since I had heard about it a couple months ago. The price for the download is $19.

Starting to use AJAX

AJAX
The current project I am working on is an ASP.NET (C# 2.0) application that is a specialized eCommerce system.

Application_Start not firing and the Global.asax

ASP.NET
I am working on a project in which we converted an existing Visual Studio 2003 C# web application to Visual Studio 2005. I can and probably post a series of entries on all of the issues we faced converting this project but that is for another time. The converted application...

Axosoft Giving away $500 Version of Software for $5!

Technology
Axosoft is doing a social marketing experiment where they’re selling a $500 copy of their OnTime Small Team bug tracker and project management tool for just $5 and donating the proceeds to the American Red Cross. The experiment expires Friday. read more? ?digg story

Using ActiveState Komodo IDE

Technology
In my continuing effort to find a decent Ruby IDE under Windows or Mac OSX I decided to try the Ruby IDE from ActiveState known as Komodo. This is an IDE geared toward dynamic languages such as Perl, PHP and Python. Only until recently has it supported Ruby. The install...

Rails rant on Joel on Software Forums

Ruby on Rails
I am a frequent reader of Joel on Software. I am also very intent on learning Ruby and Ruby on Rails for as a way to write new software. There is an interesting post, I mean rant, over on the JOS site about one developers experience recently with Rails. I...