TheJoey.Net

One thing that was really driven home during my first year of grad school was the importance of reusable code. Not to say that it wasn’t taught to me as an undergrad, because it was; this year it just seemed to hit harder. As a freelancer in a niche market (small businesses, facebook apps), I tend to generate a lot of similar code. Just recently (within the last few months), I’ve started to generalize that code into reusable PHP objects, and it really helps.

I point out freelancers in the subject of this post because I feel, at least starting out, it’s not something freelance programmers (or designers for that matter) think to do. I know my concerns were more getting those jobs so I could code, not the process of coding. But whether it be a list of objects you can use on each site, or a HTML/CSS template with variables for the title, key words, headers, etc., you can save a lot of time in the long run by taking the extra time to abstract out the details and come up with something general you can use over a number of different sites. I, for example, have general code for: XHTML/CSS templates (NOT the design, just the general tags that should be applied to every site), [basic] contact forms, [basic] google maps, database objects, image uploading objects and XML parsing objects. Right now I am taking the time to look at other code I’ve done to see how I can generalize it.

This doesn’t only save time in writing the code either, but in testing. If you have core code that you know works, you don’t need to test for the general cases, or debug that code; just what you’ve added to customize it for that site or app. It’s stuff like this that will increase your productivity and your profits in the long run.

So generalizing code helps- and not just with time, but productivity and profits. And just about anything can be generalized to some extent. So the next time you code, take an extra moment to think how you can abstract away the details of that project (the variables if you will), and how much of what you are doing is reusable.

posted on June 24th, 2008 in Code, Design, Productivity| | show comment » « hide comment

Lately there’s been a lot of talk of Getting Things Done, or GTD. Lifehacker recently asked the readers about the five best GTD apps. My feed reader has also featured numerous articles on the topic of GTD; so in traditional blogging fashion I thought I’d weigh in. My best GTD ‘app’ is Google.

Really it’s broken down into three different, nicely integrated parts with Google as the main player. Google, Firefox, and Remember the Milk make my life significantly easier. With GCal, GMail, Google Notebook, and Remember the Milk I don’t need a desktop application. And each app is accessible from within the others. Remember the Milk even has a Firefox extension that integrates it with GMail so you can not only view or edit your tasks, but add an email right to your tasks list. And of course, we can’t forget Google Gears.

Gears allows me to access sites like Remember the Milk, Google Reader, and Google Docs even when I don’t have an internet connection. If/when they integrate Google Calendar, it will be perfect; I won’t need a desktop calendar program (sidebar- GCal also autosyncs with my Blackberry, so I don’t need to connect it to my computer either).

All in all, Google has made my life easier and is quickly replacing the desktop applications I use. I’ve even been considering using Google Docs instead of MS Office, but that probably isn’t likely- though I am using it more frequently.

posted on April 19th, 2008 in Productivity, Software| No Comments »

When I first got my Mac, my friend told me to immediately download QuickSilver, citing it will ‘change the way you work.’ A few weeks in to really using it and I have realized it as a very useful app, and I feel as if I haven’t even scratched the surface.

Since using it I have realized it not only as quick and easy way to open programs, but as a pretty quick and easy file manager as well. Much faster than opening Finder and navigating through my documents that way. However, I feel there is so much more. There has got to be a reason LifeHacker has dedicated an entire category to it, right?

Over the next couple of days (probably weeks, looking at my schedule), I will be testing some of the better functions of QuickSilver. Of course if you have any suggestions for me, I am always willing to listen.

posted on February 25th, 2008 in Productivity, Software| No Comments »

As you might have guessed, I am a huge fan of all things Google. In the last week or so I have come across some great things that make Google easily integrate with other services I use, making it so much better.

Remember the Milk in GMail

I’ve written about Remember the Milk before, and how I thought it was a great product. Recently they created a Firefox extension that makes it so much better by integrating it directly into the new version of GMail. It’s extremely robust and easy to use. They have a great write up about it over on the RTM blog. This will definitely get me using RTM again.

DocSyncer

DocSyncer is a web/desktop app that automatically synchronizes your Google Docs with the MS Office documents on your PC. This is a fantastic tool with great timing as I was recently trying to figure out a good way to do just this. The product is still in beta, but proves to be very useful.

Google Sync for Blackberry

With Google’s latest mobile update, it made GMail faster, Google Maps faster, and included Picasa in the mix. However, the best thing that came out of this update was Google Sync, which provides automatic synchronization of your Blackberry and Google calendars. This is very nice as now I don’t have to worry about making sure Plaxo syncs with both Google and MS Outlook so it then syncs with my Blackberry.

These changes will make my life infinitely easier and infinitely more attached to Google. But hey, I gotta organize my online life somehow, right?

posted on December 20th, 2007 in Productivity, Software| No Comments »

I know I have been skimping on the posts a little lately, but things are really starting to move with school and the business. Hopefully I’ll be able to write some cool things about what I am doing in grad school. Right now however, I want to talk briefly about 2 things from Google.

The first is pictured above, and is new to Google Docs today. Presentations have been added to the Word and Spreadsheet support. And from what I have seen already, it looks awesome. You can create new ones or upload current ones, and the interface is pretty easy. You can also share a URL with people to view the Presentation online, and it tells you who is doing so. I will play with in more to review it in depth when I get some time.

The second is Google Checkout, which I knew about and signed up for, but didn’t really use. I still use PayPal as my online payment method. Well, I did until yesterday. My friend Dan informed me that Google Checkout doesn’t (Does Not) take out a cut from invoices and money requests. That is completely awesome, because when I am requesting money from clients online, the PayPal fees can get a little pricey. It also seems it offers the functionality I was looking for to use in another project. Excellent!

In the coming weeks I will [hopefully] be looking at these in more depth to write a review on them, but for now I suggest you take a look and let me know what you think!

posted on September 18th, 2007 in Productivity, Software| No Comments »