Weblog by month (April 2007)
The end of an era
Around eight years ago, when I had been a full-time developer for but a year or two, we moved offices from the prestigious West-end of London to a scrotey old office above London Bridge station (not the nicest part of olde London town, it has to be said). The office environs weren’t what we were used-to with regards shops and the like, but Southwark does have quite a lot to offer (especially pubs! The Market Porter is by far one of the best).
Today however marked the end of an era: our last day in London “proper”. From Monday, my business unit will be based in Docklands. For the non-Brit readers, Docklands is a young, brash re-development of the old slums and docks of London’s East-end. Steeped in horrible history, the area is gradually becoming more and more “gentrified”, with looming glass towerblocks and executive apartments as far as the eye can see.
So, there we are. The transformation is complete: once upon a time, IT was closely aligned with the business. Now, we are a few miles down the river in a small, aged building. Everyone will be “hotelling” (a posh word for sharing miniscule desks and no storage).
On the plus side, the so-called “renaissance” of London Bridge will be allowed to continue. Our old offices will be demolished later this year, to make way for the Shard of Glass, a pretty impressive development.
Interesting times…
Coda
Oh now this sounds good. And the site pimping it looks smashing (as one would expect from Panic):
So, we code web sites by hand. And one day, it hit us: our web workflow was wonky. We’d have our text editor open, with Transmit open to save files to the server. We’d be previewing in Safari, running queries in Terminal, using a CSS editor, and reading references on the web. “This could be easier,” we realized. “And much cooler.”
Panic Software introduce Coda, a new web development environment for OS X which uses the core functionality of SubEthaEdit, the spendiferous collaborative text editor from The Coding Monkeys. Nice job one and all!
Update: I’m currently playing with the free trial version of the software. I think I’m going to have to buy it. Not only is the application a real joy to use (the eye candy, the features, oh my!), there’s a real attention to detail here, and the software is so useful. There are some nice touches, such as when creating a new “site”: plug in your remote details, and some UI deliciousness goes off and does its thing, resulting in a screenshot like this. Very cool.
Thinking of going freelance?
If you are, given the last couple of years of the “corpporate fight”, I can’t say I blame you: there’s a lot to be said for freelancing (for the right person).
Anyway, I came across a link to FreelanceSwitch, a new weblog dedicated to all things freelance-related. It looks to be a great resource, and is beautifully designed: the site looks gorgeous in Safari especially! Anyway, go take a look, perhaps starting with the helpful post, 101 Essential Freelancing Resources.
Via Jonathan Snook.
Raising a nose from the grindstone
Urgh, horrid times. The universally reviled appraisal season is upon us at work, and of course there is no let-up with projects: m’hard-working colleagues are reeling as I type, muttering “you want a piece of me? Huh? Do you??”
Probably.
Anyway, there is light at the end of the tunnel: the hours are letting up a little, the spring days we’re enjoying here in Blighty are gorgeous, the newsreader un-read count is in three digits instead of four, and I’m making it to the gym on occasion. So, do not fear loyal reader, normal service will shortly be resumed! Oh yes, and I’ve got some code to chuck out there very soon.
Are there any real men left?
I just watched some reality TV show tonight where they look to pick, Popstars-style, an actor for the perennial Joseph & The Technicolour Dreamcoat stage show. All the guys who lost out wept like babies—for that matter, so did a lot of the “men” who got through to the next round.
Feckin wusses the lot of ’em.
However, there is light on the horizon: just a few moments ago, Mrs. P. pointed out to me that Rush tickets are on sale for some gigs in London in October. The tour had a name, and so the brain got to whirring: Rush? Here? In October? That must mean a new album?
Hell yeah baby! Out in a few weeks! Oh my gosh: Snakes & Arrows. Sounds awesome: give the forthcoming* single Far Cry a blast over on the official site (And yes, the mix even over t’internet, is better than that on Vapor Trails).
So, we know that young British men are a weeping, sopping gimp-fest, but at least I can rely on the Canadians to bring some much-needed backbone to these shores come the autumn: hopefully some of these youngsters will attend and get the message. My goodness, I thought Rush were on a roll once they released Vapor Trails: it’s so good to see that roll continue. Huzzah, huzzah, and thrice huzzah!
As a geek aside (of course), rush.com looks super too: nifty graphics, some nice shots from the recording, and I love the lightning thing. But… but… how did I miss the news up until now? Oh I remember: I keep watching shite like Any Dream Will Do.
Tsk.
* - forthcoming in the UK that is. It’s already out States-side I believe.
Show ’n’ tell XV: scheduled agents in NTFs
Here’s something I didn’t know: if you are developing in a Notes template (i.e. an NTF file), any scheduled agents you’ve set up may not run. I did a little rooting around, and discovered this useful tidbit of information:
From testing, it appears that Agent Manager does not routinely check .NTF files for agents to add to the agent queue. If you open such an agent and save it, however, Agent Manager will pick it up and it will run until the agent cache refreshes. If you want to test a scheduled agent, it is recommended that you test it in an .NSF; then when you are satisfied it is working properly, copy the agent into the template (or copy the whole .NSF to create the template).
So there you go. Read more…
Notes 8 gets a nod from the Java community
Apart from the odd mention at conferences like EclipseCon, the fact that Notes 8 Standard runs within the Eclipse framework has received little attention from the mainstream Java sites out there. So, heartening to see this post on ONJava:
Even though Lotus Notes has a reputation for being a something as an anachronism [sic], launching the new Lotus Notes client on the Eclipse platform is a big deal for the Eclipse platform as a foundation for end-user applications. Just when you least expected it, someone decides to ship a large client-side Java application.
