Andy Boyd

My mac seemed to be running a little slow lately… The following article gave some great tips on how to optimize the performance of my mac
http://lowendmac.com/eubanks/07/0312.html

I thought this was an interesting way of structuring what most of us already do when we implement changes to a website, software, code, etc.

The Deming Cycle is a proposal for handling changes. It includes four steps that repeat in a cyclical pattern:

• PLAN
• establish the objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in accordance with the specifications.
• DO
• implement the processes.
• CHECK
• monitor and evaluate the processes and results against objectives and Specifications and report the outcome.
• ACT
• apply actions to the outcome for necessary improvement. This means reviewing all steps (Plan, Do, Check, Act) and modifying the process to improve it before its next implementation.

Repeat…

The step that is most often skipped, in my opinion, is the “Check” Step. After we implement the change, we need to Check the results. How often have you uploaded a file to your web-sever, and thought… “I know it’s going to work, I’m moving on to the next thing…” only to find out later that what should have worked, didn’t…

If you want to read more about this, take a look at http://www.kaizenmanifesto.org/

UltraEdit v13.00 was just released today (3/6/07). The new features are:

• Integrated scripting support
• Integrated browser support to show active HTML file
• Spell check while typing
• MSI Installer support
• Search and Replace enhancements:
  • Search in Favorite files
  • Search and Replace will step through all open files
  • Search in Files for any files NOT containing search string
  • User customizable format of Search in Files result
• Explorer view uses system-registered Icons for file types
• Cursor word-right or word-left to optionally stop at an underscore
• Syntax highlighting support of verbatim string literals
• Nested comments for languages
• Script List view for scripts
• Express Install for typical installations
• Prompt before UltraEdit is set as View Source Editor during install
• Option to auto-save modified documents when application loses focus
• More…

The integrated scripting support is fantastic! It combines JavaScript and UltraEdit allowing you to create some very powerful scripts.

If you want to try out the scripting, I suggest you read the Power Tip here:

http://www.ultraedit.com/index.php?name=Content&pid=216

Go to www.ultraedit.com to learn more

Ok, so this isn’t really web-related, but this is still pretty cool…  For those of you out there that love using the command line, now you can order pizza using the command line.

http://www.beigerecords.com/cory/pizza_party/

Communities that bring freelancers and clients together are poping up all over the web. Freelancers no longer need to find their own clients, now they come to you.

Here are a few

• http://www.sologig.com/
• http://freelanceswitch.com/jobs
• http://www.elance.com/
• http://getafreelancer.com/
• http://www.RentACoder/
• http://www.designoutpost.com/
• http://logoworks.com/

These sites are not just web design and graphic design. They also offer writing, programming, marketing, and more…

I thought this was intersting. Rachel Andrew wrote a review on Microsoft’s Expression Web, its web editing tool for designers and developers:

http://www.thinkvitamin.com/reviews/css/microsoft-expression-web-designer-final-release/

Page 3 of the Quick Start Guide opens with the words:

“Standards-based websites”

Expression Web solves a problem facing all web designers today: how to build websites that fully adhere to published standards, including support for XHTML.”

This is just my opinion, but I would appreciate if they created a web-browser that correctly supports standards first…

Looking for OS X commands?  This is a great site to bookmark:

http://www.ss64.com/osx/

CrashPlan uses a friends PC to automatically backup your data.

http://www.crashplan.com/

This is really cool.  If you run Windows XP and want it to look like OSX, you can download/install the theme.  If you are a web-geek…  You might also like the virtual OSX desktop
http://osx.portraitofakite.com/

Imagine if you could earn money for a good cause just by using a search engine… yeah right, who would do such a thing?  Goodsearch.com, that’s who!

Everytime you search the web using Goodsearch.com, they will donate a penny to the charity of your choice.