uxgent.com

After hours trying to get IIS 7 working and to no avail I luckily stumbled upon Laksha’s post, thankfully solved it.

http://blog.laksha.net/2009/08/http-error-50019-internal-server-error.html

Little tip, when you make a company dormant you should close it’s bank account.

Why?

Well a dormant company should not have any financial transactions, if it does then it’s obviously NOT dormant and so you must by law contact Companies House and tell them it is active.  So as a rule a dormant company cannot have a business bank account.

Hope this makes sense

What should be in a wireframe? apart from all the usual stuff,

• Interactions
• Transformations
• Validation messages (put them in red, end with a full-stop)
• Input element max length
• Colour of elements which alternate (for your tester’s)
• User Story number (put in top-right corner)
• Required fields
• Breadcrumbs (Home -> Manage -> John Doe)
• HTML template location
• Security information (cannot be accessed by…)

Break them out to be as simple as you can, don’t have too much on one template.  Remember, the wireframes are what you’re testers will use to construct their tests and what you and your designer will use to build their kit.  If somethings a miss your testers will log bugs and you’ll have to fix them and that can always be bad and time consuming.

However with good communication it’ll all work out, and that dear sir / madam is your trump card.

…play it well

In response to Obama’s pitch for Mars

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/jonathanamos/2010/04/mr-obama-pitches-for-asteroids.shtml

I heartily agree,

The moon is done people, we’ve learned a lot and progressed incredibly because of it but we need to set new goals for ourselves if we are ever going to progress as a race.

Clinging on to nostalgia does nothing for you.  If we go back to the moon we could learn a bit more, but if we push ourselves further we could learn a hell of a lot more.

I commend Obama’s efforts and hope to see Richard Branson offering buy-2-get-1-free tickets to Mars shortly

Go for it!

• Models are Singular
• Database table names are Plural
• Controllers are Plural

…and so on http://slash7.com/2005/11/17/rails-howto-pluralizing/

If you’re like me and you stare at your inbox in despair, all those emails to answer, things to send. Don’t be.

Just break it down into little chunks, start off with the fun ones, that email to your grandpa, the one to your mum; trust me before you know it you’ll have dealt with all of them and be pretty pleased with yourself.

Like someone once said, feel the fear and do it anyways

Here’s the premise,

Your boss tells you to cut a hedge, fairly simple task you think. So you start off, cut a bit here, cut a bit there, check, do a bit more, cut a bit there, not even, cut a bit more, other sides not even now, cut a bit more…… oh god…. i’ve gone too far now it’s just a stump!

Let me tell you, it doesn’t just happen in gardening, it happens everywhere.

Even if your a perfectionist, you’ve got to know when to stop, when’s enough and when you’ve gone a bit much.

Master that and you’ll have mastered one of the hardest things in life.

It’s so easy these days to say to clients “yeah sure I can do that” then get bogged down into too much work, burn yourself out and miss your deadlines.

Be true to yourself.

You have limits.

You can’t and never will please everyone and if you do you’re work will suffer.

Copy @dhh and the 37signals crew, stick to your guns, be true to yourself draw that line in the sand and do yourself proud.

There will always be someone better at X than you, but you were there first, be revolutionary but be true to yourself and don’t mistify your clients with lofty expectations.

Learn to say no everyday.

Trust me, they won’t mind and they will respect you for it, only if they’re bad people will they fire you for it and if they do then maybe that was a good sign.

Believe in yourself, you are your own Tony Stark

Make an ideal day wheel, break it into different colours. 8 slices for sleep time, 8 for work time, then 1 for self nurturing activities & 3 for eating.

Stick to it, know your limits and enjoy your life

Little tip to save you from running into “asset struggle”, when your designer shows you a mockup of their cool new design for your site, even though it’s not finished grab a copy then and there anyway.

That way if they’re not available or the boss is wanting a quick mockup you can continue your side anyway and update individual parts when the final copy is sent to you.

The essence here is to make sure you have something to work with, regardless of whether it’s finished or not.

However, if your designer happens to be your wife then it gets a lot easier