Optimize your website with Sitonomy

Curious to know what technologies, affiliate networks, advertising networks and analytical tools your competitors use for their websites? Check Sitonomy.com to analyze and optimize your own.

Sitonomy is a free service that allows developers and designers to find out which technologies are used in a specific blog/site. It also provides a list of the top affiliate networks, advertising networks, analytical tools that you can consider trying out based on the data mined through Sitonomy's analysis of websites.

Also see: Tools to monitor your website

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Top 10 Developer Skills for the Future

Meghan of Microsoft Jobs Blog recommends TechRepublic's Justin James' advice on the 10 skills developers will need in the next five years:

1. One of the “Big Three” (.NET, Java, PHP)
2. Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)
3. Web development
4. Web services (REST, SOAP, JSON, XML)
5. Soft skills
6. One dynamic and/or functional programming language
7. Agile methodologies
8. Domain knowledge
9. Development “hygiene” - familiarity with bug tracking systems, version control etc
10. Mobile development

Also see: Building non-technical skills

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Search Engines in the pre-Google era

James Svoboda who has completed 10 years working on SEO related activities recounts his experiences with Search Engines in the pre-Google era and it makes for interesting reading. He talks about Meta Search, Web Directories, Pay Per Click, Affiliate Programs and catastrophic SEO events like AltaVista’s Black Monday, Google's "Florida" Update (both events are the SEO equivalent of a stock market crash due to a change in the Ranking algorithms)

As far as I can remember, none of the search engines then were even as closely minimalistic as Google nor as fast. I used to frequent Ask.com and try out other search engines if I didn't get any results there. For searching code, I used to depend on the now defunct CodeHound. After Google got popular, I mashed-up a custom Javascript application to fetch results from my favorite code sites.

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Get out of your Comfort Zone

In a recent blog post, Scott Hanselman has a motivating note on the need to go outside your comfort zone so as to be to be well-rounded and balanced.

Get and stay out of your comfort zone is Rule #1 on Bob Parsons (CEO and Founder of GoDaddy.com) 16 rules to live by. I find that list inspiring.


Related link: Building non-technical skills

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New hands-free Twitter interface: Brain-computer

Adam Wilson, a University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineering doctoral student, posted a status update on the social networking website Twitter—just by thinking about it (via Short Sharp Science). It was done using software built upon the BCI2000. The software translates thought-induced changes in a scalp's electrical fields to control an on-screen cursor.

BCI2000 is a general-purpose system for brain-computer interface (BCI) research.

Wilson thus demonstrated how "locked-in" patients can couple brain-computer interface technologies with modern communication tools.

People at the other end can be following their thread and never know that the person is disabled. That would really be an enabling type of communication means for those people—and I think it would make them feel, in the online world, that they’re not that much different from everybody else.

Related: Search Innovations

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HOW TO implement online cropping feature for uploaded Images

Snipshot is a cool website that not only let's you crop images online but also enhance, rotate and save them as GIF, JPG, PDF, PNG or TIF. It also offers a free API that lets you use Snipshot for your own website.


If you wish to implement the feature all on your own, Mikesdotnetting has a neat ASP.NET solution similar to Snipshot that utilizes a jQuery plugin called JCrop.

Some six summers ago, I wrote an article on CodeProject to dynamically resize uploaded images & save in PNG format using ASP.NET & C#. The necessity for the image resizing script came because a Classic ASP website I was working on moved to the server of a different Hosting company which did not provide the ASPJpeg component that the older one threw in as part of a package deal. The CodeProject article has evoked comments with some interesting possibilities that I did not envision and helpful code suggestions.

Update (9-Apr-10): I missed trying out the Snipshot bookmarklet earlier. It's an awesome feature that lets you import any picture from any web page into Snipshot & edit it.


Related:
Free tools to generate screenshots
Guide to Most Useful Bookmarklets for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc.

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What do CTP, RC, RTM, RTW mean?

I always wanted to find the precise meaning of the acronyms Microsoft uses to refer to the stage of a product in the software release life cycle. I found the most comprehensive explanation on Phil Haack's blog and copied it verbatim here for future reference.

Community Technology Preview/CTP

CTP stands for Community Technology Preview. It's generally an incomplete preview of a new technology in progress. These usually come out before beta and are a way to gather feedback from the community during the development of a product. This is similar to an Alpha release per Jeff’s hierarchy, except that at Microsoft, we generally do put CTPs in a public location.

Release Candidate/RC

RC's are pretty much like less buggy BETA releases. These are candidates to become the actual release and there is a very small chance of adding new features between the RC and the RTM. Any changes from an RC to an RTM are usually just bug fixes.

Released to Manufacturing/RTM

RTM stands for "Released to Manufacturing" and is a throwback to the days when software was mostly released as CDs. When a project went "Gold", it was released to manufacturing who then burned a bunch of CDs and packaged them up to be put on store shelves. True, this still goes on today believe it or not, but this mode of delivery is on the decline for certain types of software.

Released to Web/RTW

RTW is a related term that stands for "Released to Web" which is more descriptive of how software is actually shipped these days. For example, while we like to use the term RTM internally out of habit, ASP.NET MVC will actually be RTW.

Fully Supported Out-of-Band release

A Fully Supported Out-of-Band release is a release that is not part of the Framework (i.e. it's not included in an installation of the .NET Framework), but is fully supported as if it were. For example, you can call up PSS (Microsoft's Tech Support) for support on a fully supported OOB release.

One example of this was “Atlas” which later became Microsoft Ajax and was rolled into ASP.NET 3.5. ASP.NET MVC 1.0 will be an example of an OOB release.

Service Pack/SP

A Service Pack (or SP) is simply an RTM (or RTW) release of fixes and/or improvements to some software.

"Futures"
Based on this description of Microsoft ASP.NET Futures, I take it that Futures means a Release containing an early developer preview of features.
The functionality in the Futures release includes early experimental versions of features currently being considered for future versions ...


Escrow
An escrow build means code development has ceased as developers and beta testers hunt for "recall class" (showstopper) bugs; essentially, it is candidate RTM code.

(Update [08-May-09]: More acronyms & jargon)

Hotfixes

Hotfixes are one-off solutions to a specific problem: they are tested briefly, then given directly to customers. A knowledge base article is written to document their existence, but the hotfix itself is not posted publicly; customers must call support to receive them. They are not normally cumulative.

Service packs or SPs

Service packs contain a large number of fixes. They are tested very thoroughly by the entire QA organization across our entire matrix of configurations; they receive a full security review; they are localized into every language we support; and so on. SPs are posted on the main MS download page where anyone can get them instantly. They are always cumulative.

General Distribution Release or GDR

A GDR is somewhere in between (Hotfixes & Service packs). They typically contain one large fix, or several related fixes, and receive a moderate amount of testing. As it turns out, our GDR will contain a lot of fixes -- more than some SPs.

Also see:
Scott Guthrie on development methodology at Microsoft

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Book Review: Almost Perfect

Almost Perfect is the story of WordPerfect (a word processor for personal computers) as told by Pete Paterson, owner of a failing drapery business who jumped onto selling software, head it's Sales and Marketing division and drove annual sales to half a billion dollars in a span of a decade. The entire book is available online.

Although I found the book to be dry and depressing, I feel it has good lessons for anyone getting into Software Product development. It also tracks the initial years of the PC Revolution - the challenges and opportunities it created. It was a roller-coaster ride that helped some companies and products make billions while others like WordPerfect perished.

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Fireshot - Firefox/IE Image Snipping Tool

If you like the simplicity of the Snipping Tool in Windows Vista, you will also like FireShot, a Firefox/IE browser add-on. The cool thing about FireShot is that it allows you to edit & add annotations to an extracted image.

Steps to add a note to a extracted and cropped image -

1. Install the add-on and restart Firefox
2. Right click on the page to view context menu. From the FireShot option select Capture visible area and... and then choose Edit.
3. The entire page opens in a new FireShot window.
4. Select the desired portion of the image and click on the Crop button on the right toolbar.
5. Select the Text tool in the top toolbar and click on the image where you want to write the note

Also see: Free tools to generate screenshots

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What Makes a Good Blog?

The answer is no big secret but the following indicators are backed by figures from a survey by Vizu (PDF link)

• “Quality of writing” counts for a lot driving readers’ choices of which blogs they will read as well as helping them to determine which blogs are credible and high quality
• Topical focus is a key determinant of regular readership
• Author reputation is a key driver of perceived credibility
• Post frequency and, to a lesser extent, site design are key drivers of perceived blog quality

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Scrabble Rules

I recently ran into a web application (with source code!) called Scrabbler that lets you cheat at Scrabble. It triggered a lot of childhood memories.

(Picture courtesy: Wikipedia)

I spent endless hours as a kid playing Scrabble with my cousins. There was a great thrill in finding words and placing them strategically to gain high scores. Unaware of any special rules, the Oxford Dictionary was our only reference and arbitrator. The blank letter was a prized tile. The letters 'Q' and 'Z' were despised. Occasionally there would be quarrels over words and cheating attempts. One fine day the game board mysteriously causing quite a heart-break.

A year ago I played the game online on the defunct website Scrabulous with a stranger. I was quickly defeated by the opponent who constructed weird words claiming they were on the official Scrabble word list. I resigned and never played it again. The rules do not make sense to me as the greater joy of playing Scrabble is in discovering new words, learning how to place words strategically and improving one's vocabulary. I plan to buy the board game soon but will stick to a standard dictionary while playing it with family.

Rleated: Free Programmable & Searchable Dictionaries

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Comparison of Payment Gateways

There are a number of Payment Gateway options to handle payments online. Finding which one is right for you based on cost-effectiveness and reliability requires some comparative analysis. Some Payment Gateway service providers' websites thankfully provide such a comparison -

Here is Authorize.Net's comparison of Authorize.Net, Paypal & Google Checkout.

If you are targeting an Indian audience, CCAvenue has a comparative analysis of Indian providers.

Some Indian banks offer a payment gateway but the details are not publicly advertised. There does not appear to a consensus on which is good for the Indian e-Commerce market.

What has been your experience?

Related: Integrating PayPal Payments into E-Commerce Applications with ASP.NET

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MIX09 Presentations

If you could not make it to Las Vegas to attend MIX09, you can take comfort in the fact that you can still watch over 100 presentations online that are powered by Silverlight. They are also available for download in WMV, MP4, WMA, MP3 and some in PPTX formats.

I wish the listing also had the duration and a precise summary of contents. I watched Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Web Developers (13.45 minutes) to "learn SEO best practices and proven techniques". The description was a little far-fetched as it covered only URL Rewriting (with IIS 7) significantly. Ofcourse 13 minutes is too short a time.

I'm keen to watch "Building High Performance Web Applications and Sites" (59.23 mins.) and have it next on my list.

Which presentations did you like?

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Have you tried GMail Autopilot?

I always lie. My mother told me to - Spotted on a T-shirt

Google continues the tradition of perpetrating April Fools' Day hoaxes.

Considering that most GMail Labs features are unusual, I fell for the Autopilot hoax. After all the Text Stats feature in Amazon and the email analytics feature in Xobni do a somewhat similar job of mining information from text and user behavior. Although I wouldn't want a program to send personal emails (an idea as ludicrous as the "modern" feeding machine in Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times or the story writing machine in R K Narayan's "The Vendor of Sweets"), the idea of mining emails to derive practical or psychological results from messages appealed to me.

I've sometimes found the sneaky "There are unused icons on your desktop" popup balloon in Windows XP and AutoArchive feature in Office Outlook useful. I both marvel at similar intelligent features like Spam Filters and fear about any negative consequences bought about by an inhuman automaton in scenarios not imagined by it's creator.

So, what friendly spying software do you find annoying or likable?

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